Everything since Wednesday

No post in four days! Oh no! I actually do not know why I have not posted in so long. It was a good week and I was in the library a few times to use the internet, but for some reason, I just haven’t written. Well, here is an account of everything (as I can remember properly) since Tuesday. Wednesday was quite a hilarious day. It started out as always with class which was good and followed by lunch which also good. I did not stay long at Villa after lunch as I was quite energetic and wanted to be out and about the town. I headed for Piazza Spagna (Spanish Steps) to see the steps and to walk around the shops there. This I will remind you, is where all the big deal designer stores are and I really wanted to go and just look as if everything was in a museum. It almost felt like being at Harrod’s in London again. After walking around and silently laughing to myself about incredibly price tags for things as small as wallets, I started to really watch the people going into these shops. Of course there were normal people like me who were just walking around, but every time I watched someone go into a shop, I tried to listen to their conversation if they were talking to someone. Almost everything single person that I could hear was American.
When I had first come here, Antonio told me that it’s mostly foreigners who shop on this street and you actually won’t see a lot of Italians going into the shops. It’s completely true. I watched one women asking her very young (and very bored looking) sons if she could just pop into Prada quickly with the promise that she wouldn’t buy anything, she just wanted to take a quick look around. I actually saw one boy roll his eyes as he followed silently behind. How could you blame him? I laughed.
I’ve thought for a while that would be kind of cool to own a small piece of designer fashion. Mostly I had it my head that this would come in the form of sun glasses. So each time I would walk past a shop, I would look at their display case of sun glasses, feel extremely sick to my stomach, and promptly walk away. Finally, just off the main strip, I found a store that sold nothing but designer sun glasses. There were lots of display windows so I didn’t even have to go inside. (A note about this: I don’t think I will ever go into one of these stores for fear of breaking something and for fear of feeling extremely dirty, as if the contamination of American high brow life could infest its way into my skin.) I looked at the sun glasses and found some really cool pairs. One was a pair of Dolce & Gabana that I thought would be cool to wear and craned my head to see the price tag through the window. Once again, I felt quite sick as the little white tag said in printed, matter of fact, solemn black ink letters… €440,00. *GAG* As my Mother so wisely put it “So, bring your brother to Europe for two weeks, or designer sunglasses?”
Thursday I ensured that my class loved me by singing for them. The walls of Villa are relatively thin so we can hear the other classes going on during our lesson. Well, me singing was really no exception and when I got to my first high note, all the other classes went totally silent. (On Friday, everyone was asking who the singer from yesterday was.) It was pretty cool and my classmates seemed to enjoy it. I did not return to Villa after class and instead went for lunch and park time with the Brazilian girl from my class. We stopped at Termini station to buy some food at the large market there and then took the Metro to Flaminio and ate our lunch in Villa Borghese. It was a beautiful day (as always) and we had every intention of studying for our exam the next day. Another girl from our class, Anna (who is from Germany) met us there after her private class and the three of us talked and laughed extremely loudly, getting a few turned heads from the other people lying in the sun. It was a grand time that of course ended without a lick of studying to be had. But no matter, it was a great bonding experience and Anna was leaving Saturday anyways. After dinner that night I went into the library to do my homework and actually get some real studying done. It wasn’t long until I had gotten an invitation for gelato which I turned down because for some odd reason, right before dinner, I had developed a weird sore throat that I figure probably wouldn’t be helped by gelato. But of course, a little while later, I got another invitation and decided it was a sign and accepted. We went out to another historic gelateria called Old Bridge which is near the Vatican. Very tasty.
We walked around Vatican square for a loooong time ended not returning to Villa until around 2 in the morning. I did a little more studying and crashed in my bed. The next day I got up a little early for some extra studying, had breakfast with some of the guys in the mini kitchen and then headed for class. Class went swiftly by and ended with my singing again, except with extra people from other classes joining the audience. I was sad at the end of class because most of the women were done and heading home the next day. We all took pictures and swapped emails and then Maite and I headed for the exam. It wasn’t too hard but much to my dismay, I will not find out until Monday whether I will go on to the next level or not. Ah well.
I went back to Villa and spent the afternoon reading and walking and taking a bit of nap as I was tired from getting no sleep the night before. Instead of going to dinner, I went with Loris and Francesco to a concert at the Santa Cecilia Conservatory. They were all older voice students singing Verdi, Donizetti, Gounod, Messenet, and Puccini. All but two were absolutely fantastic. The women especially were incredibly mature for their age and had lovely tone and line. One girl sang “Signore ascolta” from Turandot and another aria from Rigoletto and was just… amazing. What was weird was that all but three of them were Asian. Strange, but they were really good, so it doesn’t really matter. We rushed back to Villa to have choir practice and afterwards I went out with Paolo for a late night romp around Rome. We went to a park in an area called Gianicolo which sites on top of one of the Seven Hills of Rome. Obviously, the view was amazing. Today, I’m not quite sure what is going on other than almost all of the guys are in a practice test until 8 for their English exam next month. A 6 hour exam? That’s a bit rough. We shall see what I decide to do.