German Fest: First, this was so much fun, but interesting... to say the least. Germany was having their October fest at the end of September (doesn't make a lot of sense, huh?) and parts of Italy had their German festivals at this time, too, so I went to one a couple towns over. I went with Alyssa, Luigi (Alyssa's boyfriend), and a lot of his friends. I was nervous, because I had heard that Italian women were not very accepting of other women, but everyone was really nice to me and I had a great time with them. Luigi's friends are mostly other men and their girlfriends and it was a pretty big group. We took the train, which was fine on the way there, but coming back late at night was a little crazy. A passenger even got up and pulled the emergency break, which stopped the train and it took us a long time to get going again. Everyone was really mad at him and they said it happens a lot. The festival was huge! It was underneath a gigantic tent and tons of people were there. The food was awesome! I had a sausage in bread that was like a hotdog, a strudel, and some other really good stuff. The entertainment was really fun, too, and we just sat and talked and listened to the different German bands. At times their friends got up and danced and we went to the front for a while to watch the bands. They did the train, played "YMCA," "We are Family," and a lot of other English songs. American music is played everywhere in Italy... they love it... when you go into stores and everywhere. They were also helping me with my Italian and his friends were just really funny. It was awesome and I'm glad I got to hang out with them and meet more friends.
Markets: One of my favorite things about Arezzo and Italy all together are the weekly markets. Every Saturday morning Arezzo has a huge market that has everything you can think of... Food, clothes, purses, jewelry, shoes, home goods, everything! It's like a huge flea market and I love it! You walk up to it and it just keeps going. You can bargain with the vendors, too, but I've never actually done that, because prices are so good. They also sale the best rotisserie chicken there, mmm! It is so good! It's homemade, cooked right there in front of you, and you can actually buy live chickens, too... which I have never done. Apparently they cut the heads off for you right there. Wow. I bought some sunglasses, because I forgot mine at home, and some food at the market. Everyone brings their tote bags and you just have to be prepared to get bumped into. Italians don't see this as rude, so you never get an apology when someone runs into you or steps on your foot or something. It was hard to get used to, but it all goes back to their culture. In addition to the weekly market there are also random events that take place, like the international market coming up this weekend, and a major market that happened a few weeks ago. It started outside of my apartment and went on forever. It was larger than the weekly market and just when you thought it was ending it went on to the left and right and so on. It was HUGE and I loved it! I spent about two hours walking around and all I bought were olives, a purse, and a necklace. I absolutely love olives! I didn't like them in the States, but I LOVE them here... I really like the ones with the pits in them and I get them a lot from little stores... fresh olives! Anyhow, this market even sold live animals for pets, such as turtles and birds and there was even a one euro vendor. It was really neat! Finally, on the first weekend of every month there is a huge antique market. It's really famous, actually, and happens in Arezzo. It's seriously on my top five list of my favorite things about Arezzo. It's right on the Corso (the main road) and stretches out to other roads and piazzas. They sale all kinds of antiques, jewelry, books, clothes, records, furniture, trinkets, and so much more. It's awesome! My favorite type of jewelry is cameo and they sale all kinds of it. Things are pretty expensive, but I bought a skirt. I had so much fun and walked around for about three hours looking at everything.
Watch parties: Something Suzette and I started in the beginning of the semester were watch parties for the OU football games. We've done four now and three of them have been at 2:00 AM our time, but they are a lot of fun and the students love them. We stay up really late, but it's a great time and Suzette always provides snacks and stuff for everyone. There's always a good turn-out. Suzette and I are also both really into social networking, so the whole time we tweet and Facebook about the watch parties. OU's twitter and Kevin Frazier from Fox Sports have even tweeted us back! Last week we had a really busy week getting ready for the OU-TX watch party and we tweeted to ESPN, College Gameday, and OU all week long. The students also made a lot of signs and a video that we sent in. We worked really hard to get on air or for them or at least tweet us, but it never happened. It was fun, though, doing all of the work. I'll post the video! The OU-TX watch party was pretty big and some of the students' Italian friends came and the athletic department actually provided our students with some promotional items that we gave out to them, so that was neat. We had burgers and a lot of other great food, too. I love the late-night watch parties!
I think this is about it for this post. More to come...
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