A week of mixed traditions: Thanksgiving and Rugby!

Ok so quick blog before i head off to italy in the morning (AHH!)

This last week was great. Thanksgiving went off with no hitches - amazing! We had 23 people at my flat for a great feast. There were many great contributions by American friends, we had everything: turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, glazed carrots, stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and apple crumble! Even had a special italian exception of tiramisu thanks to my flatmate Claudia who really wanted to contribute = ) I made the beans, carrots, and apple crumble - seemed to be big hits! I just can't believe we actually pulled off such a feast, we were worried about having enough food, but it ended up being a perfect amount! Even had enough for leftover lunch the next day - perfect! As i told my fam though, i have gained a new appreciation for how much work goes into planning thanksgiving!

Not that Thanksgiving wasnt enough to make the week special, also had the big rugby game on saturday! It was awesome - Scotland vs. Australia - and i cannot even tell you how crazy it was on game day! Walking to the stadium was INSANE, and on the way back people were completely filling the streets (much to the anger of all drivers) and I have never seen so many kilt and rugby jersey wearing men! We got decked out ourselves(scottish flag face paint, and i even wore my scottish flag as a cape lol), even though we had some aussies in our crowd (my flatmate amy who got us the tickets and her friend morgan) so we kept getting dirty looks cast our way at the game when they did the australian cheer hahaa. The game itself was really good, except for the fact that scotland lost! It was weird though, a lot of similarities to american football, yet sooo extremely different. There's only two 40 min halves, for instance, and they never stop the clock - so the game went by super fast! It was definitely fun to watch and I had some british friends who were trying to help me understand what was going on... though i must admit i didnt retain much!

So sorry this was short blog, but wanted to get it in before my italy trip - after which i'll have tons more to tell i'm sure! Well, wish me luck on my travels, tentative itinerary is as follows:
Mon (nov 27) - fly into Milan, stay the night in hostel
Tues - early train to Cinque Terre area, explore, stay the night
Weds - possible more exploring in Cinque Terre, then on to Tuscany, possible stop in Pisa before heading to Florence
Thurs on... - Florence will be our home base, so we're stayin here and makin day trips out into the tuscan countryside - hopefully to Chianti and Sienna for sure, see some vineyards and castles!
We're hoping to meet up wtih some of our girlfriends from northwestern who are studying in padova and bologna, they may meet up with us in florence otherwise we might make a stop in bologna before heading back to milan monday night, flyin back to edinburgh next tuesday! I still can't believe i'm leaving tomorrow, it's very surreal since everything was kind of last minute - and considering if i were doin this trip from the states i would have been planning for weeks! Definitely going to be a different trip than im used to, but i'm excited for some good adventures!

Lots of love, and hope everyone had a great turkey day!!!!

~R