This morning went by very fast at the school, thankfully. I've enjoyed being there this week, but I was definitely ready for the weekend because things have been so hectic recently.

I stayed in prima A (first grade, class A) for a while, but then Angela (the English teacher) came to get me. Tomorrow there is an end of the year party at Galilei and Angela decided to teach a class of fourth graders a song in English that they will perform during the party for me and the two other UGA girls who are teaching in my same school. They're in love with Katy Perry over here so they're singing the song 'Hot and Cold.' It's hilarious because they don't know how to say any of the words or what the lyrics mean, but all of the students are so into it. They even decided to make up hand gestures and I can't wait to see the final performance tomorrow.

Angela typically changes the lyrics to a lot of songs she teaches the kids, but she asked me today to explain what the line 'you PMS like a bitch, I would know' means in the song. Talk about an awkward explanation! She told me that she didn't know what PMS meant so she couldn't explain it to the kids even if she wanted to, but she did tell them that the 'bitch' in the song was 'beach.' The only downside to teaching popular English music to kids is that the lyrics are almost never appropriate for school.

After I got out of school at 12:30 I had the rest of the afternoon to do whatever I wanted. I planned to meet some friends at Piazza Grande around 1 and since I got lost last time I tried to make the trip downtown, Angela was nice enough to ride me all the way to the center of the town! She's one of the nicest people I have ever met and the fact that she speaks English definitely makes her an important person during my time here. I don't know what I would do without her at school!!

Once we got downtown and Angela left, I waited for the rest of the girls to arrive. There ended up being nine of us total, but we split off into two groups because a lot of the girls were dying to go shopping; my group was more interesting in eating. We ended up at a restaurant called Paradise Bar and it was great. The owner is from Florida, but he married an Italian woman and moved here about a year ago. They opened up the restaurant together so everything on the menu was in English as well as Italian and there were a lot of American influences in the dishes and drinks. For example, there is no such thing as a Cosmo or a Tequila Sunrise in Italy, but they were some of the biggest sellers at this place! There was also American music playing in the background (particularly Beyonce, Fergie, and Outkast), so we had a lot of fun singing along to the music. This restaurant was definitely a nice change from the restaurant experiences we've had thus far and we plan to go back again soon.

After lunch we met up with the other group and walked around town for a couple of hours. Our initial plan was to stop by some pubs for happy hour on Via Galucci, but it started later than we expected so we ended up sitting at a cafe for a while and ordering drinks, gelato (I ended up ordering Nutella and lemon by accident... not a good combination), and talking about our experiences in Italy thus far.

I got home around 7:30, much to the surprise of Simona, Fillippo, and Valentina. This morning I told Fillippo I would be back before dinner, but he thought I said AFTER dinner so they weren't expecting me for several hours. It ended up working out all right, but this instance showed how important it is to be able to communicate!

Since dinner starts at 9 PM, Valentina and I spent a while decorating bags together before we ate. My study abroad program bought about 300 canvas tote bags that we're going to take the schools and decorate with our students as a fun arts and crafts activity. I had some extra bags left over so I gave one to Vale and I made four-- for Maestra Paola, Maestra Pina, Maestra Manuela (the Special Ed teacher) and myself, Maestra Mariel. When the kids are decorating their own bags I'm going to let them sign the four teacher bags and then give them to the teachers as a thank you present when I leave. I made one for myself too so I can have something to remember my class by! Valentina made the most adorable bag too and I took pictures of our final products, which we were both very proud of. It was definitely a really fun bonding experience and I can't wait to use my bag when I get home :)

Dinner was a lot of fun tonight, even if it was last minute because they weren't expecting me. The Ferraris have a meat slicer (like the huge ones behind the deli counter in grocery stores) in their kitchen so they have sliced meat almost every night. Tonight we ate salami, proscuitto, and ham and made little sandwiches with flat bread-- it was delicious! I started to made a sandwich with the proscuitto and apparently that was a big no-no because proscuitto is only eaten here with melon. I had no idea, but they all thought my faux pas was really funny... who would have known? We talked for a while about the differences in America and Italy and the two languages and it was very interesting. Somehow the topic turned to animal noises and I learned that here dogs say 'bow bow' instead of 'woof woof.' There were a bunch of other differences in the noises that I can't remember now, but they thought that a rooster saying 'cockadoodle doo' was the funniest and most ridiculous thing they had ever heard. After that conversation they haven't been able to stop yelling 'cockadoodle doo' at each other... it's hilarious! The small differences in the cultures are so interesting to learn about.

Even though it's fairly early and tomorrow is the weekend, I'm off to bed. Tomorrow is a big day because Simona and I are going shopping from 9 until 3, then we're coming home for lunch, and getting ready for the end of the year party at Galilei, which starts at 4. I'm definitely looking forward to tomorrow, but (like every other day I've been in Italy) I'm going to need to be well rested considering the amount of stuff we hope to accomplish. I will write back soon, but until then...Buonanotte!!