Italy's Stolen Saint.

After opting out of Oktoberfest, I decided to spend my Saturday in Padova, home of the beloved St. Anthony of Padua. I embarked on this journey solo, which proved to be best and most adventurous choice for my weekend. Ready?

My morning started 30 minutes later than excepted. I metro'd to Centrale Stazione and was shocked by the length of the ticket line at 8 am. Come on, Milano! GO back to bed, plz.

After waiting in line for 10 minutes this Italian woman suddenly appeared to my left. She chilled out there for while, then was suddenly ahead of me, and then soon after was standing shoulder to shoulder with the man ahead of me. At first I let this slide, but then the dood ahead of me decided he was not down and let this woman know that she should budge in front of me and not him.
So, there I was, with a new line buddy I was NOT ok with.
I chilled for a while, but my train was leaving in 5 minutes and I was next in line and I was not about to let this woman get away with this line nonsense. So I did my best American Football impression, and shoulder her out of line. Hi-YA!
She was pretty upset.
And started yelling. Which upset the woman at the ticket booth, who proceded to be VERY, overly nice to me and in the process made faces at the mean Italian woman and held up the line.
I grabbed my ticket and ran away.

Once arriving in Padova I realized how difficult it is to lie in Italian.
Some guy convinced me to go to coffee with him, and AFTER telling him I had an American boyfriend asked if I wanted to be his American girlfriend.
I said no and ran away. Well, there were some Italian words exchanged and I said I had to go. He paid.
But, technically:
My very first dine and dash!
NICE!
After running as far away from my Italian boyfriend as possible, I discovered four American students. They all attend the Franciscan University in Ohio, and one girl was from Minnesota!
We spent the afternoon together, bonding over St. Anthony (Who is Portuguese, NOT Italian, I am informed of by my Portuguese priest) .
We say his tongue, jaw, and vocal chords, went to mass, and checked out the gift shop.

It was great.

I think the four of them combined could have written some awesome Catholic text book. I always thought I had a great understanding of the history and basics of my faith. Little did I know that I know NOTHING about Catholicism. Bi-Location? Marian Priests? Ugh. So much to learn, so little time.

So, thanks to these fabulous kids for letting me hang out, and opening my eyes to the endless amounts of Catholic knowledge I am missing out on.

I am going to Roma this weekend.
Switzerland on the 18th.
And also have plans for Hungary and Bulgaria and Romania!
So, if you're on the continent and are interested, let me know!

I have three pages of Italian cooking history to translate, ugh. Need to jet.

LOVE!