Mad Haus

BREAKING NEWS - the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, has resigned from his position of national sleazeball. Within a month there will be a new prime minister. HALLELUJAH! THE ITALIANS HAVE GONE WILD! Seriously - its all anyone is talking about right now. Even 9 year old Giulia is thrilled. For the past 17 years, Berlusconi has been a selfish tyrant. Its kind of a bittersweet moment for Italy. On the one hand, they are finally free of having a terrible leader who is involved with fraud, the mafia, bribing judges, being charged for having sex with underage girls, having scandalous affairs with foreigners, and saying crude things that have caused other governments to look down poorly on it. 
On the other hand... Who is going to run the country now? And how will they pull the Italians out of their sinking debt? I asked a few of my au pair friends about it and they said they're nervous on the financial effect this will have on the rest of the European Union. We'll see what happens, but today I had the best time waving an Italian flag through the streets with the other Italians who were crying, smiling and blowing kisses up to the sky. It was crazy.
My next piece of news seems a lot less serious compared to the paragraph I just wrote.
I am so excited to travel with Magda this Christmas, not just because I get to see amazing cities like Munich, Salzburg, Vienna and Prague, but because I think Magda is hilarious. We haven't met in person yet, but she e-mailed me back in May through an international pen pal website because she wanted to improve her English. Much to her surprise, I was moving across the ocean to a country that borders her own. We became close over the summer, sent each other post cards, packages, and thought it would make perfect sense to travel together - why not? So on Wednesday, December 21st, she is picking me up at the airport in Munich and we will set off on our 15 day road trip adventure.  
As everyone knows, today is the luckiest day ever. In the morning I was telling Cely about it an she got so excited. She set an alarm on her phone and we both made a wish at 11:11. I'm not a superstitious person, but if the world is telling you to make a wish at the luckiest time on the luckiest date, then why not? Besides - the next time I'll be able to make an actual good wish won't be until my 19th birthday. And that's too far away from now, in my opinion. Back on track - since I'm not superstitious, I'm going to tell you what I wished for and hope it doesn't affect the outcome. I wished that this winter, it will snow in Rome. They haven't had a serious snowfall since January of 1985, but I like to think that this year it will. Of course - it already snowed back home in Canada. So maybe that's a telltale sign that my wish will come true.