i like it when it rains

I've done so much in the past week, but I can't seem to remember any of it right now. Let's run through it day by day and see if anything interesting jumps out:

Last Tuesday night, Dave and I went out to a bar with our roomie John (he's 59, originally from Vegas, and has a penchant for lots and lots of Latin women. . . let's just call him Johnny Drama) for a gathering of expats. Johnny Drama pitched it like it was going to be a party, but did not specify the average age of the attendees. As it turned out, I was the youngest person there by five years or so. I still had a good time, because one of John's friends, a similarly-aged guy with an Argentine name, ridiculous accent, and a ready laugh, was super entertaining.

We went out to a parilla afterwards (it's like a grill, but also sometimes like a diner) and got dinner. Somehow sports came up, and it got to the point where I was explaining something to this table of four guys, and John reiterated that he can not get over how much I know about baseball and football. We watched part of the World Series on the flat-screen in the apartment, and I guess I impressed him. It's nice to have someone to talk about American sports with.

Did I mention that a nice piece of meat moved into the apartment a couple weeks ago? His name's also Jon, and he looks like the prince from Enchanted, I kid you not. There are now six of us in this little apartment; I seriously don't know where we're fitting everyone.

But back to my week: Wednesday. . . pretty sure nothing interesting happened. Thursday I worked. Friday. . . also nothing. Wow, my life here sounds amazingly boring, doesn't it?

Saturday was pretty low-key, until I got an email asking me to babysit in the afternoon. So I did that, and then that night we went out with some friends to a sushi place, where I had an overpriced bowl of noodles drowning in soy sauce. Then we walked around Palermo, trying to hit up as many museums as possible during the last couple of hours of Museum Night, where everything's open til 3am.

Sunday was lazy. Monday I went running. Today, Tuesday, I walked down to a park and sketched for a couple of hours, and then I came home and made chili for the first time all by myself. It was a little spicier than I usually prefer, but come on, it was my first time. I went all out too: because they don't really do canned beans here, I had to soak them and cook them, and that takes a little while, and I actually got the spices out of bins at the grocery store instead of out of mills or whatever. Things like that are definitely making me a better cook- I mean, I had no idea what cumin even smelled like until today, and it turns out it's one of my favourite smells. That blew my mind.

So what's the plan for the rest of the week? Well, I work on Thursday, but that's about it. I'm okay with that, though. I'm doing some drawing, and getting a lot of writing work online. And I don't mind staying in, especially if I'm not spending any money.