So it continues..

The lack of pictures is what I'm referring to. I'd have posted them today, but I need to hook my camera up to the computer to do that, and my camera battery is dead. As soon as I charge the battery, the pictures from Venice and Verona will be posted. Hopefully.

This weekend was fantastic. Could going to Venice be anything other than fantastic? Probably not.. But the fantasticness of the weekend wasn't only dictated by the trip to Venice, which was on Sunday. Saturday was pretty exciting, too, and since I like to write my blogs chronologically, I'll start with Saturday.

Saturday, I got out of school at eleven, went to a bar and got hot chocolate, and walked to the station. Usually, I end up at the station at least 40 minutes early, but this time I only had to wait for the train about 10 minutes. As I was waiting, I noticed a man staring at me, quite blatantly. It really made me uncomfortable. The train started on its way, and having forgotten my iPod, I passed the time staring out the window. A few minutes passed, and the man walked by my seat and said "ciao" and kind of snickered. I barely glanced at him. On a side note, the train was probably one of the ickiest I've been on since I've been in Italy. About a minute passed, and the man reappeared, bending down so that his face was scarily close to mine. He grinned and snickered, and asked me where I'm from. Origional, isn't he?

Things like this happen often to me, but only because of the color of my hair. I've tried different tactics of fending off the creepy Italian men, from completely ignoring them (which sometimes works) to insulting them (this has had varying results) to pretending I don't speak Italian (this never works.) This time, I tried something new. I asked him somewhat politely to just leave me alone. For some reason, he thought this was hilarous, and snickered some more, flashing his tobacco-stained teeth, saying something like "Oh, you're smart! I like smart girls. And I knew you could speak Italian." Ugh. I kept my catty comments to myself, and told him to go away. Surprisingly, he did, after snickering some more.

I got off at a train station that I've never been to before. Kristen told me she would be waiting on the platform for me, but when I got off, she wasn't there. I waited a few minutes, and having no idea where I could go, I called her. She told me to stay put, and 10 minutes later, she arrived, waving her arms in typical Kristen fashion.

We walked to the Mexican restaurant we found, but it didn't open until that evening, so we found a bar and got lunch. Upon exiting the bar, we realized we didn't remember how we had gotten there, so we ended up wandering around, looking for a tram stop or a metro station. After about an hour of things getting progressivly less familiar-looking, Kristen said we should follow someone who looked like they knew where they were going. We picked a random guy, and followed him to a metro station. Kristen decided we should keep walking, instead of taking the metro home. Eventually, we found a tram stop, and went back to Kristen's house. Well, before going to her house, we stopped at a pasticceria, so I could buy her family a cake. They've been really nice to me, and they like cake, so why not?

We went to Kristen's, put our backpacks in her room, told her host father we were going back out, and left. I decided to get my hair cut, so we went into the first hair place we found. A cut was 20 euro, which is about the best you're going to find in Milan, so I got my hair cut while Kristen listened to her iPod. After that was accomplished, we had nothing better to do, so I dragged Kristen to Sephora, where I agonized over buying products from the Clinique facial line. There's a story behind that, but this post is long enough already, and I have a LOT more to write, so I'll skip it for now. I ended up not buying anything. We left Sephora, and were walking down Via Torino wondering what to do, when I suddenly realized it was Saturday night, and I wouldn't have a chance to go to Mass the next day. I almost had a panic attack, because Masses in Milan start at 5:30, and it was already 5:40. Kristen tried talking me out of going to Mass, but I was pretty adament about going. Thankfully, we found a church where Mass started at 6, so I went to Mass while Kristen went and hung out at FNAC, an electronics/media store. After Mass finished, we met in Carpisa, a purse store, where I scored a cute little brown purse for only 7.50 euro. I needed a purse with a zipper top for Venice the next day, so the purchase was necessary. And I'm proud of myself for finding a deal in Milan. They're hard to come by.

We took the tram from Duomo to Brera, where the Mexican restaurant is. We went into the Mexican restaurant, and I immediately felt at home.. Especially when the waiter came over and said "Can I take your order?" in an unmistakeable American accent. Kristen and I both got (real!!) burritos with (real!!) cheese. They were a-ma-zing. A little pricey, but worth it for the refried beans and sour cream. Kristen kept bursting out laughing, because she thinks it's hilarious that the only place in all of Milan that you can get real burritos is owned by an American. I was just happy to have real TexMex again.

We went back to Kristen's, and tried unsuccesfully to go to bed early. We ended up going to bed at about 11, and Sunday morning we woke up at 6:30. Oh joy.

It was totally worth it. We were going to Venice for crying out loud. Venice!!

The morning is a little fuzzy for me, but somehow we got to the train station, and ended up on the nicest train I've been on since I've been in Italy. I sat next to Kristen, and across from us sat Morgan and Austin. Sometime during the ride, Kristen and Austin left, and Steven came and sat next to me, which was OK by me, 'cause he gave me chocolate.

We arrived in Venice, waited a good hour for the ferry, and went to Murano, the island where they make all the pretty glass things. We went to a glass making place, where they showed us how they make some of the glass products, etc. We watched a man make a glass horse out of molten glass in all of 2 minutes. It was pretty cool. At the end of the little tour, they told us that everything in the store was half off, because we're exchangees. I bought a little orange glass turtle, because it was only 2 euro.

I should probably mention that 2 more exchangees arrived in January, from Australia. One is named Mercedes, and she's from Sydney. The other is named Kailee, and she's from Perth, which is on the Western coast of Australia. I didn't have much of a chance to talk to Mercedes, but I found out she lived in Bethesda, Maryland for a while! What a coincidence! Kailee and I got on quite well, too, and I ended up spending most of the day with her.

After Murano, we got back on the ferry and went to the main part of Venice. By then it was lunch time, so we went to.. McDonald's (I'm not kidding!) for lunch. We ate, then looked in the shops near the McDonald's for a few minutes. Kailee, Morgan (an exchangee from New York, who I get along with well too) and I all needed to go to the bathroom, so we braved the line in the McDonalds, and when we all came out, we realized there was nobody from Rotary in sight.

Misko (the guy in charge of us all) had given everyone maps with meeting places circled on them, so we figured we'd be all right. We were supposed to meet at the Scuola di San Marco at 3:00, and considering it was 2:00, we decided we'd better start searching for this school. Morgan and I have different methods of getting places, however. She prefers using the map, while I like asking for directions. We ended up incredibly lost. Misko called me, wondering where we were, and told us everyone was going to meet in the Piazza di San Marco at 3:30. Morgan wanted to use the map, but I asked two guys, and they said they'd show us the way. We followed them (I know, not exactly the smartest decision, but there were 3 of us and 2 of them and lots of people around us, so we figured we'd be safe.) They took us to the Piazza, which was packed with people.

We found our Rotary mates, then began the long and tiring journey across the piazza. It's hard to move a group of 30+ people across a piazza that's already packed, so it took quite a while. There was music playing in the piazza, and at one point, a piazza-wide conga line formed, and some of the Rotary kids got grabbed by the line. One of the adult Rotary people decided we should form a Rotary conga line, so that's what we did. We congaed across the piazza, led by an older man with a grey beard. I bet we were quite a sight.

We got to the other side of the piazza, and when everyone had finally arrived, we started on our way to the ferry stop. We got to the ferry stop, but it turned out that ferrys didn't stop at that particual stop on Sunday afternoons. Oh dear. Upon hearing this, Misko yelled for us to stick really close together, and we walked as quickly as we could to another ferry stop, fearful of missing our train.

We caught a ferry, got to the station ahead of time, and waited outside while Rebecca (a girl from California) told us that there is a Meningitis epidemic in Italy right now. I guess I'd better not share my glass with anyone, huh?

We got on the train, no casualties reported, and all of the adults heaved a sigh of relief. This time, I sat next to Kristen and Kailee, and facing us were Taylor, Morgan, and David (even though there were only 4 actual steats.) Taylor and David both live in Milan, so I see them more often than I see anyone else. We all ended up telling each other our "love" stories. The guys have some pretty good ones, but again, those are stores for another post.

The ride back home was a particularly enjoyable part of the day. Don't get me wrong, it's great to go to all of these amazing places, and see all of the crazy and unique things, but I really enjoy just talking with my friends, sharing stories, laughing together.

Kristen and I took the bus to her house from the station. We got home at about 9:30, and since we hadn't eaten since lunch, we were both famished. I made pasta, there was some spaghetti sauce left out, and we feasted upon fusilli al sugo di pomodoro.

All in all, the day was exhausting, but well worth it. Venice was grey and rainy and packed with people, but it still managed to be breathtaking. It's hard to see it all in one afternoon, but I know I'll return, someday.

And finally, we get to today.

Kristen dragged me out of bed this morning, ignoring my pleas for "just a few more minutes!" We got dressed, and before I knew it, we were walking the dark, rainy streets of Milan at some ungodly hour. We got to the train station, I bought a ticket, Kristen caught her train, and I waited for mine. Kristen had let me borrow a book her grandmother sent her; some chick-flicky light reading. The train came, and it was as full as I'd ever seen it. Imagine that. People are on the train, sending emails via blackberry before the sun even peeks over the horizon.

The train was clean and warm and comfortable, and there's something satisfying about reading a chick-flicky novel while riding in a warm, comfy train as the rain pours down outside. Before I new it, I was in Gallarate, and it was only 8:30 in the morning. I zipped up my coat, flipped up my hood, and started walking to school.

I got to school at 9, grabbed a pastry and a cup of hot cocoa, and went to the library to keep reading. I didn't have a permission slip to enter the class late, so I just waited for the next hour. School was mundane as usual, and not having brought gym clothes, I went to Nonna's house with Luca at noon.

We all had lunch together, and I watched T.V. for the rest of the afternoon, my eyes glazed over. Nonna's house was even colder than usual, so I made myself some hot cocoa. All Nonna has is whole milk. *Sigh* As long as my clothes still fit...

Although the weekend was incredible, today I was in a strange mood. I wasn't homesick, but I feel like I'm doubting myself about something. Maybe it's just the weather.

I'll try to post those pictures tomorrow, but I can't promise anything. As for now, I'm off to bed!