Friendsgiving Part II: Jewish Ghetto Style

On Saturday, I surprised my family by calling them at my grandparents house. Its my grandparents 56th anniversary and my nana just turned 79 this past month, and so all the family on my mom's side had a party. I was in touch with my cousin Graeme who knew I was going to call, and he picked up the phone right away when I called. 
Last night, Kelsey and I went out for dinner to celebrate Thanksgiving. I know Thanksgiving was a month ago, but Kelsey is American, and so this is her day to celebrate. We kept giving it formal names like, "The day in which we give thanks to God." We went to this little restaurant in the Jewish ghetto of Rome. It was my first time going to that neighborhood and it was a nice change in scenery. There were amazing little kosher restaurants and we had such a delicious dinner. Fresh bread, to start, and then I had gnocchi. It was steaming hot, smothered in tomato sauce, and had melting mozzarella cheese dripping through it. I have never tasted anything so perfect in my life. Kelsey had couscous and vegetables, and we shared a bit of each others meal. After our fancy dinner we walked over to Scholar's to visit my friend Connor who goes there every Sunday to watch the American football games. Connor is the guy from Atlanta who saved me from that French guy. Connor was there with a few of his other American friends and he hit me with some tragic news. They're all going home in a month. What? I thought they were at least staying until spring. It was so sad, but we had a really great night together and I loved celebrating 'Friendsgiving' twice. I think I will make it a tradition once I come home to celebrate both Thanksgivings. Why should the best holiday known to humankind be celebrated once a year, if you can celebrate it twice? I don't know why I didn't come up with this idea sooner.

Kelsey and I also flipped through my thick book on Rome. The book was published by National Geographic and has hidden maps, cool ideas for what to do and where to go, off-the-path excursions, and interesting facts about the city. We found so many things that we want to do together.
My current host mom is in Poland for the week, which means I am solely responsible for Giulia until I move out on Wednesday. My bags are almost entirely packed, except for this load of laundry I'm going to do before I go. Giulia went to her viola lesson after school and did some studying at home. After we got that out of the way, we made popcorn and watched A Bug's Life. I haven't seen that movie in about a decade, and I forgot how adorable it was. I love watching old Disney movies. I also walked around my neighborhood and took cool pictures of displays and found this really funky furniture shop. It was a great way to kick off the new week.