Passport Club and Hashing (no, not the reefer...)

So to follow up on my last post I'd like to recount a little of what I did last week, social wise. First off, on thursday night, I went to an international get together called Passport Club. People come to practice different languages like German, French, etc. I, of course, played a part in the Italian group. this was clearly the smallest group as most people there were Italian and didn't need to practice speaking. I did meet two interesting people that are both in Milan for teaching. One is a brit named Richard Tinsley or something of the sort who's lived here for about three years. He barely speaks a lick of Italian. Real nice chap (as the brits say). Had a nice chat with him while walking back to the metro and he gave me some good advice on traveling cheap in England. The other was a woman from Florida who speaks Spanish, so she understands Italian fairly well and can guess more or less how to get the general idea of things across. We had some beers and dinner. It was nice to meet some other folks and I think I'll probably be checking back in in the future.

Now, 'the drinking club with a running problem'! The official name is 'Hash House Harriers'. I suggest you use wikipedia and do a little research because it is really interesting. In short, and I don't remember if I explained this or not, it is a group of expat brits and some italians that get together for a run and brews and dinner once a week. Instead of just everyone running together there is a trail. Actually, it comes from the tradition of tracking hares in England. Long ago in India or something some brits wanted to keep this tradition going but had to figure out a different way. So they decided taht one person would be the 'hare' (or rabbit). this person sets a trail of flour, globs about 20 meters apart or more, for the others to follow. They call this 'hashing'. No, there are not any illegal drugs, just beer. This hare (or trail setter) can choose to make false trails, set trails through the muck, so on and so forth. So the hare starts the trail with a headstart of about 5-10 minutes and the others follow behind, trying to figure out the trail. It's not always meant to be easy, either. Of course, there is all this lingo that goes along with it also. So the other night I was running around the city of Milan, chasing a mysterious trail of flour and yelling things like 'On-on!' when I found the trail. this diffently weirds the Italians out. Some of the faces were priceless. But wait, I haven't even told you the best part! You can tell from the motto of the group that drinking beer is esential. That's good for me because I'm prety sure I'm a better beer drinker than a runner, that's for sure! So, along the trail at some point the hare can choose to leave a circle with a big 'BN' in the middle. That means 'Beer is Near'. So somewhere close there is a pub which the trail leads to. When you find the pub everyone goes in, has a pint and chats for a couple minutes. Then, it's back to running the trail! Generally you finish near where you start, which is near a restaurant that the hare (taril setter) has chosen for dinner. When you arrive at the end of the trail they have something called 'The Circle'. this ominous sounding event is when everyone forms a circle and more beer is consumed. People give out awards (called down-downs) for whatever they please. Some songs are sung, beer drank and then it's off to dinner. Last night we ate at an Indian restaurant taht was pretty good and good value for the money (11 euros for the dinner and yes, some more beer). I don't want to give you the impression that this group is a bunch of alcoholics running around like mad-men. It's probably not as crazy as it sounds, but it is a lot of fun. In fact, I found out that there is a hashing group in Portland! I hope to keep this up as it's a great way to get a little exercise, have some unique fun, meet people and get to know the city a little bit better. I think I was drawn to this in part for the same reason I was drawn to ultimate frisbee. Some exercise, new people and a new experience. Something a little out of the ordinary but a lot of fun. I've kind of missed that since I stopped playing ultimate. It's nice to get that kind of feeling/experience when you are far away from home.

So those were my major activites of the week (besides teaching of course). This week I'll be heading off to France to meet some friends and I'm really excited! I've never been to France and there has been some problems getting all the details figured out up to this point but the dates have been set and problems resolved now. Tomorrow I'll go to the train station, buy my ticket and start practicing my terrible french accent. My philosophy on speaking French without actually knowing anything about it is this: take off the last 5 letters or so of each word and then pronounec accordingly. I'll let you know what that goes.

Ouiveoiu (or something like that...buh bye!)

p.s. - my apologies to all you francophiles out there. judge me not, for i am only an ignorant italian speaking american. mercy be upon me. ;-)