We all got up pretty late, and when we got to the beach, some of Raffaele's family were waiting; his aunt, uncle and two cousins. there was a boy who must of been about 10, and a little girl who was younger. they both spoke a tiny amount of English, but still insisted on playing with us. the little girl was especially interested in my piercings; apparently not many Italian girls have quite as many as i did but she seemed to love them. she was seriously adorable, and wouldn't stop giggling, especially when we buried her in the sand. her dad wasn't particularly happy about that; apparently the sand is from a river and breathing it in would be bad for her, so she helped us bury Raffaele instead. there was one particularly sweet moment, when she asked him something in Italian, and he started laughing, and told me that he'd asked if i was his girlfriend. i can't pin-point exactly why it touched me so much. i suppose because in England, all the little kids i know would just laugh and tease us, but she seemed to be genuinely happy at the idea of us being together. or maybe it was just because she was Italian.
Once the sun started to disappear his cousins headed home, and we decided to do the same. we were all trying to decide what to do that night, and after the night before i didn't really want to go into town again, although that seemed to be what Raffaele's friends seemed to want. we ended up agreeing that they should go into town for an hour or two, then come here for more drinks. this is when we learnt that Gabriele had had to go to hospital the night before. he had been throwing up a bit on the way back from the beach last night, but i've seen people on nights out much worse off that haven't gone to hospital. i guess in a non-binge drinking society they're more careful with drunk people. but he was fine, he just wasn't going to be drinking so much tonight.
Everyone went off to sleep for a while before they came, our plan was to stay up all night as we'd have to leave at about 5-30am the next day to get the train back to Rome. Eliot ended up going to bed pretty early, but i was pretty determined not to miss anything; i could always just sleep on the train the next day. when Raffaele's friends got to the house we tried to teach them a few normal drinking games, starting with Ring of Fire, which we'd previously tried to teach Raffaele, who then had to try to teach it to them in Italian. unfortunately we didn't really have enough alcohol, and they didn't really understand the concept so it ended up just being a load of teenagers sitting around a table picking up cards every now and then, shouting at each other.
At about 3am we were all starting to get pretty tired, Eliot had gone to bed and Raffaele and Dan had gone to get some food. Vikki was trying to clean up and make sure everything was packed, while me and Andrea sat around listening to music. all Raffaele's friends left, all except for Adelchi who was going to drive us to the station. this was the moment when i started getting pretty sad about leaving. the room looked so lonely and empty - i had to go and sit in my room for a moment to stop myself from crying, and to be honest i felt like that pretty much until Raffaele got back. him and Dan had bought a massive box of chocolate pastries from the cafe we'd been in the night before. they tasted so good, but i really didn't feel much like eating, and after half an hour of everyone sitting in pretty much silence, Raffaele and I wandered off to his room for a bit of sleep. 
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