Spanish Italy

Dear reader(s)

Giorgi came and showed me Modena on foot last night with his friend Eugenia. The weather was still boiling hot, but it's not a humid heat so it's not horrible. He told me all about the city and showed me the best parts of it: 'i giardini' his favourite park, 'la bibliotecha' the library that I'd found earlier, and he helped me out with getting my library card (hot off the press) and also the duomo. We went inside and I asked why there was a curtain over the big stain-glass window, the guy who works in the duomo explained that it's to keep the place cool during the day, then he opened the curtain and said it's beautiful if you stand and look from the balcony, which is restricted and he let us up there! It really was beautiful looking at the 'Roses Window' with the late afternoon sun gently coming through it. Another very exciting fact that Giorgi told me is that the duomo has been renovated for several months (over a year) and that NEXT WEEK the cover will be taken down and the beautiful new duomo will be visible! I can't believe my luck!

After our grande giro della città we got a slice of pizza and a fanta before heading to Giorgi and Eugenia's band rehearsal. The band is pretty cool, there's Giorgi - bass, Eugenia - guitar and vocals, Margherita - vocals and Jonny (be goooood as they call him) - drums. They play their own songs and if you had to give it a genre it'd be folk-rock.

Before bed my new (temporary) roommate came in and I love her. She's Spanish too, from Catalogna, called Nerea. We sat up chatting in our pjs for about 2 hours before turning in. Today I have worked out the laundry system and made my lunch - challenging myself with pasta and tomato sauce NOT. I met a few more Spaniards and one Portuguese boy in the kitchen, Victor & Dani, bringing my total friends up to 9: 4 Italians, 5 Spaniards, 1 Portuguese. After a while of letting them speak English to me I asserted myself and told them I refuse to speak anything but Italian.

Today Nerea and I intend to go to the centro to buy bikes, then to the supermarket to buy some food. Tonight there is a philosophy festival and we may go to some of the events there.

A presto...