Ferragosto- my heart's devotion- MAY IT FALL INTO THE OCEAN

I hate August. For those of you repulsed by that statement because August is a nice hot summer-y month, let me explain.

1- I hate August because my birthday is officially over (a completely selfish reason I’ll give you that- but I’m allowing it).
2- Ferragosto. I hate working during Ferragosto.

For those of you who don’t know, Ferragosto is the August holiday. It is a bank holiday that is technically ONE day. However, the majority of Italy has interpreted Ferragosto as being an entire month long and so most of the city is now closed down as the Italians flock to their beachside meccas (Sardegna, Barcelona and Sicily are the big ones). My department at work has magically been reduced from 15 to 3 all of a sudden too- meaning, outside of catching up on old paperwork (which I have in abundance)- I am bored out of my skull.

This is all aggravated by a few facts:
1- I have nothing to eat in my house. Yesterday I had a plum for breakfast, with coffee- followed by a plum with water for lunch and a plum with bread for dinner. Why? BECAUSE ALL THE SUPERMARKETS ARE CLOSED!!!! I’m pretty sure that if I don’t find something open, I’m going to starve to death before heading down to my family in Basilicata on Wednesday night. I clearly could have done some pre-emptive shopping, but I turn a little banana sandwiches in the supermarket sometimes and forget what I need. So usually after an hour of circulating I’ll go home with like, an orange and Coca-cola light.

2- My roommates are all gone for vacation, as are my close friends (I was supposed to go with them to- well, Barcelona, but got stuck at work). This means outside the fact that I had no one to talk to this weekend and became mildly schizophrenic while watching some Olympic basketball (GO USA by the way)- I got absolutely no sleep last night because I was convinced that some mad-man was going to break into the apartment.

3- I am taking a weekend trip to go to BEAUTIFUL Basilicata, in a town called Grassano, where my Grandfather’s family is located. Grassano, as I have mentioned, is my favorite place on earth. If I could move there tomorrow and open an Insurance company, I would. The magical part about Grassano, isn’t even the town itself which has a strange mysticism that seeps into your soul- making you feel like you always have to, and want to return- but the wonderful people who live there. But I digress- I ‘m aggravated because Milan being so stupidly far north- I have to take a bus about 14 hours to get there. When I did this at Easter I wound up sitting next to the ONLY morbidly obese Italian lady ever- who ate potato chips at 3 am.

Ah well- for those of you wanting to make a trip to Italy in August- DON’T! The Italians aren’t going to be there! (and for those counting, the title is a reference to West Side Story- free travel advice to anyone who gets the reference)