London homecoming

So I was coming "home" to London from Italy and that was a little strange because it didn't really feel like I was going home.  It's different when you live in a fully furnished place so nothing is actually yours except for your clothes.  Saturday and Sunday I joined the local library (two blocks away with wi-fi!!!), continued the battle to buy the internet, found a much better grocery store (Waitrose), etc. and felt a lot more at home.  One thing I noticed is whenever anyone asks me where I'm from and I say Chicago, I get a big smile on my face.  :)  Don't know if I'm going to make it all of the way till June! 

The rest of the audit in Padova was fun.  Incredible pasta every single day and I was with a great group of nice guys who were also serious drinkers from London and drank 9 days in a row.  Are we back in Uni?  (college).  The people in Italy were incredibly hospitable.  We left with presents!  Pesto and spaghetti noodles.  Italy definitely feels different from the US but London doesn't always seem that way, and not just because it's the same language.  In week 2 of Italy I started writing Italian e-mails through Google Translator.  It worked pretty well, with very basic english sentences and changing around some of the words that didn't look right.

I splurged on a copy of US Weekly in English in the Venice airport which was completely worth it and now I'm up on the latest celebrity happenings.  Guilty pleasure.

The weekend was pretty low key with laundry, errands, but Saturday night we went out to dinner at a restaurant where one of Jim's fellow teacher's boyfriend is the chef.  It was a little fancy and very good.  After a lot of wine, we all went out to a bar playing American top 40 (much appreciated) until somehow it ended in Jim's fellow teacher getting punched in the face by another girl and dragged out of the bar forcefully by the bouncer.  The security definitely messed up and were out of line.  The whole thing was madness.  It started with a little tiff of two girls dancing in each other's space on the dance floors and elbowing.  Finally went to bed at four.  Woke up at noon on Sunday and found a local bagel shop where according to the sign on the wall "bagels are America's best kept health secret".  Wish that were true.  Sunday night Jim's teacher friend and chef boyfriend are cooking us a Sunday roast at their flat, yum!

Jim went to his first Premier League soccer game yesterday with the director of his school.  Unfortunately "my team" (Arsenal) got their butts kicked. 

Cheers!