It was fun, it was fair, and I saw a clown with purple hair

Wednesday was very busy. The day started with Italian class….molto bouno. Pat has a friend who is a PhD student and TA at the Polytechnic school near our home. She asked her if she could show me around the school and introduce me to any students. At 1:00 I met her and another PhD student, Gianfranco, in front of the school. They took me up to their classroom/office and introduced me to several students. I went to with Gianfranco and two girls to eat lunch in their cafeteria. (Interesting note about the school, they have two bars located on the first floor). The food was your normal school lunch so I felt like I was back at Tech eating in the “create your own pasta line”. After lunch the girls went back to work but GF took me around the school. We went to the language center and they told me I could come and watch all the Italian movies I wanted at anytime! They also showed me exercise book I could check out to help with my Italian. I had a good time hanging out with GF and we exchanged numbers so that if him and his friends go out sometime he said he would give me a call. The school has a student body of 22,000+ and is mainly for engineers. It is the number one Engineering school in Italy and they do an exchange with MIT in the states….so I’m sure I just ate with a few geniuses.

After meeting new friends I had an hour before I had to pick up Ruggie so I went to a computer store to get a device that would hopefully give me internet in my room….so far I can’t get it to work! From the store I went and picked up Ruggie and we walked to another school where one of his friends was having a birthday party, she turned five. The party was in a small room filled with pink, purple and white balloons. Have way through the party a clown with purple hair arrived and started making balloon animals. My first encounter with an Italian clown. I also acquired a new boyfriend….he is one and half years old and very handsome. We played together while the other kids were knocking themselves silly with balloons. The highlight of the party for me was the birthday candle. I have never seen anything like it before. It looked like a pink tulip and when it was lit small fireworks shot out of the top and the pedals folded down to reveal 6 candles. If that wasn’t enough it spun in circles and played “Happy Birthday”. We arrived at home a little past 6….but the activities weren’t over yet.

Pat’s youngest sister, Louisa, came to pick me up around 7:45 and took me downtown to eat dinner with some friends. Torino is absolutely BEAUTIFUL!! The city sparkles at night and the old cobblestone streets and buildings remind me just how old the town really is. We ate at this new restaurant that is very contemporary in style and great in taste. We all had pizza….for 5-7 euros you can have a huge pizza fresh from the oven made just for you. There were seven of us in all and we had great conversation. I tried to speak Italian and one guy, Ricardo, would only speak to me in Italian (even though his English is wonderful) and made me repeat the sentence until it was right. This was a great help. After dinner we went to a pub to see a local art show. You could vote on your two favorite pieces and then they would announce the winner at a later date. Before going home, Louisa and I walked around for a while looking at the old buildings and the beautiful chiese (churches). We stopped for some gelato as a midnight snack (literally) and then it was off to bed.