So I've finally made it. I said my goodbyes (my four year-old niece made me cry), saw Little Miss Sunshine one last time, packed my extremely heavy suitcase and headed off to Italy for a year or more of teaching English/not facing the real world at home. I'd like to take this moment to say that today's entry is un-sponsored by the airline Aer Lingus, or better yet, Aer Dingus. My flight sat on the runway at JFK for two hours before take-off. So much for my one hour ten minute layover before my connecting flight in Dublin. "That's okay," I joked to the kid sitting next to me, "maybe it's a crappy enough airline that my next flight will be delayed too." We both laughed at the absurdity of the thought. Much to my surprise, my flight in Dublin was delayed, three and a half hours, in fact, so I did make the flight, phew. But back to why Aer Lingus is Aer Dingus. Apparently, the short tubby bald man sitting in front of me couldn't deal with his five miles of legroom that come with sitting in an exit row seat (lucky jerk) so as soon as the seatbelt sign was off, BAM, the seat was back in my face and I was inhaling the sweet fibers of airline seat upholstery. I had to laugh when I read the scrawlings of writing on the back of the seat that I guess the airline thinks will cause the passenger to think of Ireland (how about just sheer ire?) One of them was, "We are all in the gutter." Ain't that the truth. It was especially evident when they served 'dinner': pre-digested chicken, crap potatoes and some sort of cheesecustardcake, that I will never subject my mouth to again. I ate lightly that flight, and it's a good thing I thought to bring Rolos and Skittles. The other amusing phrase was, "Above the wailing of the rain." Now replace the word 'rain' with the word 'baby' and you've got this sentence: I could barely hear my iPod above the wailing of the baby. Oh yeah.

But enough is enough, this trip isn't about the flight. So I'm in Italy, living in a suburb of Rome called Cesano (which I would qualify more as a town, since we go through an awful lot of countryside on the train to get here). My apartment is very clean, and I live with people who all went to college with someone I know (Jessie S. and Jenna R.: you are two popular chickens). None of the girls living with me or in the neighborhood speak Italian, so I've had a lot of practice. I'll just say right now that Antonello, Paolo and Cristina did a fabulous job of teaching me Italian, and I owe them major props. I even remember things from their classes, "Oh that? That's Palazzo Venezia, the balcony on that brown building was where Mussolini gave all of his speeches from." I'm also far more comfortable speaking Italian here than I was (am) speaking French in France. None of the girls I've been hanging out with have been to Europe either, so I've had to work hard to keep my patience while they work through the "Oh my God there are other cultres than America's" phase. One girl stated in her Texan drawl, "I just don't think I'll ever get over their clothing. I mean, what is WRONG with them???" I bit my tongue so hard on that one it pretty much came right off. The good thing is my Italian has had a lot of practice, and today was the first day of school, so I'm getting to know more kids here who are a little more on my par of traveling.

La Bianca Notte (the White Night) is a one night celebration of the end of summer where everything in Rome stays open all night long. There are a lot of music shows, dance acts, poetry readings, markets, and comedy troupes to see. It was a little hard to attend these events, as most of them were in Italian, leaving my friends SOL. We stayed with the Happy Hour schedule though, and everything worked out fine. An Italain gentleman approached us seeing a donation for Amnesty International, and this guy Mike who was hanging out with us for the day simply replies, "Yeah, I'm against freedom." The Italian guy didn't pick-up on the sarcasm (it was pretty subtle), so he just hung his head and sighed a defeated "Oh" before turning away. I laughed pretty hard.
The other thing worth metioning is that while everything else is open in Rome, the transportation system is not. I ended up waiting for two and a half hours with the rest of Rome in order to catch the six am train back to Cesano. I am blessed to have an iPod.

That's it for today folks, I'll end with Katie Couric's new tag, "I hope to see you tomorrow." (Granted, that's being said through the eyes of my blog, Jethro.)