No joke, that's when Saki woke up. 6PM. I'm gonna kill her if she keeps the lights on all night again tonight.
Dinner these past few days has taught me something very valuable: if you gripe about the food being the worst ever, you will be proven wrong sometime in the future. Example: I complained about Williams food, and got Whitley food. I complained about that, and got San Servolo food. I'm kinda scared to find out what's worse than San Servolo food, because my main dish for the past two nights has been cheese. I kid you not-- tonight my dinner consisted of a salad, an orange, some potatoes, and a hunk of cheese with a slice of zucchini on the top. Clearly I will be starving in an hour or so, so I wisely saved my orange from lunch and a pastry-type thing from breakfast. You know your life is sad when you start hoarding food. I feel like a squirrel. One that's very good at procrastinating. I finished one paper and am about a third of the way through my second one, but I really have no motivation. I don't think I've ever finished a paper a whole week before they were due. Ever. And now I'm expected to have two of them done a week early? That's a tough one. I also have yet to pack for my trip with Tia tomorrow. I did plan out which vaporetto and bus to take to get to the airport on time, so I know I've got until 11:20 to get myself together. Well, okay until 9 because the cleaning ladies are supposed to come tomorrow. That'll be interesting. Currently I have stuff all over my bed-- stuff to pack for the trip, and stuff to pack to go home with Tia. I'm trying to get rid of anything I don't absolutely need. It's rather difficult.
Okay fine I'll stop babbling about nonsense and go finish this stupid paper. I'm sure I'll be back to update about my superexciting life in a bit, because my attention span is that of a goldfish right now. Speaking of goldfish, in my procrastinating last night I happened upon the youtube video of the regurgitator. This is entertainment that Williams has brought back to campus many times, and I've never gone to see him because, well, the thought of someone regurgitating stuff doesn't really appeal to me as entertainment. But this video was somewhat amusing in my half-crazed, half-bored state. In case you're as bored as I am, or as good at procrastinating, here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwqk7qd4HCk
And just now I found this video that's a feature on youtube, and I really like the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NeigcgYYic
Okay and this one's the last one (it's the really cute sea otters holding hands at the aquarium):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epUk3T2Kfno
And now Saki's gone, so I'll call mom. And then I swear I'll finish this paper. I promise.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Grrrrrr.
I am not a happy camper today. I was so excited on Tuesday when Saki left, and promised she wouldn't return until Saturday. I enjoyed every minute of having the room to myself yesterday-- I got changed in the room instead of the bathroom, I blasted my music and sang along, I had the window open all day and most of the night as well....and I even went to bed early last night, with the lights completely off, smiling at the prospect of one night of completely uninterrupted sleep.
Until midnight, when I woke up startled at the sound of the door opening. It was Saki. I must've given her some sort of death stare (which I admit, I am rather good at giving when someone disrupts my sleep), because she looked a bit frightened and said "sorry!" But then once I half-heartedly told her it was okay and laid back down to sleep, she turned on the lights. I laid there with my eyes open for a while, and then reached into my bedside table and grabbed my eye mask. Attempt number 2 to get some sleep. As soon as I just started drifting off, I heard some sort of crinkling and crunching noises. Needless to say, I was livid when she finally stopped annoying me. I have no idea what time she actually went to sleep, but it's now 1:40pm and she's still in bed. I got up around 9, showered, went to breakfast, sat outside trying to start my papers, went to lunch, and now I'm back in my room because I need my computer to type up the papers. But she's still in bed, so I'm roasting in here in a tank top and a skirt, because in the past whenever I open the window she gets back up and closes it.
Conclusion: I can't live with someone I don't get along with. She drives me crazy and I never get a moment alone in the room. I'm always tip-toeing around the room in the morning because she sleeps all day, and then I'm annoyed all night because she doesn't show the same courtesy when I'm trying to sleep. I can't make phone calls because I don't like other people listening in on my calls. Not to mention the heat. It's Venice, and it's definitely summer. There is no air conditioning in these rooms. We get the afternoon sun straight in our window starting soon after noon, and this room turns into a sauna by 5pm if the window stays closed. She sits here all day long in sweatpants and a jacket and the window closed. I'm almost tempted to sleep outside on the patio on the other side of the island, except the bugs are unbearable. I've got some sort of bite the size of a quarter in my elbow crook, another one taking up my entire left earlobe, another on my right wristbone, and a fourth on the side of my face. Plus if I slept on the patio I'm sure I'd get woken up around 7 by the gross Italian workmen who catcall all the VIU girls in the mensa. I guess being woken up at 4am, 7, 7:15, 7:30, and 7:45 by an alarm phone (with 5 different Japanese songs on it), and then a final time around 8:15 by a hair dryer beats being stared at by gross old men. It's close though. Why doesn't this girl have normal sleep/waking habits?? Or at least common courtesy? All I can say is I hope she hates the smell of vinegar first thing when she wakes up, because I just brought my salad back to the room (not knowing she would still be in bed) so I could work on my papers and get to the beach today too. Vinegar still beats cooked asparagus/vomit though.
I cannot wait for this semester to be over.
Until midnight, when I woke up startled at the sound of the door opening. It was Saki. I must've given her some sort of death stare (which I admit, I am rather good at giving when someone disrupts my sleep), because she looked a bit frightened and said "sorry!" But then once I half-heartedly told her it was okay and laid back down to sleep, she turned on the lights. I laid there with my eyes open for a while, and then reached into my bedside table and grabbed my eye mask. Attempt number 2 to get some sleep. As soon as I just started drifting off, I heard some sort of crinkling and crunching noises. Needless to say, I was livid when she finally stopped annoying me. I have no idea what time she actually went to sleep, but it's now 1:40pm and she's still in bed. I got up around 9, showered, went to breakfast, sat outside trying to start my papers, went to lunch, and now I'm back in my room because I need my computer to type up the papers. But she's still in bed, so I'm roasting in here in a tank top and a skirt, because in the past whenever I open the window she gets back up and closes it.
Conclusion: I can't live with someone I don't get along with. She drives me crazy and I never get a moment alone in the room. I'm always tip-toeing around the room in the morning because she sleeps all day, and then I'm annoyed all night because she doesn't show the same courtesy when I'm trying to sleep. I can't make phone calls because I don't like other people listening in on my calls. Not to mention the heat. It's Venice, and it's definitely summer. There is no air conditioning in these rooms. We get the afternoon sun straight in our window starting soon after noon, and this room turns into a sauna by 5pm if the window stays closed. She sits here all day long in sweatpants and a jacket and the window closed. I'm almost tempted to sleep outside on the patio on the other side of the island, except the bugs are unbearable. I've got some sort of bite the size of a quarter in my elbow crook, another one taking up my entire left earlobe, another on my right wristbone, and a fourth on the side of my face. Plus if I slept on the patio I'm sure I'd get woken up around 7 by the gross Italian workmen who catcall all the VIU girls in the mensa. I guess being woken up at 4am, 7, 7:15, 7:30, and 7:45 by an alarm phone (with 5 different Japanese songs on it), and then a final time around 8:15 by a hair dryer beats being stared at by gross old men. It's close though. Why doesn't this girl have normal sleep/waking habits?? Or at least common courtesy? All I can say is I hope she hates the smell of vinegar first thing when she wakes up, because I just brought my salad back to the room (not knowing she would still be in bed) so I could work on my papers and get to the beach today too. Vinegar still beats cooked asparagus/vomit though.
I cannot wait for this semester to be over.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
"So....where did they hide the castle?!"
Schizophrenic castles, Turkish baths, crazy girls, goulash, Roman ruins, 1000 year old hands....yeah, Budapest is cool.
On Thursday night, Chen, Caitlin, Keshia, and I set out for our favorite train station (well, at least, the one place in Venice that we spend the most time at) after scarfing down half a dinner at the mensa and running straight across San Servolo to catch the vaporetto as it was pulling away. That's when I realized I very intelligently forgot to pack socks. Good thing I brought my Reefs with me. On the plus side, when we got to the train station we had enough time to walk around a bit outside before the train left. Luckily, Chen, Keshia, and I had our own compartment, and Caitlin was a few compartments down from us in the same car. We finally settled down around 11pm, and I was just getting to sleep when we heard a knock on the door, followed by, "PASSPORT CONTROL!" The three of us fish through our stuff, find our passports, and I'm the first one to hand mine to the border patrolman. He looked, stamped, and grabbed Keshia's, where he did the same thing. Then Chen's turn came. And he looked. And looked. And asked for a secondary ID. And consulted his book. Finally he told us that Israeli passports are easily forged, stamped it anyway, handed it back, and left us in peace. We slept until at 3:15 we again heard "PASSPORT CONTROL!" Same situation. Fumble through the bags, American passports first, problem with the Israeli one. Again at 4, 6, 6:30, and the last time was at 7:30. By the time they finally left us alone, I was livid, but snuggled back up under the blanket for a catnap since we weren't scheduled to arrive in Budapest until 11. No such luck. An hour later, our compartment was opened yet again, this time by the conductor, who said in a rather cheerful voice "dormire e finito!" And with that, he took away our sheets and pillows, and left behind three sleepy, rather confused girls. Then Caitlin came in and started singing, which is never a good thing to do to me when I'm angry and sleep-deprived. I take no responsibility for my actions when I am in such a state. When we finally got to our hostel in Budapest, I was exhausted and would've liked nothing more than to take a nice long shower and a nap, but we couldn't sleep away our first day, so we met up with Caitlin (who was staying somewhere else) and went to Castle Hill. Our first stop was of course for food, because by this time we had been up for countless hours and hadn't had anything to eat since the half of dinner we ate in 5 minutes the night before. Chen, Keshia, and I all tried goulash, which I quickly discovered is my new favorite kind of soup. It's probably very fattening, but it's delicious (the two could be related). When we reached the top of Castle Hill, the first thing we saw was a big church, and it took us a while to discover that it was Matthias Church, started in the 12th century and finished in the 19th. Then we stumbled upon a fortress wall with pretty views, which we found out later was the Fishermen's Bastion (all these places were in my Lonely Planet guidebook, but they weren't actually labelled so it was hard to know what we were looking at). When we finally discovered that the "castle" was an unimpressive building now housing a modern art exhibit, we wandered down to the Danube and walked back over to the Pest side of Budapest. We ate dinner at a place called Menza, which was amazing. I had a steak with two eggs and french fries, and it made my belly smile.
The next morning Chen, Keshia, and I met up with Caitlin at St. Stephen's Basilica, which is enormous. My favorite thing about this church by far was the fact that they had St. Stephen's 1000 year old hand enshrined there. Then we walked to Varosliget (the city park), and on the way, Chen and Keshia decided to climb all over some statue. It was pretty funny because the base was taller than Chen is. I'm still not sure how she made it up there. In the park, the first thing we saw was Vajdahunyad Var-- the schizophrenic castle. It's called that because it was built in four or five different vastly different architectural styles (Tudor and Gothic are two of them). It's a gorgeous castle, complete with a moat and its own lake where people go sailing in the summertime. On the far side of the park was the Budapest zoo, so the four of us amused ourselves for several hours with that. Next door was Szechenyi Furdo-- some of the Turkish baths. Keshia, Caitlin, and I spent a too-short hour in the thermal spa while Chen walked around outside. When we came out, we were wrinkled and rather relaxed. We found a little restaurant for dinner, where I ate a milanesa (it wasn't quite up to Lelo's or mom's standards, but it was still a milanesa), and then we walked around outside. We came across the city's Jewish quarter and the rather imposing synagogue in the process. After reaching the Danube, we turned around and went back to the hostel for the night.
On Sunday morning, the four of us took the suburban railway to Aquincumi, which is the most complete ruins of a second century Roman civilian town left in Hungary. It was pretty cool- basically, it was a playground for big kids. Who can resist climbing all over ruins and taking awesome pictures? We spent a good portion of the morning there, and after lunch, Chen, Keshia and I went to Vaci utca, the main shopping street, in the hopes of finding something cool to bring home (but unfortunately I didn't have much luck with that). I did see an apron with the goulash recipe on it, but it wasn't very well made, and it wasn't cheap either. Our train left Budapest at 5pm, and the trip back was rather similar to the trip there-- we got our own compartment again, and were also woken up 6 times for passport control. So now I have 12 useless stamps in a passport that already has stamps on top of old ones. We arrived in Venice at 7:15 in the morning, exhausted, hungry, and grimy, and had to shower quickly and get to class by 11. That was fun. Here are the pictures from the weekend:
http://williams.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015590&l=2989a&id=3901306
http://williams.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015591&l=774db&id=3901306
I got back my two midterms (from Italian and Representing Renaissance Venice), and I did pretty well so I'm happy. I've got two papers to write before I leave with Tia on Friday for Spanish Guy, a response paper to write for Massimo, and I have to pick a topic for my final paper (8-10 pages) for Representing Renaissance Venice. I don't think that these professors really understand what "midterm break" means. Clearly, in their vocabularies, "break" means "assign more work." At least I've got these first two days to get it all done, and hopefully to find a summer job too.
In other random news that I feel is important to share, there was a bomb at Williams last weekend. Apparently it was three Williams students, who, according to the e-mail, "were curious as to such a device." They lit it and fortunately it failed, so no one was hurt. They're going to court sometime over the summer for delinquence and making a weapon, but my favorite part was that they "may or may not be suspended from the college." So basically you can set a bomb off at Williams and still only get a slap on the wrist from administration. That amazes me. That school is absolutely rediculous. I'm so glad my time there is almost over.
Speaking of Williams, I enrolled in classes for next semester. I'm currently in Psychology 401 Senior Seminar, Psychology 332 Cognitive Development, Psychology 352 Clinical and Community Psychology (my personal favorite), and History 225 The Middle Ages (because Professor Goldberg is my favorite teacher ever and I would take any class taught by him because he can make absolutely anything fascinating).
Well, spring break has officially started, and I've got tons of work/packing/laundry to do. So of course I'm going to enjoy the fact that I am roommate-less for tonight, and I'm going to have a gloriously long and uninterrupted sleep. Good night!
On Thursday night, Chen, Caitlin, Keshia, and I set out for our favorite train station (well, at least, the one place in Venice that we spend the most time at) after scarfing down half a dinner at the mensa and running straight across San Servolo to catch the vaporetto as it was pulling away. That's when I realized I very intelligently forgot to pack socks. Good thing I brought my Reefs with me. On the plus side, when we got to the train station we had enough time to walk around a bit outside before the train left. Luckily, Chen, Keshia, and I had our own compartment, and Caitlin was a few compartments down from us in the same car. We finally settled down around 11pm, and I was just getting to sleep when we heard a knock on the door, followed by, "PASSPORT CONTROL!" The three of us fish through our stuff, find our passports, and I'm the first one to hand mine to the border patrolman. He looked, stamped, and grabbed Keshia's, where he did the same thing. Then Chen's turn came. And he looked. And looked. And asked for a secondary ID. And consulted his book. Finally he told us that Israeli passports are easily forged, stamped it anyway, handed it back, and left us in peace. We slept until at 3:15 we again heard "PASSPORT CONTROL!" Same situation. Fumble through the bags, American passports first, problem with the Israeli one. Again at 4, 6, 6:30, and the last time was at 7:30. By the time they finally left us alone, I was livid, but snuggled back up under the blanket for a catnap since we weren't scheduled to arrive in Budapest until 11. No such luck. An hour later, our compartment was opened yet again, this time by the conductor, who said in a rather cheerful voice "dormire e finito!" And with that, he took away our sheets and pillows, and left behind three sleepy, rather confused girls. Then Caitlin came in and started singing, which is never a good thing to do to me when I'm angry and sleep-deprived. I take no responsibility for my actions when I am in such a state. When we finally got to our hostel in Budapest, I was exhausted and would've liked nothing more than to take a nice long shower and a nap, but we couldn't sleep away our first day, so we met up with Caitlin (who was staying somewhere else) and went to Castle Hill. Our first stop was of course for food, because by this time we had been up for countless hours and hadn't had anything to eat since the half of dinner we ate in 5 minutes the night before. Chen, Keshia, and I all tried goulash, which I quickly discovered is my new favorite kind of soup. It's probably very fattening, but it's delicious (the two could be related). When we reached the top of Castle Hill, the first thing we saw was a big church, and it took us a while to discover that it was Matthias Church, started in the 12th century and finished in the 19th. Then we stumbled upon a fortress wall with pretty views, which we found out later was the Fishermen's Bastion (all these places were in my Lonely Planet guidebook, but they weren't actually labelled so it was hard to know what we were looking at). When we finally discovered that the "castle" was an unimpressive building now housing a modern art exhibit, we wandered down to the Danube and walked back over to the Pest side of Budapest. We ate dinner at a place called Menza, which was amazing. I had a steak with two eggs and french fries, and it made my belly smile.
The next morning Chen, Keshia, and I met up with Caitlin at St. Stephen's Basilica, which is enormous. My favorite thing about this church by far was the fact that they had St. Stephen's 1000 year old hand enshrined there. Then we walked to Varosliget (the city park), and on the way, Chen and Keshia decided to climb all over some statue. It was pretty funny because the base was taller than Chen is. I'm still not sure how she made it up there. In the park, the first thing we saw was Vajdahunyad Var-- the schizophrenic castle. It's called that because it was built in four or five different vastly different architectural styles (Tudor and Gothic are two of them). It's a gorgeous castle, complete with a moat and its own lake where people go sailing in the summertime. On the far side of the park was the Budapest zoo, so the four of us amused ourselves for several hours with that. Next door was Szechenyi Furdo-- some of the Turkish baths. Keshia, Caitlin, and I spent a too-short hour in the thermal spa while Chen walked around outside. When we came out, we were wrinkled and rather relaxed. We found a little restaurant for dinner, where I ate a milanesa (it wasn't quite up to Lelo's or mom's standards, but it was still a milanesa), and then we walked around outside. We came across the city's Jewish quarter and the rather imposing synagogue in the process. After reaching the Danube, we turned around and went back to the hostel for the night.
On Sunday morning, the four of us took the suburban railway to Aquincumi, which is the most complete ruins of a second century Roman civilian town left in Hungary. It was pretty cool- basically, it was a playground for big kids. Who can resist climbing all over ruins and taking awesome pictures? We spent a good portion of the morning there, and after lunch, Chen, Keshia and I went to Vaci utca, the main shopping street, in the hopes of finding something cool to bring home (but unfortunately I didn't have much luck with that). I did see an apron with the goulash recipe on it, but it wasn't very well made, and it wasn't cheap either. Our train left Budapest at 5pm, and the trip back was rather similar to the trip there-- we got our own compartment again, and were also woken up 6 times for passport control. So now I have 12 useless stamps in a passport that already has stamps on top of old ones. We arrived in Venice at 7:15 in the morning, exhausted, hungry, and grimy, and had to shower quickly and get to class by 11. That was fun. Here are the pictures from the weekend:
http://williams.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015590&l=2989a&id=3901306
http://williams.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015591&l=774db&id=3901306
I got back my two midterms (from Italian and Representing Renaissance Venice), and I did pretty well so I'm happy. I've got two papers to write before I leave with Tia on Friday for Spanish Guy, a response paper to write for Massimo, and I have to pick a topic for my final paper (8-10 pages) for Representing Renaissance Venice. I don't think that these professors really understand what "midterm break" means. Clearly, in their vocabularies, "break" means "assign more work." At least I've got these first two days to get it all done, and hopefully to find a summer job too.
In other random news that I feel is important to share, there was a bomb at Williams last weekend. Apparently it was three Williams students, who, according to the e-mail, "were curious as to such a device." They lit it and fortunately it failed, so no one was hurt. They're going to court sometime over the summer for delinquence and making a weapon, but my favorite part was that they "may or may not be suspended from the college." So basically you can set a bomb off at Williams and still only get a slap on the wrist from administration. That amazes me. That school is absolutely rediculous. I'm so glad my time there is almost over.
Speaking of Williams, I enrolled in classes for next semester. I'm currently in Psychology 401 Senior Seminar, Psychology 332 Cognitive Development, Psychology 352 Clinical and Community Psychology (my personal favorite), and History 225 The Middle Ages (because Professor Goldberg is my favorite teacher ever and I would take any class taught by him because he can make absolutely anything fascinating).
Well, spring break has officially started, and I've got tons of work/packing/laundry to do. So of course I'm going to enjoy the fact that I am roommate-less for tonight, and I'm going to have a gloriously long and uninterrupted sleep. Good night!
Thursday, April 19, 2007
On my way out the door
I'm trying to remember my last-minute things for Budapest, and I realized that I didn't put up pictures from last weekend's trip to Ravenna. So here they are:
http://williams.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015449&l=3ec81&id=3901306
Sorry that I can't say more about it, but basically the highlight was seeing the church of San Vitale, which I learned about last year in my Charlemagne class. And eating a piadina, which was a pita-like panino with prosciutto and mozzarella in it. Yum.
http://williams.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015449&l=3ec81&id=3901306
Sorry that I can't say more about it, but basically the highlight was seeing the church of San Vitale, which I learned about last year in my Charlemagne class. And eating a piadina, which was a pita-like panino with prosciutto and mozzarella in it. Yum.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
PUO AVERE EFFETTI DIURETICI.
That's on the label of every water bottle I get from the mensa: "Can have diuretic effects." Doesn't water normally have that effect? Maybe this water is supposed to make you pee even more? Boh. (My favorite phrase in Italian-- I don't know).
Well, speaking of Italian, I had my midterm today. That was.....well, I'm just hoping I don't break my record low of a 7%, let's just put it that way. Massimo said it was going to be easy, and he definitely lied. He did have an amusing section about how his wife left him for a collegue though (we had to fill in the prepositions). If it's true, I don't blame her. He deserves it.
Yesterday I had to give a 30-minute oral presentation about nuns in Renaissance Venice. In general, it wasn't too bad-- the professor kept trying to interject with things, and most of the time it was my next point, so he gave up and just let me speak (it was supposed to be my presentation anyway, not his!). Most of my audience was nodding off til I started talking about how a lot of the nuns found clever ways of getting their boyfriends in the convents (they were forced into being a nun by their families who didn't want to provide a dowry to all their daughters). My personal favorite was a story about two nuns who took out an iron bar from their window and used it at night to bang a hole in the outer wall of the convent, allowing their boyfriends through, and then they hid them in a storage cellar for a week and visited with them at night. These nuns were pretty hilarious. Anyway, the world didn't end as I had suspected it would, and now my presentation is over and I can relax the rest of the semester!
And finally, I am starting to get over this horrible cold. Yesterday I was convinced it was the flu- I suppose it could've been, because it was definitely worse than just a normal cold. But how weird is it to get the flu after getting the flu shot??! I'm just glad it's leaving me-- it'd be horrible to be in Budapest this weekend when all I want to do is sleep and eat soup. Speaking of soup, I'm rather famished. Exams always make me hungry. Keep your fingers crossed for identifiable mystery meat!
Well, speaking of Italian, I had my midterm today. That was.....well, I'm just hoping I don't break my record low of a 7%, let's just put it that way. Massimo said it was going to be easy, and he definitely lied. He did have an amusing section about how his wife left him for a collegue though (we had to fill in the prepositions). If it's true, I don't blame her. He deserves it.
Yesterday I had to give a 30-minute oral presentation about nuns in Renaissance Venice. In general, it wasn't too bad-- the professor kept trying to interject with things, and most of the time it was my next point, so he gave up and just let me speak (it was supposed to be my presentation anyway, not his!). Most of my audience was nodding off til I started talking about how a lot of the nuns found clever ways of getting their boyfriends in the convents (they were forced into being a nun by their families who didn't want to provide a dowry to all their daughters). My personal favorite was a story about two nuns who took out an iron bar from their window and used it at night to bang a hole in the outer wall of the convent, allowing their boyfriends through, and then they hid them in a storage cellar for a week and visited with them at night. These nuns were pretty hilarious. Anyway, the world didn't end as I had suspected it would, and now my presentation is over and I can relax the rest of the semester!
And finally, I am starting to get over this horrible cold. Yesterday I was convinced it was the flu- I suppose it could've been, because it was definitely worse than just a normal cold. But how weird is it to get the flu after getting the flu shot??! I'm just glad it's leaving me-- it'd be horrible to be in Budapest this weekend when all I want to do is sleep and eat soup. Speaking of soup, I'm rather famished. Exams always make me hungry. Keep your fingers crossed for identifiable mystery meat!
Friday, April 13, 2007
Estamos en Munich!!!!!
I know, I know; I'm really late with getting this update out. I offer the excuses of having had a midterm on Thursday and being sick now. Well, here's Salzburg and Munich in one word: AWESOME.
Here they are in quite a bit more:
Our trip seemed doomed from the start. Last Thursday afternoon, right before Chen, Keshia, Lauren, and I were headed off to the train station, Keshia got a phone call about a family emergency, and decided not to come. Lauren and I headed off as planned, and Chen stayed with Keshia for a bit and planned on meeting us at the train station before the train left. Once Lauren and I finally made it through the big long line at the ticket counter, we had about 10 minutes to spare before our train was supposed to leave. So far, so good. Lauren went off to find Chen, and I was left alone to deal with a sour-looking old man behind the desk labelled "international departures." I handed him the reservation paper and asked for the printed tickets. He said no. I asked, "what do you mean, no?" He said "come back tomorrow." Then my inner obnoxious American came out and started getting angry. "NO I am NOT coming back TOMORROW!!! The train leaves in TEN MINUTES! I already PAID for those seats and I am getting on THAT train!" He sat and argued for another five minutes, and then finally said "okay I'll see what I can do." He took my reservation paper, and disappeared. Disaster #1. Chen came and found me with one minute til the train was supposed to leave, and I was in a panic. After quickly explaining the situation to her, she said "okay, now's not the time to argue. Let's get on the train anyway." So, with visions of being tossed out of the train somewhere in the Alps, the three of us ran toward the train and managed to get on just as the doors were closing. We found our seats as the train pulled out of Venice. When the ticket man came by an hour later, I calmly explained the situation. Disaster #2. He gave me an I-don't-believe-you look, but said he would come back later to sort it out. However, a random person (disaster #3?) saved us. At the next stop, someone started talking in Italian quickly over the intercom. I didn't pay much attention to it until I heard in English "...are stopped indefinitely. We will pass along details as they come." Immediately I recalled Amy (another girl studying with us) talking about when she went to Cinque Terre, and how a woman committed suicide by jumping in front of the train, stalling them for five hours. I dismissed the thought though, thinking, "how many people would have that idea??" Apparently it's popular here-- someone had collided with the train in front of us, and we were waiting for the mess to be cleaned up before we would be allowed to continue our journey. (It wasn't clear whether the person jumped or it was an accident). At any rate, the ticket man never did come back. Thanks to the delay though, we arrived in Salzburg at 6AM instead of 4AM, which was comforting to three girls travelling alone through places where they don't speak the language at all. Once we checked in to the hotel, it was time to go on the Sound of Music tour. Lauren, Chen, and I felt bad going on it because Keshia had been the one who was really excited about this portion of the trip, and she didn't get to enjoy it with us. The views over the lakes were gorgeous, but we spent too much time on the bus and not enough time at the locations. When we arrived back in the center of Salzburg, we met up with Sayaka, a Japanese student who was travelling by herself. The four of us walked through the Mirabell Gardens to the historic city center, where we visited Mozart's house. I loved his house. They had a large collection of his instruments: two organs, two harpsichords, a piano, a violin, and a horn of some kind, and they also had letters he wrote and even some original music. I guess you have to be a music nerd like me to find all that as interesting as I did. Anyway, after that, the four of us stumbled upon a rather large fortress (not the Salzburg Fortress, but a different one). This one had a lot of pretty nature trails to explore and talked about the ancient history of the area. Lauren and Sayaka weren't as into the "hiking" bit as Chen and I were, so they decided to go shopping while we explored the historic city center (and ate an obligatory ice cream). We met up again with Lauren and Sayaka for dinner at an Asian fast-food-type place which was pretty good. The next morning, Lauren, Chen, and I set out bright and early for Hellbrunn (which means "Springs of Hell"), the pleasure palace of Archbishop Markus Sittikus. It was built in the late 1500s, and this man was a hysterical genius. The gardens of this palace are gorgeous, with lots of fountains and flowers everywhere. We were herded into a circular area with a stone table and stools with little holes in the middle of the seats. That was where the archbishop would entertain his guests. He liked to get them good and drunk, and then he would surprise them by turning on the water, which would squirt out of the seat and drench their bottoms. The best part is, at that time it was considered a crime to be standing in the presence of a seated archbishop, so they had to literally grin and bear it. After a demonstration (using some very eager little boys as the "guests" and a very reluctant older woman for the "archbishop"), we moved on to other exhibits in the trick gardens. I made good use of my raincoat that day-- in one room, water "rained" from the ceiling, and outside of another, a deer head mounted on the wall spouted water through his mouth and antlers! Out of the entire trip, Hellbrunn was by far my favorite place. After Chen and I quickly toured the inside of the palace, the three of us headed back to the city center, where Lauren went shopping again and Chen and I headed up to the Festung Hohensalzburg (the Salzburg Fortress). We discovered that we get along really well together because out of the whole complex, we liked the toilet (it protrudes out from the side of the turret....and opens at the bottom. In the words of our tour guide, "bombs away!") and the torture instruments. They had several very funny-looking masks, thumb screws, a huge pointy wheel that was dropped on criminals until they were squashed to death, and other unidentifiable objects. Too bad all the descriptions were in German, because it would've been really good if we knew what they were used for and what crimes deserved which punishments. Anyway, once we met back up again with Lauren, the three of us went to the train station and hopped on a train to Munich. I like travelling on trains-- the scenery was so pretty as we crossed the Alps. Oh, here's a random Sound of Music trivia fact: that mountain they climb over to "escape into Switzerland" at the end? It would've led them straight into Nazi Germany. And another one: the mountain that Maria runs down at the beginning actually takes 3 hours to hike up. Well, unless you're Maria, because it took her only 3 minutes to run down it and enter the abbey again. Okay now back to the trip.
We got to Munich on Saturday night, and obviously everything was closed, so after checking in at the hostel we walkded around and found ourselves in the middle of the old town. Lauren got very excited because there's a huge Zara (her new favorite store) and an H&M spanning two blocks. We wandered past all the main sites at night, and then ate a quick dinner and went to bed. The next morning we got up early and went to Dachau concentration camp, which took us several hours. There was a lot of information to take in, not only about that particular camp but also about Nazi Germany and even the lead-up to the war. The only parts of the camp that were original were the gas chambers (which were never used for mass killings for whatever reason) and the crematorium. I think the most chilling for me was a "shooting range" tucked away in a forested area: there were trees with ivy crawling up them and wildflowers all over, and a bare concrete wall with a sloped base that ended in a 6-inch ditch about 8 feet away, which was apparently dug to collect the blood. The rest of the camp was reconstructed and somehow just didn't seem realistic enough to have a shocking effect. Around lunchtime we went back to Munich, and I ate a weiner schnitzel at an outdoor restaurant, listening to classical music played on the marimba (a xylophone-type instrument) and rock music played on an accordion in the square. We watched the Glockenspiel, which is a bell tower of a church that plays three times a day and has moving marionettes. At the end, a German rider on a horse jabs his lance through an Austrian one and then other marionettes dance. It was....interesting. Then we walked around some more and found ourselves in the gardens of the Residenz for a while. We didn't get to go in anything because it was Easter Sunday and rather late in the afternoon, so everything was closed, but it was still nice to just walk around and see it all (of course, while eating Haagen Daz rum raisin ice cream...can't go to Germany and not eat Haagen Daz!). When we got back to the hostel, we were exhausted, and the next morning we got up and went straight to the airport and came back to Venice. It would've been nice to have more time though-- I could've definitely spent another day at least in Salzburg, and we didn't really see much of Munich.
Here are the pictures:
http://williams.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015212&l=cd6ff&id=3901306
And here:
http://williams.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015213&l=0acf8&id=3901306
On other news, on Thursday morning I put on my favorite pair of jeans and they ripped in a very unconvenient location, which made me very sad. Then I had to take a midterm for my Representing Renaissance Venice class, which I finished 30 minutes early. I think it went well. Today, Friday, Keshia, Chen, Caitlin, and I were supposed to go to Ravenna, but sadly the train workers are on strike. I'm convinced it's because the police are too lazy to clean up whenever a body collides with the trains, so the conductors probably have to do it. Anyway, they should be off strike tomorrow, so those are the plans for Saturday. Today I ended up sleeping a whole lot because I accidentally took two Tylenol Cold PM in the morning, thinking it was the AM one. Oops. I did manage in my foggy state to get a bit of work done on my presentation on nuns coming up on Tuesday, which was good. Hopefully I'll finish that either tomorrow on the trains or on Sunday. I'll be busy this week: on Monday, Leslie Davis from Duke study abroad will be visiting and she offered to take us out to dinner, then that night I have a make-up class since my professor was sick a few weeks ago, Tuesday's my presentation, and Wednesday is my Italian midterm. Then Thursday night Keshia, Chen, (possibly Caitlin), and I are leaving for Budapest for the weekend!
*Edit: I just realized I didn't explain the title. Well, on Saturday night as we were wandering around Munich, a random guy came up to us and asked with an accent if we spoke English. He then proceeded to ask us what city we're in. I answered "Munich." His eyes grew wide and he turned to his friends and said in Spanish, "Do you know where we are????!!! We're in Munich!!" His friends laughed and said, "so?" He kept protesting though, because apparently they were supposed to be in some other city. All of them were clearly in an altered state of mind. Chen, Lauren, and I found it rather hilarious.
Here they are in quite a bit more:
Our trip seemed doomed from the start. Last Thursday afternoon, right before Chen, Keshia, Lauren, and I were headed off to the train station, Keshia got a phone call about a family emergency, and decided not to come. Lauren and I headed off as planned, and Chen stayed with Keshia for a bit and planned on meeting us at the train station before the train left. Once Lauren and I finally made it through the big long line at the ticket counter, we had about 10 minutes to spare before our train was supposed to leave. So far, so good. Lauren went off to find Chen, and I was left alone to deal with a sour-looking old man behind the desk labelled "international departures." I handed him the reservation paper and asked for the printed tickets. He said no. I asked, "what do you mean, no?" He said "come back tomorrow." Then my inner obnoxious American came out and started getting angry. "NO I am NOT coming back TOMORROW!!! The train leaves in TEN MINUTES! I already PAID for those seats and I am getting on THAT train!" He sat and argued for another five minutes, and then finally said "okay I'll see what I can do." He took my reservation paper, and disappeared. Disaster #1. Chen came and found me with one minute til the train was supposed to leave, and I was in a panic. After quickly explaining the situation to her, she said "okay, now's not the time to argue. Let's get on the train anyway." So, with visions of being tossed out of the train somewhere in the Alps, the three of us ran toward the train and managed to get on just as the doors were closing. We found our seats as the train pulled out of Venice. When the ticket man came by an hour later, I calmly explained the situation. Disaster #2. He gave me an I-don't-believe-you look, but said he would come back later to sort it out. However, a random person (disaster #3?) saved us. At the next stop, someone started talking in Italian quickly over the intercom. I didn't pay much attention to it until I heard in English "...are stopped indefinitely. We will pass along details as they come." Immediately I recalled Amy (another girl studying with us) talking about when she went to Cinque Terre, and how a woman committed suicide by jumping in front of the train, stalling them for five hours. I dismissed the thought though, thinking, "how many people would have that idea??" Apparently it's popular here-- someone had collided with the train in front of us, and we were waiting for the mess to be cleaned up before we would be allowed to continue our journey. (It wasn't clear whether the person jumped or it was an accident). At any rate, the ticket man never did come back. Thanks to the delay though, we arrived in Salzburg at 6AM instead of 4AM, which was comforting to three girls travelling alone through places where they don't speak the language at all. Once we checked in to the hotel, it was time to go on the Sound of Music tour. Lauren, Chen, and I felt bad going on it because Keshia had been the one who was really excited about this portion of the trip, and she didn't get to enjoy it with us. The views over the lakes were gorgeous, but we spent too much time on the bus and not enough time at the locations. When we arrived back in the center of Salzburg, we met up with Sayaka, a Japanese student who was travelling by herself. The four of us walked through the Mirabell Gardens to the historic city center, where we visited Mozart's house. I loved his house. They had a large collection of his instruments: two organs, two harpsichords, a piano, a violin, and a horn of some kind, and they also had letters he wrote and even some original music. I guess you have to be a music nerd like me to find all that as interesting as I did. Anyway, after that, the four of us stumbled upon a rather large fortress (not the Salzburg Fortress, but a different one). This one had a lot of pretty nature trails to explore and talked about the ancient history of the area. Lauren and Sayaka weren't as into the "hiking" bit as Chen and I were, so they decided to go shopping while we explored the historic city center (and ate an obligatory ice cream). We met up again with Lauren and Sayaka for dinner at an Asian fast-food-type place which was pretty good. The next morning, Lauren, Chen, and I set out bright and early for Hellbrunn (which means "Springs of Hell"), the pleasure palace of Archbishop Markus Sittikus. It was built in the late 1500s, and this man was a hysterical genius. The gardens of this palace are gorgeous, with lots of fountains and flowers everywhere. We were herded into a circular area with a stone table and stools with little holes in the middle of the seats. That was where the archbishop would entertain his guests. He liked to get them good and drunk, and then he would surprise them by turning on the water, which would squirt out of the seat and drench their bottoms. The best part is, at that time it was considered a crime to be standing in the presence of a seated archbishop, so they had to literally grin and bear it. After a demonstration (using some very eager little boys as the "guests" and a very reluctant older woman for the "archbishop"), we moved on to other exhibits in the trick gardens. I made good use of my raincoat that day-- in one room, water "rained" from the ceiling, and outside of another, a deer head mounted on the wall spouted water through his mouth and antlers! Out of the entire trip, Hellbrunn was by far my favorite place. After Chen and I quickly toured the inside of the palace, the three of us headed back to the city center, where Lauren went shopping again and Chen and I headed up to the Festung Hohensalzburg (the Salzburg Fortress). We discovered that we get along really well together because out of the whole complex, we liked the toilet (it protrudes out from the side of the turret....and opens at the bottom. In the words of our tour guide, "bombs away!") and the torture instruments. They had several very funny-looking masks, thumb screws, a huge pointy wheel that was dropped on criminals until they were squashed to death, and other unidentifiable objects. Too bad all the descriptions were in German, because it would've been really good if we knew what they were used for and what crimes deserved which punishments. Anyway, once we met back up again with Lauren, the three of us went to the train station and hopped on a train to Munich. I like travelling on trains-- the scenery was so pretty as we crossed the Alps. Oh, here's a random Sound of Music trivia fact: that mountain they climb over to "escape into Switzerland" at the end? It would've led them straight into Nazi Germany. And another one: the mountain that Maria runs down at the beginning actually takes 3 hours to hike up. Well, unless you're Maria, because it took her only 3 minutes to run down it and enter the abbey again. Okay now back to the trip.
We got to Munich on Saturday night, and obviously everything was closed, so after checking in at the hostel we walkded around and found ourselves in the middle of the old town. Lauren got very excited because there's a huge Zara (her new favorite store) and an H&M spanning two blocks. We wandered past all the main sites at night, and then ate a quick dinner and went to bed. The next morning we got up early and went to Dachau concentration camp, which took us several hours. There was a lot of information to take in, not only about that particular camp but also about Nazi Germany and even the lead-up to the war. The only parts of the camp that were original were the gas chambers (which were never used for mass killings for whatever reason) and the crematorium. I think the most chilling for me was a "shooting range" tucked away in a forested area: there were trees with ivy crawling up them and wildflowers all over, and a bare concrete wall with a sloped base that ended in a 6-inch ditch about 8 feet away, which was apparently dug to collect the blood. The rest of the camp was reconstructed and somehow just didn't seem realistic enough to have a shocking effect. Around lunchtime we went back to Munich, and I ate a weiner schnitzel at an outdoor restaurant, listening to classical music played on the marimba (a xylophone-type instrument) and rock music played on an accordion in the square. We watched the Glockenspiel, which is a bell tower of a church that plays three times a day and has moving marionettes. At the end, a German rider on a horse jabs his lance through an Austrian one and then other marionettes dance. It was....interesting. Then we walked around some more and found ourselves in the gardens of the Residenz for a while. We didn't get to go in anything because it was Easter Sunday and rather late in the afternoon, so everything was closed, but it was still nice to just walk around and see it all (of course, while eating Haagen Daz rum raisin ice cream...can't go to Germany and not eat Haagen Daz!). When we got back to the hostel, we were exhausted, and the next morning we got up and went straight to the airport and came back to Venice. It would've been nice to have more time though-- I could've definitely spent another day at least in Salzburg, and we didn't really see much of Munich.
Here are the pictures:
http://williams.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015212&l=cd6ff&id=3901306
And here:
http://williams.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2015213&l=0acf8&id=3901306
On other news, on Thursday morning I put on my favorite pair of jeans and they ripped in a very unconvenient location, which made me very sad. Then I had to take a midterm for my Representing Renaissance Venice class, which I finished 30 minutes early. I think it went well. Today, Friday, Keshia, Chen, Caitlin, and I were supposed to go to Ravenna, but sadly the train workers are on strike. I'm convinced it's because the police are too lazy to clean up whenever a body collides with the trains, so the conductors probably have to do it. Anyway, they should be off strike tomorrow, so those are the plans for Saturday. Today I ended up sleeping a whole lot because I accidentally took two Tylenol Cold PM in the morning, thinking it was the AM one. Oops. I did manage in my foggy state to get a bit of work done on my presentation on nuns coming up on Tuesday, which was good. Hopefully I'll finish that either tomorrow on the trains or on Sunday. I'll be busy this week: on Monday, Leslie Davis from Duke study abroad will be visiting and she offered to take us out to dinner, then that night I have a make-up class since my professor was sick a few weeks ago, Tuesday's my presentation, and Wednesday is my Italian midterm. Then Thursday night Keshia, Chen, (possibly Caitlin), and I are leaving for Budapest for the weekend!
*Edit: I just realized I didn't explain the title. Well, on Saturday night as we were wandering around Munich, a random guy came up to us and asked with an accent if we spoke English. He then proceeded to ask us what city we're in. I answered "Munich." His eyes grew wide and he turned to his friends and said in Spanish, "Do you know where we are????!!! We're in Munich!!" His friends laughed and said, "so?" He kept protesting though, because apparently they were supposed to be in some other city. All of them were clearly in an altered state of mind. Chen, Lauren, and I found it rather hilarious.
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
What's in a name?
Well, actually a lot's in a name. For example, when people read Great Expectations and see the name Mr. Pocket it reminded them that he was a character who wished he had more money in his pockets. When people hear the name Mildred, an old lady (for some, well, me anyway, a British old lady) automatically comes to mind. When VIU students hear Orla, we think of Spawn of Satan. When we hear Romeo or Juliet, we think of love. And that brings me (rather circumlocutorily) to the topic of my post: I went to Verona last weekend!
I must begin by saying that Verona is a very cute town, but it's rather sad that its claim to fame is not having the second largest Roman colloseum (only the one in Rome is bigger), but the Casa di Giulietta-- that's right, a fictional literary character's "house." You can even visit her "tomb" where she's "buried." And if you pay a whopping 5 euros, you can go inside her house, see a few paintings of her and Romeo, and stand on her balcony (which is actually a stolen sarcophagus glued to a second-story window). If the line's not too long, you can send her an e-mail, but my friends are still waiting for a response. They figured if they can visit her house and send her e-mail, the least she could do is reply. After all, it's only polite to write back to admirers.
Well, so after we stood in the courtyard of her authentic medieval house and rubbed her right boob for good luck, Chen, Keshia, and I decided to explore the rest of the city. The colloseum was very cool, and it's still used today for concerts (although I can't imagine that sitting on a stone seat for a whole concert is very comfortable). We ate lunch in a Chinese restaurant (it's sad but the food was really good and a whole lot cheaper than eating Italian food there!), and then went across the river and climbed a little hill to see a castle, which was (of course) closed. The view was very pretty though, and after we had had enough of it we made our way down and entered the Archeological Museum located at the foot of said hill, which of course, we had to climb again because the museum is basically half the hill. At the bottom there was a Roman amphitheater, which, when it was in use, was complete with an orchestra pit and curtains that were moved with a pulley system. Then we made our way through a small chapel to a museum building that used to be a monastery but now has an entire collection of decapitated statues and bodiless heads, and we passed through a Roman graveyard before finding ourselves back on the street we started from. In all, it was a nice, relaxing day, and I'm glad that the three of us travel well together. It's rare to find two new friends to go to Verona with as plain old tourists, and not for their international wine festival (which, coincidentally, the rest of VIU was in the city for).
Pictures can be found here:
http://williams.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014763&l=8655d&id=3901306
On a small housekeeping note, I have had to change the privacy settings on Skype because several times now I've received rude phone calls from strangers in China or Turkey at 2AM. The last one woke me up three times in a span of 10 minutes, and when I told him politely but firmly to not contact me again, I was met with a string of F words in a tone so angry I was awake for the next hour, sure that he was going to hunt me down from Istambul and kill me for refusing to take his phone call. I had to leave the phone off the hook the rest of the night to avoid hearing from him again. So I've attempted to solve the problem by blocking calls from people not on my list, but I know that that creates a problem for several people. I probably can't receive calls from Dad's office because it's never from the number that I use to call them, and I'm not even sure I can receive calls at all (because you never know with modern technology...everything that can go wrong seems to do so happily at the first chance it gets). So I just wanted to apologize for anyone who cannot get through, and if you find this too annoying, either let me know via e-mail or a comment on here and I'll change them back and just leave the phone off the hook at night, or call me on my landline at a time I would probably be in the room (i.e., after 9pm here). Okay just wanted to get that cleared up.
I haven't been updating this blog as often as I did last semester because lo and behold, the professors here are assigning this weird thing called homework! It's a strange concept, but every other week I have to write two papers (one for each of the Spanish Guy's classes), and Massimo (Teacher of Doom) assigns homework every other night as well. Today he infuriated Keshia by saying that American kids have issues with Italian and are just horrible when they try to learn it because we're brought up only knowing one language (English) fluently. I hate to agree with him, but it is true that in general, the American students here are the ones with the worst pronounciation and the hardest time speaking. However, he didn't mention that for us, it is easier to guess at the meaning of words we don't recognize than for some of the other nationalities in class. Anyway, I didn't take much offense at what he said; I guess maybe because I grew up speaking two languages (even though my English is far better than my Spanish is), and I found French to be fairly simple to learn (although sadly, most of it has gone out the window since I haven't used it in three years). I just don't have many problems with learning Italian. My problems with Massimo's class stem from Massimo, who really infuriated me yesterday because not only did he come in to class reeking of cigarette smoke, but he had the nerve to sit practically on top of me the entire class period. I think that out of an hour and a half, he probably spent only 20 minutes of it where he wasn't able to touch me. My jacket now smells like smoke (actually it constantly smells of smoke because of him) because he sits so close that his shoulder touches my arm, no matter how far I lean to the opposite side of the desk. It's really rather frustrating and irritating, but I'm afraid to complain because as it is, Spawn of Satan (Orla) decides our grades based on how much she likes us, so I definitely don't want to be on Massimo's bad side in addition to already being on Orla's. (Silly me for accusing the maids of stealing my money! Of course they are so honest and would never do such a thing!) Ah well, sorry for griping so often on here about Massimo and Spawn of Satan. It's hard to stop a rant when all I can think of is how I'd like to be more practiced in the art of defenestration.
To change the subject, I shall impart the wonderful knowledge I have garnered on the all-knowing wikipedia.com (my newest method of procrastination...and you can't complain either, because it's educational!):
Kiwis used to be called Chinese gooseberries. They changed the name as a marketing strategy during the Cold War because sales were going down because they were associated with China. The leading producer of kiwis in the world is Italy. They are rich in vitamins A, C, E, and potassium. I eat two kiwis every day in the hopes of nourishing my body with something other than refined sugar in bread, pasta, cereal, and croissant form.
Cleopatra was the last Egyptian pharaoh. She reigned from 60-30BC, when she killed herself with a snake. Apparently one of the most famous stories about her is when she presented Caesar with a Persian carpet, and he unrolled it to find her in the center. Nine months later she gave birth to his son, and then made an "alliance" with Antony that resulted in three more children. Antony's wife kindly took in her children after Cleopatra and Antony died. I really have no idea how this came into my head, but I suppose I must've been trying really hard to stay awake in class one day and all of a sudden I had the desire to know when the last Egyptian pharaoh died. So I looked it up.
And this has been facts.com, bringing you interesting facts whenever you definitely didn't want to know, signing off until next week.
I must begin by saying that Verona is a very cute town, but it's rather sad that its claim to fame is not having the second largest Roman colloseum (only the one in Rome is bigger), but the Casa di Giulietta-- that's right, a fictional literary character's "house." You can even visit her "tomb" where she's "buried." And if you pay a whopping 5 euros, you can go inside her house, see a few paintings of her and Romeo, and stand on her balcony (which is actually a stolen sarcophagus glued to a second-story window). If the line's not too long, you can send her an e-mail, but my friends are still waiting for a response. They figured if they can visit her house and send her e-mail, the least she could do is reply. After all, it's only polite to write back to admirers.
Well, so after we stood in the courtyard of her authentic medieval house and rubbed her right boob for good luck, Chen, Keshia, and I decided to explore the rest of the city. The colloseum was very cool, and it's still used today for concerts (although I can't imagine that sitting on a stone seat for a whole concert is very comfortable). We ate lunch in a Chinese restaurant (it's sad but the food was really good and a whole lot cheaper than eating Italian food there!), and then went across the river and climbed a little hill to see a castle, which was (of course) closed. The view was very pretty though, and after we had had enough of it we made our way down and entered the Archeological Museum located at the foot of said hill, which of course, we had to climb again because the museum is basically half the hill. At the bottom there was a Roman amphitheater, which, when it was in use, was complete with an orchestra pit and curtains that were moved with a pulley system. Then we made our way through a small chapel to a museum building that used to be a monastery but now has an entire collection of decapitated statues and bodiless heads, and we passed through a Roman graveyard before finding ourselves back on the street we started from. In all, it was a nice, relaxing day, and I'm glad that the three of us travel well together. It's rare to find two new friends to go to Verona with as plain old tourists, and not for their international wine festival (which, coincidentally, the rest of VIU was in the city for).
Pictures can be found here:
http://williams.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014763&l=8655d&id=3901306
On a small housekeeping note, I have had to change the privacy settings on Skype because several times now I've received rude phone calls from strangers in China or Turkey at 2AM. The last one woke me up three times in a span of 10 minutes, and when I told him politely but firmly to not contact me again, I was met with a string of F words in a tone so angry I was awake for the next hour, sure that he was going to hunt me down from Istambul and kill me for refusing to take his phone call. I had to leave the phone off the hook the rest of the night to avoid hearing from him again. So I've attempted to solve the problem by blocking calls from people not on my list, but I know that that creates a problem for several people. I probably can't receive calls from Dad's office because it's never from the number that I use to call them, and I'm not even sure I can receive calls at all (because you never know with modern technology...everything that can go wrong seems to do so happily at the first chance it gets). So I just wanted to apologize for anyone who cannot get through, and if you find this too annoying, either let me know via e-mail or a comment on here and I'll change them back and just leave the phone off the hook at night, or call me on my landline at a time I would probably be in the room (i.e., after 9pm here). Okay just wanted to get that cleared up.
I haven't been updating this blog as often as I did last semester because lo and behold, the professors here are assigning this weird thing called homework! It's a strange concept, but every other week I have to write two papers (one for each of the Spanish Guy's classes), and Massimo (Teacher of Doom) assigns homework every other night as well. Today he infuriated Keshia by saying that American kids have issues with Italian and are just horrible when they try to learn it because we're brought up only knowing one language (English) fluently. I hate to agree with him, but it is true that in general, the American students here are the ones with the worst pronounciation and the hardest time speaking. However, he didn't mention that for us, it is easier to guess at the meaning of words we don't recognize than for some of the other nationalities in class. Anyway, I didn't take much offense at what he said; I guess maybe because I grew up speaking two languages (even though my English is far better than my Spanish is), and I found French to be fairly simple to learn (although sadly, most of it has gone out the window since I haven't used it in three years). I just don't have many problems with learning Italian. My problems with Massimo's class stem from Massimo, who really infuriated me yesterday because not only did he come in to class reeking of cigarette smoke, but he had the nerve to sit practically on top of me the entire class period. I think that out of an hour and a half, he probably spent only 20 minutes of it where he wasn't able to touch me. My jacket now smells like smoke (actually it constantly smells of smoke because of him) because he sits so close that his shoulder touches my arm, no matter how far I lean to the opposite side of the desk. It's really rather frustrating and irritating, but I'm afraid to complain because as it is, Spawn of Satan (Orla) decides our grades based on how much she likes us, so I definitely don't want to be on Massimo's bad side in addition to already being on Orla's. (Silly me for accusing the maids of stealing my money! Of course they are so honest and would never do such a thing!) Ah well, sorry for griping so often on here about Massimo and Spawn of Satan. It's hard to stop a rant when all I can think of is how I'd like to be more practiced in the art of defenestration.
To change the subject, I shall impart the wonderful knowledge I have garnered on the all-knowing wikipedia.com (my newest method of procrastination...and you can't complain either, because it's educational!):
Kiwis used to be called Chinese gooseberries. They changed the name as a marketing strategy during the Cold War because sales were going down because they were associated with China. The leading producer of kiwis in the world is Italy. They are rich in vitamins A, C, E, and potassium. I eat two kiwis every day in the hopes of nourishing my body with something other than refined sugar in bread, pasta, cereal, and croissant form.
Cleopatra was the last Egyptian pharaoh. She reigned from 60-30BC, when she killed herself with a snake. Apparently one of the most famous stories about her is when she presented Caesar with a Persian carpet, and he unrolled it to find her in the center. Nine months later she gave birth to his son, and then made an "alliance" with Antony that resulted in three more children. Antony's wife kindly took in her children after Cleopatra and Antony died. I really have no idea how this came into my head, but I suppose I must've been trying really hard to stay awake in class one day and all of a sudden I had the desire to know when the last Egyptian pharaoh died. So I looked it up.
And this has been facts.com, bringing you interesting facts whenever you definitely didn't want to know, signing off until next week.
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