Friends

There isn't much time to blog today, unfortunately. The short story is that it was awesome to see Frank (one of my Ciclismo Classico tour guides from last summer) and meet Dana (his SO also a CC guide), both are from Denver. In fact, their guests are from Colorado, too. It was great to be able to close the loop--he was the one who told me about the Universita per Stranieri in Perugia last summer.

I decided to skip my first class (easier of the two to miss) to ride out and meet them in Bevagna. It was an early morning on the bike, but it was warm enough to be happy out there. This is a picture of all of us in the main piazza in Bevagna. 

Back to the concern of the race license for the upcoming Gran Fondo...I swung by the bike shop on the way back home and got all of the info on what I need to do. It's a small world here--one of my new cycling friends stopped by to pick up some cycling stuff while I was there. Tomorrow I'll be visiting a sports doctor to get a checkup and approval to race. Thank goodness, I don't have to worry about getting the UCI license.

Tonight was a fun pizza dinner with cycling friends and my wonderful roommate who was happy to join and help with translation. She was a fun addition and she learned a bit about racing, too. I'm picking up basic conversation, but unable to say much of anything back. It was a really good time, but I'm a little self-conscious as to how long people will be patient with me and my expressions of confusion.  (Turns out one of the guys talks faster than most Italians and has trouble slowing down...this describes me exactly with speaking English. Ha!)

Moving in with Italians can't happen soon enough (this Thursday, to be exact). I am really happy with my living situation now, but I have to be around the language constantly and practicing more than I am. It's super exciting to hear what fluency sounds like (ex: my roommate who I don't think was fluent not all that long ago, not sure, but she's good now).

When my roommate and I were talking tonight, she guessed that I'm a morning person. Yes, when one is happy with the prospect of the upcoming day, I think one is more likely to fly out of bed in the morning. If I'm still a "morning person" by the end of the summer, it'll be clear that I am on the right track to finding what I'm searching for. With any luck, when I arise early, I'll be awaking from a dream spoken entirely in beautiful Italian.