It's a small, small world

Last night, I went to a bar called Astor with a number of the other University kids from Georgetown and a bunch of Villa kids (not the ones I like best, though!) We're all at a table, and I see this kid who looks really familiar, but I can't place him. I'm pretty sure he's not at the Villa, he must be visiting. Who is he? He actually looks a lot like this kid Derek I took karate with when I was younger, and he also looks somewhat like a guy I work with, but he's obviously neither of them. We all went downstairs to the other part of the bar, where there were couches, and I was sitting across from him, staring at him for the entire first part of the night. Did we have a class together? He doesn't work for Vittles, but maybe he's a Corpie and I've seen him at parties? Could he look so familiar if I've just seen him around campus?

After an hour or so of this, we happen to go up to the bar at the same time, and he says, "You're from Suffern, right?" He IS that kid Derek I went to karate with! ("With whom I went to karate," but they're right when they say that, on occasion, bad grammar makes more of an impact than good grammar.)

(Cue music:
It's a world of laughter, a world of tears
It's a world of hopes and a world of fears
There's so much that we share
That it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all)

Apparently (I knew this but had forgotten), his family is very close with Jena's. And I didn't know that he came with her parents to visit this weekend. Crazy coincidence! And also, a faaaar cry from seeing him in karate, where we used to get visits from the DARE cop and lectures about how alcohol is bad for you.

Me and Derek

I'm also very excited to announce that I am now the proud owner of Anna dai capelli rossi, the Italian translation of Anne of Green Gables. Most, if not all, of you are probably having the same thought right now that I had when I saw it: How on earth can she be "Anne with an 'e'" if her name is Anna? There are certain things that make a book a book, and that's one of them. It has her wanting to be "Anna instead of Anne," which doesn't make a whole lot of sense because I don't think the two would be pronounced identically in Italian, but yet the paragraph continues with her saying, as she would in English, "When you say a name, can't you always see how it's spelled?" I'm interested in how they cover Anne asking Diana to "swear" to be her bosom friend, and Diana's shocked reaction, because I don't think there's a word that fits in both senses in Italian. I'll know soon (and I'll certainly update you, don't worry!), because when I last left them, Anna was getting her hat in preparation to go to Orchard Slope to meet Diana for the first time, as the latter had just returned from visiting her aunt in Carmody.

If there was one person who was interested in that last paragraph, I'll consider myself lucky.

Yesterday I went to Il Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, the museum that houses the everything that was once in the Duomo but no longer is. It was very cool. Thanks to the class Medieval Saints, I'm now content to spend hours wandering museums trying to identify evangelists, doctors of the Church, Apostles, and various other saints based on their appearances, attributes, and the scenes from their lives. I think I've realized that I shouldn't go to museums with other people, because they often are not as thrilled to stare at a painting and try to figure out why that saint is holding eggs in a bowl of soup. (Wait, those are her severed breasts in a bowl of her own blood! That makes her...anyone? anyone? St. Agatha!) I've also learned to spot a reliquary a mile away, and make a beeline for it across any church or museum. I started making a list of saints whose relics I'd seen in Siena, but it would be way too long if I'd continued it. Highlights include Sts. Peter, Paul, Mary Magdalene, John the Baptist, and Simeon Stylites, who was one of the saints we studied in class (google him - he stood on a pillar for years. Flagpole sitting used to be considered a way to glorify the Lord), as well as relics of the Passion.

The other most interesting thing I saw there was this statue of Jesus giving the Peace sign:He's supposed to be giving a blessing, but I think my interpretation works, too.

And now, I'm off to meet Amanda and Lauren, and everyone else who goes to Georgetown to watch the Pitt game in a bar that agreed to show it for us. And I'm doing so Italian-style, i.e. without having showered.