A bug...and meanwhile, the plot thickens...

Somehow we tend to associate beautiful weather with not being sick. But this morning I woke up with a horribly sore throat. It worsened and bettered throughout the day, but in the late afternoon finally came the shivers and aches/pains associated with a serious cold. I guess 8 hours of classes kind of did me in and I realized it when I actually felt cold in a non-airconditioned classroom in the middle of the Italian summer (read: hot). And that's not including the 5 planes and 12 trains (long distance) I have taken in a matter of exactly 2 weeks. Yes, I know, I'm insane. What can I say but the old clichè that you only live once...

But alas, now that the World Cup is over (which fueled all that various travel), what am I do? What, spend the rest of the month studying? You must be joking? No, I kid...I will be attending class faithfully- I enjoy my classmates (only one of which is American, therefore we are forced to speak only Italian to understand each other) and my professors. I was expecting them to teach in a more Transmission-style approach, as is known to be the prevailing system in the world of Italian academia, but was glad to see most practicing the Communicative (interactive) approach. Sorry, teacher talk here.

Anyway, I had two roommates from Croatia (sisters) and learned that they had moved out suddenly over the weekend. First I heard Fran's side of the story: they never paid him a dime and they called the police after a week of him not giving them the keys. Obviously something is wrong here because no one rents rooms for over a week without first receiving some money from the renter. Well, today I saw one of the sisters who told me she gave him the deposit and wanted the keys in exchange for the rent (sounds right) but Fran never made her the keys. (I came to know that he gave them to me instead, which, at the time I didn't know they were supposed to be for her.) So Saturday night, the sisters were locked out for 3 hours because Fran wouldn't answer the door and then they called the police for help. Fran apparently answered the door after 10 minutes of knocking with a robe on while a hammer lay on the chair in the kitchen (okay, we might be looking into this too much, but still...what the fuck...) So um, yea, this is getting weirder and scarier by the day. Anyway, the police believed the two sisters that they had paid him (my other roommate Mariusz was a witness) but there was no written proof. The police told the girls to leave, as they thought Fran was a liar as well but couldn't take any action against him.

All I can say is that I do have the keys, Freaky Fran has been nothing but nice to me, and I think what he's doing is just illegal subletting and not registering his tenants with the police (don't ask, it's an Italian thing) so he denied that they ever paid him because then he'd get fined big time. The only thing I am worried about is that I did give him a deposit and seeing that I also learned today that Fran is unemployed, I fear not seeing that €100 back. (Though he said he would sign something, which I must do asap.) It's not like I can get another apartment, either without losing €350.

Whatever, I least I have Mariusz for protection. He's a big Polish guy.

By the way, Happy Birthday to my Zia Paoletta! :)

Off to make me a big ol' salad, eat some raw garlic and get me to bed. Stat.