Buongiorno!

Hey guys,

ive been writing a lot. (prolly wont be like that one i get to firenze) we have a lot of time here and its such a small town, that when things close for siesta there is not much to do but try to get a computer in the lab or walk around and take pictures. i walked around taking pictures yesterday because it was the first sunny day. it was beautiful. we went back to all the old places they took us to during our walking tour the other night. we called it our Lilo tour. cuz there is this little stray dog, lilo, but he is the friendliest dog ever. he's like the town dog. he only eats meat cuz thats what everybody gives him, so he turns up his nose to liek croissants and stuff. and everybody loves him, so when it gets really cold, he goes into one of the many houses or restaurants that have beds for him (sorry if im repeating stuff, i dont remember what i told people already). well we didnt see him at all on wednesday, and then yesterday we hear his little paws on the cobblestone, and we turn around and are like LILO! and he is like sprinting to us...he ended up staying with us for an hour and a half. he's like, yes this is my town i'll show you it. and we just followed him, or when we want to go one way, and he was going somewhere else, we're like andiamo lilo. this way. and he came. and then hed disappear to hang out with the other dogs, and we're like ciao lilo, and wed be by ourselves, but then he would find us a couple minutes later and come sprinting to us again. hes so funny. he like stops and turns around and waits while you take a picture. so in a ton of my pictures, theres Lilo looking back at us. he's so cute.....but today we did a scavenger hunt. and lilo found my team and stayed with us the whole time. i think thats why we won. we had lilo helping us.

so there is no class later today either, cuz we're doing more games and stuff. its a nice break. the four hour class is pretty intense. and the professor doesnt speak like any english. its fun though. we sing songs. we sang this one song, Una Gatto (A Cat) over and over in class on tuesday. and then wednesday we were listening to italian music...getting cultured basically....and we asked to sing una gatto cuz its so funny, so the tune was stuck in our heads all night. so we start humming and singing the few words we remember, and we were out and had been talking to these italians...and all of a sudden. these five guys that we had been talking to. maybe like 22-years-old start singing the song! we couldn't believe it cuz its such a stupid song. from what i understand of their italian, they said they know it from school when they were little and from an oldies radio station. it was so funny. we didnt know it was like a real song. i actually told my italian professor yesterday in italian about it, she seemed pretty happy. shes a funny lady.

so yesterday we had gnocci for lunch (and kim and i got it for dinner too). its like pasta made out of potato or something. its really good. i enjoyed it. its just very filling. kim got bunny for dinner. kinda freaked me out a little bit. she said it was good. kinda tastes like chicken...she said that you could tell its not chicken but that it sorta has that taste. oh. so before dinner yesterday, we go into this bakery. i got this thing - it was basically like a giant cream puff. so good. an dkim got these chocolate things that she was freaking out over. i think im gonna have to go back and try these chocolate things, but i also want to get a canolli :-)

oh, we also found out about these hot springs. like natural jacuzzis (whoa, never thought about how you spell that before...i got no clue, sorry!). its like a 15-20 minute bus ride, so we're gonna try to get there next week when our class changes to a morning class. someone had pictures from yesterday, and the sun was setting. bella. i have to go there.

so rome is tomorrow...and kim and i are the only two people who aren't spending the night there. it will be nice to be here by ourselves. we want to walk to this like castle thats pretty close by. some of the other kids did it yesterday. its kind of a long walk, but...va bene. and apparently sunday there is this big carnival-festival. so kim and i are excited that we'll actually be here for it. should be fun. we really like it here. we were all talking today about how we would like to retire here since living here is a really nice dream, but probably not possible. lol. so we got gelato again yesterday. they were running out of chocolate, but i had that already lol, so i tried some new stuff. nocciola and fiordelatte. like a nutty one and a vanilla. it was soooo good. but we were sitting there, and theres this like vending machine - like one of those ones where you put liek 25 cents in and get some stupid bouncy ball or something...well this one had cans of peanuts. and cans of olives and random stuff in cans. it was like, you spin the top so you pick what you want and then put in however much euro and you get a can of random food. it was so weird. there was also one with underwear in those plastic containers....really really random. but quite a conversation starter. lol. alright, well im getting really hungry (ho fame jess, hoooo fame!) and we want to look into a train to go to perugia next weekend on saturday. but first, we gotta look and see what there is to do in perugia to see if its worth it....

miss you all!
ci vediamo.

Ciao!