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Thursday, November 27, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Mojo, friends, techno, and hedging
As my dear roommate Christina eloquently put it, there is some mayjah mojo going on.
This is not like me. I usually don't put myself out there. Hmmmmm :)
I love spending time with my friends, just going out and dancing, going shopping, studying together, etc. I like going to Boston, too! Love the city!
The economy sucks, I should have a million worries, but ...."ehh" life is to short to not enjoy it, right?
I've gotten into some serious girly techno, good stuff, check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdCfCkPTd9g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk1xIR-Bgco
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRivHtCkOfs (hehe, of course... theme song right there)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgE2Lry_TpI (different version)
this is also good, no special meaning to me, but def. a good beat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTwvLTdK6jA
and, as a tribute to bella sicilia:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bT_TYqf5OU
If I let myself be stressed out, I'd be stressing over international financial management. Sorry, Mihail, you're cute and all but your tests are ridick. I mean, 25 MC question sets you up for failure, pretty much.
Plus, though I find it immensely interesting to learn about futures, forwards, options, calls & puts, and different ways to hedge, it is also so confusing! ahh!
I'm just not a math person, so maybe I'll never be a currency trader. hmmm. I'll have to do some major studying before the exam on tuesday! I guess I could hedge my exposure to a crappy finance grade by studying more.. hmm ho. I also need to write that paper about the financial crisis. the global financial crisis. I need to do well on this paper, so hopefully I can get over my writer's bloc. Yes, even for finance papers you can develop writer's blog..
For thanksgiving I'm going to Christina's house in Concord! Yay food!
So I saw Twilight with Jon. R Patz is a major hottie, but we (and Perez) already knew that. The film might have been more indie than I expected, but I'll def. watch the sequel, once it's made. Why the heck didn't they start filming the second as soon as the first one was post production? It was obviously that the twilight franchise is big bucks...
I am getting warm and tingly feelings when I think about this winter break with Brie and Stefanuccia. Ashley, get your bum to Sunny D! <3
This is not like me. I usually don't put myself out there. Hmmmmm :)
I love spending time with my friends, just going out and dancing, going shopping, studying together, etc. I like going to Boston, too! Love the city!
The economy sucks, I should have a million worries, but ...."ehh" life is to short to not enjoy it, right?
I've gotten into some serious girly techno, good stuff, check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdCfCkPTd9g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk1xIR-Bgco
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRivHtCkOfs (hehe, of course... theme song right there)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgE2Lry_TpI (different version)
this is also good, no special meaning to me, but def. a good beat:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTwvLTdK6jA
and, as a tribute to bella sicilia:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bT_TYqf5OU
If I let myself be stressed out, I'd be stressing over international financial management. Sorry, Mihail, you're cute and all but your tests are ridick. I mean, 25 MC question sets you up for failure, pretty much.
Plus, though I find it immensely interesting to learn about futures, forwards, options, calls & puts, and different ways to hedge, it is also so confusing! ahh!
I'm just not a math person, so maybe I'll never be a currency trader. hmmm. I'll have to do some major studying before the exam on tuesday! I guess I could hedge my exposure to a crappy finance grade by studying more.. hmm ho. I also need to write that paper about the financial crisis. the global financial crisis. I need to do well on this paper, so hopefully I can get over my writer's bloc. Yes, even for finance papers you can develop writer's blog..
For thanksgiving I'm going to Christina's house in Concord! Yay food!
So I saw Twilight with Jon. R Patz is a major hottie, but we (and Perez) already knew that. The film might have been more indie than I expected, but I'll def. watch the sequel, once it's made. Why the heck didn't they start filming the second as soon as the first one was post production? It was obviously that the twilight franchise is big bucks...
I am getting warm and tingly feelings when I think about this winter break with Brie and Stefanuccia. Ashley, get your bum to Sunny D! <3
Friday, November 14, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
Adventures riding the Bus
Let me say this first and foremost:
I am a European and henceforth not afraid to ride the fucking bus! (Although, I am sometimes afraid of walking home from the bus stop to my apt at night - it's dark and creepy, and I live in Dirty Dover, not Canada!)
So I don't understand why people give me looks of pity when I mention that I survive very well without driving to school. I usually don't get around to telling people that I have the soccer-mo(m)bile in my parking spot at home. It probably is driven 5 miles a week: To and from Market Basket/Walmart and to and from the laundry center.
Gas prices might be down, that doesn't mean I want to pay to drive ... :P
So anyways, I'm on a pretty regular bus schedule, and - to no surprise - certain other people are on MY regular bus schedule, too:
The screaming Chinese girl:
sCg is always, ALWAYS, on the phone while riding 3A/3B. Her conversations seem to be of the utmost importance, because they obviously can't wait until the bus ride is over. Her convos are in CHINESE. That means we are treated to a high pitched loud yell-a-palooza for ~25 min, twice a day if we're lucky. Groan!
Plus, the other day, yelling was clearly not enough. She started talking with her hands, pointing her index finger at some invisible object/person.
Waldo: Waldo is a small, slight, prim & proper young man characterized by his red scarf and nasal voice. He always sits with perfect posture and sometimes tells random people (who clearly don't know him) random anecdotes about his life, such as about the time he waited in line for an hour to register to vote in Durham, only to be told that he can't since he lives in Dover.
REALLY?
The Diningman: He's a little on the slow side of life, but will not hesitate to tell you his life story if you seem interested (or not). He will also tell you that being single is good too, "because you can have a lot of fun with just yourself" (uhmmmmm) and he will also tell you about his brother and the yellow Mazda protege he drives, the only one of his kind on campus!
The angry German listening her ipod: That's me.
There are more personalities, such as Busboy, who is quite crush-worthy but has only been on my bus 2 times...
I will update the list, but right now I feel guilty for not reviewing my QDM notes/prepping for the review class tomorrow.
Cheerio!
I am a European and henceforth not afraid to ride the fucking bus! (Although, I am sometimes afraid of walking home from the bus stop to my apt at night - it's dark and creepy, and I live in Dirty Dover, not Canada!)
So I don't understand why people give me looks of pity when I mention that I survive very well without driving to school. I usually don't get around to telling people that I have the soccer-mo(m)bile in my parking spot at home. It probably is driven 5 miles a week: To and from Market Basket/Walmart and to and from the laundry center.
Gas prices might be down, that doesn't mean I want to pay to drive ... :P
So anyways, I'm on a pretty regular bus schedule, and - to no surprise - certain other people are on MY regular bus schedule, too:
The screaming Chinese girl:
sCg is always, ALWAYS, on the phone while riding 3A/3B. Her conversations seem to be of the utmost importance, because they obviously can't wait until the bus ride is over. Her convos are in CHINESE. That means we are treated to a high pitched loud yell-a-palooza for ~25 min, twice a day if we're lucky. Groan!
Plus, the other day, yelling was clearly not enough. She started talking with her hands, pointing her index finger at some invisible object/person.
Waldo: Waldo is a small, slight, prim & proper young man characterized by his red scarf and nasal voice. He always sits with perfect posture and sometimes tells random people (who clearly don't know him) random anecdotes about his life, such as about the time he waited in line for an hour to register to vote in Durham, only to be told that he can't since he lives in Dover.
REALLY?
The Diningman: He's a little on the slow side of life, but will not hesitate to tell you his life story if you seem interested (or not). He will also tell you that being single is good too, "because you can have a lot of fun with just yourself" (uhmmmmm) and he will also tell you about his brother and the yellow Mazda protege he drives, the only one of his kind on campus!
The angry German listening her ipod: That's me.
There are more personalities, such as Busboy, who is quite crush-worthy but has only been on my bus 2 times...
I will update the list, but right now I feel guilty for not reviewing my QDM notes/prepping for the review class tomorrow.
Cheerio!
Thursday, October 16, 2008
October in NH!
October is the prettiest month in New Hampsha, I decided. I will post some pretty pics as soon as I can.
"As she can?" you might ask?
Yes, my faithful laptop has finally crashed.
Hard disk failure.
Dead.
10% chance of recovery.
x/x/2003 - 10/10/2008
That's right, this baby lasted 5 years, which is normal for a laptop. I might want to classify its status as a "vegetable" since there is that 10% chance..... but oh well!
Who is the idiot who didn't back up anything since 1994?
Yeah, that would be me.
So my plans to save up money and spend very little backfired, considering I have to load up my credit card with the purchase of a new laptop. Two realizations:
1) I still don't have the $$ to buy a macbook.
2) That doesn't mean I have to sacrifice prettyness:
hehehehe. Tall, dark and handsome!
It even has a built in camera and mic! Wohoo skype sessions!
Plus, I get a 250 GB hard disk and 3 GB of RAM - helloooo!
Unfortunately there were complications with the stupid bureaucracy of what is secure and what isn't, that's why it just shipped today, though I ordered it on sunday night..... gahh!
It better take the promised 3 business days or less to get here, that means I might even get it by saturday (is that a business day for UPS? who knows!)
Anywhoo, a less-than-savvy computer person like me needs to do some research beforehand anyways. For example, I want 2 partitions in my hard disk, just in case. It worked well for me last time (who knows, might even have pro-longed the life of the HP)
I also need to get rid of (and I researched this) so called - "bloatware" which apparently, on Sony's Laptops, is so extensive that Sony itself CHARGES you $50 to ship you an un-bloated laptop. Bastards!
I can so do that myself (hopefully!)
I'm not too crazy about Vista.... we'll see though!
I noticed that my favorite Texan has commented... I wonder if anyone else ever clicks on this. If you do, I promise to try to be funny!
My life is semi exciting right now. I'd say definitely above average! Maybe I'll keep posting!
In any case, next time I'll be posting from my sweet new laptop!
"As she can?" you might ask?
Yes, my faithful laptop has finally crashed.
Hard disk failure.
Dead.
10% chance of recovery.
RIP
x/x/2003 - 10/10/2008That's right, this baby lasted 5 years, which is normal for a laptop. I might want to classify its status as a "vegetable" since there is that 10% chance..... but oh well!
Who is the idiot who didn't back up anything since 1994?
Yeah, that would be me.
So my plans to save up money and spend very little backfired, considering I have to load up my credit card with the purchase of a new laptop. Two realizations:
1) I still don't have the $$ to buy a macbook.
2) That doesn't mean I have to sacrifice prettyness:
hehehehe. Tall, dark and handsome!
It even has a built in camera and mic! Wohoo skype sessions!
Plus, I get a 250 GB hard disk and 3 GB of RAM - helloooo!
Unfortunately there were complications with the stupid bureaucracy of what is secure and what isn't, that's why it just shipped today, though I ordered it on sunday night..... gahh!
It better take the promised 3 business days or less to get here, that means I might even get it by saturday (is that a business day for UPS? who knows!)
Anywhoo, a less-than-savvy computer person like me needs to do some research beforehand anyways. For example, I want 2 partitions in my hard disk, just in case. It worked well for me last time (who knows, might even have pro-longed the life of the HP)
I also need to get rid of (and I researched this) so called - "bloatware" which apparently, on Sony's Laptops, is so extensive that Sony itself CHARGES you $50 to ship you an un-bloated laptop. Bastards!
I can so do that myself (hopefully!)
I'm not too crazy about Vista.... we'll see though!
I noticed that my favorite Texan has commented... I wonder if anyone else ever clicks on this. If you do, I promise to try to be funny!
My life is semi exciting right now. I'd say definitely above average! Maybe I'll keep posting!
In any case, next time I'll be posting from my sweet new laptop!
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Sono Tornata....
I'm back in the good old US of A, and over my initial reverse culture shock (experienced at UNH especially).....
so yeah.
This campus is full of immature annoying people, lots of freshmen, and lots of slutty people (of both genders, mind you). I shouldn't rant but still...
I also met some awesome new people since being back, which I'm glad about since some bridges needed to be burnt when I left last December.
I live in Dover in a cute-as-hell apartment with a chill roommate Christina, and a neurotic cat, Micky.
Micky is complaining right now too, but that's because the weather in New England is extremely shitty this weekend, it's been pouring. He wants to go out in theory, but after 2 seconds in the rain, he wants to be back in.
It's saturday night and after a three hour nap I miraculously almost recovered from my cold. A good thing except that I am bored now but I can't reach anyone/no one wants to go out. Not that I even should go out, I need to recover. Bah.
My date for the night might just be Will Smith in "I am Legend." He is alone and has a dog, I am alone and have a cat. Which just left me (after pushing my camera off the desk) to go outside.
I'm not as unpopular as one might assume, I have an invite for a party tonight, but I need a side-chick to go with me, since I know about one person there.
So yeah, it's only 8:14 now, I'll decide later what ends up happening. So yeah.
My Plan for the Future:
1) Be frugal/Save $$
2) Establish a Savings Account
3) Get an Internship for Credit next semester, preferably in Boston.
4) Work Out
That's it, hopefully my next post will be more cheerful!
so yeah.
This campus is full of immature annoying people, lots of freshmen, and lots of slutty people (of both genders, mind you). I shouldn't rant but still...
I also met some awesome new people since being back, which I'm glad about since some bridges needed to be burnt when I left last December.
I live in Dover in a cute-as-hell apartment with a chill roommate Christina, and a neurotic cat, Micky.
Micky is complaining right now too, but that's because the weather in New England is extremely shitty this weekend, it's been pouring. He wants to go out in theory, but after 2 seconds in the rain, he wants to be back in.
It's saturday night and after a three hour nap I miraculously almost recovered from my cold. A good thing except that I am bored now but I can't reach anyone/no one wants to go out. Not that I even should go out, I need to recover. Bah.
My date for the night might just be Will Smith in "I am Legend." He is alone and has a dog, I am alone and have a cat. Which just left me (after pushing my camera off the desk) to go outside.
I'm not as unpopular as one might assume, I have an invite for a party tonight, but I need a side-chick to go with me, since I know about one person there.
So yeah, it's only 8:14 now, I'll decide later what ends up happening. So yeah.
My Plan for the Future:
1) Be frugal/Save $$
2) Establish a Savings Account
3) Get an Internship for Credit next semester, preferably in Boston.
4) Work Out
That's it, hopefully my next post will be more cheerful!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Etna + Agrigento
Halli Hallo,
No I have not died, but things have been busy, plus - we're in the last month. Already. Time flew by like never before. I realize that I am being bombarded with 5 page papers, one for Art History and one for Greek. In Art history, I will compare and contrast Sicilian Norman with regular Norman Art and Architecture, in Greek I will compare and contrast the Creation myths in Plato's Timaeus and Hesiod's Theogony. The last time I must have written a compare-contrast paper was in High School. Gnarr.
I also have to write a paper + give a presentation in ecosystems, and give a presentation in Literature. Only Italian is blissfully project-free.
This week we had a film presentation and saw "Hallam Foe," a film which will be released soon in the US. It won best soundtrack and critics choice at the Cannes Film Festival and the author of the book it is based on is the husband of our prgram director. The movie is one of those weird movies, the story similiar to the Catcher in the Rye....
Friday the ecosystems and Volcanology classes went on another field trip on MOunt Etna, this time with next to no snow, but instead tons of lava-sand, little prickly cushion plants, and monstrous winds that will blow you over the ridge into the crater if you let them. The hike was pretty tough but the scenery was very nice. Here are some pictures:
snow!
notice the flow of A-Ha Lava (Not to be confused with Poi-Hoi Lava!)
On Saturday, we embarked on the MCAS fieldtrip to Agrigento, a city in SW Sicily which boosts the best Greek ruins Sicily has to offer. The bus left at 7 am, but with dramamine, earplugs, and sleeping mask I could sleep through pretty much the entire thing. 3 hours later, we climbed up a plateau to see the first temple, the temple of Hera (even though I guess they found out that
it really wasn't a temple of Hera, though they don't know who was worshipped) Anyways, there is a decent sized Altar next to it, used to slaughter animals.
The next "Concordia temple" is the 2nd best preserved temple of the Ancient Greek World, second only to the temple of Hephaistos in Athens. The only reason it was this well preserved is because it was turned into a Church. There ya go.
The Heracles Temple only has 8 columns still standing, it was pretty much completely trashed by the Carthaginians, who came from North Africa and attempted to conquer all of Sicily, only to be stopped by the Siracuseans in the East.
After all this temple viewing, it was time for lunch and the group headed to the city of Agrigento. Prof. M. took us to a convent where nuns bake special Almond cookies, and we purchased two trays. I had a pistacchio cookie with an outer layer of Marzipan. Delizioso!
After lunch, we went to see another temple, the temple of Zeus, and a chthonic temple where black magic was performed. Oh, those Greeks!
No I have not died, but things have been busy, plus - we're in the last month. Already. Time flew by like never before. I realize that I am being bombarded with 5 page papers, one for Art History and one for Greek. In Art history, I will compare and contrast Sicilian Norman with regular Norman Art and Architecture, in Greek I will compare and contrast the Creation myths in Plato's Timaeus and Hesiod's Theogony. The last time I must have written a compare-contrast paper was in High School. Gnarr.
I also have to write a paper + give a presentation in ecosystems, and give a presentation in Literature. Only Italian is blissfully project-free.
This week we had a film presentation and saw "Hallam Foe," a film which will be released soon in the US. It won best soundtrack and critics choice at the Cannes Film Festival and the author of the book it is based on is the husband of our prgram director. The movie is one of those weird movies, the story similiar to the Catcher in the Rye....
Friday the ecosystems and Volcanology classes went on another field trip on MOunt Etna, this time with next to no snow, but instead tons of lava-sand, little prickly cushion plants, and monstrous winds that will blow you over the ridge into the crater if you let them. The hike was pretty tough but the scenery was very nice. Here are some pictures:
snow!
notice the flow of A-Ha Lava (Not to be confused with Poi-Hoi Lava!)
On Saturday, we embarked on the MCAS fieldtrip to Agrigento, a city in SW Sicily which boosts the best Greek ruins Sicily has to offer. The bus left at 7 am, but with dramamine, earplugs, and sleeping mask I could sleep through pretty much the entire thing. 3 hours later, we climbed up a plateau to see the first temple, the temple of Hera (even though I guess they found out that
it really wasn't a temple of Hera, though they don't know who was worshipped) Anyways, there is a decent sized Altar next to it, used to slaughter animals.
The next "Concordia temple" is the 2nd best preserved temple of the Ancient Greek World, second only to the temple of Hephaistos in Athens. The only reason it was this well preserved is because it was turned into a Church. There ya go.
The Heracles Temple only has 8 columns still standing, it was pretty much completely trashed by the Carthaginians, who came from North Africa and attempted to conquer all of Sicily, only to be stopped by the Siracuseans in the East.
After all this temple viewing, it was time for lunch and the group headed to the city of Agrigento. Prof. M. took us to a convent where nuns bake special Almond cookies, and we purchased two trays. I had a pistacchio cookie with an outer layer of Marzipan. Delizioso!
After lunch, we went to see another temple, the temple of Zeus, and a chthonic temple where black magic was performed. Oh, those Greeks!
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
new kids on the block
our island and MCAS has been invaded by a group (14) of UC Davis students. WTF?
Now we have to share our space and our island. grawr.
And they're staying until June. Damn.
I think this is a weird sociology project, where they herded 21 kids together for 2 months, and all of the sudden, put new kids in our territory and all we want to do is pee everywhere to establish our dominance....
I bought swordfish today. A nice 1 inch slice costs 1 euro 80.
Now we have to share our space and our island. grawr.
And they're staying until June. Damn.
I think this is a weird sociology project, where they herded 21 kids together for 2 months, and all of the sudden, put new kids in our territory and all we want to do is pee everywhere to establish our dominance....
I bought swordfish today. A nice 1 inch slice costs 1 euro 80.
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Wednesday!
Yo yo Yo!
Today I made super-random super-delish coq au vin from scratch. There ya go:
Coq Au Vin au Julie
Italienische Salami wuerfeln, anbrate, aus der Pfanne nehmen und das Fett behalten
Grosse Zwiebel und Knobi anbraten, das gewuerfelte HUhn dazutun.
Ein halbes Glas Wasser dazu, und ein Pinky-Fingernagelgrosses Stueck Bruehwuerfel dazu, Salbei und Majoran (was ich halt da habe..)
Dazu ein halbes Glass Rot (oder wieviel eben noch in der Flasche ist)
eine Weile koecheln lassen, dann Champignons und die Salamiwuerfel wieder rein.
Die Fluessigkeit reduzieren.
Mit einer gekochten Kartoffel servieren.
That was pretty much all food I had in the house. Who wants to go grocery shopping anyways!
This is random but I have decided that I am cream/pudding/mousse desser connoisseur rather than cake and ice cream. But cake comes second. I'm eating a tiramisu from Lidl and its to die for. Lidl collects personal data from its employees. Such scandal. But I like to not think about this while eating Tiramisu!
Today I made super-random super-delish coq au vin from scratch. There ya go:
Coq Au Vin au Julie
Italienische Salami wuerfeln, anbrate, aus der Pfanne nehmen und das Fett behalten
Grosse Zwiebel und Knobi anbraten, das gewuerfelte HUhn dazutun.
Ein halbes Glas Wasser dazu, und ein Pinky-Fingernagelgrosses Stueck Bruehwuerfel dazu, Salbei und Majoran (was ich halt da habe..)
Dazu ein halbes Glass Rot (oder wieviel eben noch in der Flasche ist)
eine Weile koecheln lassen, dann Champignons und die Salamiwuerfel wieder rein.
Die Fluessigkeit reduzieren.
Mit einer gekochten Kartoffel servieren.
That was pretty much all food I had in the house. Who wants to go grocery shopping anyways!
This is random but I have decided that I am cream/pudding/mousse desser connoisseur rather than cake and ice cream. But cake comes second. I'm eating a tiramisu from Lidl and its to die for. Lidl collects personal data from its employees. Such scandal. But I like to not think about this while eating Tiramisu!
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
PASQUETTA
Monday:
Today is "Pasquetta," also known as Easter Monday, or the day of Julia's date with Pietro. Well, let's call it a non-date because I think that's what it was. Or maybe I just like to take my roommates to everything because we are all attached at the hip. Who knows. Unlike in America, in Italy you will receive a pre-date text message asking "how many r u?" Hmm, if I count me, myself, and I, and you, we're 4. But I counted me, Stefania and Brie, and Pietro. Pietro also counted his brother, Roberto.
For those who haven't been updated: I have had email/sms correspondence with Pietro, who is Marina's son, Marina who I met at the Convo's w/ Italians thing that Marcello organized. So anyways, the sons are home for the Easter week and will be our drivers for the week. Like for tomorrow's grocery shopping at Lidl. I just finished another box of Grape Juice. I drink hat stuff like there is no tomorrow. Tehehe. They offered.
They picked us up at the Temple of Apollo and we drove two feet (no lie) to a bakery where we got bread. The next stop was the salumeria, the meat place. The boys got Salame, Prosciutto (cotto e crudo), formaggio e mortadella. We took the goodies to the outskirts of Siracusa, where a friend of Pietro has a summer home at the ocean. Those nice ocean-close streets are the place to be. I'd live there year-round. Anyways, the friends were not there yet, so we took our picnic to the rocks at the beach ans ate until the friends made it to the house. They only needed another half an hour and soon we headed to the one-room house to get the party started. Italians our age like medium sized get-togethers (~20 people or so), cakes board-and cardgames, charades (try playing it english and italian= good times). Everyone was friendly to us, with very limited English skills they matched our limited Italian skills. We the played some volleyball in the backyard and established that pretty much everyone knows Salsa. We'll see ya at 'Amo' on thursdays then. We had a pretty good time and left when the party died down, at around 6ish when it started to rain.
I'm home now with my warm water bottle (no more bombola heating for us) and as soon as Ashley and Stefania come back from Maia's with some dishsoap, I'm going to clean up and make some chicken with tomatoes, olives and capers. And some couscous.
One more thing: Pietro is really angry w/ the government (for those who don't know- the govt has semi-collapsed as Prodi was asked to leave because he is pretty much incompetent) because I guess once you elect someone, they can appoint whoever they want for whatever position (big time nepotism!) and there are too many little parties which makes it harder to actually win.... sounds like democracy is going down the drain in Italy.
Chill time!
Today is "Pasquetta," also known as Easter Monday, or the day of Julia's date with Pietro. Well, let's call it a non-date because I think that's what it was. Or maybe I just like to take my roommates to everything because we are all attached at the hip. Who knows. Unlike in America, in Italy you will receive a pre-date text message asking "how many r u?" Hmm, if I count me, myself, and I, and you, we're 4. But I counted me, Stefania and Brie, and Pietro. Pietro also counted his brother, Roberto.
For those who haven't been updated: I have had email/sms correspondence with Pietro, who is Marina's son, Marina who I met at the Convo's w/ Italians thing that Marcello organized. So anyways, the sons are home for the Easter week and will be our drivers for the week. Like for tomorrow's grocery shopping at Lidl. I just finished another box of Grape Juice. I drink hat stuff like there is no tomorrow. Tehehe. They offered.
They picked us up at the Temple of Apollo and we drove two feet (no lie) to a bakery where we got bread. The next stop was the salumeria, the meat place. The boys got Salame, Prosciutto (cotto e crudo), formaggio e mortadella. We took the goodies to the outskirts of Siracusa, where a friend of Pietro has a summer home at the ocean. Those nice ocean-close streets are the place to be. I'd live there year-round. Anyways, the friends were not there yet, so we took our picnic to the rocks at the beach ans ate until the friends made it to the house. They only needed another half an hour and soon we headed to the one-room house to get the party started. Italians our age like medium sized get-togethers (~20 people or so), cakes board-and cardgames, charades (try playing it english and italian= good times). Everyone was friendly to us, with very limited English skills they matched our limited Italian skills. We the played some volleyball in the backyard and established that pretty much everyone knows Salsa. We'll see ya at 'Amo' on thursdays then. We had a pretty good time and left when the party died down, at around 6ish when it started to rain.
I'm home now with my warm water bottle (no more bombola heating for us) and as soon as Ashley and Stefania come back from Maia's with some dishsoap, I'm going to clean up and make some chicken with tomatoes, olives and capers. And some couscous.
One more thing: Pietro is really angry w/ the government (for those who don't know- the govt has semi-collapsed as Prodi was asked to leave because he is pretty much incompetent) because I guess once you elect someone, they can appoint whoever they want for whatever position (big time nepotism!) and there are too many little parties which makes it harder to actually win.... sounds like democracy is going down the drain in Italy.
Chill time!
SPRING BREAK
Good morning,
I am back, we made it. This was definitely the best but most stressful spring break yet. Good news: I found my camera cable (it was in one of my purses) so check out webshots. Muenchen pics will also be up.
Anyways, I will start with Paris:
We started out trip Friday, the 14th, with some Doener at the place next to the Temple of Apollo. The Doener-man took forever and a day, so we had to eat while running to the Interbus stop to catch the bus to the Catania Airport at 1 pm. Our flight was supposed to leave at five. So we pretty much had 3 hours to kill at the airport. We bought cannoli and hung out at our gate, freaked out other people with our weirdness, etc. At around 4 pm we noticed that our boarding time was pushed back... and back... and.... wtf?
When the screen finally showed that our flight was supposed to leave at 7:30 now. That meant we would miss our connection flight in Milan. BUT, "in Texas we don't fly that way" (thank god!) so Ashley and Brie made their way to the Alitalia reps to see what's up. It turns out, their customer service is ridick. Apparently, they had called our names "a million times," even in ENGLISH, to get us on an earlier plane, and they thought we had just "left the airport." Weird only that none of us (4 people) heard anything, but we had been sitting at our gate (which has room for about 30 people) for 3 hours. Not to mention that the entire airport only has one row of 12 gates. After some angry hickhack, they agreed to have us fly out at 7:30, put us in a hotel in Milan, and fly us to Paris on the earliest plane the next day. They would notify Milan of these changes immediateley. BS. When we finally arrived in Milan, the Alitalia people had no clue and it took 45 min and several phonecalls for them to give us our new tickets and send us on the way to the Hotel. That meant waiting for a bus. The bus didn't leave until 11 or so, and we expected the Hotel to be fairly close to Malpensa (which is roughly translated "bad thought" - hmmmm), because delays always happen. Nada. We were driven 45 min away, in some outskirts of the Milan, and our so advertised **** Hotel was in the back of a Carrefour -supermarket, and looked like a 2 star. Not that it mattered to us, and no, we didn't want to be rushed to Dinner at midnight, because the Bus would be leaving to the Airport again at 7 am. Our flight would leave at 8:30. The next morning we made it to Paris relatively smoothly, if you don't count the fact that in Paris they couldn't find one of those rolling stairs for our plane and we couldn't leave it for another 40 min....
At this point nothing could stop us and we soon disembarked the RER B at the station Saint-Michele, and - tadaaa - there was the Notre Dame. We went inside, outside, took tons of pics, etc.. and got hungry. The prices of the cafes around were absolutely not backpacker-friendly, and we moved on to find street food. We found a pretty good deal with a place, where for 7 euro, we got a "salty" crepe (with ham, cheese, and tomatoes), a sweet crepe (with suga) and a drink. He also gave us free tee on top of that. We took our food the the Pantheon and just sat there and ate.
I took pictures of the impressive columns of the Corinthian Order, Pendentes (also known as "arch cleavage"), mullioned windows, pointy arches, and other shizznizz I learned in Art History!
It got later in the day, so we hopped back on the Metro and RER to scope oput our "Hostel". The "Hostel" was really the Hotel Balladine in Epinay sur Seine, one of those suburbs in Paris where you better be inside once it gets dark - if you know what I mean! For the price it was decent, and if we had booked earlier we would have found a better deal closer to the Center. BUt if you don't mind smokey air wherever you go, and mold growing in your bathroom (picture domumented!) then this is the Hostel/Hotel for you. Ashley decided to go to sleep, but the rest of us decided to check out the "mall." I was torn between buying a 10 euro pair of boots in one of those cheap-o stores and being afraid of the store/ the teenaged guys in it who wanted to speak German to me I was impressed with their "Wie heisst du?". In this part, you expect a burning car around every corner.... but either way, there was another "Carrefour" supermarket - they seem to have them everywhere in Italy and France - and we bought our dinner - boxes of Multi-vitamin juice, water, cookies, chocolate, little containers of black forest cake (DELICIOUS!) and chips. Hey, we were going to stay in for the night with nothing to do. Might as well eat junky.
The next morning,all our eyes were puffy. I don't know what exactly was floating around in that air.... we took advantage of a breakfast deal, 2 euro 50 for a croissant, juice, and coffee. Luckily, it was a buffet breakfast situation, so we made that two croissants, baguette, coffee, juice, marmalade and nutella each. Ya know.
So Sunday was our Eiffeltower/Champs Elysees/Arc the Triomphe day, which we enjoyed although it was raining off and on. I bought a beret, partly as a souvenir, but also keeping next Halloween in mind. With my Eiffeltower necklace and a baguette in hand, I might just go as a French person. At night we realized that we had no food and that it was Sunday night, so we ran to the only pastry shop that seemed to be open. Dinner: Baguette and Brie. Not our Brie, French Brie. Our Hostel for that night was a real hostel, a queen sized bed, and showers that needed to be paid for, bloodstains of the blankets, you have it.
Monday we also did some walking around and decided to tackle the Louvre. Stefania decided not to go in, and Brie and I did the fast walk since we're not Museum goers. Nevertheless, we admired statues, paintings, mummies, etc. I saw and was not too impressed with the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, etc... but I saw them!
At 5ish we made our way to Amanda's Dorm and the University. Paris dorm rooms are big but still just dorm rooms. We could use the computerlab to book and print out tickets for the Bus to Amsterdam the next morning! Around 9, we went out to an Irish Bar. It was Saint Patty's Day after all! I had a "Magners," Cidre and way more delicious than Guiness! When we came back, Amanda was a sweetheart and left us her bed and an air mattress! We only slept for a few hour though, and then it was time to take the Metro to the Bus station.
The Busline is called Eurolines and you can pretty much take it to any major city in Europe. In our case, the Bus was way cheaper (72 euros buy you the roundtrip Paris-Amsterdam, and Amsterdam-Berlin is advertised as 9 euro one way!)
The Bus was one of those tall ones where you sit on top, and thanks to Dramamine and my sleeping mask I was sleeping through most of the trip. On the Bus, we met a young Greek god named Perikles (an Athenian studying Management and Finance) who was taking the bus to Rotterdam and tried to tell us to visit Rotterdam also. But Amsterdam was much prettier so we decided to stick to our plans. We had a nice talk with him at one of the Rest stops until one of the Rest stop cafe ladies tried telling us in Dutch that our Bus was leaving. No kidding, it was gone. With Brie's passport and money. We ran out of the Rest stop and saw that the Bus was now parked at a gas station 100 m away. Bastard.
The Hostel was pretty new, part of a chain. It's called "Stayokay" and I recommen going there. In fact, after we checked in we cancelled our other hostels to stay in the same place the entire time while in Amsterdam. The room was spartanic, but clean and chrome, everything was new, and the sheets came wrapped so we knew they were clean. They had an Internet place (although 1 euro fifty for 15 min is pretty expensive) and a bar and food area. Never mind that the other people staying there were probably between 12 and 15. We decided to get food at a close-by Kebab place, and it was delish. We even got free Turkish Tee. What's up with all this free tee on the trips? After, Ashley decided to sleep, and the rest of us decided to walk a little bit towards Downtown. The walk seemed to not end, and after two hours or so we were back in the Hostel for a good night's sleep. The next morning we took the Tram into the downtown area. Amsterdam is beautiful. My kind of city. There are probably millions of bikes in the city, and you constantly have to watch out for bikes coming from all directions (it's not their fault, you'll most likely be walking on the bike lane). The Dutch are tall, many are blond and beautiful, but mostly just tall (very few guys under 6 ft) and I probably saw 3 overweight people. But they might have been tourists. One of them was the fishman at a fishsandwich place where the others had Cod Sandwiches. I didn't have one, I had packed a lunch. Another good thing about the hostel is that an all you can eat breakfast buffee is included. In Hostel-language that means that you can eat as much as you can and also make three lunches to go.
The rest of that day was spent walking around. It was sometimes sunny, sometimes it poured. We raided the H&M and I found a top to go under my vest. And I also found a cute dress at the market. The line to the Anne Frank House was probably 3 hours long so we decided to do that the following day. We met a nice man from South Africa who was lost on the way to his Hotel. His name was Kevin. We also got a sms from Amanda and Angela, who saw Ashley and me walking across a bridge. We met up with them later at a coffeeshop, "Baba," which sported several human-sized Ganeshas. A Tee and a muffin later, we headed over to the Grasshopper, another Coffee shop, and then A+A gave us a tour of the redlight district, where their Hotel was (conveniently) located. Hahaha. Kidding. We took a wrong turn and landed in a seedy establishment. OK, that's not entirely true. We followed a crowd through a street until we realized that the street was a one way street and the crowd consisted of just men. "That's not where I parked my car" is probably an acceptable phrase for this situation. We turned and made our way out asap.
Overall I do have to say that Amsterdam seems like a safe city. The redlight district is a tourist destination, so unless you're an idiot (taking pictures of scarcely clad women in red windows is a no no!) its not dangerous!
We made our way back to the Hostel, but stopped for another Kebab, a chocolate bar, and a bag of chips. Wow, amazing how much you can eat if you think there is need.
The rest of the night was uneventful (when you run around all day a good night's sleep is important!) but the next day we made our way to our Canal Cruise. Amsterdam is, after all, the Venice of the north. We learned some handy tidbits, but were still tired and the weather got worse. In any case, when I was paying attention I learned that Amsterdam is 2.5 m below the sea level (I'm afraid of what Global Warming will do to that!) and in the summer, the water in the canals is swictched 2x a week and clean water is led in. There are also 2500 registered houseboats (Mama und Papa, wie waer's?) and wayy more illegal houseboats.
After the boat tour it started pouring so we stayed at a tiny cafe until the owner kicked us out. Well, not really but I could understand that she said that no one would come in because it seemed like her place was now a hair salon (Ashley was combing Brie's hair). Dutch and German is pretty similar and with a little but of immagination I can understand a lot of what the Dutch are saying. Wet and miserable (not gonna lie) we made our way to Anne Frank's house and did the Museum tour. It was definitely worth it. Still wet, we made our way back to the Hostel and I fell asleep/read Der Spiegel while the others had the cafeteria food in the Hostel. Wow, my nights in Amsterdam were really not too exciting. But backpacking is not a smooth ride and I like to have energy for the day.
The next day, our last day, we locked our bags in the Hostel and made it downtown one last time. Bad idea. It started snowing. WTF? At this point we all admitted to missing T shirt weather Ortigia, especially since there weren't really public places to go and relax in. Our Bus wasn't leaving until 10 at night, and using the bathroom costs you 50 eurocent. We ended up escaping the snow by hanging out in a Burgerking. For 2 hours. I kid you not. I bought a cappuchino but had no desire for any of the other junk. Well, maybe for onion rings. But not really.
When the snow finally stopped we hit the souvenir shops where I got a couple of post cards (because my pictures didn't come out great - in the snow?) and -- a Lukas Podolski jersey for 15 euro in this Chinese souvenir place. hehehe. I feel like I need to represent in Italy, esp. with 2 soccer lovers in the house (Brie and Stefania).
Because the day would not go by any faster, we checked out our bags and had a farewell-Amsterdam dinner - Kebab again. I probably had my fill for a while (not the healthiest of choices) even though I can always get it in Ortigia if I want.
We took a Bus to the Station where our Eurolines Bus was leaving, and the Bus driver didn't even want us to pay. Huh.
In the Bus, we had to put our backpacks in the luggage part, and I didn't have time to pop a dramamin and get my sleeping mask in time. This proved to be a fatal mistake. Another mistake was sitting in the front. Our busdriver was slighltly insane. Disregarding the fact that we were on a nightbus, he started blasting Techno and Europop form the 90s. I even heard "Hijo de la Luna" (remember?) and he was singing and tapping along with Melanie C's "I Turn to You." Mind you, with a Dutch accent. But I don't even know if it was really Dutch. All I heard was "blabberadatsch Bulleridutsch blim blamb bahh" with an amazingly rolled "r" I'm always jealous when people have amazing "rolling r" skills. At some point he explained to us "Blibberboo blabberba rabberabaa 500 Euro werberibbi" I deducted that we can import goods worthless than 500 euro. They made a huge deal out of French customs, which I never got to see. Maybe in 5 of the 10 min total sleep I got, we passed customs.
Crammy and grumpy and needing to pee (which only costs 20 cents in France) we arrived in Paris. We had a couple of hours to kill once again before our plane, so we headed to the Notre Dame, where Ashley walked around some more. The weather was sucky and rainy, and everything was closed. We matched the mood with our grumpyness. There is a reason I don't do all-nighters. For the well-being of society, of course. If you know me, you know that to me sleep is sacred. We tried to find the Crepe guy from before again, but he was closed. Luckily we found a market, and I bought 2 apples, 3 mandarines, a salmon-spinache quiche, and at a supermarket, couscous with chicken in a little dish.
Ready for some Sicilian Sun, we hopped back into the RER B, off to the Airport, where we chilled for another couple hours with the Financial Times Weekend Europe Edition before flying to Milan, and making it to Catania w/o compliacations. Alitalia is just weeks away from bancruptcy and Berlusconi - if elected - wants to block the merger of Alitalia and AirFrance-KLM. Hmmm. We noticed the financial troubles because the soda cans you get in airplanes are the tiny ones now and if you're lucky, you get a teeny weeny pack of cookies. That's it, I'm going back to Airmalta and Lufthansa. They feed you at least.
In Catania we waited a while and then found Guiseppe, our Taxidriver back to Siracusa. We got in at 11 at night, and the next bus would have run in the morning. So 15 euro each is not a bad deal, especially since Giuseppe drove us all the way to Piazza Archimede (pretty much to our door) and only took 45 min because he drove like a maniac.
I took a shower and went to bed. There goes spring break. As I said, pretty good. I'm proud of Brie and me, because we were pretty much the organizers and brains behind the operation, and except for the Catania thing it went smoothly.
The French as well as the Dutch were super nice to us and went out of their way to help us figure out public transportation, hostels, destinations, etc. We also had a multi-lingual group (between us we have English, German, Italian, Spanish, [and ancient Greek and Latin]) so yeah. Good times. After all this typing I'm going to lean back and read Cosmo.
I am back, we made it. This was definitely the best but most stressful spring break yet. Good news: I found my camera cable (it was in one of my purses) so check out webshots. Muenchen pics will also be up.
Anyways, I will start with Paris:
We started out trip Friday, the 14th, with some Doener at the place next to the Temple of Apollo. The Doener-man took forever and a day, so we had to eat while running to the Interbus stop to catch the bus to the Catania Airport at 1 pm. Our flight was supposed to leave at five. So we pretty much had 3 hours to kill at the airport. We bought cannoli and hung out at our gate, freaked out other people with our weirdness, etc. At around 4 pm we noticed that our boarding time was pushed back... and back... and.... wtf?
When the screen finally showed that our flight was supposed to leave at 7:30 now. That meant we would miss our connection flight in Milan. BUT, "in Texas we don't fly that way" (thank god!) so Ashley and Brie made their way to the Alitalia reps to see what's up. It turns out, their customer service is ridick. Apparently, they had called our names "a million times," even in ENGLISH, to get us on an earlier plane, and they thought we had just "left the airport." Weird only that none of us (4 people) heard anything, but we had been sitting at our gate (which has room for about 30 people) for 3 hours. Not to mention that the entire airport only has one row of 12 gates. After some angry hickhack, they agreed to have us fly out at 7:30, put us in a hotel in Milan, and fly us to Paris on the earliest plane the next day. They would notify Milan of these changes immediateley. BS. When we finally arrived in Milan, the Alitalia people had no clue and it took 45 min and several phonecalls for them to give us our new tickets and send us on the way to the Hotel. That meant waiting for a bus. The bus didn't leave until 11 or so, and we expected the Hotel to be fairly close to Malpensa (which is roughly translated "bad thought" - hmmmm), because delays always happen. Nada. We were driven 45 min away, in some outskirts of the Milan, and our so advertised **** Hotel was in the back of a Carrefour -supermarket, and looked like a 2 star. Not that it mattered to us, and no, we didn't want to be rushed to Dinner at midnight, because the Bus would be leaving to the Airport again at 7 am. Our flight would leave at 8:30. The next morning we made it to Paris relatively smoothly, if you don't count the fact that in Paris they couldn't find one of those rolling stairs for our plane and we couldn't leave it for another 40 min....
At this point nothing could stop us and we soon disembarked the RER B at the station Saint-Michele, and - tadaaa - there was the Notre Dame. We went inside, outside, took tons of pics, etc.. and got hungry. The prices of the cafes around were absolutely not backpacker-friendly, and we moved on to find street food. We found a pretty good deal with a place, where for 7 euro, we got a "salty" crepe (with ham, cheese, and tomatoes), a sweet crepe (with suga) and a drink. He also gave us free tee on top of that. We took our food the the Pantheon and just sat there and ate.
I took pictures of the impressive columns of the Corinthian Order, Pendentes (also known as "arch cleavage"), mullioned windows, pointy arches, and other shizznizz I learned in Art History!
It got later in the day, so we hopped back on the Metro and RER to scope oput our "Hostel". The "Hostel" was really the Hotel Balladine in Epinay sur Seine, one of those suburbs in Paris where you better be inside once it gets dark - if you know what I mean! For the price it was decent, and if we had booked earlier we would have found a better deal closer to the Center. BUt if you don't mind smokey air wherever you go, and mold growing in your bathroom (picture domumented!) then this is the Hostel/Hotel for you. Ashley decided to go to sleep, but the rest of us decided to check out the "mall." I was torn between buying a 10 euro pair of boots in one of those cheap-o stores and being afraid of the store/ the teenaged guys in it who wanted to speak German to me I was impressed with their "Wie heisst du?". In this part, you expect a burning car around every corner.... but either way, there was another "Carrefour" supermarket - they seem to have them everywhere in Italy and France - and we bought our dinner - boxes of Multi-vitamin juice, water, cookies, chocolate, little containers of black forest cake (DELICIOUS!) and chips. Hey, we were going to stay in for the night with nothing to do. Might as well eat junky.
The next morning,all our eyes were puffy. I don't know what exactly was floating around in that air.... we took advantage of a breakfast deal, 2 euro 50 for a croissant, juice, and coffee. Luckily, it was a buffet breakfast situation, so we made that two croissants, baguette, coffee, juice, marmalade and nutella each. Ya know.
So Sunday was our Eiffeltower/Champs Elysees/Arc the Triomphe day, which we enjoyed although it was raining off and on. I bought a beret, partly as a souvenir, but also keeping next Halloween in mind. With my Eiffeltower necklace and a baguette in hand, I might just go as a French person. At night we realized that we had no food and that it was Sunday night, so we ran to the only pastry shop that seemed to be open. Dinner: Baguette and Brie. Not our Brie, French Brie. Our Hostel for that night was a real hostel, a queen sized bed, and showers that needed to be paid for, bloodstains of the blankets, you have it.
Monday we also did some walking around and decided to tackle the Louvre. Stefania decided not to go in, and Brie and I did the fast walk since we're not Museum goers. Nevertheless, we admired statues, paintings, mummies, etc. I saw and was not too impressed with the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, etc... but I saw them!
At 5ish we made our way to Amanda's Dorm and the University. Paris dorm rooms are big but still just dorm rooms. We could use the computerlab to book and print out tickets for the Bus to Amsterdam the next morning! Around 9, we went out to an Irish Bar. It was Saint Patty's Day after all! I had a "Magners," Cidre and way more delicious than Guiness! When we came back, Amanda was a sweetheart and left us her bed and an air mattress! We only slept for a few hour though, and then it was time to take the Metro to the Bus station.
The Busline is called Eurolines and you can pretty much take it to any major city in Europe. In our case, the Bus was way cheaper (72 euros buy you the roundtrip Paris-Amsterdam, and Amsterdam-Berlin is advertised as 9 euro one way!)
The Bus was one of those tall ones where you sit on top, and thanks to Dramamine and my sleeping mask I was sleeping through most of the trip. On the Bus, we met a young Greek god named Perikles (an Athenian studying Management and Finance) who was taking the bus to Rotterdam and tried to tell us to visit Rotterdam also. But Amsterdam was much prettier so we decided to stick to our plans. We had a nice talk with him at one of the Rest stops until one of the Rest stop cafe ladies tried telling us in Dutch that our Bus was leaving. No kidding, it was gone. With Brie's passport and money. We ran out of the Rest stop and saw that the Bus was now parked at a gas station 100 m away. Bastard.
The Hostel was pretty new, part of a chain. It's called "Stayokay" and I recommen going there. In fact, after we checked in we cancelled our other hostels to stay in the same place the entire time while in Amsterdam. The room was spartanic, but clean and chrome, everything was new, and the sheets came wrapped so we knew they were clean. They had an Internet place (although 1 euro fifty for 15 min is pretty expensive) and a bar and food area. Never mind that the other people staying there were probably between 12 and 15. We decided to get food at a close-by Kebab place, and it was delish. We even got free Turkish Tee. What's up with all this free tee on the trips? After, Ashley decided to sleep, and the rest of us decided to walk a little bit towards Downtown. The walk seemed to not end, and after two hours or so we were back in the Hostel for a good night's sleep. The next morning we took the Tram into the downtown area. Amsterdam is beautiful. My kind of city. There are probably millions of bikes in the city, and you constantly have to watch out for bikes coming from all directions (it's not their fault, you'll most likely be walking on the bike lane). The Dutch are tall, many are blond and beautiful, but mostly just tall (very few guys under 6 ft) and I probably saw 3 overweight people. But they might have been tourists. One of them was the fishman at a fishsandwich place where the others had Cod Sandwiches. I didn't have one, I had packed a lunch. Another good thing about the hostel is that an all you can eat breakfast buffee is included. In Hostel-language that means that you can eat as much as you can and also make three lunches to go.
The rest of that day was spent walking around. It was sometimes sunny, sometimes it poured. We raided the H&M and I found a top to go under my vest. And I also found a cute dress at the market. The line to the Anne Frank House was probably 3 hours long so we decided to do that the following day. We met a nice man from South Africa who was lost on the way to his Hotel. His name was Kevin. We also got a sms from Amanda and Angela, who saw Ashley and me walking across a bridge. We met up with them later at a coffeeshop, "Baba," which sported several human-sized Ganeshas. A Tee and a muffin later, we headed over to the Grasshopper, another Coffee shop, and then A+A gave us a tour of the redlight district, where their Hotel was (conveniently) located. Hahaha. Kidding. We took a wrong turn and landed in a seedy establishment. OK, that's not entirely true. We followed a crowd through a street until we realized that the street was a one way street and the crowd consisted of just men. "That's not where I parked my car" is probably an acceptable phrase for this situation. We turned and made our way out asap.
Overall I do have to say that Amsterdam seems like a safe city. The redlight district is a tourist destination, so unless you're an idiot (taking pictures of scarcely clad women in red windows is a no no!) its not dangerous!
We made our way back to the Hostel, but stopped for another Kebab, a chocolate bar, and a bag of chips. Wow, amazing how much you can eat if you think there is need.
The rest of the night was uneventful (when you run around all day a good night's sleep is important!) but the next day we made our way to our Canal Cruise. Amsterdam is, after all, the Venice of the north. We learned some handy tidbits, but were still tired and the weather got worse. In any case, when I was paying attention I learned that Amsterdam is 2.5 m below the sea level (I'm afraid of what Global Warming will do to that!) and in the summer, the water in the canals is swictched 2x a week and clean water is led in. There are also 2500 registered houseboats (Mama und Papa, wie waer's?) and wayy more illegal houseboats.
After the boat tour it started pouring so we stayed at a tiny cafe until the owner kicked us out. Well, not really but I could understand that she said that no one would come in because it seemed like her place was now a hair salon (Ashley was combing Brie's hair). Dutch and German is pretty similar and with a little but of immagination I can understand a lot of what the Dutch are saying. Wet and miserable (not gonna lie) we made our way to Anne Frank's house and did the Museum tour. It was definitely worth it. Still wet, we made our way back to the Hostel and I fell asleep/read Der Spiegel while the others had the cafeteria food in the Hostel. Wow, my nights in Amsterdam were really not too exciting. But backpacking is not a smooth ride and I like to have energy for the day.
The next day, our last day, we locked our bags in the Hostel and made it downtown one last time. Bad idea. It started snowing. WTF? At this point we all admitted to missing T shirt weather Ortigia, especially since there weren't really public places to go and relax in. Our Bus wasn't leaving until 10 at night, and using the bathroom costs you 50 eurocent. We ended up escaping the snow by hanging out in a Burgerking. For 2 hours. I kid you not. I bought a cappuchino but had no desire for any of the other junk. Well, maybe for onion rings. But not really.
When the snow finally stopped we hit the souvenir shops where I got a couple of post cards (because my pictures didn't come out great - in the snow?) and -- a Lukas Podolski jersey for 15 euro in this Chinese souvenir place. hehehe. I feel like I need to represent in Italy, esp. with 2 soccer lovers in the house (Brie and Stefania).
Because the day would not go by any faster, we checked out our bags and had a farewell-Amsterdam dinner - Kebab again. I probably had my fill for a while (not the healthiest of choices) even though I can always get it in Ortigia if I want.
We took a Bus to the Station where our Eurolines Bus was leaving, and the Bus driver didn't even want us to pay. Huh.
In the Bus, we had to put our backpacks in the luggage part, and I didn't have time to pop a dramamin and get my sleeping mask in time. This proved to be a fatal mistake. Another mistake was sitting in the front. Our busdriver was slighltly insane. Disregarding the fact that we were on a nightbus, he started blasting Techno and Europop form the 90s. I even heard "Hijo de la Luna" (remember?) and he was singing and tapping along with Melanie C's "I Turn to You." Mind you, with a Dutch accent. But I don't even know if it was really Dutch. All I heard was "blabberadatsch Bulleridutsch blim blamb bahh" with an amazingly rolled "r" I'm always jealous when people have amazing "rolling r" skills. At some point he explained to us "Blibberboo blabberba rabberabaa 500 Euro werberibbi" I deducted that we can import goods worthless than 500 euro. They made a huge deal out of French customs, which I never got to see. Maybe in 5 of the 10 min total sleep I got, we passed customs.
Crammy and grumpy and needing to pee (which only costs 20 cents in France) we arrived in Paris. We had a couple of hours to kill once again before our plane, so we headed to the Notre Dame, where Ashley walked around some more. The weather was sucky and rainy, and everything was closed. We matched the mood with our grumpyness. There is a reason I don't do all-nighters. For the well-being of society, of course. If you know me, you know that to me sleep is sacred. We tried to find the Crepe guy from before again, but he was closed. Luckily we found a market, and I bought 2 apples, 3 mandarines, a salmon-spinache quiche, and at a supermarket, couscous with chicken in a little dish.
Ready for some Sicilian Sun, we hopped back into the RER B, off to the Airport, where we chilled for another couple hours with the Financial Times Weekend Europe Edition before flying to Milan, and making it to Catania w/o compliacations. Alitalia is just weeks away from bancruptcy and Berlusconi - if elected - wants to block the merger of Alitalia and AirFrance-KLM. Hmmm. We noticed the financial troubles because the soda cans you get in airplanes are the tiny ones now and if you're lucky, you get a teeny weeny pack of cookies. That's it, I'm going back to Airmalta and Lufthansa. They feed you at least.
In Catania we waited a while and then found Guiseppe, our Taxidriver back to Siracusa. We got in at 11 at night, and the next bus would have run in the morning. So 15 euro each is not a bad deal, especially since Giuseppe drove us all the way to Piazza Archimede (pretty much to our door) and only took 45 min because he drove like a maniac.
I took a shower and went to bed. There goes spring break. As I said, pretty good. I'm proud of Brie and me, because we were pretty much the organizers and brains behind the operation, and except for the Catania thing it went smoothly.
The French as well as the Dutch were super nice to us and went out of their way to help us figure out public transportation, hostels, destinations, etc. We also had a multi-lingual group (between us we have English, German, Italian, Spanish, [and ancient Greek and Latin]) so yeah. Good times. After all this typing I'm going to lean back and read Cosmo.
Monday, March 10, 2008
MUENCHEN
Halli Hallo!
I have survived my munich trip and made it back to Siracusa safely, with 4 (!) cans of Molke in my backback, two stress pimples, sans many hours of sleep but overall in good condition, only to find out that monday was - in fact - not a free day. MIST! That means that I'll have to read for Lit + Cult in addition to preparing for midterms....yehaw!
Me being me I of course got lost after getting into the wrong Bus in Siracuse going to Catania and ended up in downtown Catania instead of the Airport outside the city.... ( I also just used the words 'me' and 'I' three times in the first four words of my sentence - wow). After walking two blocks, being disoriented in the train station, I finally made my way to the ticket office to purchase a ticket for the shuttle bus, ran around and asked two busdrivers where that shuttle was, and then made it on there. Though traffic in Catania was horrible, I made it to the airport at 11:25 instead of 10... oh well. Getting into the plane everything went smooth and before I knew it I was watching Tom and Jerry and eating antipasti "airplane style". A hop and a skip and the Alps later, I was already in Munich. Lena and Andre, her boyfriend picked me up and found me immediately. They are remarkably similar in both dialect and looks *g*. Anne also picked me up and all was good, we headed into the city.
We wandered around the Marienplatz, got some coffee and cake at the Galleria (Leberkaeswecken in Anne's case) and received flowers in honorof the Fuenf Hoefe's 5th anniversary.
My quest to eat a Weisswurst failed, they are only served until 4 pm... damn. Oh well, I had an Aloisius Teller instead, mit Spiegelei, Leberkaes, und Kartoffelsalat! Leckerrr! After that (we had met up with Lena's friend Aline and Anne's friend Claudia) we ended up at a Bar. The first Bar was too crowded, the second demanded a 1 Euro smoker fee. As in, we'd pay 1 Euro to join the smoker's club, because normally you're not allowed to smoke in bars. If it's a closed company, then yes. We laughed and left. The bar we ended up at was nice and not too busy. We had a good time and left at 2.30 to catch the nightbus back to Anne's apartment. The cutest and cuddliest cat ever lives there! After a short night of 3.5 hours, I made it without complications to the subway and the train station. A coffee and Brezel later I was in the regional train, changed trains in Buchloe, and ended up in Kempten. Opa (grandpa) picked me up and I spent the next day and a half eating non-stop. Overall good times. At the Mariaberg I had Spaetzle mit Hackbraten und Sosse, and a Holunderlimo to drink. Delish. Later in the afternoon I had coffee, giotto, and Kaesesahnetorte (2 pieces) as well as half a piece of Erdbeertorte. Tagesspiegel und LeuteHeute spaeter, it was time for Rehgulasch mit Bandnudeln und Blaukraut. I packed for sunday and then we watched Breakfast a Tiffany's. Overall good times. Got up at 5:30 again (grrrr never enough sleep), hopped on the train to Munich, the subway there, and then to the Airport. The flight was pleaseant but why why why does Lufthansa need to put butter on its sandwiches and why why why did the little boy in front of me get a Lufthansa gameboy and not I? Oh well. In catania I waited another 1 and a half hours until the interbus came. At home I was greeted with a very warm welcome <33 the roomies.
The No Angels will be representing Germany at the Grand Pri d'Eurovision. can the eastern European dominion be broken this year? We shall see.
Heide Simonis has abdicated because of the UNICEF donation scandals, German kids are tired because they now have to learn in 8 years what they had to learn in 9, and people are generally striking because they don't get paid enough. Amazing how I spent half of friday night explaining the American tertiary education system, and tried to convince my fellow Germans that I was not completely stupified yet. sigh. That's pretty much it.
Ew, I have no desire to go to class. yucky yuck.
I have survived my munich trip and made it back to Siracusa safely, with 4 (!) cans of Molke in my backback, two stress pimples, sans many hours of sleep but overall in good condition, only to find out that monday was - in fact - not a free day. MIST! That means that I'll have to read for Lit + Cult in addition to preparing for midterms....yehaw!
Me being me I of course got lost after getting into the wrong Bus in Siracuse going to Catania and ended up in downtown Catania instead of the Airport outside the city.... ( I also just used the words 'me' and 'I' three times in the first four words of my sentence - wow). After walking two blocks, being disoriented in the train station, I finally made my way to the ticket office to purchase a ticket for the shuttle bus, ran around and asked two busdrivers where that shuttle was, and then made it on there. Though traffic in Catania was horrible, I made it to the airport at 11:25 instead of 10... oh well. Getting into the plane everything went smooth and before I knew it I was watching Tom and Jerry and eating antipasti "airplane style". A hop and a skip and the Alps later, I was already in Munich. Lena and Andre, her boyfriend picked me up and found me immediately. They are remarkably similar in both dialect and looks *g*. Anne also picked me up and all was good, we headed into the city.
We wandered around the Marienplatz, got some coffee and cake at the Galleria (Leberkaeswecken in Anne's case) and received flowers in honorof the Fuenf Hoefe's 5th anniversary.
My quest to eat a Weisswurst failed, they are only served until 4 pm... damn. Oh well, I had an Aloisius Teller instead, mit Spiegelei, Leberkaes, und Kartoffelsalat! Leckerrr! After that (we had met up with Lena's friend Aline and Anne's friend Claudia) we ended up at a Bar. The first Bar was too crowded, the second demanded a 1 Euro smoker fee. As in, we'd pay 1 Euro to join the smoker's club, because normally you're not allowed to smoke in bars. If it's a closed company, then yes. We laughed and left. The bar we ended up at was nice and not too busy. We had a good time and left at 2.30 to catch the nightbus back to Anne's apartment. The cutest and cuddliest cat ever lives there! After a short night of 3.5 hours, I made it without complications to the subway and the train station. A coffee and Brezel later I was in the regional train, changed trains in Buchloe, and ended up in Kempten. Opa (grandpa) picked me up and I spent the next day and a half eating non-stop. Overall good times. At the Mariaberg I had Spaetzle mit Hackbraten und Sosse, and a Holunderlimo to drink. Delish. Later in the afternoon I had coffee, giotto, and Kaesesahnetorte (2 pieces) as well as half a piece of Erdbeertorte. Tagesspiegel und LeuteHeute spaeter, it was time for Rehgulasch mit Bandnudeln und Blaukraut. I packed for sunday and then we watched Breakfast a Tiffany's. Overall good times. Got up at 5:30 again (grrrr never enough sleep), hopped on the train to Munich, the subway there, and then to the Airport. The flight was pleaseant but why why why does Lufthansa need to put butter on its sandwiches and why why why did the little boy in front of me get a Lufthansa gameboy and not I? Oh well. In catania I waited another 1 and a half hours until the interbus came. At home I was greeted with a very warm welcome <33 the roomies.
The No Angels will be representing Germany at the Grand Pri d'Eurovision. can the eastern European dominion be broken this year? We shall see.
Heide Simonis has abdicated because of the UNICEF donation scandals, German kids are tired because they now have to learn in 8 years what they had to learn in 9, and people are generally striking because they don't get paid enough. Amazing how I spent half of friday night explaining the American tertiary education system, and tried to convince my fellow Germans that I was not completely stupified yet. sigh. That's pretty much it.
Ew, I have no desire to go to class. yucky yuck.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Sunday
Sunday!
Tourist season has officially arrived and our little island is being INFESTED with various groups of mostly European (English, German, Spanish mostly) and a few American turisti! Tourist-watching has become a competitive sport, and the girls of Via dein Tintori are on the varsity team. Luckily, the weather is cooperating and we've had the warmest day so far here. Finally, we can turn the bombola off (and we won't have to call the bombola guy, the sleazebag, again soon).
Increasing temperatures and willingness to do schoolwork are negatively correlated (obviously) and we spent most of the day lounging on the steps of PIazza Duomo (the main piazza in Ortigia), watching and judging tourists and Italians - mostly their styles and clothes. Red mid-high boots seem to be "in" now. For men, gold-metalic sneakers and shiny jackets are still a must, the real masculine will also wear glittery sneakers. But above all, everyone wears aviators. "I like his shades" is the probably most repeated phrase of the day!
We lounged on the steps in the sun for about three hours, got gelato (pistacchio and tartufo for me) and generally didn't do much. I have a 5 pager due on wednesday. I already wrote 2/3 of a page and downloaded 113 pages worth of information. I somehow doubt that this paper will compete grade wise with my "beautiful speaking voice" (hardehar) but I blame the weather. I'm in vacation mode, after all.
So I heard baja california is full of whales in march, that might be something to check out!
Next Friday I will embark on my lovely weekend trip to Munich, Home of Weisswurst, Hefeweizen, and Brezeln! I will also try to hit up Mueller and maybe maybe get some Schokomolke? With a limited supply of Soymilk, I need to get calcium. Slash maybe drop two poundes before bathing suit season!
We had a fun little "conversations with Italians" session the other day where I met my future mother-in-law. Kidding Kidding, but in any case, I was talking to two ladies who study English. One of them has two sons, 22 and 24, in law and cinema, who speak English but want to practice. They will be "home" from Rome during Easter and want to meet up with me. In any case, I want to score an invite to a real Sicilian dinner with a real Sicilian family. I mean, hellooo cultural connection! We'll see what I can do.
Ewww paper.... (I'm going to watch Sex and the City now...)
...
Monday!
The bar next to the school apparently has undercover cops sitting around. The owner is either supposed to be terminated or the bar is supposed to be burned down.
Tsk tsk, that's what you get when you don't pay your protection money for the Emm-Ahh-EFF-IHH-AHH....... well I hope the school doesn't get burned down.
Tourist season has officially arrived and our little island is being INFESTED with various groups of mostly European (English, German, Spanish mostly) and a few American turisti! Tourist-watching has become a competitive sport, and the girls of Via dein Tintori are on the varsity team. Luckily, the weather is cooperating and we've had the warmest day so far here. Finally, we can turn the bombola off (and we won't have to call the bombola guy, the sleazebag, again soon).
Increasing temperatures and willingness to do schoolwork are negatively correlated (obviously) and we spent most of the day lounging on the steps of PIazza Duomo (the main piazza in Ortigia), watching and judging tourists and Italians - mostly their styles and clothes. Red mid-high boots seem to be "in" now. For men, gold-metalic sneakers and shiny jackets are still a must, the real masculine will also wear glittery sneakers. But above all, everyone wears aviators. "I like his shades" is the probably most repeated phrase of the day!
We lounged on the steps in the sun for about three hours, got gelato (pistacchio and tartufo for me) and generally didn't do much. I have a 5 pager due on wednesday. I already wrote 2/3 of a page and downloaded 113 pages worth of information. I somehow doubt that this paper will compete grade wise with my "beautiful speaking voice" (hardehar) but I blame the weather. I'm in vacation mode, after all.
So I heard baja california is full of whales in march, that might be something to check out!
Next Friday I will embark on my lovely weekend trip to Munich, Home of Weisswurst, Hefeweizen, and Brezeln! I will also try to hit up Mueller and maybe maybe get some Schokomolke? With a limited supply of Soymilk, I need to get calcium. Slash maybe drop two poundes before bathing suit season!
We had a fun little "conversations with Italians" session the other day where I met my future mother-in-law. Kidding Kidding, but in any case, I was talking to two ladies who study English. One of them has two sons, 22 and 24, in law and cinema, who speak English but want to practice. They will be "home" from Rome during Easter and want to meet up with me. In any case, I want to score an invite to a real Sicilian dinner with a real Sicilian family. I mean, hellooo cultural connection! We'll see what I can do.
Ewww paper.... (I'm going to watch Sex and the City now...)
...
Monday!
The bar next to the school apparently has undercover cops sitting around. The owner is either supposed to be terminated or the bar is supposed to be burned down.
Tsk tsk, that's what you get when you don't pay your protection money for the Emm-Ahh-EFF-IHH-AHH....... well I hope the school doesn't get burned down.
Monday, February 25, 2008
DIE DIE DIE
I just died a little this morning...
Mueslirigel, Honig, Brot, Prosciutto Cotto, Soyamilch (endlich) und MUESLI!
well worth the 20 min hike and 20 catcalls.....
but why why why don't they accept credit cards?
anyways.
I just gave my greek presentation and got an A!!!! I did not try to get an A ( my goal grades for this semester range from B- to C+) but damnnn it feels good to be a gangsta... I mean, get praised for a ppt presentation. And everyone else got A-'s hehee. But oh well. I actually have to write a 5 page paper for that same class now due the 5th.
It's monday once again and I've had one of the more exciting weekends. Friday we took a little trip to Piazza Armerina and Morgentina with Art and Arch. Morgentina is an excavated town that was settled in pre-Greek times. We mostly found random piles of rocks, and a couple of mosaics, a kiln and a theater. Piazza Armerina has a Roman villa with partly very well preserved mosaics, including the famous bikini girls in the palaestrum (the gym) of the villa. Bummer # 1: the majority of the villa was under restoration and blocked off. Bummer # 2: my camera's batteries died and I took one meager photo of a mosaic. But never fear, dear readers, I will steal some of Brie's pics and post them on webshots.
The busride there took 2.5 hours, and back 3.5 hours. I'm glad I took dramamine but I guess that's also the reason why I sleep like a baby on the bus and have no energy/eat like a pig during the field trips. Merrrr toss up :/
Saturday we took our bus to Mount Etna for some "fun in the snow"....luckily we left at 10 am, not in the ridiculous early hours. We went to visit the Lava Museum and then proceeded to a restaurant to have the most DELICIOUS meal ever. I'm talking antipasti times 10, 2 primi piatti with different pasta, mixed meats ( I had horse meat and it was very tasty... sorry!) The dessert consisted of cannoli (ricotta and chocolate) and marzipan cookies, followed by a strong espresso. I have never been fuller in my life! Luckily I wore three layers and a sweatshirt. hehe.
Two minutes after our meal (ever heard of siesta? no? ...) we were up on Etna, hiking up 400 m through slippery snow and extremely thin air. I brought two little pieces of Lava as souveniers (hey, they were free).... walking down was the funnest part, we decided to slide down the trail and at some point there were 5 of us holding hands and sliding down on our stomachs... pictures follow because the crazy German volcanology professor took them!
The last stop was an ice skating rink, where we skated for probably an hour and a half. All the italians there were constantly falling, and most of the people in our group didn't stay on their feet either.... hahhaa good times!
Sunday was a really nice day, sun and all, check webshots for the pics at the rocks!
Ciao a tutti!
Mueslirigel, Honig, Brot, Prosciutto Cotto, Soyamilch (endlich) und MUESLI!
well worth the 20 min hike and 20 catcalls.....
but why why why don't they accept credit cards?
anyways.
I just gave my greek presentation and got an A!!!! I did not try to get an A ( my goal grades for this semester range from B- to C+) but damnnn it feels good to be a gangsta... I mean, get praised for a ppt presentation. And everyone else got A-'s hehee. But oh well. I actually have to write a 5 page paper for that same class now due the 5th.
It's monday once again and I've had one of the more exciting weekends. Friday we took a little trip to Piazza Armerina and Morgentina with Art and Arch. Morgentina is an excavated town that was settled in pre-Greek times. We mostly found random piles of rocks, and a couple of mosaics, a kiln and a theater. Piazza Armerina has a Roman villa with partly very well preserved mosaics, including the famous bikini girls in the palaestrum (the gym) of the villa. Bummer # 1: the majority of the villa was under restoration and blocked off. Bummer # 2: my camera's batteries died and I took one meager photo of a mosaic. But never fear, dear readers, I will steal some of Brie's pics and post them on webshots.
The busride there took 2.5 hours, and back 3.5 hours. I'm glad I took dramamine but I guess that's also the reason why I sleep like a baby on the bus and have no energy/eat like a pig during the field trips. Merrrr toss up :/
Saturday we took our bus to Mount Etna for some "fun in the snow"....luckily we left at 10 am, not in the ridiculous early hours. We went to visit the Lava Museum and then proceeded to a restaurant to have the most DELICIOUS meal ever. I'm talking antipasti times 10, 2 primi piatti with different pasta, mixed meats ( I had horse meat and it was very tasty... sorry!) The dessert consisted of cannoli (ricotta and chocolate) and marzipan cookies, followed by a strong espresso. I have never been fuller in my life! Luckily I wore three layers and a sweatshirt. hehe.
Two minutes after our meal (ever heard of siesta? no? ...) we were up on Etna, hiking up 400 m through slippery snow and extremely thin air. I brought two little pieces of Lava as souveniers (hey, they were free).... walking down was the funnest part, we decided to slide down the trail and at some point there were 5 of us holding hands and sliding down on our stomachs... pictures follow because the crazy German volcanology professor took them!
The last stop was an ice skating rink, where we skated for probably an hour and a half. All the italians there were constantly falling, and most of the people in our group didn't stay on their feet either.... hahhaa good times!
Sunday was a really nice day, sun and all, check webshots for the pics at the rocks!
Ciao a tutti!
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
food, etc
Hello there,
I'm generally too lazy to go and get internet on weekends, but since I have a 10 min ppt presentation due for Greek on Wednesday. Ew, HOMEWORK?
After much frustration we told Ramzi (our housing coordinator/socccer team player) that our bombola "Caty" sucks. We pretty much turn on the gas and switch the thing on - and it still doesn't heat although there is a flame. And the apartment smells like gas. yuck! So anyways, Ramzi called the bombola boy (the gas can delivery man, he always has at least three of those things on the back of his vespa!) who came over quickly-ish and ended up giving us a new heater and bombola ("caty" is apparently old and needs to be cleaned)
In any case, meet "Bartolini":
This weekend we're going on a "fun in the snow" trip on MOunt Etna. This includes snowballfights, a Lava Museum and ice skating. I'm also excited for the Etna typical culinary adventures.
Speaking of food, I made delicious Fettucini with Salmon and mushrooms (in a creamy white wine sauce). Molto delizioso and very quick.
In the biggest supermarket (which is at the mall, where the buses don't stop ><) there is everything anyone would want. They even have oreos (bah) and skippy peanut butter. But screw the peanut butter, in the NUTELLA isle I found a pistacchio spread, which might be somewhat pricey at 4 euros, but probably worth trying... next time I go. Which will be as soon as we make friends with cars. Trying to hitchhike with grocery bags at the traffic circle in front of the mall is not fun, and won't be repeated. We were made fun of, and generally unsuccessful, until a Bus pickd us up that went half an hour into the outskirts all the way to eastbumf** Siracusa, and back. Well, at least we didn't have to walk back (we would have died, perhaps).
There is another mall with does have a busstop. We're going to scout it out and I'm praying that it will have the same big walmart-like supermarket. Otherwise we'll have to keep buying food at the Conte, which is more of a Tante Emma Laden with little variety. I did get Monte von Zott there today though ;)
As I'm speaking of food (stay on topic ;) I guess there is this "cold chocolate" that is really frothy and creamy, and a must-try. It's probably better to eat myself through the entore spectrum of pastries instead of just going for Cannoli, my all-time favorite.
I don't eat 24/7 though, never fear. There is plenty of time to walk around/sit in class too.
I have a midterm in ecosystems and -ohhh- that presentation in Greek on wednesday... aka tomorrow! With this note I should probably say "a presto" and check out those ecosystem notes.
Luckily we won't have ecosystems for 2 weeks after that, Ricardo is in Germany for that time. Free tuesday/thursday nights hello!!
PS: In Noto, I could not contain myself when I saw a little vending machine that sold "Happy Feet" cell phone charms. Hello, LOVELACE:
I'm generally too lazy to go and get internet on weekends, but since I have a 10 min ppt presentation due for Greek on Wednesday. Ew, HOMEWORK?
After much frustration we told Ramzi (our housing coordinator/socccer team player) that our bombola "Caty" sucks. We pretty much turn on the gas and switch the thing on - and it still doesn't heat although there is a flame. And the apartment smells like gas. yuck! So anyways, Ramzi called the bombola boy (the gas can delivery man, he always has at least three of those things on the back of his vespa!) who came over quickly-ish and ended up giving us a new heater and bombola ("caty" is apparently old and needs to be cleaned)
In any case, meet "Bartolini":
This weekend we're going on a "fun in the snow" trip on MOunt Etna. This includes snowballfights, a Lava Museum and ice skating. I'm also excited for the Etna typical culinary adventures.
Speaking of food, I made delicious Fettucini with Salmon and mushrooms (in a creamy white wine sauce). Molto delizioso and very quick.
In the biggest supermarket (which is at the mall, where the buses don't stop ><) there is everything anyone would want. They even have oreos (bah) and skippy peanut butter. But screw the peanut butter, in the NUTELLA isle I found a pistacchio spread, which might be somewhat pricey at 4 euros, but probably worth trying... next time I go. Which will be as soon as we make friends with cars. Trying to hitchhike with grocery bags at the traffic circle in front of the mall is not fun, and won't be repeated. We were made fun of, and generally unsuccessful, until a Bus pickd us up that went half an hour into the outskirts all the way to eastbumf** Siracusa, and back. Well, at least we didn't have to walk back (we would have died, perhaps).
There is another mall with does have a busstop. We're going to scout it out and I'm praying that it will have the same big walmart-like supermarket. Otherwise we'll have to keep buying food at the Conte, which is more of a Tante Emma Laden with little variety. I did get Monte von Zott there today though ;)
As I'm speaking of food (stay on topic ;) I guess there is this "cold chocolate" that is really frothy and creamy, and a must-try. It's probably better to eat myself through the entore spectrum of pastries instead of just going for Cannoli, my all-time favorite.
I don't eat 24/7 though, never fear. There is plenty of time to walk around/sit in class too.
I have a midterm in ecosystems and -ohhh- that presentation in Greek on wednesday... aka tomorrow! With this note I should probably say "a presto" and check out those ecosystem notes.
Luckily we won't have ecosystems for 2 weeks after that, Ricardo is in Germany for that time. Free tuesday/thursday nights hello!!
PS: In Noto, I could not contain myself when I saw a little vending machine that sold "Happy Feet" cell phone charms. Hello, LOVELACE:
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Thursday!
Today after classes 1 + 2, I bought my lunch (I euro and 25 cents for a piece of spinach mozzarella pastry) and headed back to the apartment. Classes were chill as always. We combined the advanced and beginner's Italian classes and played 20 questions :) Art and Architecture was a tad sleep-inducing as always, and I spent most of it daydreaming/fantasizing about food. Anyways. I also still have an artichoke. Apparently they are good chopped with lemon and parmesan. Hmmm sounds good.
I cleaned the apartment, dusted, and cleaned the kitchen. The roomies are cooking tonight (chicken and couscous and veggies!) so I thought I'd be nice and make the kitchen sparkelicious!
Last night we went to the "cafeteria" that the University of Catania students use. For 6 Euro 50, you get the Primo Piatto, Secondo Piatto, Contorti, a drink and fruit. You have one of three choices for each. I had "Penne Siracusa," then a funghi omelett, and a salad. And a mandarine. The portions are so tiny so it just fills you up.
Our attempts to make Italian friends failed, I think they were weirded out by our loudness. Oh well.
I also had a delicious desert after, "bianco e nero" - pretty much Windbeutel with chocolate mouse around them!
Our neighbors have the funkiest granny panties hanging off their balcony. I couldn't help but take a picture.
I was tightening the belt part of my shoes and established that they must be leather after all - I saw the leather part around the edges - and the shoes smell pretty leathery. Not that I wouldn't have liked them if they weren't.
Today is Singles Awareness Day, and all the Ladies are going to "Sale" where there is life music. And there will be Cannoli after. Hah!
I'm innamorata with Laura Biagiotti's new perfume, DONNA.
I'll buy it eventually.
I cleaned the apartment, dusted, and cleaned the kitchen. The roomies are cooking tonight (chicken and couscous and veggies!) so I thought I'd be nice and make the kitchen sparkelicious!
Last night we went to the "cafeteria" that the University of Catania students use. For 6 Euro 50, you get the Primo Piatto, Secondo Piatto, Contorti, a drink and fruit. You have one of three choices for each. I had "Penne Siracusa," then a funghi omelett, and a salad. And a mandarine. The portions are so tiny so it just fills you up.
Our attempts to make Italian friends failed, I think they were weirded out by our loudness. Oh well.
I also had a delicious desert after, "bianco e nero" - pretty much Windbeutel with chocolate mouse around them!
Our neighbors have the funkiest granny panties hanging off their balcony. I couldn't help but take a picture.
I was tightening the belt part of my shoes and established that they must be leather after all - I saw the leather part around the edges - and the shoes smell pretty leathery. Not that I wouldn't have liked them if they weren't.
Today is Singles Awareness Day, and all the Ladies are going to "Sale" where there is life music. And there will be Cannoli after. Hah!
I'm innamorata with Laura Biagiotti's new perfume, DONNA.
I'll buy it eventually.
Monday, February 11, 2008
HUH?
I did the unthinkable today and stepped on a scale.
I lost 1 pound since being here.
How the heck did I manage that, considering I average 1 cannoli and 3 Kinder chocolate products a day, in addition to normal foods like pizza and pasta and the amazing risotto brie makes?
Geez!
I lost 1 pound since being here.
How the heck did I manage that, considering I average 1 cannoli and 3 Kinder chocolate products a day, in addition to normal foods like pizza and pasta and the amazing risotto brie makes?
Geez!
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Rants, Raves, Palermo, Pantalica...
So this weekend was filled with various activities, aka FIELDTRIPS. For ecosystems I hiked with the group on friday through the Sicilian countryside at Pantalica... the bu ride took about an hour, but it was raining and cold. So the group started hiking on the trail, Ricardo pointing out various shrubs, dwarf shrubs, and all that other schnick schnack he tries to educate us about every Tues/Thurs from 5-7:30... He is useful though, I collected some rosemary and calendula (the latter dried and shriveled up though... ><)
We sought shelter in a cave in a limestone wall. Pantalica is pretty much all about the tombs/catacombs that Christians carved into the limestone so that they could be laid to rest. There was even a little church behind a tiny opening in the limestone. The trail was pretty much all limestone, with little pools that collected rainwater. We were stuck in the cave (Ricardo and Simone, the archeology prof didn't want to leave) but eventually kept on walking. I will post pictures that show the landscape ... it was very pretty. Less pretty was the amount of bitchin and moaning that could be heard throughout the trip. If we are going on a HIKING trip, with RAIN in the weather forecast, don't wear just a light knitsweater and clothy van shoes... yikes! Or at least, don't complain when you do.
It was getting uncomfortable after 2 hours or so, and I was glad when the field trip was over. While we were marching through the mudd, my roommate who wasn't on the trip engaged in a CRAZY shopping frenzy at the local mall - which *gasp* I haven't been to.
Anyways, on saturday we were ready at 7 am sharp at the parking lot to embark on our trip to PALERMO!! Of course Brie was in her element (she has family there) and we were all excited. Especially since we had booked a hostel a day earlier and planned to separate from the group ;) After the three hour busride (I slept through all of it and missed some of the pretty countryside, but I'm very glad about the dropamine pills I found in the farmacia!)
Our first stop in Palermo was some sort of Palazzo where we could really just see one room because there was some judicial schnick schnack going on in the rest of it. We pretty much sat around doing nothing for a while and then were released to find some lunch somewhere. The roomies, Rachel, and I went to this tiny Pizzeria and I decided to be adventurous and try Pizza Gazella. Bad idea. The pizza was topped with eggs, cheese, tomatoes, olives, and "wurstel". I kid you not. "wurstel" was really just sliced hot dog, and the olives tasted very bitter. The pizza was also covered in decent sized pools of grease... OH WELL.
For the afternoon part of the trip, the roomies and I escaped and did our own thing, such as finding the hostel and checking out shoe stores. Sales are still going on.
Who would I be kidding if I said I don't need to buy a pair of ITALIAN BOOTS while in Italy. Anyways, I purchased these babies that were marked down to 55, from 139.
ta daaa:
Exhausted, we lounged in our hostel room (looked more like a hotel) and watched TV. They only had German channels :P Hella von Sinnen lost weight and overalls. -- Quick digression -- Berlin Berlin is dubbed and shown as "Lolle", and Tuerkisch fuer Anfaenger is dubbed as "Kebab for Breakfast" , both are on MTV Italia. hehehe
Anyways, we got ready to go out at around 11:30 and hit up the infamous Palermo nightlife. What happens in Palermo stays in Palermo.
This morning Ashley and I got up early to catch the 9 am Bus back to Siracusa, and here we are.
I'm getting increasingly annoyed by the tag-along-society in our group! Originally, half the group wanted to stay the night in Palermo, and we were the only ones who actually did (which is a good thing!!!). It's all talk, no action for most of them. I guess no one signed up for a personal travel agent who is available for all things that you are too chicken to do or not inventive enough to find out. Because my roomies and I seem to be more assertive in getting things done/doing things we want to do, we get the tag-alongs alot and actually sometimes just feel the need to sneak off. Which is probably a good thing because I don't think that I'll be able to listen to complaints anymore. You miss American FOOD? Why are you here? You're telling your mom to send you gum? You complain when British profs use British spelling? You complain when your restaurant bill is high because you accepted all the "free" food and champagne that the waiter brought to the table? Well, the TANSTAAFL rule applies to all areas in life, esp. while studing abroad -- (the rule is: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch")
SIGH. I just don't understand why some people are here.
Quick before I'm done - in the current Spiegel (well, the one from 1/28/08) there is a good article about the recession, credit crises, etc, very insightful!
Cheers!
Thursday, February 7, 2008
INternettt
OK, so apparently the internet is working again... let's see for how long....
Carnevale was super fun, and I bought the carnevale food, sausage and mushrooms in a bun. The vino they gave us with that was gross... but oh well. Good times dancing to Disco music at the Piazza with all those Italians.
I could boast with de-regionizing our dvd player, but now it has issues and won't let dvds out of the tray ! grrrrr
I also bought the most recent Spiegel, and read it while eating Kinder Choco Fresh.... boo yeahh.
Fieltrip to some ecologicla shizzle tomorrow all day, and fieldtrip to Palermo with a probable stay over until sunday! I'll be exhausted after this weekend, and I have to read Hesiod until Monday. shikes..... I should have brought some motion sickness stuff for the bus trips (after the Catania trip almost did me in)... how do I ask for that stuff in a local farmacia? Hmmmm quando sono nella machina, non STO BENE .... quale potrei?
uhmm I think that's wrong..... :/ I don't want to order viagra in the end or some'n like that....
Palermo wird sicher lustig! Voll Ghetto und das Nightlife (dass es ja in Ortigia nicht gibt) soll super sein!
Sobald ich Zeit hab, kommen wieder Photos! Ciaoo
PS: WO sind comments?
Carnevale was super fun, and I bought the carnevale food, sausage and mushrooms in a bun. The vino they gave us with that was gross... but oh well. Good times dancing to Disco music at the Piazza with all those Italians.
I could boast with de-regionizing our dvd player, but now it has issues and won't let dvds out of the tray ! grrrrr
I also bought the most recent Spiegel, and read it while eating Kinder Choco Fresh.... boo yeahh.
Fieltrip to some ecologicla shizzle tomorrow all day, and fieldtrip to Palermo with a probable stay over until sunday! I'll be exhausted after this weekend, and I have to read Hesiod until Monday. shikes..... I should have brought some motion sickness stuff for the bus trips (after the Catania trip almost did me in)... how do I ask for that stuff in a local farmacia? Hmmmm quando sono nella machina, non STO BENE .... quale potrei?
uhmm I think that's wrong..... :/ I don't want to order viagra in the end or some'n like that....
Palermo wird sicher lustig! Voll Ghetto und das Nightlife (dass es ja in Ortigia nicht gibt) soll super sein!
Sobald ich Zeit hab, kommen wieder Photos! Ciaoo
PS: WO sind comments?
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Boat Tour, Catania, going out flop, etc
Ta daaaa - new pictures are up - check the webshots!
So Saturday was our Catania fieldtrip. We met at 8:30 AM with Metcalf (Greek Myth and Religion prof) and hopped on the Bus to Catania! I thought I could go and read some - aka do some homework, but I felt sick after a page and a half so I stopped.
On our way along the coast, we could see Mount Etna, the snowy tip above the clouds. cool site! We first went to a Museum about the Allied Invasion in Sicily - it was an interactive museum and we had a very good tourguide :D The market was insane - A Ton of clothes, shoes, BOOTS, bags (fake), food, etc.... NICE .. and a nice shopping mile! I couldn't contain myself, and bought a nice bag on sale at this cute store, I forgot the name. Pictures will be on webshots~!
Speaking off, webshots is having issues and that makes me cranky... after all, Im sitting outside here... ON THE STONE ..... where it's cold.... to upload these pics. Argh.
Mann, frustrierend!
Ich update spaeter aus dem Warmen...
So Saturday was our Catania fieldtrip. We met at 8:30 AM with Metcalf (Greek Myth and Religion prof) and hopped on the Bus to Catania! I thought I could go and read some - aka do some homework, but I felt sick after a page and a half so I stopped.
On our way along the coast, we could see Mount Etna, the snowy tip above the clouds. cool site! We first went to a Museum about the Allied Invasion in Sicily - it was an interactive museum and we had a very good tourguide :D The market was insane - A Ton of clothes, shoes, BOOTS, bags (fake), food, etc.... NICE .. and a nice shopping mile! I couldn't contain myself, and bought a nice bag on sale at this cute store, I forgot the name. Pictures will be on webshots~!
Speaking off, webshots is having issues and that makes me cranky... after all, Im sitting outside here... ON THE STONE ..... where it's cold.... to upload these pics. Argh.
Mann, frustrierend!
Ich update spaeter aus dem Warmen...
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Hmmm
The wireless internet is not working, so actually only a total of 3 computers in our lab have internet..... grawr. I want to upload pictures, but I guess I'll have to wait.
At least we almost never have to sign in, so I guess getting 100 hours doesn't count.
Last night the group met for a program-organized fish dinner. We met at a hotel and were treated to a small presentation about fishing in Sicily. The first course - appetizer - was broiled anchovies with breadcrumbs, olive oil, lemon, and parsley. Then the first pasta dish followed, spaghetti with fresh tuna. Then we had spaghetti with mackerel caviar, followed by the next course, the entire mackarel (yes, we had to chop off the head, remove the spine, etc...) next to a piece of Tuna and a 'marmalade' of red onion - somewhat sweet but delicious with the pesce! The next course (yes, at that point I regretted the second helping of the first pasta dish) was another fish (don't remember the kind) stuffed with pecans, raisins, and breadcrumbs..... then - lo and behold - we finally had desert, lemon custard!
The dinner lasted 3 hours, and was very filling.
I decided to eat more fruit and veggies and less Kinder chocolate. Let's see how long I can hold up.
We also had a 'living in Syracuse' workshop, accompanied by 5 Italian students from the University of Catania, who filled us in on what to do and not to do - not to do: The lesbian bar 'Atrium', where most of the group got drunk the other night. A sketch place, apparently. I agree.
Tonight is the 'Women's Workshop' hahahaha. Yeah, do we need this? We will see. It is mandatory, and it cuts half an hour out of my ecosystems class, so I guess I'll go!
Speaking off, this is the verdict of the academic part of this program:
Art and Arch. in Sicily: Slide-tests? damn, I'm in Art History. The lectures are looong and friday fieldtrips take away from travel time.... but oh well. Susie is from Scotland.
Sicily Lit + Cult: Giovanna is really nice and I will learn interesting things.... nothing agains a good portion of liberal arts every once in a while!
Italian: I'm in advanced, with Brie (Garbriella) , Rachel (Raquelina), and Amanda (Amanducco). I'm Giulietta. Go figure. Together we're the Ragazzine, and Mario is our Professore. Good times, and many Italian hang man games. Hopefully, I'll improve my Italian conversation skillzz.
Ecosystems: with Ricardo, who has traveled the world and beyond. I'm not too sciency, but I guess it's useful stuff to know, if anyone ever needs ecological news about the mediterranean basin, I'll be your gal for that.
Greek Myth and Religion: very history-ish, and Michael likes to hear himself talk, which he does without taking breaks/breaths/etc. We also like to hear him talk in his smooth British accent, however. We'll see.
In any case, I won't worry about grades too much here, I decided, because they really don't count as long as I pass, and I'd rather have some local interactions and international affairs (kiddinggg) with the locals instead of being a study freak. Such as.... the soccer training Brie, Stefania and I are having with our neighborly new boyfriend, Manuele, who is 15.
Go us! Tomorrow is a day off (or wait... fieldtrip whaaat?) In anycase, we're going to th archaeological Park AGAIN (this time by bus, so it's not a 1 hour walk!) Going back, I might want to check out that shoe store with the SALDI, where I saw nice boots.... And walking hasn't killed anyone yet. I hate when people complain about anything here that's unamerican.... grawr... losers!
Saturday is the optional Catania fieldtrip (historical tour) where I will be onboard. The ladies and I booked a hostel to stay there for the night, since Catania is where the nightlife is at. That's right, people, no dancing in Siracusa.... bahh. Also, the Catania Soccer team is playing on Sunday, and we'll try to get tickets and immerse ourselves in the culture... Then we'll take the Bus back, on Sunday. This will be a good practice, because to fly out of the citta, we'll need to make it to Catania anyways.
I decided to not spend much money on weekend trips (we have a lot of activities that are program inclusive on weekends, fieldtrips, etc) and save money for spring break... Don't know yet where to, but it should be a city, somewhere I haven't been.... I have a few ideas.
Anyways, that's it for now, pictures will be up when the wireless is fixed!
Ciao a tutti!
At least we almost never have to sign in, so I guess getting 100 hours doesn't count.
Last night the group met for a program-organized fish dinner. We met at a hotel and were treated to a small presentation about fishing in Sicily. The first course - appetizer - was broiled anchovies with breadcrumbs, olive oil, lemon, and parsley. Then the first pasta dish followed, spaghetti with fresh tuna. Then we had spaghetti with mackerel caviar, followed by the next course, the entire mackarel (yes, we had to chop off the head, remove the spine, etc...) next to a piece of Tuna and a 'marmalade' of red onion - somewhat sweet but delicious with the pesce! The next course (yes, at that point I regretted the second helping of the first pasta dish) was another fish (don't remember the kind) stuffed with pecans, raisins, and breadcrumbs..... then - lo and behold - we finally had desert, lemon custard!
The dinner lasted 3 hours, and was very filling.
I decided to eat more fruit and veggies and less Kinder chocolate. Let's see how long I can hold up.
We also had a 'living in Syracuse' workshop, accompanied by 5 Italian students from the University of Catania, who filled us in on what to do and not to do - not to do: The lesbian bar 'Atrium', where most of the group got drunk the other night. A sketch place, apparently. I agree.
Tonight is the 'Women's Workshop' hahahaha. Yeah, do we need this? We will see. It is mandatory, and it cuts half an hour out of my ecosystems class, so I guess I'll go!
Speaking off, this is the verdict of the academic part of this program:
Art and Arch. in Sicily: Slide-tests? damn, I'm in Art History. The lectures are looong and friday fieldtrips take away from travel time.... but oh well. Susie is from Scotland.
Sicily Lit + Cult: Giovanna is really nice and I will learn interesting things.... nothing agains a good portion of liberal arts every once in a while!
Italian: I'm in advanced, with Brie (Garbriella) , Rachel (Raquelina), and Amanda (Amanducco). I'm Giulietta. Go figure. Together we're the Ragazzine, and Mario is our Professore. Good times, and many Italian hang man games. Hopefully, I'll improve my Italian conversation skillzz.
Ecosystems: with Ricardo, who has traveled the world and beyond. I'm not too sciency, but I guess it's useful stuff to know, if anyone ever needs ecological news about the mediterranean basin, I'll be your gal for that.
Greek Myth and Religion: very history-ish, and Michael likes to hear himself talk, which he does without taking breaks/breaths/etc. We also like to hear him talk in his smooth British accent, however. We'll see.
In any case, I won't worry about grades too much here, I decided, because they really don't count as long as I pass, and I'd rather have some local interactions and international affairs (kiddinggg) with the locals instead of being a study freak. Such as.... the soccer training Brie, Stefania and I are having with our neighborly new boyfriend, Manuele, who is 15.
Go us! Tomorrow is a day off (or wait... fieldtrip whaaat?) In anycase, we're going to th archaeological Park AGAIN (this time by bus, so it's not a 1 hour walk!) Going back, I might want to check out that shoe store with the SALDI, where I saw nice boots.... And walking hasn't killed anyone yet. I hate when people complain about anything here that's unamerican.... grawr... losers!
Saturday is the optional Catania fieldtrip (historical tour) where I will be onboard. The ladies and I booked a hostel to stay there for the night, since Catania is where the nightlife is at. That's right, people, no dancing in Siracusa.... bahh. Also, the Catania Soccer team is playing on Sunday, and we'll try to get tickets and immerse ourselves in the culture... Then we'll take the Bus back, on Sunday. This will be a good practice, because to fly out of the citta, we'll need to make it to Catania anyways.
I decided to not spend much money on weekend trips (we have a lot of activities that are program inclusive on weekends, fieldtrips, etc) and save money for spring break... Don't know yet where to, but it should be a city, somewhere I haven't been.... I have a few ideas.
Anyways, that's it for now, pictures will be up when the wireless is fixed!
Ciao a tutti!
Sunday, January 27, 2008
cha bang
Sunday, January....
Ciao cari amici!
We slept in today, and it's really hard to leave a warm bed when the apartment is molto freddo! We had some heater issues (related to the flames -we thought it would explode!) Anyways, when we ran into Liam, one of the housing guys, this morning, he promised to stop by and take a look. As it turned out, everything was fine.
So now we have heat, YAY!
We had lunch at a little panini and gelato place, and I ordered a calzone filled with tomatoes, cheese, and eggplant!I also had a Happy Hippo with it. I had no problem ordering, and that felt really good. I mean, I get by, I really do, and I understand more than I would have thought (Sicilians speak slowly and draw out their words!)
Then I got some postcards, and found some cute potential gifts for certain people!
Anyways, Brie made some sausage with lemons, very good.
Classes start tomorrow, placement test at 9:30, then from 2-5. Oma and Opa called today :)
OK, the roomers are getting readay to go out, and I shall go with.
Ciao, baci e abbracci!
Ciao cari amici!
We slept in today, and it's really hard to leave a warm bed when the apartment is molto freddo! We had some heater issues (related to the flames -we thought it would explode!) Anyways, when we ran into Liam, one of the housing guys, this morning, he promised to stop by and take a look. As it turned out, everything was fine.
So now we have heat, YAY!
We had lunch at a little panini and gelato place, and I ordered a calzone filled with tomatoes, cheese, and eggplant!I also had a Happy Hippo with it. I had no problem ordering, and that felt really good. I mean, I get by, I really do, and I understand more than I would have thought (Sicilians speak slowly and draw out their words!)
Then I got some postcards, and found some cute potential gifts for certain people!
Anyways, Brie made some sausage with lemons, very good.
Classes start tomorrow, placement test at 9:30, then from 2-5. Oma and Opa called today :)
OK, the roomers are getting readay to go out, and I shall go with.
Ciao, baci e abbracci!
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Ciao! Tschau!
Saturday, January xx
Hello kids,
I don't actually miss the internet (aka the responsibility to answer important emails, facebook [who cares about who updates whatever...], aim, the whole deal, etc.
I haven't actually signed up to get internet (arriving last minute when everyone had already left) so I need to sign up monday, before my placement test (arghhhx) and classes. Speaking of, here is my schedule:
Monday/Wednesday : Sicilian Literature and Culture 14:00-15:30
Greek Myth + Religion 15:30-17:00
Tuesday/Thursday : Advanced Italian 9:00-10:30
Art History and Archeology 10:30-12:00
Mediterranean Ecosystems 17:00 - 20:00
yeah.
The tap water is the weirdest tap water ever tasted. It feels thick, and tastes somewhere inbetween sweet and salty. Hmmm.
We buy water (from Mount Etna) in 2l bottles, from the little store close to the school. Sometimes a bottle costs 40 cents, sometimes 35, depending on who sells it. That means that I usually spend 65 or 70 cents, having added a Kinder Milchschnitte. hehe.
Sicilian men are funny. As a woman, expect to be serenaded while walking down the street, and whistled at. We are attending a mandatory women's workshop on wednesday, to learn about how to behave around men here. We don't even need to try to befriend Sicilian women, who hate "easy" American women because their own men are so flirty.
Generally, we're not supposed to give out our numbers and take people to our apartments, they'll look around to see what we have, come back later, and clean out the place...
We went out last night, but after the loud, drunk, unclassy American group was turned away by two upscale bars (to be expected, some people in the group are so embarassingly ridiculous....) Stefania, Ashley and I left and later went to a Bar close to the Piazzo Duomo. Happy Hour was long gone, and we only stayed for one drink.
ohh well. Apparently the next "dance" club is 20 min away, by taxi.. bahhh
Today Stefania and I threw ourselves into the famous market and bought some fresh ciabatta for 50 cents, fruit, and tomatoes. hmmm. the fish stand was very promising, calamari, shrimp, octopus..... purchases will be made soon!
We went on a historical tour this morning also, and there is an archeological tour at 2.
Merrr, why did I sign up again?
Anyways, it's one, so there is time for a half hour nap, siesta!
Hello kids,
I don't actually miss the internet (aka the responsibility to answer important emails, facebook [who cares about who updates whatever...], aim, the whole deal, etc.
I haven't actually signed up to get internet (arriving last minute when everyone had already left) so I need to sign up monday, before my placement test (arghhhx) and classes. Speaking of, here is my schedule:
Monday/Wednesday : Sicilian Literature and Culture 14:00-15:30
Greek Myth + Religion 15:30-17:00
Tuesday/Thursday : Advanced Italian 9:00-10:30
Art History and Archeology 10:30-12:00
Mediterranean Ecosystems 17:00 - 20:00
yeah.
The tap water is the weirdest tap water ever tasted. It feels thick, and tastes somewhere inbetween sweet and salty. Hmmm.
We buy water (from Mount Etna) in 2l bottles, from the little store close to the school. Sometimes a bottle costs 40 cents, sometimes 35, depending on who sells it. That means that I usually spend 65 or 70 cents, having added a Kinder Milchschnitte. hehe.
Sicilian men are funny. As a woman, expect to be serenaded while walking down the street, and whistled at. We are attending a mandatory women's workshop on wednesday, to learn about how to behave around men here. We don't even need to try to befriend Sicilian women, who hate "easy" American women because their own men are so flirty.
Generally, we're not supposed to give out our numbers and take people to our apartments, they'll look around to see what we have, come back later, and clean out the place...
We went out last night, but after the loud, drunk, unclassy American group was turned away by two upscale bars (to be expected, some people in the group are so embarassingly ridiculous....) Stefania, Ashley and I left and later went to a Bar close to the Piazzo Duomo. Happy Hour was long gone, and we only stayed for one drink.
ohh well. Apparently the next "dance" club is 20 min away, by taxi.. bahhh
Today Stefania and I threw ourselves into the famous market and bought some fresh ciabatta for 50 cents, fruit, and tomatoes. hmmm. the fish stand was very promising, calamari, shrimp, octopus..... purchases will be made soon!
We went on a historical tour this morning also, and there is an archeological tour at 2.
Merrr, why did I sign up again?
Anyways, it's one, so there is time for a half hour nap, siesta!
Friday, January 25, 2008
Sono arrivata!
I have arrived in Sicily - safe and sound!
The apartment is amazing - better than I hoped for..... pictures will be posted soon!
The island is beautiful and various Kinder chocolate products have been purchased. Unfortunately, the Internet is limited, so this is the best way to stay in touch!
Q: How can we hack the Zone system on our dvd player?
Grazie!
The roommate all seem very nice, and I'm sure we'll get along!
Italian driving is crazy! I feared for my life several times en route Catania - Siracusa! It's pretty much 'drive on top of the person in front of you' but they are pretty good at stopping at the last second and squeezing by 3 cars on a two lane street. The island is so small, we're often lucky to have a one foot wide sidewalk and sometimes the streets are so narrow that there is not enough room for a person and a car! There is an Esprit store on the island and an 'Eurospar' on the mainland :D Shopping soon!
OK, off to the second part of the orientation!
The apartment is amazing - better than I hoped for..... pictures will be posted soon!
The island is beautiful and various Kinder chocolate products have been purchased. Unfortunately, the Internet is limited, so this is the best way to stay in touch!
Q: How can we hack the Zone system on our dvd player?
Grazie!
The roommate all seem very nice, and I'm sure we'll get along!
Italian driving is crazy! I feared for my life several times en route Catania - Siracusa! It's pretty much 'drive on top of the person in front of you' but they are pretty good at stopping at the last second and squeezing by 3 cars on a two lane street. The island is so small, we're often lucky to have a one foot wide sidewalk and sometimes the streets are so narrow that there is not enough room for a person and a car! There is an Esprit store on the island and an 'Eurospar' on the mainland :D Shopping soon!
OK, off to the second part of the orientation!
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