lack of title.

I’m about to drop some knowledge: Facebook stalking + no knowledge of Italian + Google translator = really funny things. For example, we were looking at our friend Giovanni’s profile and someone else we had met briefly posted something on his wall about Americans. Naturally we were curious and sent it off through an online translator. It came back as “The Americans have been large” which could mean any number of things, but the most likely interpretation was that he was calling us fat. :[

Chances are that wasn’t really what he meant but man, we have been eating a lot of carbs! We discussed and decided that our project food groups were pizza, pasta, cheese, gelato, and nutella. I love the quality of Italian food, but I’m starting to miss America’s variety. I’m planning on eating some form of steak as soon as I get back into the States, preferably from Chipotle or like… Ruths Chris. Go big or go home. But seriously, despite having a lot of the same stuff, the food really is amazing. We have a lot of great restaurants around San Lorenzo where we’re staying and most of them have homemade noodles which is so excellent. Everything here is so much more fresh than in America. Oh, and coffee update: I’m down to one sugar in my espresso. Still gross, but my goal is to have it black before the end of the trip. The only downside to food right now is that I haven’t been feeling so good lately… my stomach has been hurting a lot, to the point that it’s been waking me up at night. So hopefully that stops soon (Pray for me! Grazie). Also, I think I’m getting addicted to coffee because I have it twice a day or I get tired.

Even though I wasn’t feeling awesome this week, it’s been such a great time connecting with Italians we’ve already met. We had a talent show on Tuesday night that our friend Pietro and two others came to, and it was so much fun. Half of the acts were really good, talented people, but the other half was just a bunch of Americans messing around. We got to hang out with them afterwards and it was so encouraging because Pietro loved it and said there was something different about us. Pietro is really involved in a Catholic fellowship type thing and it has been great talking with him a lot about what he believes. And his group of friends is sooo fun! They’re very funny and sarcastic and it’s a lot like my group of friends at home when we hang out with them. :] We’re trying to organize an America vs. Italy basketball game because Pietro loves basketball, so there may or may not be a lot of trash talk going around right now.

Speaking of sports, I am psyched for the World Cup to start! I want to watch America play on Saturday, but I don’t know where yet… But we already have plans to go watch Italy play Paraguay on the jumbotron screen in Villa Borghese (it's a park like central park). We visited it today and it was huge! They weren't playing a game at the time though so we didn't stick around very long. Apparently they cap the audience at 20,000 so we’re going to show up early so we can get in. From what we’ve heard, it’s going to be crazy. Can’t wait!