Take a look at who you are...pretty scary!

Ciao a tutti!!!

First of all, Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you all had a good Christmas time, got many presents and passed a nice New Year's Eve!!

I don't have very many news since I spent my holidays rather quietly. However, I have some new insights into the strange Italian mind to tell...

I spent Christmas in Latina, Francesco's hometown by the sea. On the evening of the 24th December, we went to have dinner at his grandparents' place...my first full-Italian family expierience with grandparents, parents and his aunt but turned out to be pretty much fun. The food was amazing: We had several different fish dishes, from fish salad to fried seafood and Spaghetti alle Vongole. Cisco's grandpa gave me also some Italian grappa which was pretty strong...his grandma wanted to show me some embarassing childhood pics of Cisco but she didn't find them....
We went home and as soon as it was past 12 (following the Italian tradition, not the Austrian), Cisco gave me his Christmas present....It's a super cool super cute Squier Bullet Strat in Daphne Blue (which actually like Green....)...here a pic of me with bad hair but a new best friend....I bought Cisco a real Ukulele and the Nirvana Unplugged in New York DVD...he likes the stuff a lot!!! I hope he'll play some punk tunes for me on the Uke...

On the 25th, we went back to Rome since Cisco had to play a show with his band in a club called Cube. The show was nice, many people we know have been there and at some point we even had fun throwing stuff around backstage and getting a bit drunk...(as you can see on these pics) we went dancing and Cisco asked the DJ to play Smells Like Teen Spirit because if he would Cisco would have stage-dived...however, the DJ fucked up and he played some weird Guns'n'Roses shit...at that point, the party started declining and all the fun was gone...so we went home...but for not without stopping by the rehearsal room since the band had to unload their stuff....
The day after, we returned to his hometown...and there I didn't do much except for sleeping long, watching movies and read. Cisco went to play cards several times - this is a crazy thing....in the Christmas period, Italian people meet to play cards at home, clearly for money...groups of about 10 people play until 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning...for me this is weird...I mean not even my older brother or my mum do this...my grandpa used to play cards a lot all the year round...but here this is like the custom....which i think is nice because you tend to meet people who you only see once a year...I think we should establish such a tradition ourselves, maybe not playing cards...but other games..!!??

On day in Latina, I went to the hairdresser because my hair looked awful and in Rome it's pretty expensive to do it. So a friend advised me a shop...and told us that the hairdresser looks like the singer of Aerosmith. We didn't believe until we actually opened the shop door and started laughing...it was Steven Tyler in person who seems, if not on tour, to like to cut hair. And Cisco had to explain him what I wanted since my Italian skills aren't enough to explain a haircut. Steven (his actual name is Renzo) did a good job...he was funny when he talked English with me...but I'm satisfied with the result...even though no one will ever be as good as my personal best haircutter ever Ulli who unfortunately will go to Portugal soon....Here in Italy it is more common to find a male hairdresser than in Austria where the business is dominated by females. They even say that if you wanna go to a good hairdresser, it's for sure a man....and not necessarily gay....
Another thing that stroke me was the fact that Italians don't know a Hot Chocolate with Rum...Cisco ordered this for me and he had to explain this to the waiter since he didn't know it...but in the end I got it...the prove can be seen here...
On 31st, we were hestiating pretty long about what to do...I'm not a friend of New Year's Eve...most parties are not fun and people tend to force themselves to have fun and do something special..which is kinda useless for me. So we waited until the last minute to decide what we do...However, we went again to his Cisco's grandparents' place and had dinner there...his grandma finally managed to show me some cute pics of Cisco as a little bimbo....
After dinner, we went to a place in the country side of Rome, the house of Lollo where a party was going on...we didn't know many people and they played only 90s dance music which at some point made me weird, so after Megha started singing a Rancid song, I took my Ipod, plugged it to the stereo and played Timebomb by Rancid. People danced like mad...after this I played some Billy Talent but the whole crowd kinda freaked out when I played Smells Like Teen Spirit. Suddenly the living room became a mosh pit and people played airguitar and jumped and screamed...but I guess that was the limit of rock for them because after it people left the room...so I unplugged the Ipod and made room for the dance sound...
For us, the fun was gone as people started leaving and where pretty drunk...we left and went to Rome...on the way there we started fighting about music...the usual discussion...

When we arrived in Rome, we went to the Traffic again because a guy we know had organised a Capodanno party there...we had a look but when we entered the club, it looked like some Chinese opium hole...people passing out on couches, it smelled like vomit and piss everywhere...downstairs people danced and screamed to Gigi D'Agostino....so after one Rhum e Pera we left and our final destination was the bed....

After this, we stayed for more days in Latina because we were pretty lazy....and since the 6th were back in Rome...even for the 7th which in Italy is the day of the Befana (a witch who fills up socks with sweets - I guess Italians messed up with Babbo Natale (the Italian version of Santa Clause) who actually fills the socks as for example in the US and a witch doesn't seem to be part of the Christian belief anyway since Christians used to burn witches....)
And after this, the holidays are over and we are back to normality, kind of...I have little blisters on my fingers from playing the guitar and I'm already able to play a bunch of Distillers and Nirvana songs...my favourite to play is Gallow is God from The Distillers (but sounds definitely a bit nirvanaesque hu hu hu)

Yesterday I went to the main uni to meet a professor to get a simple signature for the Erasmus....Guess what happened!? Even against all indications, the prof was not there and never showed up even though I waited like 45min....So I went home and slept..because it seems like I'm not able to sleep at night anymore...it takes me ages to fall asleep...my body is tired and wants nothing more than sleep but my mind is on fire and goes totally random...it's horrible feeling...especially if you suffer from this 3 nights in a row...I hope tonight I manage...

Well, that's enough from me, since I wanna brush my teeth, grab a book and hit the sack!!! Thanks for you attention! Baci from a rainy Rome...