When E.J. Eiras-Saunders first arrived at SYA he told everyone, “My name’s E.J. but my friends call me Edgey or Edges”. It is safe to say that E.J. has earned this nickname, considering his time in Italy has been spent living on the edge.
E.J. caught Alice’s eye the first week of SYA when he earned the reputation of “atm kid”. When Patrick Scanlon, during one of the first awkward assemblies of the year, asked everyone what some difficulties they were facing while adapting to the new Italian culture, E.J. was eager to answer. He then proceeded to get up in front of everyone and explain how he had gotten trapped in some sort of elevator at a nearby Viterbo bank. Fellow blogger, Lauren says, “okay so basically I was talking to some Italian kid and he found out I was American and he was like, ‘do you know the ATM kid?’” Within moments of touching down on Italian soil, E.J. was already a legend in Viterbo. During the Santa Rosa festival, Alice quickly became obsessed with E.J. and expressed her feelings to close friend Michaeljam. “He’s just so funny. I love E.J.” A few days later, E.J. and Alice made their relationship official on facebook when they became “complicated”. E.J. may or may not have misinterpreted this relationship as a legit one, and to this day he continues to hit on Alice.
Besides Alice and Lauren, E.J. was quick to form a relationship with Joel Miranda, an SYAer from Mexico. This friendship is a complex one, because E.J. likes to try and speak Spanish to Joel, but Joel is rumored to have said, “E.J. can’t speak Spanish. I don’t understand half of what he says.” English teacher, Ms. Berry, also likes to pair Joel and E.J. together when they were both in the now late 3rd period English class (RIP). She would often say, “E.J. stop talking to boyfriend over there”. Still they continue to play chess together in the salone.
Best Friends Let’s elaborate on E.J.’s spanish speaking skills now. E.J. loves to share his Hispanic heritage with the rest of SYA by pronouncing some words a little differently. Alice and Lauren make E.J. repeat what he says, because they love his Spanish accent. A favorite of theirs is “Viterbo”. E.J. refuses to pronounce this word the same way everyone else does, and insists he is the only person who says it correctly. Acquaintances Mckenna Howard and Beau Baldwin imitate E.J.’s accent perfectly when they say, “Mia nonna vive in Cuba e Barcelona.” Recently E.J. has grown weary of all the uproar over his pronunciation so he now refuses to repeat words for people.” E.J. likes to cuss in Spanish and Italian too a lot. Over a class trip to Umbria, when the escalator up a mountain broke E.J. shouted over everyone, “CHE CAZZO!!!!” One time Taylor Holcomb (Tholcomb) confronted E.J. about this and said, “E.J. please don’t cuss in Spanish around me, it makes me feel uncomfortable.”
stealing Chance's girl Also, on a side note E.J. has a very bad habit of twirling his pencils on two of his fingers like a helicopter. English teacher, Erica Berry, takes away his pencil every time she catches him doing this.
Let’s talk about how E.J. presents himself. E.J. often wears a teenage mutant ninja turtles baseball hat, which has encouraged Beau Baldwin to make a chant about it. And, E.J. never fails to wear his backpack everywhere. E.J. will also accept any dare you give him. Over the Umbria trip, Ava asked E.J. to lick sugar off a public table in the hopes that Alice would go on a date with him. E.J. accepted this challenge, Alice on the other hand did not.
Now, let’s get to how E.J. really became an SYA legend. Back in November, E.J. was in Rome on a day trip with a few friends. He became bored later on, and went off to get drunk alone in the city. When the time came around for E.J. to get on the train to get back to Viterbo, E.J. was nowhere to be seen. Maya recounts how worried she was to Alice and Lauren, “I frantically called Joel and told him that E.J. had never made it back to Viterbo.” As E.J. continued to wander around Rome that night, he ended up at Valle Aurelia and slept there for a while on the ground. Close friend Alice questioned EJ saying, “so around 2am when you realized that there was no train coming, didn’t you start to panic a little?” “Not really,” E.J. answered. Pat Scanlon was called shortly after and E.J. was hauled back to Viterbo to face some severe consequences.
Although E.J. had to face a full two months of 8pm curfew, he found ways around it. E.J. was determined not to let his curfew ruin his social life, and even went to lengths such as riding his bicycle home drunk.
Unlike a lot of SYAers, EJ was actually able to make a lot of Italian friends in Viterbo. He had his clique of Italian guy friends, and got really defensive when other SYAers tried to come hang with them. Lauren would sometimes reveal that E.J. was at a dinner with her host sister. One time E.J. even got on the phone when Roberta (Lauren’s host sister) was talking to Lauren and started to talk to Lauren himself. Lauren says in these situations, “you know what EJ? Get the fuck out”
interrupting sibling bonding Alice gives credit to E.J. for being there for her in her times of need. For instance when no other Americans are out during busy corso time, EJ is somehow always out and about. And E.J. offers to buy caffe lattes for her too, and run to Sigma and buy her chocolate bars. He even brought Alice a bouquet of flowers and put them into her cubby at school. Also, when Alice was returning from Greece and did not feel like hauling her suitcase from Porta Romana to her house within the walls, EJ was willing to come from his own house and do it for her, even though Lauren and Ava refused to let this happen. E.J. even went so far as to come into the porn store in Viterbo and help Alice buy a porno video for her Italian friend, Enrico. Although EJ did get shut down by Alice in Sicily on Valentine’s Day, he will always hold a special place in her heart.
True Love
EJ did eventually get a shot at true love the last few days in Viterbo when he confessed secretly to Alice and Beauber at a café one day that he thought Taylor Holcomb was the hottest girl at SYA. Of course Alice and Beauber agreed to help set this up even if it did come in the way of Benj Burke. Instead of being open to the relationship though, EJ became awkward every time he saw Tholcomb wandering through the streets of Viterbo, and they did not remain friends for the last few days.
Now for the event that made EJ the most infamous kid at SYA. At the last dinner on May 24, EJ went a little crazy with the wine. While girls were trying to say bye to their host families and cry together, EJ made his rounds around the room groping people. As Dirty Dave looked on, EJ stood there trying to touch Alice and Lauren. As they pleaded with Dave to make EJ stop his gross behavior, Dave just stood there and laughed. He really is dirty. EJ ended up throwing up all over the bus before it departed from Viterbo. One of Alice and Lauren’s fondest memories of Direttore Scanlon is seeing him so pissed off cleaning EJ’s vomit off the floor of the bus, so thanks to EJ for that. Later on EJ found out that he had been kicked out of the SYA program and now lives on as a legend to future SYAers. A current student in Italy has recently asked EJ, “hey aren’t you that kid that got kicked out on the last night?”
During happier times with Scanlon....
Alice and Lauren now leave you with a signature EJ quote:
“I had like 3 shots of wine and 2 shots of beer in my Long Island”
