ketchup

as they say in italy, sweet lord, it has been a long time. i know my faithful readers have been sitting on the edge of their chairs biting their nails anxiously and wondering if i have gotten involved in some sort of mafia-related, um, incident and have been held hostage in a gutted car somewhere on the outskirts of palermo, scratching my initials into scrap metal and eating felled oranges and flicking a zippo open and shut over and over again. and the truth is, yes, that actually happened to me, and i have many stories to tell.
jokin. i just watched the godfather. which was sweet, but would have been even better if i could understand a single word that came out of al pacino's mouth. he was speaking english. come on dude.
but really, i have been "busy" being "academic" because there are a few "classes" for which i need to transfer "credit" to wooster, so i have been..."studying." but also lying on the beach at the base of mt. etna, eating pistachio gelato, drinking white russians (oops) and watching "sleepless in seattle" (and crying...oops again).
so quickly to catch up:

last thursday my six roommates and i did an around the world party at our apartment. we have 4 bedrooms plus a kitchen so each room was a different country (duh) and everyone from school came. while i was in venice my housemates decided it would be hilarious if my room was communist russia because it is sort of set apart from the others, and the day before went to great lengths to make it appear so: icicles (made from plastic water bottles) hanging from picture frames, sheets covering the pictures, and (my favorite, obviously), a dead plant we found in the hallway, our busted tv, a broken chair. i have to admit it was pretty convincing. here are my roommates and i in our various locales (japan, amuuuurica, the caribbean, and mother russia):
last weekend i went with jo, emily, meredith and cecily to taormina, a beach town about two hours away. the. most. beautiful. views. ever:

we went to this greek theatre, the public gardens and the beach. there's a gondola straight to the beach--brought me back to my stratton days :) mt. etna was everywhere you looked. she's a bit of a hoverer. after a while it was like, could you back off for a second?


and today my volcanology class went on a 6 hour hike at Pantalica, this ridiculous nature reserve. it was miles and miles of limestone cliffs, rivers, and caves. i went a little crazy with pictures but it was so awesome.