Friday night was the Villa Party, the day before and day of Cristina and Lucia spent all day cooking and baking for the party, which over a hundred individuals were invited to. The party included the students, staff, as well as friends and spouses of the staff here at the Villa – even Nick’s surgeon and anesthesiologist made an appearance. It was very nice of Silvia to invite them….
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| Nick’s ortho surgeon Dr. Calogera |
I believe a good time was had by all, especially the students who finally crashed around 4:00 am. Thankfully for this old lady, if you shut all the doors leading to our bedroom, we could not hear them as they partied away. Needless to say they were a bit slow moving the next morning!
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| Bar which was attended throughout the evening by the students! |
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| Some of the delicious food prepared by Cristina and Lucia |
Also attending the party were Luca and Anna’s neighbors, their 9 year old daughter Yolanda became instant best friends with Nick and I. She was super sweet and adorable, when asked where she was from, she would respond – my mom’s American and my dad is Italian, and I was born in Genova. Her mother Sara is from Kansas. Even though born and raised in Italy, Yolanda’s English was fantastic, I kept telling Nick all night I was pretty sure she spoke better English then I did. She was cute as a button, she discovered throughout the evening that both her and Nick had a lot in common – they both had short hair, they both bite their nails, they both LOVE books, and the list goes on….. Throughout the night they played a game where they would pick someone out in the room and make up a story about that person – one man was there because he was going to cut everyone’s hair off and make a giant wig?!?!? What an imagination – I now see why Nick and her got along so well.
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| My new friend Yolanda |
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| Group picture with Yolanda |
Silvia’s son, David and his bandmates played for awhile, however before and after they went on the students somehow were in charge of DJ’ing, and boy am I getting old. I had never heard of any of the music that they were playing, and I thought that I was still hip by listening to JT, guess not 🙁
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| Band all set up and ready to go |
It was a very nice evening, and I am happy to have met some wonderful people from around Genova, especially our new friend Yolanda. We had a great time dancing, and singing the night away… I am already planning for next semester’s Villa Party and I am going to make sure to hit the food table more often, it was delicious, but unfortunately I didn’t get too much of it. I will ensure to have a game plan next time!
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| Party spilling out into the garden despite the rainy weather
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| All dressed up with literally no place to go… |