Things that aren't really noteworthy but consistently amuse me: - My shower is midget sized, but the designers made room for a bidet in the bathroom - Neither milk nor eggs are refrigerated in the grocery store. - Anything plastered with Abercrombie and Fitch is like gold.  I could have doubled my IRES stipend if I would have grabbed some t-shirts off the clearance rack and sold them on the street here.  Levi's are the same way. - Bocce is not a recreational sport here. - Italian men blow-dry their hair. - If I tell people that I'm from Atlanta, they think I say Ireland 100% of the time.  Ireland in Italian is Irlanda so I guess the accent problems in combination with my freckles lead most people to assume that I'm from Ireland.  

My roommate and I went to Lake Como, on the border of Switzerland, to escape the heat yesterday, and I went to Torino today.  It's the Sagra di San Giovanni (Feast of St. John) this weekend so there were huge celebrations in both cities with live music and outdoor markets.

I didn't have to go to lab on Friday! The trains were striking and it was going to be a huge hassle for everyone to get to work so Silvia decided that we could all just have the day off!  Thursday I watched a series of surgeries on mice that our lab will be performing on rats.  It was interesting but very different from the procedures you would see in the USA. 

Have a good week, Megan