okay. i FINALLY have a good chunk of time to catch up.

first of all, there were two crazy events i witnessed involving native padovans.
the first was the graduation ceremonies of the university students. the person that has graduated has to dress up in something crazy that their family picked out and read a poster about themselves that their family wrote, and if they mess up in their reading, the family throws things at them (which sometimes includes flour, ketchup, and mustard). basically the new graduate gets hilariously humiliated as a congratulations. this tradition is found only here in padova and in bologna.
the second event occurred when i was on my way to a performance in a nearby piazza. as i was walking under the clock tower, i saw a girl sitting over a guy on the steps. i started to hear police sirens, and the guy on the steps stood up and he was COVERED in blood all on one side and white as a ghost. his girlfriend had blood on her hands too. a police car and an ambulance showed up and the guy and the girl went up to them, and as i tried to distance myself from the scene i saw the girl explaining to the police what happened and making a stabbing gesture with her hand. did i see a victim of a stabbing? oooooh my god.

in other news, on sunday i went to the island of lido off of venice for a beach trip! my friends and i took a train to venice, which was really easy, and then caught a series of vaporetti (like taxi boats) to get to lido, which would have been easier if the boats would have just gone where they said they were going. the boat trips were nice though because we got a nice view of venice from the main canal (there will be pictures soon!). we did eventually get to lido, which is a BEAUTIFUL beachy island with extremely few tourists. we were definitely the only americans on the beach. a lot of people came to talk to us, either to flirt with us american girls (how exotic) or simply practice their english. we made a couple friends there who were native italians, which was pretty exciting.

we soon returned to padova, exhausted and sunburned, and our new friends called us and said they were coming to padova to watch the soccer game! it was italy vs. spain, and kind of a big deal. we went to il prato della valle, where hundreds of people were standing in the piazza watching the game on a huge screen. it was SO much fun, although unfortunately italy lost. :(

yesterday classes started, and it looks like they're going to be VERY challenging but enjoyable. i have a LOT of homework every night, oh dear. the teachers are all the greatest people ever though.

last night out of nowhere i heard that roberto benigni was coming to perform for free in il prato della valle! he was the star actor in the film la vita è bella, which is called life is beautiful in america. i LOVED that movie, so i went to see him! it was really crowded and REALLY hot, but it was so exciting to see him in the flesh (and for free). he was really funny, although i mostly enjoyed his body language since i couldn't always understand him enough to get his jokes.

i think i'll stop there for now, i might go do a bit of shopping in town. speaking of, the times the stores are open here are really confusing. most stores are closed between about 12:30 and 2:30 for a lunch break, and they all close around dinner time. although, dinner time in italy is around 9pm! shops are usually only open for a couple hours on the weekends, and nothing is open on sunday at all.

fashion note: in italy, it is COMPLETELY normal to wear the same color shirt as your pants. even if your pants are orange. even if your shirt is pink! i saw a MAN wearing orange pants with the same color orange shirt. che strano.