First and foremost, congratulations to Sam and Rachel for their new baby girl Sophia. Secondly, I just can’t get over how awesome it is to not be living in a hostel. I really like the fact that when I’m looking for something small and miniscule, such as my adapter or cell phone charger, I don’t have to unlock my locker, empty all of the contents out in order to find it (because it’s always on the bottom of the pile) and then put everything back in the locker while the cleaning lady sighs and dances around me with dirty sheets because my I’m not special enough to have a locker in my room, oh no, it’s gotta be in the hallway. Now I have five rooms my tiny little adapter could be in, and it’s great! At any rate, yes, my new apartment is all the fun and shenanigans I had been hoping for. We are a scholarly group, and play games of chess while free-styling and eating French toast. We even found 100% maple syrup, as opposed to the 2% maple syrup that was in the liquor section, of all places, at the grocery store. What’s funny about the 100% maple syrup is that it is a product of Canada, yet the company’s name is “Vertmont.” Come on Canada, let’s be a little more obvious in trying to pretend that your syrup is coming from Vermont, which a number of people both in Europe and in the U.S think is a part of Canada anyway. But back to the apartment, yes, it’s fabulous, and I will really enjoy spending the next five weeks here before coming home.

In other news, Roma beat Milano for the first time in twenty years at the Milano stadium, it was a good game, and I’m starting to support the Roma soccer team, despite the fact that they are the Yankees of soccer here in Italy. We also watched a rugby match, and I’ve decided that American football is for wussies, rugby players are gi-normous freaks of nature, and the game in general is just bad-ass. I can’t help but think of my cousin’s old VW Rabbit that my aunt drove through Boston with the bumper sticker: Give Blood, Play Rugby. The match last night was New Zealand vs. France…French rugby players? Are we sure such a thing was ever meant to exist? New Zealand pummeled them, of course, so the French have retaliated by no longer calling kiwis kiwis, but Freedom Fruit instead.

The weather is, in Vermont terms, nice. It’s feeling like it’s about early to mid-October, and all of my friends are freezing every night when we walk to the Fiddler’s Elbow for Happy Hour. And they always make a big deal over the fact that I’m not wearing a jacket, scarf, hat and gloves and still do not feel cold. I can’t start wearing jackets now—it’s 60 degrees outside! If I start wearing warm clothing now, not only will I be overheated, but I’ll die from temperature shock when I come back to Vermont. I don’t miss the wind whipping off Lake Champlain though, that’s for sure.

Yep, that’s about it…I now steal internet from the McDonald’s at the train station, so after a short while all I smell is grease and pimples, so I have to make a quick getaway before the big McDonald’s fat vat sucks me in and I never appear again.