il nite

Spending so much time out in the sun working in shortpants and worksocks, I had developed a glaringly obvious lower shin to knee tanline. They call it my "Canadian socks" cause my feet are so white. Nonetheless, I can't really go out without wearing a dress. On the drive into town we spot a deer - two points! But nearly hit a wild rabbit. Minus one.

Cinigiano has a BAR and a PUB. The pub has draft beer but the bar has a pool table. The locals are disappointingly unfazed by my presence. I stand out not as an exotic foreigner but the way anyone in a town of 300 stands out if they aren't directly related to someone. After nearly a month here even I can recognize people and ask the bartender how his daughter is doing at school. It's really cosy.

Everyone wears leather jackets and chainsmokes weak cigarettes. I would tell you what the price of a beer is but apparently it's an affront to the manhood of the male accompanying you if you pay for your own. Maybe I didn't start up any feminist arguments there.

Two rounds at the bar and two rounds at the pub and next thing you know we've got a Romanian, an Albanian, an Italian and a Canadian in a Mercedes going to Grosetto ("...and then the bartender says, you can't put your monkey there!") Grosetto is the nearest big city. In this nice weather in the evenings everyone is outside smoking and kind of being douchebags cause they stand in the middle of the sidewalks. Il nite (the nightclub) doesn't look too tempting I guess so we go to the bowling alley, obviously. And play pool, obviously.

I've played more pool in the past three weeks than I have in my whole life and I'm actually getting not bad at it. I even won a few rounds. I went around saying what I thought meant "I am the ultimate pool player!" but 'ultimo' actually means 'last.'

The bathrooms are a great obstacle course. They are different and therefore WEIRD and WRONG. A beautiful showroom of various porcelain fixtures. We get the age old paradox - is it a toilet, bidet, urinal or sink? (Why do Europeans adore buttwashing so much? Bidets everywhere.) At this point I have definitely peed in probably a sink or a bidet and I don't want to know where I washed my hands.

At the end of the night I seem to have mistaken my birra for Linguistic Skills Serum and begin speaking "fluent" Italian with my amici. Pointing out the colour of people's shirts, naming different types of sauces, you know, current events.

I leave here this Wednesday for a farm outside of Bologna, something involving pottery I think. After that I go to Pisa, on a farm that has MINI PIGS.