Had a rather interesting multicultural experience last night. Karaoke with American songs in an Irish pub in Italy. First of all, the only thing Irish about the pub is that it had a lot of dark wood, a painting of Ireland on the ceiling, and a really good beer selection. Which, really, is all you need to be an Irish pub in my book. No Irish people to be seen, though (although supposedly on the first Thursday of the month they have traditional Celtic music and traditional Irish dishes, so I'll have to check that one out). So we go in there and we grab a seat near the giant TV showing the soccer game because it's the closest thing to real football we can get. And after about ten minutes, the DJ turns off the game and fire up the karaoke machine. Turns out the DJ does most of the singing. He actually did a couple Italian songs, then found out he had a group of Americans in the crowd, so he switched over to some songs in English. And of course, he picked one of the worst songs I could ever imagine for karaoke (or for listening to)--Michael Jackson's "You are not Alone." Ouch. Then he made one of the guys in our group get up and sing with him, much to our amusement (although apparently he used to sing in the Glee Club at the Naval Academy, so he did pretty well). It was very entertaining.

Went to a birthday party on Saturday. For a one-year old kid. He seemed to be having a good time. Mostly I went so I could play with the big slobbery dogs that a couple people brought with them. Also managed to get in a couple pretty serious games of bocci.