He Took a Lot of Medicine.

Mia's Birthday was last Tuesday making our otherwise boring week full of studying very fun. Lo, Meg, Maura, Mia, and I went out to dinner at a sushi place called iSushi which was right by some of the girls apts. It wasn't half bad and after that we went back to our apartment for a small pregame. This pregame ended up being the 5 of us drinking bottles of wine, bonding over ex boyfriends, and ended with us singing "Boom Box" to the tune of "Oom Bop" as I stood and held a boom box over my head. When we got to the bar everyone was sober, so naturally we made fools of ourselves. An interesting night ensued and let's just say class wasn't so hot in the morning, however we made it through somehow. When I got home I took a nap and attempted to study. Thursday I actually got some studying done before the exam Friday, which wasn't too bad. After our exam Maura and I came back to the apartment and showered and got ready. We were ready at 5 so we opened up a bottle of wine and turned on 2000-2009 best of hip hop and r&b power hour. Mia and her friend Bridgette came home to us about to open our second bottle of wine each. I had to go to bed around 9:30. Fail.

I did feel great in the morning however when we had to be at the train station for Carnival at 9:30 though! A pretty big group of us headed over to Venice in the morning, and got there around 12:30 in the afternoon. After taking a ferry to San Marco, we bought masks and started walking around the streets looking for a place to eat. Venice is absolutely beautiful! I can't believe how pretty it is and that is completely built on the water. I'm excited to go back there with Claudio and also with my parents in May. After wandering around for a while we settled on a small place run by azns. I got gnocchi which was great--I'm obsessed with gnocchi now. Since we needed to start drinking we found vino that was 3 bottles for 8.50 euro, so naturally we got 6 bottles to split between 5 of us. It's legal to walk around the streets with open alcohol here (at least that's what Claudio told us--if we get in trouble he is bailing us out) so we cracked open our first bottles and started walking. Since Carnival was just kicking off that day it wasn't so crazy yet but it was still really fun. We did get a lot of stares from people in disbelief that we were all drinking our own bottle. We ended up standing in a dark corner to chug so we wouldn't get as many stares but instead we got hit on by these creepy Americans from like Oregon and Virginia. Weirdos. For the rest of the day we walked around the square and had a lot of fun--the train ride back we passed out after Lo and I played some cards.

Today was a Claudio trip that I felt pretty well rested for for once! It started off with us going to Salo' to see a villa that was built for D'Annunzio. He was friends with Mussolini but got exiled into this villa because Mussolini wanted him out of the way for a little. The villa was amazing inside though. The guide had to take us in in groups of 10 and she didn't speak much English so she had a speaker system that she played the descriptions out of, and they were in this great British accent. After the tour of the villa we had about 1 1/2 hours to kill walking around the gardens and such so we did that. They were so pretty and we all had a great time taking pictures. We ate our lunch on the bus, and headed over to Borghetto. It was such a pretty day out so after walking around for a while a group of us climbed the rocks by Lake Garda and layed on those for about an hour or so. I was so scared while climbing on them that I was going to fall in the lake but I didn't! It would be beautiful to go back there when it's nicer out, I'm thinking that I will def. have to. We stopped in one more town-Sirmione-before dinner. It was really nice having the whole day to just relax and do our own thing and walk around without everything being too structured. We finally made it to dinner around 6:30 after feeling like either a) the bus driver was going to kill us by running us off the mountain or b) Claudio was going to drop us off in the middle of nowhere, followed by him telling us we only had 12 hours to make it back to Verona before our belongings got set on fire. Dinner was absolutely amazing, and I think I am still going to be full tomorrow from it! For antipasta we had prosciutto cotto (cooked) and crudo (raw), salami, breads, and hot peppers. Then we had risotto with sausage and gnocchi in a butter sauce with cheese. Our main course was amazing; rabbit, donkey, steak, potatoes, polenta, and I had some of Mias spinach. I was absolutely stuffed from all that food and wine. Dinner lasted a little over 3 hours, and it was so nice to be dropped off and be back at the apartment!

Tomorrow starts our first real week of class. I have Italian 2 at 2:30, followed by cooking class. Tuesday I have Painting at 9:30 followed by Photography at 2, and then some of us are cooking dinner and celebrating my birthday because most of us don't have class Wednesday (my actual birthday). Wednesday I'm thinking about going out again, maybe just for happy hour or something because we leave for Prague on Thursday! Our first real weekend trip out of the country...I'm so excited for another stamp in my passport!!