Quick updates... little bits and pieces of life here

Here are a series of miscellaneous stories that I couldn’t really put anywhere:

-The other day while out with my friend Mike from Prince Edward Island, I did a shot of absyinth at three in the afternoon…We had gone to a bar called Transylvania (gothic décor and everything) that advertises an all you can eat, five Euro buffet… I’m hi, my name is Matt, I’m a…starving…university student. On the way out we noticed a bottle of absyinth behind the bar. The conversation went a little something like this:
Me: “Oh hey, a bottle of absyinth…wouldn’t it be funny if…”
Mike: “I’ll do it if you do it…”
::Look at each other for a few seconds trying to figure out who is serious::
Me: “Ok! Done.”
Afterwards I happily attended my history of Renaissance theatre class (where I essentially know nothing and then capoeira….Needless to say I crashed pretty early that night.

Moral of the story…You do things on exchange you normally wouldn’t do at home.

-On the exam for history of Renaissance theatre (where I thought to have essentially known nothing) I received full marks...30/30…with “lode” (honors). Don’t ask me how. The exam was oral and in a group. We went around in a circle and expounded upon a pre-pared point, which was well and good by me until of course the girl in front of me chose my topic.
Panic.
Somehow I managed to connect the papacy of Urbano VIII, who happened to be a large patron of the arts and especially theatre, in 16th century Rome, to urban planning and city restructuring.
What?
Afterward the prof went around the circle and asked questions…Here is the thing, as much as oral exams are nice because you have actual contact with the professor, they are also difficult because you can’…frankly, bullshit…as well as on a written exam (hello typical B+ in the Faculty of Arts at McGill). So the first question fired off at me I had no clue about…The second I had a vague idea…something about 16th century caricatures and how they relate to theatre. Anyway, I didn’t know. That’s what I said…
I don’t remember.
In the end, somehow, I got full marks. The prof said, because I was an American and because she could tell I made an effort I deserved it.
GRAZIE!

Moral of the story…Always make the effort and take the ball back to your court (ie, the topic YOU know the most about…that’s, of course, where you’ll shine.)

-In theory (a very comfortable and widely used phrase in Italian that I love) everyone pays for the bus in Bologna (a Euro per ride… not a bad deal). In practice, no one pays. I have spoken to people who have gone five years without paying once. I, being the law abiding dork that I am always pay…simply because I am one of those people who, I don’t know always looks guilty when they break the rules or something, because I ALWAYS GET CAUGHT. So, one night I went to capoeira with some friends (neighbors from across the street, see earlier blog) on the other side of the city, requiring of course the use of mass transit. I didn’t have a dime on me, and of course I wasn’t going to the ATM just for a bus ticket, so I got on. We got to capoeira no problem; I, of course, was slightly (ok, you got me, overly) paranoid the whole time.
Insert nice capoeira class here. I sang. I danced. It was right after being sick so of course I was really happy to be getting back into my groove.
So we hop on the bus on the way back. No problem.
Stop. Hammer time.
You know when your spidey-sense goes off two seconds too late…that is exactly what happened at the next bus stop. I got that sinking feeling in my stomach.
Something was wrong.
“Ragazzi.. biglietti…” The guy flashes his badge for the transport agency of Bologna.
Now the girls that we were with had a ticket that they stamped about eight million times and somehow it was still valid…even though they were sharing it as well. I, however, had “stupid international student” as my only aliby.
Shit. Shit. Shit. What about my passport, my visa? Did they just say they would call the cops?
“I.. don’t know… it’s my first night here…” Ok, I may have been accentuating my accent a bit to get the point across.
So, sometimes, like in class or in other situations, the Randy “lie there like a slug” routine from A Christmas Story works. This time it didn’t.
Ok, I gave in. I’ll pay the fine….40 Euros. We got off in the city centre, and the guy, with my identification in hand, waited as I painfully withdrew 40 Euro from the Bancomat… I gave in without a ticket or anything; this was something that I just wanted to BE OVER….white flag and all, I surrender.
Um, hi, Matt, that’s 40 rides on the bus.

Moral of the story… I CAN NEVER BREAK THE RULES (every since the time when I was four years old and my friend Nick convinced me to put my four fingers in my mouth and say truck, the result being that I went crying to HIS mom to tell him what I had done)…. Period. (Grrr)

Last Sunday, I sat in the main square for about five hours, taking the sun and essentially doing nothing.
It felt so good…’nuff said.

Moral of the story…Do nothing sometimes, especially in sunny places…It’s incredibly gratifying, more so than finishing papers, writing long exams and getting good grades on both.

Amongt other things I went to the opera (incredibly gorgeous and amazing, five minutes by foot from my apartment, where I had a front row seat I had bought that day that normally costs 70 Euro that I got for 15 because I was a student), pleaded with a bouncer to let me and my friends OUT of a bar (all because they messed up and let us in without giving us proper drink tickets that we needed spend ten Euros on or spend a 75 Euro fine…needless to say we were guilty until proven innocent…very frustrating and something I don’t care to delve into too deeply), AND registered for my FINAL year of courses at McGill (and panicked not only about the future, but about the fact that they changed a backdoor way of signing on to the overloaded course registration program, essentially rendering a maybe well known trick useless…).

I’d say after reading all this you’ve been fully updated on my existence apart from eating and sleeping.

France in a week!