After giving it a few weeks time, I have come to the conclusion that though France was a much nicer, more comfortable and convenient place to live, living in Italy is much more interesting.

As I may have mentioned, I purchased a bicycle that could have been used by Mussolini it's so old and every morning I have been riding it from where I live on one edge of Pavia to the complete other side of town, under the railroad tracks and across the highway to Ugly town where the University is. The first section is down a cobblestone street which causes chunks of metal to fly off my bike...Pavia is filled with these cobblestone streets - charming but VERY impractical, even on foot but of course Italian girls still wear heels I can limbo under and somehow still walk from shop to shop to bar to disco.

The second part of my journey is down Corso Garibaldi, the wrong way down a one way supposed pedestrian only street which is narrower than a Boston alleyway, but is one of the main roads of the city. Somehow cars drive both directions, pedestrians wander unpredictably like they've been drinking too much and old ladies on bicycles pedal slower than they walk and aim to kill...

If I may digress for a moment...Italian old people are the hardiest old people I have ever encountered in my life. At an age when most American old people wouldn't be allowed out of the nursing home, these old ladies are riding rusty bicycles in the middle of busy roads, orthopedic shoes and all. And the bus is filled with them...Italian bus drivers are the craziest of the craziest, I think they must make bets with each other to see who can make the most passengers fall down in one day...but it's never the old people, they climb up the mountainous bus steps with a cane in one hand, push their way through all the young punks into the bus up to the bus driver, where they shout/talk at him and stand there while he tries to shake her off like a bug by driving even crazier (if possible). But the old lady never stumbles. I try to see the bottoms of their shoes as they climb off the bus to see if there are suction cups or magnets but i haven't seen anything yet. Meanwhile I am falling all over the place with the other passengers like we were in a mosh pit. These old people can also can be found wandering the streets of every Italian city, but there is a particularly large horde of them in Pavia, they walk everywhere (unless they want to shout at a bus driver, in which case they take the bus) - no old person in the US would be doing that, they're found peeking out from behind the wheel of giant old sedans of course - anyway, old men in particular have figured out the perfect stride to take up the entire sidewalk, no matter how wide, and no one will be able to pass and is forced to walk at the same speed for the lenght of the entire city.

Anyway, I slalom through that mess on my bicycle, going very slowly because my breaks weren't born yesterday either. I take a few more roads through the center, zig zagging past the hyperhighpriced boutiques, each the size of large refrigerator boxes (everything is unbelievably tiny here) lining the streets (Italians will pay exorbitant prices for something they think is of high quality...WalMart would never make it here). Finally I reach the edge of town and I have to ride on the big roads with Italian drivers. This is the scariest section, I think Italians have special attachments to their cars that make then sound extra scary and aggressive when approaching bikers and they have a button on the dashboard to release a puff of smoke as they go by. But the more dangerous part is the cars parking and unparking on the sidewalks and other places they shouldn't be which results in them making very unpredictable movements in random directions, and of course they never look behind them. No one in Italy is ever looking where they are going, usually they are looking at themselves in the rearview mirror or if they are walking, they are looking at clothes and jewelry and shoes in the shop windows that they may want to attach to themselves to look better in the mirror. And not just girls...Italian men have an equal number of clothing shops, if not more than women, and they certainly have more styles of shoes.

Anyway, I ride this frightening route without a helmet, first of all because I can't find one to buy (someone stole the one I had in Grenoble...of all the lousy things you can do...), and second, because if I did I would be arrested by the fashion police, which I am convinced actually exist here (I've seen them...policewomen on bikes with faces caked in makeup and ultra-long styled hair flowing out from under their police caps). Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that everyday life in Italy is VERY interesting...all that in just a 20 minute bikeride to class...

Life is also interesting at home. There is an interesting dynamic with our cleaning lady. She comes every day, makes my bed, mops the floor, and snoops around my room. Last week while snooping around she found a swarm of ants having a party in my food storage area. I came home and my floor was covered with dead ants with a can of poison sitting in the middle smiling at me. I am not sure where she sprayed it...I think everywhere...but I haven't died yet...so...

Also, where I live there are a lot of rules...no moving the furniture, no putting things on the walls, no having guests overnight, no using anything that uses electricity, no breathing or moving and so forth...and of course we break all the rules and she knows it even though we hide our hot plates and water boilers before she comes. She essentially covers her eyes in a Schultz from Hogan's Heroes way ("I see noooothing!")... The best one was a few days ago our friend who doesn't have his apartment yet was sleeping on the floor of one of my female friends who lives here, and in the morning he was leaving her room to go to class just as the cleaning lady was rolling her cart of chemicals out to start the day of snooping...when she saw him she gasped, dropped her broom, covered her eyes with one hand and pointed to the door with the other...hahhaa.

You may ask how the (alleged) main reason for me being here is going...classes are surprisingly great, my teacher is American and doesn't use powerpoint (thank god!), and though it's only a 3 week class (was supposed to be 4), I've learned a surprisingly large amount. It's so great to have a real teacher again...those french teachers were terrible (mostly, a few were good). I already have a final next week and then next friday I am using my extra week to hop on a flight over the Adriatic Sea to meet up with Kelly for the Greece portion of her trip. Then immediately after I get back, Kelly and Andrea will be here for a week and we'll do some Northern Italy adventuring.

That's all for my babbling for tonite. Now I should do some work...Don't worry, I'll only do just enough to convince myself that I'm not on a elongated vacation...