The Day The Week Stood Still

Today is “Domenica,” which roughly translates to “Sunday” in English or more literally “The Day Of Nothing To Do Because Everything Is Closed.” This has been a good weekend, starting on Thursday afternoon and not ending until tomorrow. This upcoming week should be a busy one however, because the deadline for registering for your courses is the 13th of March. The interesting thing about being here though, is that, where I would be nervous and preoccupied by having to make these choices and go through these procedures, with which I am completely unfamiliar, to get my classes selected if I were at home, I can’t be but too nervous here. It’s the strangest thing. I will think about the work I have to do and how it has already begun to pile up, but then, without trying, I let go of my stress. It’s wonderful. I know plenty of people back home who should study here. They need it more than I do.

The weekend starts on Thursday here, as I mentioned. After classes and dinner, at about 10pm, the bars and clubs get jammed packed with people. We dance and drink the night away until about 2:30am. It’s something I don’t get at home because I hate dance clubs and I don’t live on a college campus. Friday was very relaxing. I hung went into town for a coffee (which, for you Starbucksians, means espresso here) with Kevin and then hung around with Scott and Kevin and listened to music for a bit. Then I had dinner and wasted away the night with all of the other Erasmus kids. Saturday was also very relaxing. I watched “Religulous,” Bill Maher’s movie about religions. I found it pretty funny but mostly self-centered and arrogant on the part of Bill Maher. I had lunch with Kevin and Allison and then went for a nice long walk around town with Allison. We stood on the wall on the northwest side and talked about everything from Mr. Rogers to what we want to do when we grow up. We got a coffee and headed back to the Collegi. After dinner, I went with Allison to Kata’s room and met up with Viktoria (Austria), Maria (Germany) and Kata (Hungary) so we could try some of Kata’s Hungarian alcohol called Unicom. It was nice. We chatted for a while and I tried to remember some German so I could understand what Viktoria and Maria were talking about. I could get things like “I don’t know…” or “I have…to do/make.” I am getting pretty good with German helping verbs. I retired to my room by about midnight and hit the hay.

Domenica. Today I will start like any other weekend day. I will go to Tridente because that’s where everyone lives and gets Internet reception. I will probably have lunch at the dinning hall, Mensa and then hopefully go out for a coffee with whomever would like to. Tomorrow is a big day though so maybe some reading is in order.

Until I write again…
Yours,
David