Day 70!

I tried to post this last night, but my internet was down. So here it is now!

Whew, what a week! I have been so busy this week with schoolwork. A lot of reading and a paper to write, etc. I am slowly but surely regaining my once brilliant study habits haha! I really have a lot of free time here, I just need to be better about time management. But I really got a lot accomplished this week, so I feel pretty good about my studies right now!
I have been running again in the giardini Margherita. This week I befriended the adults who I always see running there together in the morning! Well to be more precise, they invited me to start running with them. They are so nice and in great shape! I am really excited that I know them now because I can exercise and practice my Italian at the same time! And now I am more motivated to actually get up at 7 and get out to the giardini to run with them.
Halloween here was fun but not nearly as exciting as it is back in the States! A bunch of us all dressed up and went to Erin's. Erin was a geisha, Alex was a fairy, Allegra was a spider, and I was Hello Kitty. I found bat and ghost shaped cookies and gummy vampire teeth, so we had some Halloween treats! No candy corn though, which I was sad about. I actually had a dream about candy corn last week! Haha sometimes I miss the strangest, most random things from home! We were all going to go out to the discoteca in the giardini Margherita after our Halloween festivites, but Allegra and I were too tired, so we just went home!
I got up this morning and went to 10:30 mass with Maria, Michael, and Maria's dad, who's in town for a few days. It was such a beautiful day today! The sky was perfectly blue, not a cloud in sight, and it really wasn't that cold. I am starting to feel much more at home in Bologna, like when I am walking around the city. I have always enjoyed it, but have had a few boughts of mild homesickness in which I haven't really appreciated what a beautiful place it is. But today walking back from mass, I was just overwhelmed with how pretty everything was. I walked under the two towers with the sun shining on them and the blue sky behind them--I am just so blessed to have the opportunity to live here for a year! Spent the rest of the day sitting in my room reading for my Italian literature class. I am still reading the first of the novels we talked about, Conversazione in Sicilia (Conversations in Sicily), and we are now talking about the fourth! But luckily I only have to read two of the four, so I am not really as far behind as it seems. And the way exams work here, I will have a lot of time between the end of the lectures and when the exams are to study, so I can always catch up on the reading. But I made a lot of progress today, so like I said, I am feeling good about my studies, and I feel like I am learning a lot!
I think I am going to hit the sack a little early tonight to rest up and get a fresh start to my week tomorrow. Ciao!
xoxo

P.S. Check out the pix from Halloween!