Roma (Chapter 1)

So last night I did the whole when in Rome thing. Or, as they say here, 'Al lugar donde vayas, hay lo que veas.' For those of you that know about my tendency to hear the stroke of midnight and say, 'wow, I am up so, so, so late,' be proud, be very proud. I stayed up until 5:30 last night. Or 5:30 in the morning, whichever you prefer or whichever sounds more impressive. That's the thing to do here. Stay up really late, drink a lot, dance a lot, stumble home a lot. It pretty much happens every night of the week. Before coming here, I thought I knew what a party town was. I didn't. I now know that a party town is a town where there is no distinction between the type of party that one finds on Monday and the type of party that one finds on Saturday. Every night is packed with activity, every night is a rager, every night is fun, fun, fun.



I find this slightly disconcerting, being from the old school way of thinking of Friday, Saturday, and if you're really crazy, Wednesday or Thursday are party days (each with a slightly different feel). How does one tell the difference between days? What does one look forward to? When do you ever have the chance to rest? How do you tell if someone is a real party animal, totally wild and crazy, or just a poser? I asked this of my fellow party-goers last night (I'll get to them in a second) and, apparently, there is a slight increase in the intensity of partying on Thursday because many students go home on Friday for the Weekend. For some reason, I find this very comforting. . .I think it's a sign that I am getting old (more on that later too).

Today several of my teachers don't have to work. In their contract, they get holidays off and a while back they didn't get Semana Santa off, so they took a make-up day today. We students benefited greatly from this decision. Our teachers decided to party last night as though they did not have work today, and they were kind enough to invite us along. First we went to a bar, then we went to another bar, and then we went to a Salsa bar. It was here that I realized that I am actually very inept at dancing (I had previously thought that I could sort of hold my own on a dance floor. . I was a fool).