Carded in Italy and buying a dress

I got a later start this morning, and I only had eggs and bread for breakfast!  I am really looking forward to the oatmeal arriving soon, oh along with Meagan and Erin!  JUST KIDDING...my loves are the most important.  I worked on blogs for a bit, and then decided to go to one of the bigger grocery stores to get some things.

Yay for construction in Cosenza...NOT!

I walked around the store for a while looking and deciding on what to buy.  I had nothing but time really, and no Nick to talk to...so I killed time looking at food and such.  I also grabbed my fave bottle of wine for us to have next week; us meaning me, Erin, and Meagan! When I finally tired of looking around, I went to get in line to pay.   This lady and her husband were in line with a huge thing of tomato sauce, etc.  Then they got out of line, so I moved up and people started getting in line behind me.  I kid you not, like 4 minutes later they came back and put their stuff down near my feet.  Then she looked at the sweet old man behind me and said, "ero qua!" (I was here)  The man said, "non lo'ho visto!"  (I did not see it) Then they started a mini argument and then she said, "domanda la ragazza!! (Ask the girl...ME).  This was my cue to pretend like I did not understand Italian; sometimes it comes in handy!  I just shrugged my shoulders and let them handle it.  She was NOT happy with me.  By the way, she could have saved us all the trouble if she had just gotten in line behind the TWO people behind me.  One of which had 2 things of juice and the other had like 3 things, and I was holding maybe 5 things.  Ridiculousness.  She gave me a nasty look the one time I made eye contact with her, but then she probably got a good kick out of what happened next:
The cashier looked at my bottle of wine and said something to the effect of, "hai bisogno del documento!"  Umm...I need documentation to buy wine?!?!? So this is a first.  The sweet little man behind me asked her why I needed it and told her to look at me because I was clearly 18.  She looked at us and said two things: 1. It is a new rule at the store   2. I believe her, but she does not look 18.  She then asked me how old I was and I said 27.  Then I handed her a copy of my passport while they went on discussing the situation.  She could not find the information and then I gave her my drivers' license.  Then she started telling the sweet man about how she did not understand the documents, but saw my birthday, and that was sufficient!  She was really sweet about it, smiling the whole time!  The man behind me was so sweet and coming to my defense.  I did not mind them carding me, but my question is this, "how can you card someone at the grocery store for wine in a country where my 15 year old students go to the bars/restaurants and order beer and get drunk all of the time?!?!?"  I guess it is one step towards that!  I will say that my students will be FURIOUS if they start getting carded and such!  I dont think it is a bad thing, but the Italians will lose it on the people who make these rules!  Well, I think they will, but this is just my perspective/opinion, which has been formed by dealing with my students!

As I walked home, in my tempos, I got a lot of stares. I came home to write, work on things for school, etc.  For lunch I had left over cime id rapa, and it was delicious, as usual.  Then I talked to my momma on the phone for a bit, and then Nick on Skype.  Man, I miss that boy!  He needs to come back to Italy asap!  

I had been waiting all week to have gelato, so today I went to get some and sit in the piazza in the beautiful sunshine!  I got it from the bar on the corner, which has my favorite gelato in Cosenza.  I had caramel and caffe' because they are two of the BEST flavors of gelato ever!!

I sat in the piazza and worked on a review game for Linda's class and a test for them.  I was able to write some blogs, but the sun was so bright that it was hard.  I did watch some pigeons for a while, which made me think of Nick because he really likes pigeons (strange boy, I know!!). 

Once I was tired of sitting in the sun I went home to work on blogs and wait for my time to talk to Erin and Blair while Erin tried on wedding dresses. 

I was so excited when I finally heard skype ringing and it was Blair!  Erin had on her first wedding dress, and I was so excited to "be there" to see her!!  She didn't really like it, but Blair was so amazing to show it to me, make sure I saw everything, and I was even able to talk to Erin a little bit. The only dress I missed was the second one because we couldn't get connected again!  It was so much fun to be there with Erin for this special day!  She looked so beautiful in a wedding gown, and she and I seemed to have the same opinion about each dress.  I almost cried once because she looked so beautiful!  Then when she found the dress that will be her wedding dress, she looked stunning.  It was PERFECT.  I cannot describe it here, or put any pics I took via skype on the off chance that Matt would read this blog.  I wouldn't post any pics of the actual dress anyway.  They had her "say yes to the dress", ring a bell, announced it to the whole store, and helped her put her hair up, etc. so that she could get a better idea of how it would look.  She looked INCREDIBLE.  Her mom and Aunt Patty were crying!  Then they hung up with me to go look at bridesmaid dresses. 

I sat in the kitchen longer and worked on blogs.  I had eaten some bread with olive oil while talking to them, and was not realy hungry for dinner.  So, I just worked on blogs, did laundry, ate some yogurt, and then I got to talk to my momma on Skype!  She wanted to show me Bella's new haircut!  They basically shaved Bella, but she looked like a little teddy bear!  Then I got to see my momma hold Wicked like this,

 

and I almost fell out of my chair!

The rest of the night was spent doing blogs, laundry, and I got to talk to Nick twice, which was a wonderful treat!  I miss him...come back to Italy!  After I talked to him the last time I went to bed! 

The sky tonight as seen from my laundry balcony thing off the kitchen