Friday the 13th

Yesterday was probably the most exciting day yet here. I spent the morning going to our site for the next project, which is on the Janiculum hill (Gianicolo in Italian)... we walked around and looked at the embassies along the neighborhood, but the best part was at noon when we walked by the US Embassy to the Vatican, which happens to be above the area where they fire cannons at noon to mark the hour! That one cannon was LOUD. Honestly, if I were in the Civil War or something, and there were hundreds of cannon firing at me, I would be running so fast in the other direction. No way would I still be charging.

After that, most of the excitement occurred that night, when around midnight Biz (one of the arkies, we're actually pretty good friends) announced that she had just dropped architecture and was leaving the next morning at 10! So we had 10 hours to say good by and let her pack before she left to fly back to ND and begin classes on Monday or Tuesday. Before those 10 hours elapsed, we found an arkie who had had too much to drink in the bathroom with a cut on his head and blood everywhere. He had no idea that anything was wrong, but I go to go into lifeguard mode! I actually didn't do a whole lot, just got the first aid kit and handed gloves and gauze etc to Katie, who was actually doing the work, but I did recognize symptoms of shock and communicate a little bit with the Italian ambulance drivers. So I think that was my lifeguard work for the year; hopefully I won't have to use those skills again! He's back now though and he's fine...hopefully a little wiser!