Crazy Weekend, the Friday Post

I woke up bright and early at 11:00 am (love it!). Stefano and I had planned a lunch and lesson for this afternoon and we headed into Parma. What I hadn't anticipated was Stefano's determination to get me to try raw horse meat.

Oh, I'm sorry, did I forget to mention that the Italian's eat horse?

So my teacher took me to this amazing little Italia hole-in-the-wall-deli that was bursting with people. He ordered us two raw horse-meat sandwiches. And I ate it. I will provide details on demand, but don't want to upset any horse-lovers who might be reading the bloggy blog.

Afterward, we hit up this "slow food" gelateria. Oh man, was it creamy goodness. Worth note is that the Italians use a thicker, less sweet whip cream which might have come straight out of the cow.

I found out while in Parma that the Nonni were going to Siena for the weekend. That meant that I had the house all to myself this weekend! How exciting -- I could blast my music and just enjoy some solitude. What a fantastic surprise.

Stefano and I drove back to the 'Ganza (Allison calls Sala Baganza this, and I love it). But five minutes later I was hopping into a car with Laura to head back to Parma. She needed to get a present for her friend's birthday and I was going to meet up with my exercize buddy, Augstino, in Parma anyway. Well, we went to Comet, a huge electronics/entertainment store, where Laura found some presents and I bought my first Italian cd. Subsonica. I love them. We met up with Augustino, he bought us some coffee and we ended up walking around a park in Parma all together. It was great fun. I love that I can now hang out with people who don't speak any English and make a connection.

At around six o'clock, after about 3 miles of walking, we went home. I rode home with Augustino and ended up just hanging out with him and Luana at the gastronemia until nine o'clock. We joked and had impromptu English and Italian lessons. When the gastronemia closed, we went upstairs to Luana's aunt's house and ate some leftover pizza from the gastronmia, drank some "old beer," and watched the tv. It was laidback fun. So much fun, in fact, that I ran late to meet Laura at Floyd for another night of fun.

This night was an improvement on Thursday because Luana came and also a guitar showed up. When Danilo brought the guitar, it was immediately passed around. Even I played a ditty on it. A whole bunch of us sat around even after the bar was closed and sang along. Many of the songs were in English, so I knew the words. What fun!

After a fantastic night at Floyd, I returned to my empty home very early in the morning. As I inserted the key into the lock to my apartment, I was all ready to collapse happily into my bed. A unpleasant popping sound interrupted that particular dream -- my key had broken into two; half of it was in the lock, half in my hand.

...To be continued....