June 8th, Sunday
9:45 pm
I live in a convent.
It’s just as you would imagine – marble tile floors, tall ceilings, reverberating hallways, with a large garden a couple hundred feet below our window, and a great view of a mountain range in the distance. The facilities are unfamiliar (the light switches are outside the bathroom door? the showers doors are see-through? really?), but not uncomfortable, and it’s really nice for a place we thought was going to be so primitive. Since there’s no a/c, there was a good discount on living here, but the stone walls are thick and heat has never been a problem. And, as it turns out, we’re the closest housing to the university by about fifteen minutes.
I apparently didn’t have a room when I got here (no explanation for this – I had signed up two months in advance), so the old woman who works at the desk brought me up and stuck me in a room already inhabited by two singers. I had no idea who they are, but one of them appeared to have a lot of shoes. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this, being one day late and not wanting to intrude on two girls who probably asked to room together…. but at this point I didn’t have a choice.
Our opening dinner was at the Caffe dei Costanti, which is what makes this town famous – it’s the filming location of Roberto Benigni’s La Bella Vita (“Life is Beautiful”). It was a pretty swanky and expensive place, so I was surprised to see a little terrier sitting on a guy’s lap while he ate dinner with his wife. Then again, I’ve seen a lot of dogs in buildings around here, and definitely not service dogs – maybe here it’s not unusual to bring a pet into a restaurant with you.
Lianna and I ordered our free group drinks at the counter, and were fascinated watching the high-energy bar worker do his thing. Three, four bottles at a time, he worked and chatted with us in English while he made our drinks – flipping, twisting, pouring, and mixing at the speed of lightning. He asked where we were from, and when Lianna told him Arizona, he knew the area well – “Ah, near southern California. And very hot, yes?”
11:15 pm: I am very relieved to find out that my roommates are Sam and Cree (two vocalists in our lunch table group this year at school.) This explains the mountain of shoes in the closet.
I apparently didn’t have a room when I got here (no explanation for this – I had signed up two months in advance), so the old woman who works at the desk brought me up and stuck me in a room already inhabited by two singers. I had no idea who they are, but one of them appeared to have a lot of shoes. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this, being one day late and not wanting to intrude on two girls who probably asked to room together…. but at this point I didn’t have a choice.
Our opening dinner was at the Caffe dei Costanti, which is what makes this town famous – it’s the filming location of Roberto Benigni’s La Bella Vita (“Life is Beautiful”). It was a pretty swanky and expensive place, so I was surprised to see a little terrier sitting on a guy’s lap while he ate dinner with his wife. Then again, I’ve seen a lot of dogs in buildings around here, and definitely not service dogs – maybe here it’s not unusual to bring a pet into a restaurant with you.
Lianna and I ordered our free group drinks at the counter, and were fascinated watching the high-energy bar worker do his thing. Three, four bottles at a time, he worked and chatted with us in English while he made our drinks – flipping, twisting, pouring, and mixing at the speed of lightning. He asked where we were from, and when Lianna told him Arizona, he knew the area well – “Ah, near southern California. And very hot, yes?”
11:15 pm: I am very relieved to find out that my roommates are Sam and Cree (two vocalists in our lunch table group this year at school.) This explains the mountain of shoes in the closet.
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