Liechtenstein

Rules for independent travel: we may leave the country, but we may not go to Amsterdam. I am greatly amused that Amsterdam made the rules. If it weren't off-limits, I must admit I would love to go there, just so that I could say I've been to grand old Amsterdam where everything known to man is legal. Really, though, that's absolutely the way to go. Legalize everything short of manslaughter and torture, and voila! No more problems.

So the only reason we can leave the country this year is because they forgot to put it in the summer mailings that we're not allowed to. I think that's the funniest reason to allow it; since they led us to believe that we could travel outside the country, we now are allowed to because of their slip. However they are going to be sure to put that rule into next summer mailing, so next year's students can't leave Italy the whole year round. I'm not necessarily complaining; who knows if I'll even leave Italy? There's really so much to do and see here that I may never want to leave. But it's so nice to think that I could if I wanted to. I mean, I'm a train ride away from Switzerland and Austria. Oh, and of course I'm close enough to Liechtenstein. Believe me, if I go nowhere else this year, I will go to Liechtenstein. I would love so much to go to what's probably the smallest or at least one of the smallest countries in the world. Seriously, have you ever even heard of Liechtenstein? Case in point. Quod erat demonstratum. It's hidden away between Switzerland and Austria. You can't even see it on most maps. Heh, all the more reason to go! Only problem is, I still can't find a map that actually shows any cities in Liechtenstein - all the maps I've looked at just show a little patch that is Liechtenstein, but completely devoid of signs of civilization... Perhaps that's why no one's ever heard of this place. It could be a giant wasteland, abandoned for centuries since the aliens took it over. Because of course, aliens took over all of Europe once upon a time. The only difference is that all the countries except for Liechtenstein thrived under alien rule. The Liechtensteinians were allergic to the aliens, unfortunately, and all died off.

Today I tried to cancel an art class I had signed up for. That was definitely an adventure. I went with a classmate, Gina, who was also trying to cancel - we'd signed up for the art class thinking we'd be able to meet Italians close to our age, but the only other people in the course, which is ceramics, are all middle aged and boring. So we went to quit. However, apparently the forms we'd signed that said we'd take the course are legally binding. As in, we signed them thinking we were just giving the art course our names and our agreement that we'd pay them and take the course. Well, there's no backing out once you've dated that form and signed it, and no one told us that when we signed the forms a few weeks ago. So today when we went to cancel, we were told (in Italian, of course) that we had to pay. Well, for what? We haven't started the course yet. In answer to this question the woman pulls out a giant book and flips through it to our forms and points menacingly to our signatures at the bottom. These, she said, these are the reason you have to pay. You've sold your souls to me with these signatures, and now you owe me 80 euros each. PAY. NOW.

So, after about 30 minutes of going in circles because we didn't want to pay but had to because we'd sworn to by signing this legally binding document, we finally relinquished the 160 euros, mourning the loss sincerely. This was followed by another 5 minutes of us trying to get her to give us a receipt, so that SYA would reimburse us. Well, she'll give it to us when we come back. Well, we're not coming back till November. Well, you'll get the receipts then. Well, can we come back next week to get them? If you like; come whenever you want to get the receipts. Okay, if it's that easy, can you give them to us now? No, I'll give them to you in November. But now we're back where we started! November is too far away! We need the damned receipts NOW. AAAH.

In the end, it wasn't that bad. I am excited to do ceramics, even if it's with a bunch of boring people. Plus Gina will be there too so we'll keep each other company and learn together. And it was pretty exciting to be able to have actual arguments in Italian, even though they seemed to go in circles a bit. So, a learning experience. But that lady had damned well better have the receipts when I go back in November... I am so not putting 80 euros on a course with boring people. Especially a course that disguises legally binding documents as innocent course agreements.