Che pioggia!

Wow! It is raining INSANELY right now. As in it's coming down in sheets and lakes are forming in the roads. If you go outside for even a few seconds, you're drenched to the bone. It is wet. It started just after lunch - on the way to the Cafeteria, the sky was grey and ominous, but didn't really look like it had more than a little drizzle stored up for us. However as we sat eating lunch, the clouds begin to turn a deep purply-orange (a very unnerving color) and by the time we got up to make the trek back to school, the rain was coming down so hard that we couldn't even see out the windows of the cafeteria. And no one had brought an umbrella. Funny how that is. Tomorrow I'm going to bring my umbrella, which is big and cumbersome, and it won't rain at all. Not a bit. Not even a smidgen. But that's life.

Anyhow, we raced down the hill, leaping over puddles and stopping under every other awning, and arrived at the school dripping and trailing water through the salone. My puffy thick jacket was pretty effectively soaked all the way through, and my pants soggy to the knee. I don't even want to talk about how wet I am now after walking back up out of Viterbo to be picked up. Though I must say, I am so endlessly thankful that I get a ride home.

Hah, but my nonno is probably the worst driver ever. I honestly mean ever. He has a great deal of difficulty staying in the middle of the lane. Today as we drove home in the rain, it was pretty funny, drifting around through the lakes that the streets have turned into. Not to mention terrifying. Especially amusing is how you can't see through any of the windows, including the front one. That's always interesting, when suddenly the whole window lights up with one of the flashes of lightning, because it's all fogged over and the windshield wipers don't work...

Though I must say, it's pretty exciting, all this rain. We've lost power a couple times this evening. We had to eat dinner by candle light. And the lightning! Can we talk about the lightning? It's AMAZING! There's so much of it! And it's so close! The thunder, which is LOUD, follows the lightning after only a few seconds. And when the lightning flashes, it's impossible to miss it - it is so bright, and it seems to flicker brightly for an instant, completely filling up the sky for just a split-second. Though I can't get over how both lightning and thunder are plural in Italian. And hair, too. It's confusing. I lampi e i tuoni. E i capelli. I can't help but translate it all back into English, so when Armida got a hair cut and asked me se mi è piasciuti i suoi capelli, it hurt to respond yes, I liked her hairs very much. What pretty hairs.

Rain! And homework... For perhaps the first time this year I'm starting to take real notes on the history readings, instead of just skimming and marking the margins. How utterly boring. Doing the reading for two histories bites. Though we're on the Greeks now, who I like a great deal more than the Etruscans. While we were studying the Etruscans, the teachers kept emphasizing that we should love them and their Greek/Roman imitation art. "People dislike the Etruscans simply because they are not Greek," the teachers said disgustedly again and again, as though we should instantly disagree with that school of thought. However I must admit that I wholeheartedly concur with people who say that. Etruscans are boring. Greeks are cool. End of matter.

Though I guess Etruscans treated women a lot better... so I like them for that. But they're still boring. Unless they were aliens or came from somewhere exciting instead of developing from the boring old Villanovans, they have nothing with which to intrigue me.

Okay, seriously now, I'm going to go to homework. Ciao!