Ok, let's catch up...

So I've been slacking a bit on my blog posting since my return from France. Let's see what has happened.

- Teaching has still been going well, although I am looking forward to having a little break from the students. Most of them are pretty good, as I've stated before. I think I'm just a bit anxious to go somewhere else and see a little bit of family. I'm really excited to be traveling the next two weeks or so!

- So yes, in fact, I am going to England for Christmas for those of you who do not know. I'll be spending time with my cousin Perry and his wife a daughter. Since I am not going home to America for Christmas I think it will be really good to see some family. they live in a town called settle, in the yorkshire dales (northern area). I fly out tomorrow morning from Milan and then have to take a bus to their town. It will be a long day of traveling, but it will be worth it.

- I'm also currently making plans for New Years. It looks like I'll be heading to Ireland and spending it with someone that I studied Italian with from the U of O. A couple days after christmas I think I'm going to head to Belfast and stay in a hostel for a couple of nights to see the city and a bit of northern ireland. Then i'll find my way down to dublin on the 30th or so to meet my friend. I'm really excited to see Ireland. Everything I've heard about it seems wonderful. I'm also looking forward to some good pub life and Guiness.

But Matt, what else have you done?

- good question! This last weekend there were two Christmas hash parties, one on sunday and one on monday. sunday was in the 'countryside' of milan. there were about 25 of us. we did the trail (my group got lost for a long time looking for our 'beer stop') and then went to a nice italian restaurant for a late lunch. the food was really good and we had a gift exchange (like White elephant for you family members) and one person even brought a guitar and we sang a bunch of songs (just famous well known english/american songs). It was a lot of fun. We were the only people in the restaurant and we were all singing along to songs like 'Sweet Caroline' at the top of our lungs. Good times.

The next day we had another Xmas party, this one for the people that live in Milan proper and run every week. I got to set the trail (or be the hare) with Stevie. We met up over an hour before and then set the trail through Milan, found a good bar to stop at during the run, negotiated a discount and then ran it again with all the other hashers. I wore my santa claus hat with blinking stars and a 'Buon Natale' (merry Xmas) sign as a tail. After the race I was baptised with my very own 'hash name', or what other hashers call you. generally you recieve your name after hashing for a number of times or setting your first trail. My new hash name is '5 Star Porky'. Now, let me explain... during our beer stop on Sunday someone brought a snack called Mr. Crackly or something, which I dug into. It was in fact pork rinds, which I didnt know, but it didn't bother me. Then on Monday I wore my santa hat that had five blinking stars on it. So, combining the two events I got the name '5 Star Porky', which sounds like it has a much worse story then it actually does.

Oh yeah, I also went to a free public concert in piazza duomo not too long ago. It was to celebrate Signore Morricone's recieving of the lifetime achievement oscar. Morricone is the man who created and conducted (practically) all of the music for the spaghetti westerns (My name is Nobody, Good bad and the Ugly, etc). It rained a fair amount but was still quite enjoyable to hear some live orchestra/choral music, especially because it was free.

Ok, I have to run b.c I have a million things to do tonight before I take off for England tomorrow morning! This will probably be my last post for some time b.c. I don't know what type of internet access I'll have, so let me say 'Merry X-mas and Happy New Years' if I don't talk to ya or manage to post before then. I miss you all!