Do you all remember me?

Try really hard to picture me in your mind's eye... short light brown hair, green eyes, freckles, a smile, shy, quiet, good natured... Now, try to add the backround of a typical american bar, dimmly lit, loud music, a pool table, beer, the works.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Michelle Olguin went to the James Joyce Pub!

I went with Silvia, my host cousin, and a group of her friends to said pub in Savigliano which is about (frantically trying to convert from km to m!) 8-10 miles from Fossano. We monopolized one end of the tiny little pub both physically with about 15 of us crowded around two tiny little tables, and vocally(which is really easy to do with even just one italian teenager...).

Most of the kids I hung out with didn't know I was american so when we were introduced everyone hasa thousand of questions to ask me! They also all loved trying to speak the little english they knew with me and heartily rejoiced upon success! It was very fun, but I, of course wanted to speak italian, and I made I deal with Simona (a girl I hung out with for a good portion of the evening) that she would speak only english with me, and I would only speak italian with her!

I am so proud of myself because the whole night I spoke italian with pride anf joy! I was actually socializing without fretting over not being able to communicate! It felt kind of like a test as to if I could actually use my italian where speaking was the main event of the whole night, and I passed with the flying colors of joy!

You are also probably wondering about the alchohol aspect of this being my first time in a pub where I could legally order alchohol...
I had coffee (Which, in italy signifies a tiny little gulp of coffe with lots of sugar!). But, for all of you out there who were hoping I was daring and drank a big glass of rum, I will admit that I tried some of a frineds beer, and another's mojito.
And of course, what is a night in Italy without eating something! So we also all shared an order of hot, melty fried buffalo mozzarella.

It was a delightful night overall, but one aspect of it that I haven't mentioned isthat I was a teenager. For most of my time here, I have been very mature, and studious as I spend more time with adults and friends older than me outside of school, but for this I got to relax and just be normal. It's not that I have been holding my breath this whole time, being careful to not let a toes out of line, and always being ridiculously polite, it's just that I hadn't been socomfortable with others my age yet in a setting where I could laugh and be noisy and teenagerish...
You may ask me "Well why haven't you been social?! You have friends at school, right?" and I will reply that it is true, but at school everything is so much more formal with the teachers and with the strange schedule and format of everything, there isn't much time to just chat, unless it is about Petrarca, or come trovare la equazione della retta che passante per punto (1, -3), and as much as I love math and old, dead, vain, italian poets, I prefere the James Joyce Pub.

So there you go! Tata! Ciao ciao!