woooooooooooooooooooooooo....!

Today was un día fantástico, hooray...

Tomorrow I'm going to Ireland, and today I got a call from my Gianna, the lady whose house I lived in while I studied abroad two years ago, in Florence. I saw the Italian country code pop up on my phone and my eyes got huge, in anticipation of a) having to speak Italian in the next breath and b) thinking about Gianna being on the other end. The first thing she said after "pronto" (which is what Italians say when they answer the phone -- it means "ready") was "non posso credere che sto parlando con Megan!" or, "I can't believe I'm talking to May-gahn!" It was pretty funny, but then I got kinda nervous, since my Italian speaking skills have gone straight down the crapper. After a couple seconds, I told her it was almost "quasi impossibile" for me to speak Italian, but then she insisted, claiming that my emails are so well-written, so I MUST be able to speak Italian. Ack. Note: writing in another language is a thousand times easier than speaking it, seeing how you can look up conjugation and vocabulary instead of thinking about those things on the spot.

Anyway....(stream of consciousness writing, sorry)...She told me I had to visit her, so we decided I'll go see her April 30th - May 4th. Yay! Another note: still impressed that I was able to piece together several coherent (though horribly grammatically incorrect) Italian phrases together on the phone.

Now the daunting task of brushing up on Italian during the next 8ish weeks so I'll be able to hold a semi-decent conversazione. Actually, Gianna does in fact speak English pretty well, but if the phone call was any indication, apparently I'm expected to speak Italian. Mehhhh.

Good times...now I have to finish packing for Ireland to see my fourth cousins. That's right. My dad figured it out. And according to Wikipedia's article on consanguinity, that means these people and I share a Great³-grandparent. I have no idea who this common relative is (errr, was), anyway, other than the fact that the people who I'm visiting are descendents of my maternal great, great grandmother's brother. Or, my great, great uncle. My great, great Irish grandmother decided to get outta Ireland, for whatever reason. I'd kind of like to know those circumstances, it'd be interesting to hear, I'm sure. Anyway, if you go back another generation from that lady, there is the common grandparent with the people I'll be seeing. Thinking about family trees kind of makes my brain explode...

OK gonna go face plant in my pillows.
One last thing: I'm psyched to hear these Irish accents, tomorrow.