Already Thursday?

This week has gone by quickly. Already venerdi tomorrow again. Having class in the afternoons this week has been nice. Today and Tuesday I had to be there at 11:10, but the other days at 2:10. It has helped because Monday night I went to the Ponte Vecchio to hang out and chat with some students while there was a singer and a general gathering there, and then last night I went to a movie with Franz and Mairi from my class. The movie was called "Gomorra" and it was about the mafia in Naples. It was a true life story based on a book by a man who was in the mafia for 5 years, got out, and published a book about it, real names and all! About 27 people were arrested. This guy continues to live in Naples because it is his home! Brave man...

Trinita, our teacher, said that the mafia is still very strong in southern Italy. Apparently about 75% of people pay a "pizzo" to the mafia - a fee that makes it so that everything is automatically taken care of for you, the house, job, family, and so on. Someone comes every month, always a different person, and on a different day of the week. And if you don't want to pay, well you can imagine. Or at least such is the mafia according to Trinita. It's crazy. The film was pretty interesting, and a good experience. It was kind of hard to understand, because part was in Neapolitan dialect with Italian subtitles, and then parts didn't have subtitles at all. It was also good to socialize more and do things with other students.

Italy is teaching me patience. Possibly more was published today, but on Monday, one week before my facolta at the university was set to start, there were no online postings of the courses. I don't know exactly how it is going to work, but Lucia and I might not even register me until next week... we are going to look at the listings tomorrow and make a plan for next week. I don't know. As long as Lucia is helping me, I am not too stressed. I mean, it wouldn't be productive anyway. It's just so strange because at Georgetown I would have known my schedule for this fall in April!

I suppose I never wrote about the dog of my Italian family after they got him. They came home with him that night last week. He is a tiny little thing (2 months old) and will stay that way. They can't really have a bigger dog because this apartment is not that big. His name is Briciolo, which means "grain" or "bit" in Italian, I looked it up. The first day or so, he was silent. Then he started to bark at me every time I came out of my room. My way of solving it was to make him smell my hand... then he'd stop. The past couple days he doesn't do that as much. Within a couple days after they got him, they realized he was sick. Something with his ear and a hernia on his stomach. Federico and Lisa went to a vet and got medicine for him, and they've had to give the medicine to him regularly ever since. The first few times they gave him the medicine there was lots of crying and some stress... crying on both Lisa and Briciolo's part. But I think he is getting better and giving him the medicine is not such a big deal anymore.

He is very cute, but he is not potty trained at all. They have like a pad in the kitchen for him to go on... and I think he is getting better at it. Maybe. But this past week or so he has just been sort of peeing everywhere. Yesterday Lisa brought him into my room and set him on the bed and he promptly peed on that too. Nothing that some laundry couldn't fix, thank goodness. So yes he is cute, but he can be annoying. He makes Lisa happy, and I don't have to clean it up when he uses the floor as his bathroom, so I'm fine with it all.

This weekend, I am thinking of going to Bologna for the day on Saturday. It sounds weird, but there is an H&M there and I need clothes (I didn't bring that many with me). I figure I can also see a couple of the sights and have a nice lunch. Bologna is an hour away by train. I have a very handy guidebook that Alexandra gave me (Thanks!) that covers all of Italy. I am using it for a map of the "centro" of the city and for lunch/sightseeing recommendations. Sunday I plan to do a little bit less, maybe go up to Settignano which is a small village just outside Florence.

Did I write about how Italian girls identify Connecticut as the location of the zoo in the movie Madagascar? I honestly can't remember. Well anyway my apologies if I already did... the other day Lisa's friend Giulia was here and we were talking about where I was from, and when I said Connecticut, she and Lisa were like "Ohh, lo zoo in Madagascar!" I just find the association so amusing.

On another note, I saw remembrance services for 9/11 on the news tonight while I ate dinner with Federico and Lisa. Lisa was asking about it, and for a second I was surprised she wasn't aware, but then I remembered she was born in 1999. So yeah, she was not even 2 years old. And of course she is Italian so it isn't part of her own national history. It is like something that happened in 1991 for me. Weird. But of course watching TV brought my heart right back to America and all that happened 7 years ago.

It really is interesting to hear the general European perceptions of America, and even European conceptions of Europe that allow me to really see differences. For instance, I have gotten the sense from a few conversations that Italians on the whole really worry about economic opportunity. Jobs aren't guaranteed at all for college graduates, incomes are low, prices are high. Cristina told me the other morning that she would probably have, or have had, another child if raising a child wasn't so expensive. She would like another, and she would like a sibling for Lisa, but it's just so expensive. Lisa didn't get into one of the state-run daycare centers as a young child, so Cristina had to pay for a private daycare that took up almost her whole salary. Apparently in this state-run daycare locally there were 3,000 applications for 300 spots. Without Federico's income, they would have been in dire straits. I know that many Americans worry about these kinds of things too, but it sounds like it is possibly more widespread here. So I guess just in general I have learned so far that America really is fortunate. Even in these times of economic crisis, the overall employment/income situation is better. I am relatively optimistic that after I graduate I will eventually get a decent job, and it seems like on the whole not as many young Italians feel that way. It's really interesting.

Okay I have rambled on for a while... I'll stop here!