Alright, I'm quite exhausted after an amazing weekend with some friends, but I'm going to recount everything as well as possible...
Last Tuesday I had my usual classes followed by cooking class. We learned how to make tiramasu (still not one of my favs even after having it homemade). It was my favorite meal so far! She fixed us pasta with homemade pesto, chicken and roasted peppers, salad, cheese course, and then the tiramasu. Amazing! Then after cooking I headed over to the villa for a long night of watching every single US news broadcasting station online. We started out with quite a few of us watching at first, but then got down to two when they finally declared Barack the winner. I was so emotional it was a little embarassing. I ended up only getting 25 minutes of sleep before I had to get up to go to class at 7:45. It was well worth it though! Wednesday we had our History of Parma class at a nearby fortress. We ended up not having a lot of time to spend there, but it was nice to get away from the city and see a little bit in the surrounding area. My other class for Wednesdays we cancelled after History of Parma so I was quite pleased and came back to nap for a few hours. I managed to catch up on my sleep pretty quickly so that was nice. After I woke up from my nap I took the rest of the day to myself and spent some time reflecting and talking with family. Definitely a good way to remember my mom. Thursday I just did the class thing and then had intentions of going out that night, but the weather didn't seem to want me to do that (we had a pretty intense thunderstorm around 9). I ended up just staying at the apartment and watching the Bourne Ultimatum (so good!) and falling asleep pretty early.
Friday I cleaned the entire apartment so that it would be ready for my friends and got all of their beds ready. Elena arrived around 10:30 pm after a long day of traveling so we took her back to Andrea's apartment and fed her some Parma food (cheese, prosciutto, bread, wine and a fake bday cake). It was so good to see her! I love all my new friends here, but getting to see friends that have known me for 2 years is totally different. I ended up heading back to my apartment late that night so that I could sleep in my own bed and do some last minute prep stuff before Hil and Claire arrived at 11:30 on Saturday. I picked them up at the train station and then brought them back to my apartment so they could unload their stuff and change clothes. They had a long train ride from Rome that morning so they were already pretty tired. Then we went out to lunch, I took them on a walking tour of the city, got them their first Parma gelato, and then came back to my apartment to just chill out for a little while before dinner. We decided to take them back to the place where we had our welcome dinner which turned out to be even better the second time around. Andrea and Elena both hadn't felt well that day so we all went our separate ways after dinner and just chilled at our different apartments. Sunday we planned to go to Cinque Terre (my favorite place if you remember!) which required us leaving Parma at 7:50. Unfortunately, Elena and Andrea didn't make it to the train station in time so only Hilary, Claire and I got to go. We still had a blast, but missed spending time with the other girls. The weather was gorgeous (although much colder than the last time I went). We ended up buying an unlimited train pass for the afternoon so that we could go back and forth between the 5 towns since we weren't hiking (we were all too exhausted and two of the trails were closed due to mudslides). I think they got to see the highlights and both of them said they want to come back again so I hope that means they enjoyed it. I could go back there a million times. We got back pretty late from Cinque Terre (although just before the train strike began, thank goodness!) so we immediately went to try and find a place to eat. We ended up at a place some other students had recommended to me, but I ended up with the only meal that we were pleased with, which was unfortunate. We weren't quite sure what we were ordering and so it definitely was a surprise when Claire's lasagna came out with some odd meat on top, brown sauce and cinamon and Hilary had some random parts of the seafood floating in her pasta. haha. I had pumpkin soup though and it was great! Afterwards I took them to Milano Chocolat for gelato (still my favorite place) and then we came back here so that Nate could come over and hang out with them since he hadn't seen them yet. He and Kristin had made sugar cookies so they brought them over and then we all just sat around and chatted for a while. Almost like being back at BC, so good.
This morning we had a pretty chill time while we did a little more shopping around the city and then grabbed some lunch before they had to head back to London-town. I was sad to see them leave because we had such a good time, but I know that I will see them in just 2 weeks so that is really exciting. It was so nice to have them here!
This week should be pretty good. I have another fake midterm tomorrow in Italian, two cooking lessons this week, and then I'm headed to Sicily this weekend!
I hope you all are doing well. BC kids, I hope you enjoyed the ND win for me! So exciting!
I guess I'll check back in with you guys after my trip down south.
Much love,
E
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