Italia: Day Eight

This morning I got up at 7:45 to shower and stuff before we went down to breakfast. I had the awesome bread again and some cheese and ham. For some reason, it didn’t taste quite as good today so I had an apple as well.

Our morning officially started at nine when we went on tours with the students. The whole day was rather disorganized though. It turns out the Italians hadn't had breakfast yet, so we hopped on the bus and stopped at a sit-down restaurant. Once we got there, they realized we didn't want to get anything to eat though and apparently not all of them were hungry, so we hopped on the bus again to go to a croissant shop that also had coffee. The Italians downed their espresso like it was a shot and we were off again.

It didn’t seem like they really knew what we were doing though. We wandered around the town, looking at the views from off the tops of buildings, visiting a park called Monteclaro that had a lot of turtles and odd-looking ducks, and getting on and off the bus. They seem to use public transportation a lot here, which I love. I just wish the buses weren’t so crowded. I like sitting down occasionally, especially when we’re doing a lot of walking.

One interesting thing I noticed though was that to get to the top of the buildings in the older part of the city, they have outdoor elevators built into the side of the wall. It seemed really strange to me. Wouldn’t the mechanical parts erode over time and the elevator stop functioning? It was actually one of the largest elevators I’ve seen since arriving though, so I guess they work quite well.

Views from the top of the city

The confusing streets of Italy

Man-made lake in the city park

I also got to see an Italian driver’s license, which looks a lot different than ours. Their license indicates what level they are at and, specifically, what type of vehicles they can drive on the back. It also includes the basic information listed on ours. They were all really surprised by the vertical appearance of my license and the warnings indicating I was underage. They were amazed that I’m only eighteen and that it isn’t legal to drink in America at my age. It turns out the drinking age is actually 16 here and no one pays attention to it either.

For lunch, we went to a place called La Cantina, where we feasted on fries and breaded chicken sandwiches. The amazing thing was this place actually had ketchup. I was surprised to find it and immediately ordered a healthy amount for my chicken. I swear, living in Europe, the first thing I’ll go through withdrawals of is my ketchup. This place does not appreciate the condiment.

We took a bus to an outlet of the university after we were done. At the university, we showed the students our video of Delaware and recapped our afternoon. After a short question and answer session, we say goodbye to our second group of passing friends and went back to the hotel for a brief moment before going to a shopping street in the city for dinner. We ate at a small restaurant on a side street that had a menu in English and Italian, along with a number of other languages. The waiter was really nice.

How Italians think of American clothing and New York...

The classroom we gave our presentation in

Before they brought out the first course of our meal, there was some commotion outside. It turned out to be a PRIDE parade, so we went outside and videotaped it. While we were watching, a guy heard us talking and asked if we were American. I started a conversation with him because he was cute. It turns out he’s a nineteen-year-old guy from Idaho who is studying as a foreign exchange student in a local high school. It's weird how you can find an American pretty much anywhere in the world.

Idaho

Drag queens in the parade

PRIDE parade

Garlic bread had appeared on the table since we had gone outside, so we indulged. Next came the pasta. Becky, Chelsea, and Pam had all ordered spaghetti, but I was confused when they brought me a lasagna looking dish instead of my cheese pizza. I ate it though because I was hungry and thought it may be some weird kind of pizza that I hadn't seen before. I was even more surprised when, after I finished the lasagna dish due to my hunger, they delivered a pizza to the table. Where did the lasagna come from?!

When the bill came for our meal, I was outraged to find out the lasagna that I didn’t order had been placed on our bill along with my pizza and the bread that we also didn’t order. I complained to our waiter, who had been funny and entertaining the whole meal. He seemed nonplussed to change our bill because as he claims “I ate the dish”. I explained that I thought it was what I had ordered and he lowered the bill by six euros, which wasn’t the full price of the lasagna. I was really appalled by how he handled the whole ordeal. In the States, if something like this would have happened, I definitely wouldn’t have been charged for non-ordered items. I might even have gotten something extra because of the mistake. I think this is just an example of people trying to take advantage of the tourists. While it was awkward at the time, I’m glad I didn’t stand for it.

The waiter playing around before the bill issues

We tried to go shopping after dinner, but everything was already closed, so we turned around and found the only open gelato shop to get our fix. They had terrible choices though, so I ended up with a melon flavor that I didn't really enjoy. It ended up being a disappointing experience all around because Pam didn't like her flavor either. I can’t believe they didn't have any type of chocolate.

We walked back to the bus stop afterward and ended up stumbling upon the PRIDE parade people having a party in the square. There was a stage with a band set-up and the drag queens were all hanging out ready to perform. They kept talking in between each song though and we couldn’t understand what they were saying, so we ended up coming back to the hotel.