26/1

Potato and onion pizza is amazing...
That is all

25/1

In case anyone didn't know, college kids can be amused by the silliest things. Especially after 3 gigantic bottles of Peroni. Last night, after making a wonderful dinner of seared chicken on top of fried oninons with garlic, orgenano, and basil on top of spaghetti (made by yours truely), my apartment and assorted others played games.

We started with F&ck the Dealer, a great drinking game. For those of you who don't know, one person is the dealer. The other people have to guess the top card of the deck. They have two tries, and after the first guess, the dealer has to say higher and lower. The discarded cards are placed faceup on the table. If they get it right, the dealer drinks. If they get it wrong, the guesser drinks. Three wrong turns in a row and the dealer is switched to the right. It's great to be dealer early, because by the end, it becomes almost impossible to get the wrong answer. We somehow managed to get through 2/3 of the deck on the first dealer.

We then moved onto a variety of other strange games including one where the goal is to curse as fast a possible. It was one drunk evening, and though Italians don't make the best beer in the world, its still passible at 2 Euro for a 33 oz bottle.

I've also decided that Prego tomatoe sauce is really pretentious. I buy their product and they have the gaul to say You're welcome on the damn label. Prego sauce needs to be renamed to Gratzie sauce. Same language, and much more polite.

24/1

So the Budde clan can rejoice. I finally have a religeous figure as a teacher. Father Philip, a gray haired american priest with a masters in philiosophy is teaching me media ethics this semester. He's a funny guy from what i have seen and the class itself looks like it will be interesting. With all the priests and nuns running around this place, it only makes sense that one or two would end up in the classroom.

The rain in Rome is rather annoying. One minute nothing, the next a downpour, and the next nothing. It makes choosing what to wear and whether to bring an umbrella a bit difficut, not to mention the fact that my umbrella broke the other day. It was like $5 from costcuters, so I got what I paid for.

21/1

So it seems really weird and very anti student, but thank god for school beginning again. I felt at such loose ends this week, just waiting for school to begin. but it is nice to have some sort of schedule again. wierd.

So Roma don't really neuter their dogs or cats and strays are everwhere. they are very nice, but they deficate all over the streets. its a poop alert 24/7. The Italians need Bob Barker.

Also, on the tram, people peform for money, be it with an accordian, a violin, singing, etc. and today i heard three of them colaberating. It was...interesting...and it made me wince. their instruments weren't in tune anyway, and certainly not with each other. how do they expect to get tipped, unless it's a "here, take this to stop playing!"

lunch today was pasta with tomato sauce and chunks of bacon...weird, but tasty. It's dinner as well.

first weekend

so the first weekend in Rome came and went, and I did...nothing much at all. Still getting used to the language, the time zone, and my rediculously sore feet. Rome is a small city, and because of that, I'm walking all over the damn place. forget needing to exercise or watch what i eat so i don't gain 40 lbs. my hour and 1/2 of walking each day is gonna have me loose weight if i'm not careful.

as requested by mike,
eating is basically me cooking now as i did the first few days eating from restaurants and small tratorias around the city. that gets expensive though, so many trips to standa, a discount grocery, and lots of poor cooking on my part for the rest of the time i'm here. I'm getting very good at chopping up salami and mixing it with olive oil and fresh mozzerella in a bowl though. throw in some fresh basil and its a good big snack or lunch.

one class down, 4 more to go, and 2 of them later today.
Caoi