I Did This

Nella stanza, c'è una finestra e dietro il vaso. Fuori dalla finestra c'è un treno. Il treno è sopra al mare. Ci sono quattro poltrone nella stanza. Le poltrone sono davanti ai tavoli, e il telecomando è sopra il tavolo. Il quadro è sulla parete non è sul tappeto. Ci sono tre piante nella stanza e ci sono due divani. Dove è la stanza? La stanza è nella casa e la casa è in compagna perche è molta tranquilla e non rumorosa. La casa della stanza è accanto alle montagne.

It took me over an hour to write that originally. The assignment was to do 60 words but I went way over that. For my efforts I received a "Bene!" and one smiley face which is about a B+ I guess. My teacher is stingy.

In other news...

There have been lots of questions about my two other roommates - the girls. Most of them have focused on shallow, physical subjects instead of about substantive things like personality and character. C'mon people, it's what's on the inside that matters. Before I left Portland I had been told that I would have two roommates - Raimundo and a Brazilian university student. A few creative souls convinced themselves and me that out of a country of millions, I had won the lottery and was fortunate to draw one of Giselle Bundechen's little sisters to share my apartment (I just lost 20 minutes of my life when I Googled Giselle's name to see how to spell it and got stuck on her photo search results). Where was I? Oh yes, when I arrived, much to my shock, my only roommate was Raimundo, the Brazilian had left and I had two women living with me not one. Neither of them related to Brazilian supermodles of any sort. They had been on holiday so it wasn't until last weekend that I actually me them. Deborah and Alice are their names and they are both Italian and come with boyfriends.

They are very, very nice, but slobs. You know how I am. Raimundo is the same way as me. The girls are both not. Every night I come home from work to their school stuff all over the dining room table and their breakfast and lunch dishes sitting in the sink. But that's the worst of my problems so I'll survive. They've only been there a week so I don't want to make any big assumptions but I think we'll get along fine but I don't know that we'll ever be super close which is ok. Raimundo is cool and we seem to be hitting it off.

I think one of Raimundo's friends got us tickets to the Ancona soccer match next weekend. The team plays in the second division but have been much better this year than expected and are near the top of the group so that's cool. They even made national highlights a couple weeks ago because one of their players scored a goal from mid-field. The games aren't on TV, but they are on local radio so on match day, all the shops and bars broadcast the game. It's prtty cool to walk around and see groups of people gathered around listening and discussing the game.

This weekend is some kind of festival in Ancona. A map was published marked with all the best restaurants to buy beer (cool map!), there is going to be some sort of city tour or parade led by a group that calls themselves 'the faggots' (I may have messed up that translation), there are live bands in the different piazzas, all the shops will be open late and there is a big flea market in the main piazza. It's been raining all week but is supposed to be nice this weekend so it should be good timing. Of course, I may have completely misunderstood the brochure and there is nothing of the sort going on so we'll have to see.

I got my first haircut in Italy this week. I don't speak Italian. Marco the Barber doesn't speak English. Lothar tried to explain what I wanted done. It could have gone a lot worse. It looks ok but is a lot shorter than I am used to. That's why we have hats!

Is purple a popular color for clothes this season in the US?

Work was good this week. I received my first project from a client, I sent out my first estimate to a new prospect, and my reps submitted their first requests for estimates. Starting to have a little traction. Hoping it keeps building. What's with this economy?

I wonder what Eric is doing right now?