Moving towards Athens

Ciao everyone. It's now Tuesday evening here and I am just taking it easy after finishing up my surprisingly large amount of homework. It's only 3 classes of Italian left in the practicum, which is exciting, and I just am ready to move on to more classes other than just Italian. But that starts after the break, and I am getting really, really excited for that day to come. It's Friday when I head off to Athens, and of course I'll take tons of pictures, but as excited as I am to see all the sights there, I am even more excited about the fact that I get to see them with KK. It's going to be fantastic to see a familiar face, and I miss her terrible, so it'll be great to see each other in one of the cradles of Western Civilization. Woohoo!

But that's Friday. Before that, I've got an Italian composition to write, two classes of learning left and a final exam on Friday morning before I head out that evening. I'll get through it pretty well, I'm sure. Every day it'll get easier to speak and to read, I really had to get over a hump today with some determinative articles, and the "le" over here is pronounced "Lay," not the French "luh." That is especially difficult, since "les" in French is "Lay," which has been all sorts of fun adjusting to. So belle is "bell-lay" (a major catch) and not "bell." But I'm getting closer, and today I officially moved past it.

Last night was the "Super Big Party" (I kid you not, that's what it was called) put on by our residence to meet the other college of kids who moved in two days ago. They're from Christendom College, a college of only 424 kids whose mission is to, and I quote: "to restore all things in Christ." Yeah, a very, very Catholic school that sends 45 kids over to Rome to study in the birthplace of Roman Catholicism.

The meet-and-greet had excellent food that was all free. Tons of pasta. Tons of Bruschetta. Tons of Prosciutto. And not to mention free beer and wine, and actual good beer and wine. Needless to say, we were sold. We went and had an awesome dinner, and slowly the Christendom kids filtered in, every one of them polite, almost too much so in some instances, such as getting food in an unruly line.

I met several and they were all very nice, but naturally, we harbor very, very different opinions. This should not surprise any of you. It all started with someone asking where I was from, and said California, and I said no, Portland, Oregon. He then said "same thing" and I took exception to that. I said San Diego and Portland are 1100 miles apart, so we are allowed to be very different. He laughed and said he didn't think so, and I asked him if he thought Charlotte (where he was from) was the same as Miami or New York, and he said of course not. And I said thank you very much, they're allowed to be different and I got quite a round of applause from our table.

I didn't see that guy for the rest of the night.

But I did see these three people who started talking to me just since there wasn't much else going on, and we eventually got around to the election. I said I was ardently Obama, and I asked if they had anyone pro-Obama they knew at their school, and they said if they are, they stay quiet. We began talking political shop, aka my favorite game on the planet, and with real, arch-conservatives! Oh what a treat!

It was an hour of back and forth, incredibly civil debating on Abortion, Gay Marriage, and religion in schools. It was awesome. Three on one, and I held my ground very strong, but their argumentation felt flawed to me in many ways, as I am sure they believed mine was at other times, but I just fought from the purely governing standpoint, such as a country shouldn't disallow anything that doesn't harm anyone else. This was especially contentious with gay marriage. They pulled up all these statistics that being gay is destructive to society and not right for anyone to be. After about 15 minutes of arguing this point and them saying it was natural law that man and woman are to be together and it's always been that way so it should stay that way, I asked them if slavery, which has been a staple of mankind for all time up until about 150 years ago, was acceptable just because it'd always been that way. They said it obviously wasn't. So I said what if just because gays have always been not accepted is just like slavery, where it was ok for a very long time, but as a society it was time to move past that.

That kept them quiet for a bit. Same with the "if someone is in love with someone else, what business is it of yours to tell them they can't see each other in the hospital?"

I'm sure this is boring, but it was riveting for me, and I could've talked to them forever about this and we never would have agreed, I'm sure, and there's something so beautiful about that. Had to come to Rome to find it though. We ended on the note of this Italian guy asking us what were talking about and we said American politics and he said "Obama is great!"

I had a pretty good laugh at that. Roman Catholics love him, what are you waiting on Bible belt? Ha ha ha.

But yes, that was fun. Then today I had class and I had to go to the post office for my Permisso di Soggiono, and after I got that, I came back, did my homework and made a Habenero Pecorino and Salami melt. Delicious. Now I am off to study a bit more, but know that pictures will be coming soon by hook or by crook, since with Athens, I'm sure there'll be plenty to go round.

Until next time,

Ciao.