It's still hard to get pics up on here, so you'll have to bear with me for the next week or so.
We were a little mislead about the Othello thing. It was the end of year performance for a theatrical academy and I couldn't figure out what was going on. We sat through FOUR hours of random pieces of plays performed by the students. Italians are very small-I'm obviously NOT Italian- and everything reflects that. The seats in the theater were for midgets, I swear. There is NO way my dad could have sat there. My knees hit the seat in front of me. And it was soooo hot we were sweating like pigs throughout the whole thing. Ha ha.
Today we went to the MALL! The Porta di Roma. They have an IKEA here! We also went into Zara, H&M, United Colors of Benetton....all in the US as well.
We had a lovely dinner here at the house with her aunt, uncle, cousin and her cousin's boyfriend, Simone. After dinner, we 3 girls went and say Prince of Persia, in Italian of course. Not so fun for me, and even less fun for Tatiana who had to translate half the time. For the most part, Italian is enough like Spanish so that I can understand when they speak to me, and they can understand when I speak back in Spanish. Luckily, her aunt is Ecuadorian and speaks spanish, the uncle can get by with spanish and the daughter is just behind him with her spanish. Between the 5 of us we all can talk, but once we leave the house forget it. I'm a tourist.
EVERYTHING cost money here. We went to the grocery store today and I bought a few things, and they charge you 0.03€ for a plastic grocery bag. Of course, I grabbed all MY stuff in my arms and stumbled out without paying for plastic. :)
Last night, as we were driving to the theater, Giusseppe (uncle) took the scenic route and we drove by the Colosseum! It was amazing. I think reality hasn't set in yet though because I was just like, "Oh, cool." But we did see it. And we saw this famous arch that the Roman soldiers would walk under with pride after conquering some foreign land. We also saw where Mussollini lived, and what I thought was the coolest, was the random remnants of ancient Rome. Just chunks of buildings that they have kept up and let the vegetation grow around. It's really cool.
Tomorrow the plan is to actually go to those things and visit the inside of the colossuem and walk around and do tourist things. I believe we are also going to the Vatican, but we were really wanting to go Sunday because the Pope comes out and blesses the people every Sunday. Cool! Another thing her family mentioned was going to the Almafi Coast because it's supposed to be beautiful. There was also talk about driving to Pompei, but that's a full day trip and I don't know if we can pull it off or not.
The weather is crazy. It's soooo cold. All I heard before I left was how hot it was.. from Tatiana, from my teacher, everyone. And I got here and I'm NOT prepared for cold weather so I'm freezing and am constantly wrapped up my little travel blanket because I don't want to waste my money on clothes, especially because I don't like their clothes here. i though Italy was super fashion forward but they are all wearing these weird pants that aren't flattering on anyone and they sell weird stuff in stores.
OOOOH another cool thing.... we were at the mall and we saw like EIGHT dogs!!! people stick their dogs on leashes and take them everywhere :) :)