And you are sitting right where Copernicus used to sit...

There is a big vote in the Italian Senate tonight, and I am watching the equivalent of CSPAN. I don’t understand everything because it is a lot of rhetoric and words meant to make oneself sound smart. Think how hard it would be to try to learn English from the proceedings of the House of Representatives in t he USA, and you will know how I feel. I think that it’s cool that I was right there on the Senate floor in Roma two summers ago for my tour.

I want to be able to talk about world politics with people, especially here because the Italian political system is so confusing and has so much history. Hardly anything ever gets done, and it’s a coalition government with many different parties and even those that are not recognized by the State. Like the Anarchists, of whom there are a ton at Ferrara’s University. A lot of them have dreadlocks down past their butts, and they hand out pamphlets about Gaza and write “Fasci Morti” (“Dead fascists”) on the walls of the school. They are nice though, and their hair makes me feel at home.

TV here (which the Italians call “la Tee-Voo) is ridiculous most of the time. I am going to try to take videos so that I can post them and you can all see just how weird it is. There are so many shows like American Idol here, and some of them involve just one person or teams of competitors. All have judges that are very strange to watch (for instance last night, I watched a show with a huge transvestite as one of the judges. S/he was wearing the biggest wig I have ever seen outside of a picture of Louis XIV of France or something. It was awesome.

I wish DD was here to watch the TV with me, because we always laugh at people who dance and sing ridiculously and every show (even ones that have nothing to do with song or dance) has random professional dancers who come out and dance whenever something is going on. Yesterday there were a bunch on the show with the transvestite judge who were men wearing tiny tiny spandex shorts and undulating around on the floor. I could not stop laughing.

Of course, the biggest show here is GrandeFratello (Big Brother). This is a perfect example of how women on Italian TV always dress up and put on tons of makeup. If you’ve ever seen the Spanish-language news shows in the USA, you know exactly what I mean. Here though, many of the famous personalities have had a lot of plastic surgery. The girls on Grande Fratello all have fake breasts, and it’s like the surgeon didn’t even try to make them look normal. Maybe that’s the point, like a status symbol to show that you had enough money to buy fake boobs. They shock me every time I see them though.

Carmen, my hostess is really nice. She is very patient with me because I am still struggling with my Italian on a moment by moment basis. I’m getting closer to stringing sentences together, but I almost always conjugate the verbs wrong and have to pause and sigh and hope they know what I was trying to say. Yesterday morning she told me that my perfume smells like the Italian equivalent of Yankee Candle. Haha! She also makes my food and gives me stuff for my room like rugs, and she even does my laundry!

I have a really bad cold that came on yesterday, and Carmen is sick too. She brought me some hot milk with honey in it and Nesquik, to make me feel better. Leo, her dog, is a hilarious little guy. He growls at Great Danes (he is tiny), but he is terrified of houseflies. He trembles and hides from them until you open a door, and then he flees the room! I’ve never seen anything like it.

I have a bike now, and it is a piece. I like it though, because it’s so much faster than walking. My brakes don’t really work, especially when it is raining, and it doesn’t have shocks. Keep in mind that just about every street in Ferrara is cobblestone. My bici (bike) makes a hellacious noise when I ride over the cobblestones, and I always feel like I’m waking people up since I’m rolling along their street at 7 AM with my bike going BANG-bangitty-bangitty-bang-bang-bangitty-EHRT (brakes squeaking). Also you have to ride very slowly here, since there are cars everywhere, and it’s hard to keep up enough speed to balance.

Today I almost ate it hardcore riding down the street in front of one of the university buildings today. I had to put my foot down and bounce off the curb, and an Italian guy laughed at me while he rode past me, gliding by on his not-POS bike. I find it really hard to steer and balance on my bike, and of course I always have my backpack on and that sucks for balancing too.

Yesterday I was incredibly hungry, and sense I haven’t been eating anything during the day, I went Birdisi, a bar that the Guiness Book of world records recognizes as the oldest wine bar in all of the world!!! How did I not know it was here in Ferrara?! It’s awesome. I had cappelaci (I’m not sure of the spelling) which are the pasta from Ferrara. They are shaped like little hats and are filled with pumpkin and served with a meat sauce. It’s seriously like eating pumpkin pie pasta. And Birdisi has the best I’ve had so far.

No one knows how old the wine bar actually is. The first mention of it is in a document in 1435, but by then it was already popular and famous in the surrounding areas. Tons of famous people used to frequent it, like Ariosto (a local writer), Rosetti (a famous architect), and the most famous of all, Nicolas COPERNICUS!!! In the 1970s, Pope John Paul II went there to commemorate the 400th birthday of the astronomer. Craziness!

I am doing well. I already feel like Carmen’s house is homey and nice, and I like it a lot. Tomorrow we are going to Bologna. Should be fun! I’ll keep you posted.

P.S. I learned that you say "Oh cavolo!" to say "Oh crap!". Cavolo is "Cabbage". Haha!