Ave Maria and New Sober Friends

So the first Holy communion is a big deal here. I went to two this past week, eh, one and a half. The kids' cousin, Tommaso, had his on Tuesday. We didn't go to the actual communion part, just the luncheon afterwards. I felt a little guilty like we took the doughnuts without going to Bible class. You know the feeling I'm talking about. So Tommaso's family lives in southern Rome in a less residential/more secluded area. I loved it, Alessia said it was too country for her taste which made me laugh because she was obviously ill at ease there. Aside from following a group of eight rowdy children around and being demoted to the kids table after a life's work of moving on from there, it was a nice day.
Saturday was Leo's communion. Let me start by telling you he got a trampoline from his parents and a 3D tv from his grandma. A new Nintendo DS from a friend and cuff links with diamonds from his uncle. Anyway, luckily the service was in English so that helped. Also, it didn't hurt that the priest sounded like Peter Griffin from Family Guy so I kept myself entertained with that. And trying to stay awake because I was out and up late the night before (more on that story later). I ended up sitting by myself because Nonna Keka and I went to the bar for a coffee right before it started so when we got inside the church most of the seats were taken. All the little girls were wearing big white dresses and had flowers wreaths in their hair. Two of them were wearing veils so they looked like mini brides which I did not appreciate. All the boys were in jackets and ties. They looked so nice and they sang and read from note cards. The priest gave a sermon and then they took communion. It sounds brief but it took such a long time that I no longer felt guilty about skipping out on Tommy's service earlier in the week.
Afterward we made a stop near Vatican City to pick up the priest who performed Marco and Alessia's wedding. That made the tenth person we put in the seven seat Mercedes SUV. The priest was nice, he smiled and made pleasant small talk with Alessia while Leo and Laura threatened to kill each other in the backseat. Lunch was delicious then I spent the next seven hours yelling at random children who also didn't listen to me, trying to enforce Alessia's strict, over-protective rules regarding trampoline usage. And I think I now fully understand why my parents never let my brothers and I have one.

On a brighter note, I have friends my own age!! Have I mentioned I have an adopted Italian aunt and uncle here? Cinzia and Salvatore. And they are so wonderful and sweet to me. I get to have lunch with them about once a week. Cinzia is a guide and does work with QueensLander Tours which is how I met her, via my mom. And Salvatore is a dentist. But, Cinzia has been trying to put me in contact with her nephew, Francesco, for months since he is my age and speaks English. So he finally called and invited me to hang out with him and his friends last Saturday and it was so wonderful to be with people my own age! It's also kind of bizarre to me to be young, hanging out with friends, doing normal things that I would do with my friends from home but being in this ancient city surrounded by all these historical places.

The first time we hung out he came to pick me on his bike but then thought I might not feel safe so he called his friend Keyvan to come with his slower, bigger moped. So I rode through Rome on the back of an Italian boy's moped. I couldn't get over the cheesy cliche movie-ness of it all! We went to an art fair downtown and then met a couple of their other friends for gelato. The second time we hung out it went like this. Friday night I had gotten off work and was so tired I was headed for a nice long relaxing shower. Mid-shower I heard my phone ringing. Weird. Then someone called a second time. Since it was late and I don't know anyone here I figured it had to be some kind of emergency or something was wrong. So I made a big watery mess getting to my phone only to see it was Francesco. "Hello? Well no I'm not doing anything. Sure I'd love to hang out. Ten minutes? Perfect." I think I can count on one hand the number of times I've gotten ready that fast. Now normally I'd be pretty hesitant to leave my house at 11:30 pm in a car full of Italian boys I don't really know but after four months of friend drought that's exactly what I did. We went to a trendy area near Piazza Navona to hang out in the street. That's literally all we did. But it wasn't weird because there were SO MANY other people there. I guess it's the equivalent of everyone at Harding going to Sonic to hang out. Everyone was there just to socialize. I met a lot of Francesco and Keyvan's other friends and Francesco's girlfriend. She was really nice, she wants to make me dinner and take me out for Tiramisu. Yes please.
Not many of their friends spoke English which is good since I need to work on my Italian. There was one guy who spoke English and was really nice. Also, he was really surprised I didn't want a drink at all since most Americans he has met usually over drink. Awesome America. But it was nice. There were a couple girls in our group who had too much to drink but everyone else was kind of annoyed by it. I went to Harding (and not like you couldn't find drinking there, it's just not out in the open or considered acceptable) so I don't have much experience but I do know that for my age, it's popular American culture to go bar hopping and perfectly normal to get smashed. So it's nice to know I don't have to worry about making excuses for why I can't go out because I don't want to do heavy drinking, because it's just not what this group does.

God is faithful and I'm so thankful he's provided me with such nice friends, young and old, long-time and recent. Don't worry, I still miss all of you and you're not being replaced :)