This was an awesome day. Very strange, but pretty cool.
The morning was normal enough; woke up, did some studying nothing exciting. However, by the time the afternoon rolled around I was get pretty antsy so I went for another run around the city. Bad Idea, it was still as hilly as yesterday! Near the end of my trot I ran into my friend Claudio from Sardinia. He speaks English very well, but he practices with me because he has to pass the big English test in a couple months. He’s a graduate student studying Political Science and plans on being a diplomat! However, we were very surprised to see each other because we had just at lunch two hours before about how we would be studying all afternoon. So I went for a run and he, “ha fato sua aquilone” had just finished flying his kite (it was a pretty windy day!)
Later, while waiting in line for dinner I struck up a conversation with a very interesting French girl. Amandina (Amanda for Italians and Americans who can’t pronounce her real name) Was born in France, normally studies in Belgo(Belgium) and is here studying Economics in Italian(she’s also fluent in English). However, despite knowing so much, she was absolutely clueless with how to deal with the lunch ladies. This was her first time at the cafeteria and in all fairness it is pretty confusing. You get bread, then you have to choose one primo piatto(pasta or soup) a second and third (meat and potatoes), and one fruit. However, you can’t get two of anything, e.g. meat dish or they will yell at you. I felt very smug helping her because I remember how absolutely helpless I was a month ago.
Next, we went to sit with her friends from Syria! They speak just about 0 Italian, and are here studying architecture. They saw some flyers and they want to learn Tango and salsa. I agreed to teach them only if they’ll teach me traditional Syrian dances. It’s really cool. They all get in a line, link their arms and start kicking in units(I wanted to tell them they looked just like a male version of the rockets!) After Dinner, Amandina and I decided to return to my room to get some tango flowers for her friends. Only problem was, I forgot where I lived…
The dorms are incredible for their symmetry, everything is the same. The only question is how far down the steps your block is and whether you live on the left or the right. I live 5 floors down on the left. I walked into the block right above mine! The first hint that I was in the wrong place was the girl sitting at the table who I’d never seen before. The second was when my key didn’t open the bedroom door. Then I looked around and realized that there was a reason why I had never seen this girl before, the kitchen was entirely different.
After uttering some quick excuses about being a stupid American we found that it was no problem and she was quite amused. She was preparing to eat this fabulously strange looking dish with noodles and a sauce I couldn’t recognize. Turns out, she’s from Romania and she came over a year ago. By the time we left her dish was cold because she was happy to chat for quite a while.
20 minutes later, we actually arrived in my block. Although it only took me 2 minutes to find the flyers we didn’t leave for close to two hours. We chatted with my Lebanese block mate for a while and we learned all about Belgium’s government, or rather, lack thereof for large stretches of time. Then my friend who knows French showed up and I had fun trying to guess they were saying. It was not before 12:30am, after I defended my views on the Iraq war and the possibility of one with Iran (in Italian!) that we called it a night.
