huzzah! the lady who serves panini in the school cafeteria just told me "brava! parli bene!", which means that i speak very well. all i did was ask for my sandwich to be to go, but still, baby steps make the world go round. quite proud of myself.
makes up for the, seriously, 6 people so far today who have looked at my outfit and laughed. am wearing a darling checkered dress i bought at a boutique in NYC, and is not my fault that the weather suddenly turned to icy cold slush and pounding rain. was summer when i left the house.
well thats not true at all. i had to threaten to beat myself senseless if i didnt get out of bed and run hell for leather through the pouring rain to the train at 7am. my clock is totally screwed up after the past couple of weeks, and i layed in bed having imaginary conversations with katherine baggett until probobly 5:30 when i think i lost conscousness due to mere frustration. at 6:45 my alarm went off, and not having the energy to pick out a new outfit, i threw on the dress i had planned to wear when it was bright and sunny yesterday and tossed a not-very-waterproof sweater over my head and ran for the train, cursing pretty much everything. skidded through the soaking wet halls of the school and about ran smack into the scientists, who were on their way to the cafeteria for a coffe, i'm assuming. lots of "where are you goings?!"s and giggles and i almost collapsed at their collective adorableness, all collared shirts under navy sweaters and eye glasses and ball point pens in the back pockets (nerds!). made it to class alright, only to be berated by my professor on what the italian translation of the verb "to sink" was while the entire class stared at my flip-flopped feet (its that time again). anyway. school.
so, oh my god. went out on a date with the F.L. (Friulian Lover) last night. as i said, i ran into him at the train station, and though i was planning on giving it a couple of more days until i called to tell him i was in town, when he saw me i had to face up, and he asked me out for dinner. i agreed, kind of begrudgingly, and he picked me up at 9pm. for some reason i wasnt really thrilled about going out with him; it takes my mind some time to prepare for a whole night of conversation in italian, and i think its out of habit more than anything that i kind of dread it. as usual though, as soon as we got together, everything was easy breezy. he really is an incredible guy, very gallant and sweet and he likes me a whole lot and he laughs so easily and when he does his dimples get about a foot long, a mile deep, and his blue eyes just twinkle. we drove to an old town about 30 minutes away; since it was tuesday, everything in cormons was closed, so hes an old hat at driving for food. we had paninis and a beer and made italian-english flashcards for funny words and laughed alot. toward the end of dinner, he asked if i was doing anything over may-day vacation (we get another vacation on friday for no reason what so ever. yea). i said no, and he asked...
well, remember how when i got back from Vinitaly i was OBSESSED with Alto Aldige, the region in northern italy where they speak german and make those wines that smell and taste like perfumes and clouds? well i came back and babbled on and on to him about it, and i guess he remembered, because...
he asked WOULD I LIKE TO GO ON MINIBREAK TO ALTO ADIGE. traveling via MOTORCYCLE. through the ALPS. i squeeled and clapped and hugged him around the neck and said, "oh, si, si, per favore!"
so la di da. after dinner we were driving back to cormons, and he said, "what a pretty moon, want to see it over the sea?" and i said of course, and he swung the car around, and 45 minutes later we were in Grado, an old roman island, surrounded by the sea, having a glass of wine on a boardwalk. really is a good guy...

**just back from the lab and lunch with Swooooon. came in bearing coffee for the boys, cafe lungo with 2 sugars for Swoooon, caffe macchiato with 3 sugars for gabriele. i'm pretty sure gabriele adores me now. feel like he was on the fence before, but i think we bonded at vinitaly, and now he always seems very happy to see me. lab work went very well. focused very hard on pipetting and not passing out from fumes or lust, listening to simone rattle on and on about antocianides, walking in circles around me in his lab coat, telling me intermittent stories about having toxic chemicals blow up in his face when he was working on his masters in a lab in germany.
oh crap, just remembered i left my ring in his office, got to run
byeeeee!