Buongiorno, euh.... lei e male... ha lottato una macchina... ha perso. (Hello, um... she hurts... she faught a car... she lost.)

That was my opening sentence when we arrived at the hospital after my Italian class. But I'll back up a few hours. On the way to class, walking down the small cobble stone streets where cars fly past pedestrians without a care in the world, I hear a screeching halt, and a car stopped. Then I see my friend N get up of the ground and hobble to a table at a cafe a few feet away. I leave my group, run over to help as the woman who hit her (from behind, hard enough to knock her over and stopped far enough so N's legs were under the front bumper) was still sitting in her car looking as if nothing had happened. "Scenda la lei macchina!" (Get out of your car!) I said it in the "polite/formal" way, but I think she could tell it wasn't really polite. But she hit my friend, civilities weren't really high on my mind at the moment. I get to N, who can still move all her joints, has a cut on her elbow and knee, face was red from the ground, but nothing too grave. A school official (JCU was about 20 meters away) comes over to help us with translating in order to get all of the woman's information. It was a lingual mess, really was. N's first language is Arabic, she was cussing at her in Arabic, her friend F (also first language of Arabic), gets her to speak in English, and the school official makes sure we don't screw up with the Italian/English translating and speaking. A small crowd arrived at this point, one American woman who thought she knew everything (any surprise there?) came over to pretend to play doctor by asking "Do you hurt? What hurts? Oh, you can still move without too much pain? You'll be fine, don't worry about it." I talked with N about it, told her to take advil, and push against my hand with her leg and arm (push this way, now this way, now this way...., that kinda thing.), and low and behold, it did hurt for her to push one direction. But she still insisted that she was fine and the American just sat and said she'll be fine, the pain will go away in an hour or so. I told N that the pain will probably get worse in an hour or so and she may very well not be able to feel it now, but when the shock of getting run over subsides, it'll stiffen up and hurt like the dickens, that we should probably skip class and go to the hospital (I would have been bummed, really would have, I love that class). She wants to tough it out, so we thank the official, leave the two ladies (the driver, who never once said sorry, or anything, only that "At least nothing happened, and that she learned a lesson not to walk in the street" (All of that was in Italian, but we understood it and tried our best not to respond in kind) although there are no sidewalks on the small European streets. So while sitting in class I can see that N gets in worse and worse pain and can't move her arm without significant wincing, almost to the point of tears. So where do we go? L'opedale!

F, N, and I head that way after class, check her in and then wait. And wait. And wait. After an hour or so, N gets called in to talk with the doctor and F and I chill in the waiting room. Then N comes back out and we go to another wing for Xrays and F and I wait some more. But do we waste all of this time together? No! I learn the Arabic alphabet and a ton about the Muslim culture and beliefs, really- fascinating stuff. Some of it you wouldn't believe. So another 3 hours later, I get back home with the girls, say goodnight- give her some advil and finally, completely exhausted, go to bed.

So a few evenings back, I was able to meet the Ambassadors from both Afghanistan and Pakistan, what a talk that was! Afghanistani ambassador spoke mostly about the war and the Pakistani about the current attacks against the military and hostages that were taken/freed. (If either isn't familiar to you, check the news out sometime.) The Pakistani's talks and answers were very straight forward, no extra explanation if it weren't absolutely pertinent and not all that excited to answer anything that may have the possibility of criticizing Pakistan. However, the Afghanistan ambassador's talk and the answers just blew me away. I won't go on about everything, but the biggest shock, I guess is that a number of times, it was mentioned how skewed Americans' perceptions are if they think that the Afghanistani people don't want them there. He said that yes, they absolutely want the American presence to continue, that they support the war on the Taliban / Al-Qaeda, and are grateful for the military assistance that America provides. Wow. It really made me wonder about it all, knowing the whole time that he may not be telling the whole truth about everyone's mindsets. Then the day after, I went to see a friend who works at the Afghan refugee camp here in Rome and learned that there too, everyone that talked about it, were huge fans of America being involved and the military help they provided. Wow. People back home always talk about how "the people there don't want us there, it's our news that is being skewed, they want us to go home, blah blah blah". Next time you hear that, ask them where they heard that. Lord knows I plan on it. I don't have to be rude about it, but I would love to ask how many people they've spoken to that don't like our presence there, because I've heard different. From firsthand knowledge. That absolutely blew me away.

Then this morning in my Public International Law class, along with a few others in my class, I received an invitation from the Director - General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, inviting me to a ceremony tomorrow for World Food Day. So... I get to go hear from the world leader on food and agriculture... awesome. And to make it even better, the keynote speaker's name is Enrique Iglesias... concert after? Unfortunately probably not the same guy... :-P

Few more little thoughts before I head out, but all in one paragraph- not cool enough thoughts to get their own stories. 1) Was on the tram talking to a girl who goes to school here, lives in Napoli. She was talking about the locals and started her sentence off with "I don't want to sound racist, but..." and of course, my mind goes to "all the black..." since I've heard it 10000 times in SC, but she continues with "ever since all the Romanians came here..." Not sure why that surprised me, but it did. 2) Mid terms are done with, not sure how they went yet, felt good about them, time will tell though... one of the classes, in last year's class, the highest midterm grade was a 51. That's comforting. (But then no one got less than a C+ in the class, many made A's and B's, not sure how that works out.) 3) If you enjoy wine, a great Chianti is called Chianti Classico, Poggio Felice 2006, and an amazing dessert wine is Pantelleria, Pellegrino 1880. Also learned that whenever you buy Chianti, make sure it's "Gallo Nero", it means "Black Rooster" and it symbolizes that it has been inspected and approved by the Chianti association of whomever it is.

Ciao!