Sixth weekend update: Ladies' Night and Meeting the Parents!

Asides from the beautiful Assisi, this week was rather filled with important dates! Friday was International Women's Awareness Day, and so Bar La Posta had a "Magic Mike" event to celebrate. A couple Americans and Italians got together and choreographed a performance that was very entertaining. The bar also gave every girl a  flower (which I helped put together) in honor of the night.

It was a really fun event (Bar La Posta never fails to be a fun night) and it was the first time I was brave enough to wear heels in the cobblestone streets of Italy! I didn't fall so I would like to call it a successful night. 

The next day I took a short morning trip to Cortona. I got there rather early and none of the stores were open yet, so I wrote in a cafe near the piazza. Have I told y'all how much I love Cortona? I hope so. It never fails to remind me that it's my favorite town. This time, it was the amount of wifi I could get literally anywhere I went. Not only did the cafe have wifi, but after I was done drinking, I went out to the steps of the bell tower to finish writing and could still get wifi from two other cafes. Ridiculous! I couldn't even get this kind of Princess treatment in Florence or Rome! Once T-Nobile opened (the store I came all the way to Cortona for), I bought the leather weekender bag I wanted and then I met up Shenell and Dezi in Arezzo for the rest of the afternoon. We finally picked up Dezi's handmade leather boots, which were beautiful!

On Sunday, the center organized a brunch for the students to eat and socialize with local families. Shenell and I paired up and were paired up with the sweetest family! Our family also decided to join two other families and we had lunch in Cortona (after a prosecco drink in Castig). It was the longest lunch/meal I've ever had. The whole meal lasted four hours and we had an after lunch promenade around Cortona and then they took us to Montecchio Castle. This was the first time I really was expected to use and know my italian (although Stefania knew English pretty well) and it was such a breath of fresh air to actually get to practice and do what I planned to do when I got to Italy. I suppose I never really thought about how being enclosed in a space with only english-speakers and not exactly needing to speak any Italian other than what is necessary to get by (knowing how to ask for information in the streets, stores, order) would really hinder my learning, but I got a heavy dose of it with these families!

If you want to learn a language, talk to a child. They don't understand that you can't understand them. They don't understand that you need them to speak slower and they will just keep talking so you better keep up!

The whole family! 

The leather bag I bought in Cortona.

On Tuesday, I leave Castiglion for two weeks! One week in Venice and the second week (spring break) in London and Paris. It's going to be a long adventure with only a backpack worth of clothes and necessities!

"Chi si volta, e chi si gira, sempre a casa va finire."
(No matter where you go or turn, you will always end up at home.)