August 17, 2007
Out of a dead sleep I am drug by the persistent sound of drums. WHAT. THE. HELL. I stumble out of bed and go over to the window. Opening it all I see is the grey light of pre-dawn. Holy hell, you HAVE to be kidding me! I shut it again and look at my phone. 5-friggin-am. All I can manage is “fucking Italians…” before tumbling back into bed to sleep for another four hours.
I woke again around 9, took a shower and headed down for breakfast with Danielle, and met Sophie, Kate, and Heidi there. After breakfast we all went back up to the room, woke up the stragglers, and started packing up for checkout at 11. We headed downstairs, where I got to argue about the room rate. In Italian. We didn’t learn that in class, but I think I handled myself rather well. Didn’t get anymore off, but since we had five people crammed into a room meant for two, I guess we didn’t have a LOT of room to complain. So, I pay, we drop all our bags off to go into our rooms later, Danielle heads off to the bus to Milan, and I head off to do laundry. Laundry is ridiculously expensive here apparently. 7 euros for washing and drying a load. That’s like $11. Stupid prices. So, I do one load with my jeans and other things that would be difficult to dry in the room, and leave the rest to be washed in the room later. While everything is washing and drying I work on the paper that’s due on the first day of class. After it’s finished and I folded it, headed to the Campo, parked myself in one of the cafés, ordered a glass of Chianti, some water, some antipasti, some gelato, and worked on my schoolwork some more. While there the drummers show up again, marching across the bottom of the Campo. Turns out it’s the winning contrada parading around the city with the palio, which, besides being the name of the race, is also the name for the banner of the Virgin Mary that they win. Fascinating stuff. About an hour and a half later I headed back to the hotel, checked into my new room, unpacked for the first time, settled in, and that brings us to the present! Oh! I also got a bit of video of the drummers since they came near the hotel again while I was unpacking. Tonight I, Sophie, Laura, Kate, and Heidi (and maybe Katie and Leslie once they arrive) are headed to a Queen tribute concert! I have come to the incredibly insightful conclusion that Europeans LOVE Queen. How did I do this, you ask? It MAY have something to do with the fact that EVERY SINGLE CITY WE’VE BEEN IN SO FAR HAS PLAYED QUEEN. Every single one. Anywho, HOPEFULLY they will have the internet fixed by tomorrow so I can POST all of these blogs!!!
(Which, by the way, they have not fixed the internet connection, but if I stand holding my laptop over this one window I can see another wireless connection, and that's how I'm finally posting!! They kinda do everything on their OWN time...)
No comments:
Post a Comment