llamas

Midterms week is somewhat of a feverish haze for me... Don't really remember half of what was on the tests... Oh well, I'm sure I did okay. Hopefully. Getting better now, although I think my brain was melted by the fever. I ran out of Tylenol too.
This weekend was kind of busy. Went to Pistoia on Friday to go to the zoo. I knew it was going to be some good times when the bus let us out in the middle of no where, and then we realized the vast expanse of empty concrete in front of us was the parking lot. There were 5 cars there. We went in, and it was actually really fun. It was so so so sad though. The cages were TINY. The elephants were in an enclosure as big as our apartment (not that big). I guess I'm used to the Woodland Park Zoo, where they have really good, realistic habitats for the animals. The elephants and giraffes were just in mudpits. And the water was all really dirty. It was still cool though, and since the Italians definately do not have the safety/health/anything standards that the US has, the animals were literally 4 feet away. In some cases, less. So I definately touched a giraffe and an elephant. Good times. And saw a baby hippo that was born in July!!! It was Adorable, I wanted to steal it and take it home. I probably could have too, the security wasn't that tight. All I would have had to do was climb over two little fences and I'm good. If only I could lift it... Another example of how ghetto that zoo was: we were walking by the farm animals exibit and saw a ton of baby pigs in the middle of the road. They were Really cute and little, and we were like, hm, wonder why they're out of the cage? Maybe the zoo keepers let them out. Nope. We were watching them, and they sneak out from a hole in the cage. Great. We felt safe after that. I kept expecting to run into a tiger at some point, but luckily didn't. The monkeys were really fun too, there was this one baby who was SO CUTE. I wanted to take that one home too, and Amanda actally touched it as it reached its little hand through a fence. She probably will get some weird disease now, but it was a good picture. It was funny, I was noticing how similar their faces and hands are to ours. Their fingers are webbed though. We also saw to llamas having sex. That was... cool... I guess... Right.
Saturday I attempted to recover. Went and got a duffle bag and some Pumas (I'm in Italy, geez, cut me some slack), and I actually talked to the shoe guy in Italian for at least 15 minutes. I was quite pleased with myself. At Massimo Dutti, I tried some boy short things on, and they were really cute, but I couldn't bring myself to buy them for 80 euro. As I was walking home from the Center, it was hot and sweaty and gross, but suddenly I heard thunder Crack right above me. I literally watched the storm pass over me, and I thought I was going to get struck my lightning at any point (I didn't). At 7, we met up and walked to the Fiorentina/Parma soccer game. I got a lovely scarf which I am excited about. It was really fun, I miss going to soccer games. Firenze is pretty good too. It was funny, the Parma fans (or whoever the away team is) have to sit in this barbed-wire section that is on the other side of bullet-proof glass, so there aren't riots or something. Crazy. Oh, and as I was walking in, I had my waterbottle, because my throat was dying. The man points at it, and makes a motion like taking the cap off. I'm like, oh he wants to make sure it's not alcohol, so I take the cap off and he reaches for it. Then he throws it away. I was like, wtf, you stole my cap? So I had to drink all the water quickly, and didn't have any for later when I needed it. I guess they don't want you throwing it at the players or something. Lame.
Afterwards, we went to Ali's diner, which was great because I haven't had a milkshake in SO LONG. Loved it. Today, I went to the store to get some cookies, water, and kleenex, only to find it closed. I hate how even grocery stores close on Sundays. Blegh. Okay, this is long enough. I get to Oxford oh so soon, though, and I'm psyched. Now, if I can only make it through this week of school...