Buon internationale giorna della donna

So here in the village it seems that international women's day is much more important than I had ever imagined. Yesterday after cooking my second meal solo in the kitchen I got my women together and we went down to our favorite, and by favorite I mean only, pub in the village. Where the men who own it made dinner for about 40 women in the village. It was absolutely fantastic! We ate lots of good food, drank lots of good wine and mimosas, and danced the night away. It was a really wonderful time for us to get to know some of the other women in the village who we don't see very often, and it wasn't just 20-30 somethings, there were old women dancing to Elvis and young women singing lyrics at the top of their lungs to the newest Italian pop songs. There are times when living in a small village is a big challenge, when you feel like you need to escape the claustraphobia, and there are moments when it's unbelievably amazing. Last night falls into the amazing category, it feels good to be included in the community of my adopted village and country, to sit with women and laugh and joke like I do with my girlfriends in the States. Not that any of you could ever be replaced but it's nice to know that my Charlie Brown accent and difficulty speaking Italian after a few glasses of wine doesn't seperate me from the women in the village. In this moment we were all Praline and enjoying each other's company.

Well it seems that alot has happened since my last post. As usual the internet is a bit of a mystery here, thus my lack of blogging. But for the moment it's here, and I have enough patience to try to upload a few things. So let's see a brief run down of the last month or so.

I've been doing alot of skiing and although I think it's safe to say I'm the worst skiier in the village I certainly have a good time. There will be ski videos to come, but for the moment they are on some one else's camera. Aside from ski adventures, I celebrated my 23rd birthday. I know that I usually have a birthday celebration with friends at Denison and then a birthday weekend at home and to some that might seem a bit excessive. But this year has certainly outdown all the rest in the amount of celebrating. The celebrations began the night before in the village with a friend who shares the same birthday, it seemed only right that we celebrate together. There was a round of genepy for all and alot of time hanging out with friends who I hadn't seen in quite some time. The night of my birthday was celebrated with a big Moroccan dinner courtesy of one of the other residence, a wonderful torta, and then a gift of brand new ski goggles. I promptly put the goggles to use to next day for a ski adventure with Francesca, Marcolino, and Valentina. The evening of the 16th was the beginning of Waldensian festivals in the valley and so the celebrations continued. The evening began with a bunch of skiiers coming down the mountain with torches to light all of the bonfires in our village and the surrounding villages.

We stopped by a couple bonfires on our way to dinner, had a couple glasses of VinBroule and then headed off to have dinner with all of the young people from the village. The grand finale was a 4 hour lunch at the church the following afternoon. After all of which we all need a big nap and not to eat for a few days. It was a great birthday and thank you all for the birthday wishes.