Sun and Shower, Wind and Rain

Ok, I will try to bring you all up to date on what I've been up to.  Where to start?  It's been a little more than a week, and my memory seems to be about a week long, so I'll start with last Friday...Friday night Karen and I went to the opening of a indie music club called Fish and Chips with our italian friends.  I don't know how to describe it in a way that will make sense to everyone, but it was this sheek, hip, underground gathering of fantastically dressed italians, and the girls all had perfect Audrey Hepburn hair.  The next morning....or that morning I guess...we left for a four hour bus ride to Pompeii, an ancient city that is really well preserved because it was engulfed by a volcanic eruption in the 1st century.  It poooooured down rain, and we got to jump puddles while we explored the ruins.  We stayed in a hotel in Paestum, where we also got to see some ancient greek ruins, which are the oldest ruins we will get to see.  I will try to upload a sketch soon.  The trip was very fun overall, and we got to meet some more students from Tulane, which was really cool.  However, we developed a deep appreciation for the fact our group is so small, because everything went soooo slowly with such a big group.  On the way back we also got to stop by a mozzarella di bufala factory (where they make mozarella with buffalo milk, which is how it is traditionally made, and the flavor is simply delicious....sweet, creamy, fresh, and with a distinctive flavor you just don't get with cow's milk).  This weekend I also lost my little backpack on the bus (at the time is contained by telephone, camera, sketch book, and journal/calendar).  I have seriously gone through a mourning period, a spent some serious time contemplating the value and role of material objects in life.  Out of those four things, I am most pained by the loss of the journal- words: thoughts and memories in written form.  Other than the sketches and lost pictures, the other things are just money, and money is only time.  I'm beginning to move into the acceptance stage.  This week we've been working more on our urban planning project, including exploring the area of town where our site is.  I'm getting more and more excited about it, because I'm going to use it as an excuse to explore my interest in urban agriculture and food distribution.  This Wednesday Karen, Christine, and I organized a "mixer" at our apartment and invited people that we've met from every avenue of our experience:  other study abroad students from Tulane, Northeastern University, and Penn State, as well as our French friend, and some of the girls from all over that always seem to be floating around whenever he is there, and our Italian friends.  It was a complete and utter success:  it was a potluck, and we ended up with tons of food and wine, with a perfect balance of types of food.  Everybody had so much fun, it never got too loud, and we were proud of ourselves for creating an opportunity where so many people got to meet that otherwise wouldn't have.  Last night we went to a bar called Ombre Rosse (red shadows) to listen to a blues band.  The music was amazing, and Christine and I got up for a song to dance even though there wasn't much space (she is teaching me to follow and teaching herself to teach by leading....if that makes any sense).  Today was a beautiful sunny day, much warmer than it's been, and Christine and I went exploring around our site more.  Tonight we are supposed to go out dancing but I'm crying uncle, because I've been fighting a cold that I can't quite shake.  I'm still having trouble uploading photos, because our internet has been very unreliable lately, but I will keep trying.