Fall Break

Until further notice, I'm in Greece.
I should return Saturday Nov 3.

continued..

I just realized i never got around to the "scrambled brains" part of the previous post. It's quite simply referring to my midterms. I have 13 credits on only 3 classes. 7 of those 13 are tied up in my intensive italian. There's still more i need to study for italian, even though i took the midterm yesterday. I think it went just fine though. I was expecting much worse.

Tuesday morning at 9am was my Modern Middle East midterm. That class feels like my only real class here. Not that italian isn't a real class, but I'm in Italy, so it feels like ..an assisted living program, of sorts, more than anything. Anyway, I would have been much more relaxed going into my Middle East midterm had i started studying on Sunday like i told myself i was going to. (Instead i lounged around all day Sunday after walking the entire day in Pompei on Saturday.) So i didn't get around to studying for the Middle East until 8pm Monday night. But between 8p and 1.30a, i got 4 hours of studying in, along with a dinner break and a 30 minute distraction break. ...Still wasn't done though, got up at 7, started studying again at 730 until i left at 830. I was relatively worried going in, because the Prof. was quite vague about the format and about the content as well. ..but I think i knocked that exam out of the park. I literally felt like a huge weight was off my shoulders when i walked out of the exam. I was, most definitely, physically carrying the tension, but i didn't notice until it was gone. Next time I'll start at least a day earlier. ..or more, depending on my final exam schedule.

Even though I didn't have class til 330p Monday, I didn't start studying until 8pm because i spent Monday finishing up a roll to finalize my photography midterm. We had to take our 15 best and somehow connect them in a sequence. i think i mentioned that before. ..So i didn't completely waste Sunday. I spent Sunday shooting homeless people, but I couldn't find the one in particular i was looking for. So i finished the roll Monday morning. The guy I wanted - I'd seen him every single Monday morning on my way to getting my film developed. And I found him again this week. He was perfect. The final addition to my sequence (along with 3 other pictures I shot on Sunday). I was really amazed how much one guy on Sunday opened up to me.

Though I didn't necessarily understand everything he said, between his broken English and my very broken Italian, I got to know him pretty well. He turned to the street after living with a girlfriend 13yrs? or he's been on the street for 13yrs after he got into a huge argument with his girlfriend and her mother. ..not entirely sure which, but by the condition of his teeth, I'd guess the latter. The guy now lives on the street with his dog. Sure he had an open beer next to his bag. And i know he felt guilty about it because he attempted to justify it, saying at least at least he wasn't drinking whiskey or vodka. Maybe he was just a good salesman, maybe he was honest, but he said he puts his dog before himself. It was obvious, without him even saying a word, that he loves his dog - just how he interacted with her and how he looked at her. I'm sure the guy had some food of his own in his bag. Probably more beer as well. But that aside, i was still very impressed when he pulled out 4 cans of dog food - 3 of them being massive. If they'd held liquid, I'd guess they'd have been at least a liter. Maybe even a liter and a half. Sure, he's probably never gonna make anything of himself. I can easily see him being one the street the rest of his life. But I did buy into his feeling about his dog.

I sat there for about half an hour. Took 12-13 shots of him, and him with his dog. And gave him a pretty good payday for his work in helping out my midterm. €3. It'll probably buy him 2 more cans of dog food.

...and a beer.

Burnt Bodies and Scrambled Brains

Went to Pompeii this weekend. Wasn't really on my list of things do do, so i opted out to save money last time when half of my roommates went. JD's sister was visiting, and Pompeii was on her list of things to do. Since JD had already been, Rob and I went with to Pompeii.

Nice place (if i'm permitted to say that about a city annihilated by a volcano). The preserved bodies aren't in nearly as many buildings as i thought they'd be. ...First of all, Pompeii is rather large with multiple distinct neighborhoods. The bodies are pretty much confined to four or so areas. It's pretty fun to explore a deserted city though. Great place to bring a camera as well, whether or not one's intent is actually to see the city. Some of the areas reminded me very much of a photographer's set, except the objects and backgrounds were real. ..I felt like I should have been getting my senior pictures taken all over again.

...If you couldn't tell, i loved shooting there. There's several other shots i want to share, but won't be able to fit in this blog. I wound up with something like 260 pictures from Pompeii by the time we hopped on the return train. After deleting bad shots and duplicates, I still had 190. Deleted another 12 or so upon returning home. Total count from Pompeii, 178. That helps explain why I'm having such a tough time deciding which 4 pictures to show. I've even decided to limit myself to the horizontal pictures for format's sake. I felt the group shot was necessary, but now I'm disappointed in leaving out some fantastic vertical shots. ...But by now, you've seen the final cut I'm about to make.

Sorry for the Delay

Midterms.
more later.

..So I heard..

All of the following are separate stories i wanted to share. Even though i could have saved them and posted one at a time, in the even that i had nothing else to write for a day - i figured i'd tell all so i dont forget. The only thing they really have in common is i either overheard the conversations, or i possibly should have rephrased them. ...you'll figure it out in a bit.

First should be a continuation of my Pisa post. I was just running short on time when I first posted Pisa. Anyway, as i was riding the train alone back to Rome, I woke up to a conversation between two couples in italian. I think one of the couples was actually some nationality other than italian. ...i think that's the only reason i understood the conversation. ...because the italian couple would repeat things sometimes as many as 3 times. The non-italian couple was trying to figure out how to get to St. Peters from Termini (Rome's main train station). In turn, the italian couple responded with "Adesso è San Pietro. Poi Trastevere, e poi Termini." ...lucky for the St. Peter's-seeking couple, the train was stopping at a small station right behind St. Peters. then it was stopping at Trastevere Station. ...Trastevere station?? that's two blocks from my apartment. Nice. I didn't have to deal with buses from Termini to get back home. I just hopped off at Trastevere, and was home less than 5 minutes later.

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i overslept my Italian class on wed. it was all i had to do the whole day, and i missed it. I almost felt worthless, missing my only obligation that day. Today, the moment i walked through the door, she asked where I had been. I'd had a long night. At about 2pm, i felt I needed a nap, or there was no way i woulda made it through my 3:30-5:00 Italian lecture. ...so I took a nap. Right thru Italian lecture. I'd set my alarm for 2:45, but either it never went off, or i was in such a deep sleep that i never heard it. I know i didnt unconsioucly turn it off and fall asleep again, because my alarm was still in the 'ON' position. I woke up at 5:20. I guess i really needed that nap.
"Preferisco non dire" would probably have been a better answer to my professor than "ho dormito lungo...."

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"I really wanna shoot a homeless person"... with a camera, for my photography assignment. I was one the tram with Justin, talking about out photography class. We have to put together our 15 best pictures for next week, as our "mid-term" We take use stuff we've already shot, re-shoot pictures if we liked an idea but needed to improve the shot, or shoot new stuff. But whatever we use, somehow we need at least one element in each picture that connects it to the next one. When we were walking to get our film developed on Monday, we passed by a homeless guy, and there was an element of the background that would make the shot a perfect fit in my sequence. I've seem him in the same location a few times, so I hope I can find him there again. ...but to avoid strange looks from people, maybe next time i should make sure there aren't any American students around next time, unaware that we were discussing photography...

Photogenic Shoes

After a comment i just read in an email from my mom, I've decided to post a picture i shot for this past week's photography assignment. ...I'm also procrastinating in preparation for a presentation i have to give tomorrow. ..But I like to think of it as just "taking a break" ..even though i'm only a quarter of the way done.

Anyway, enjoy:

I Crush Tourists

...So i obviously went to Pisa over the weekend. I made a day trip on Saturday with most of my roommates. They continued onto Florence for the night and much of Sunday as well. In an effort to save money, i found a train back to Rome from Pisa (I've already seen Florence). The return trip was only €16. Pretty good.

Pisa was nice, but it's definitely just a day thing. Half a day there is perfect. Gives you enough time to shell out €15 to a "non-profit" org. to climb to the top of a tower that should have fallen over so long ago (must be expensive to preserve the tower. All of the other sights in Pisa aren't more than €15 combined). Anyway, i shelled out the €15 and took my touristy pictures. Making fun of some tourists that walked right in the background of my picture, Craig maneuvered to make it look as if I was crushing the tourist, rather than kicking over the tower. I ended up getting the classic pictures as well, but i think crushing the tourist is better than either of the two...



P.S. I'm once again in a phase of lacking posts. So i cheated on the date. More later. ...i hope

MTV influence

No class today. Friday. So i was doing my daily sudoku in our USA Today. I'm 100% on Mon-Thurs. But i'm about to fall to 2 for 4 on Fridays. I'll take another look at it later. A couple-hour break helped last time.

Anyway, i was distracting myself with some MTV while attempting my sudoku. I looked up from the paper to see this music video. Got me thinking about a lot of things, one being the recurring question of what I'll wind up doing with my camera. I have no idea what I'll be doing or where I'll end up in 10 days or 10 months, let alone 10 years from now. What will I have chosen? For what reasons? ...will I have even chosen by then??

"There was ... Music Still on MTV"

One of the many great features of Italy is MTV. That might sound more like a taste of home than a European product, but it's not. Music TeleVision in Italy actually shows ...music, believe it or not. And it's not like America where there's music for an hour during the day (most of which is actually talking, and features only 30 seconds of each music video). Here it's always music. ..and 4 MTV channels. MTV hits, MTV Gold, MTV Brand new, and MTV pulse.

Hits and Pulse are almost identical. Brand new is very similar, and Gold is mostly music videos from the 80s and 90s. The only bad thing about watching so much MTV is seeing the same songs too often. Most overplayed song: "Umbrella" (cover) - Vanilla Sky. (check it out on YouTube. It's quite hilarious if you've seen the original by Rihanna)

Other Italian favorites seem to be:
Mika - "Relax, Take it Easy" and "Love Today"
Old Man River - "La"
James Blunt - "1973"
Negramaro - "Parlami D'Amore"
Tokio Hotel - "Monsoon"
Along with many songs i'd heard on the radio in the states before coming to Italia: "Pictures of You"; "Shut Up and Drive"; "Wake Up Call"; "When You're Gone"; "4 in the Morning"; a pair of Nelly Furtado's songs; and of course the original version of "Umbrella," which is only played every 10 songs, rather than every 5 songs like the cover.
(and i'm not exaggerating, at least in reference to the frequency at which the cover is played. Rihanna's original might be a little less often).

for the curious few, this is the song my title came from

....and apparently 4 backstreet boys are back together under the same name....

Buona Notte

...I should be reading a chapter on Turkey and Iran during the inter-war period, leading up to WWII. But here i sit, typing away.

We had our first "family dinner" tonight. It was the first time all of the roommates sat down and at a meal at our apartment at the same table at the same time. Usually, we're doing our own thing, or pairing up and a couple people will share dinner, but this was the first time with the whole appartamento insieme.

It was more than just the 6 of us though. Gwen joined us, along with her Roman cousin and her cousin's roommate. ...actually, the dinner was originally a return favor from JD and Gwen for the dinner her cousin hosted for them. It gradually turned into a big family dinner. We had a multiple-course dinner. If i didn't know better, i would think i live with a couple of chefs. It was also an opportunity to practice our Italian.

It was mostly a night of listening exercises for me. My Italian is coming along rather quickly. At least the comprehension of the language. It would have taken me a while to piece together a sentence if I'd tried. But I understood more than i expected i would.

Flugtag

Sunday, Red Bull was hosting their "Red Bull Flugtag" in Rome. If anyone doesn't know what that is - it's exactly like some of the Red Bull commercials, where people are pushing their homemade gliders off a high platform to see how far they can fly. ...Generally, the people wind up plunging almost straight down into the water. ...the occasional few gracefully glide a few meters before meeting the water as well. JD, Gwen, Rob and I went out to watch.

..

It was fun, but got repetitive. Especially since we were sitting in the sun for about 4 hours. But it taught me a few things:

1) don't trust the weather channel for european forecasts. At about 10:30am i looked online. It was only supposed to get to 73°F and had a 70% chance of rain. The hour-by-hour forecast said light rain starting at 11am and continuing all day long. So i dressed in long-sleeves and pants.

It turned out to be a cycle between mostly sunny and partly cloudy. I felt a grand total of 5 raindrops the whole time. ...and that was while the sun was shining. 73° turned out to be more like 82°. Thanks weather channel. I've learned weathermen are usually wrong, but you couldn't even get a same-day forecast correct. That's impressive.

2) Flugtag gave me a taste for Italian crowds. I still haven't made it out to a soccer game, but i have a feeling for what it might be like. The definitely aren't afraid to express themselves. We arrives about an hour early, and sat on the grass, along with several other groups of people sitting behind us. Very close to launch time for the event, people started stopping and standing on the walkway, right in front of the plot of grass we were sitting on. This drew a series of whistles (like the crowd as a major tennis tournament when they don't agree with a call). The whistles quickly turned into shouting. Eventually some garbage started flying, including someone's mostly-but-not-completely-empty McDonald's milkshake. Eventually a guy from a group behind us got up to tell the few defiant people remaining to move. When they stayed put and gestured for everyone else to stand up instead, a second guy jumped down to the walkway. ...I know italians speak with their hands, but this guy's veins were popping out and he looked like he was about to punch one of the idiots who refused to move. ...eventually, the idiots moved.

3) Europeans still love Baywatch. I already knew this one, but i got to see evidence for it. After the teams sent their glider and a few of their team members into the water, the crowd was asked to shout either "Squalo" or "Baywatch" depending on the teams' performance. Squalo meant a diver in scuba gear, with a giant shark fin attached to his back, would swim out to assist the team out of the water (to the two-note tune from Jaws). "Baywatch" meant the team would be rescued by the boat that would pull glider aside. ..set to the Baywatch theme-song of course.

To break up the sometimes monotonous repetition of gliders falling into the water, there were a few parachuters to entertain the crowd. The first time was a single guy from a helicopter who, after making his descent, made a perfect landing on the reserved plot of grass right along the water. The second show was two pairs of skydivers who each went into formation. After formation, they individually landed on the take-off ramp. 3 of the 4 made perfect landings. The fourth landed on the 2-meter strip of safety net bordering the ramp.

Weekend in Roma

Armin came to visit Rome this weekend. I had a good college night out, Friday. Went back to a bar i'd been to once before - On the Rocks. The bartenders there are cool. Randomly ran into a couple people from my Italian class, one of whom speaks German. Betsy also speaks danish. The coolest bartender there also happens to be from Denmark. So while the three of us are having a conversation in German, she's ordering drinks/talking to the bartender in danish as well. Quite the international experience.

Sometime after 02:00 we headed out. By 2:30, we wound up at a bar that televises US Sports. Just in time to catch the top of the 9th inning of a great Indians-Yankees game. The bugs were already swarming. But i guess i'd just missed seeing the Indians tie the game at 1-1 in the bottom half of the last inning. The game went 11 innings. Cleveland loaded the bases with two outs in the bottom of the 11th. Hafner worked the count to 3-2. And Lisa comes over to let me know we're leaving. Granted it was 4am by this point, but the game, all 11 innings worth, could be decided on the very next pitch. ..i'm staying to watch this pitch.

Hafner knocked the next pitch into right field. Indians win 2-1. The bar went nuts. The night ended well :-) . Sorry Yankee fans. .....well, not really. Maybe next time you should spend the tiniest fraction of your $200 million on some insect repellent.

I woke up at 9am the next morning to see Rome. My alarm was set for 9:30... so back to sleep i went. I was awake 8 minutes later. ...apparently i only needed 4 hours of sleep...?? I had a decent Kater from the €10.50 i spent the night before. I definitely got my money's worth.

Saturday was my first time inside the Coloseum. We checked out the Palatine Hill first. The ticket for the Palatine covers the Coloseum as well, but since the Palatine is a lot less popular in comparison, we had to wait a minute, as opposed to the 40 minutes the line at the Coloseum ticket window would have taken.

I didn't actually see the Pantheon on Saturday. Rob and i checked that out mid-week a couple weeks ago, since neither of us have class until late-afternoon Mon/Wed. But i thought since i was showing the Coloseum, i could throw up a picture of the Pantheon as well...

What a Crazy World

At the 44th parallel, the world is approximately 21,400 km around. Which means i'm more than 1/3 of the way around the world from home.

Sometimes people wonder if, somewhere in the world, someone else is doing or thinking the exact same thing at the exact same time. Thanks to the internet, it's possible to find out.
Shout-out to Ron.
Yesterday, I hopped on AIM (AOL Instant Messanger, for the old folks who aren't familiar with the acronym) and was chatting with Ron, who was sitting 7 time zones to the west. Somewhere along the conversation, we made the exact same comment at the exact same time. right down to the second.

Also thanks to the internet, it took me a whole 10 seconds to show Ron a picture 7,625 km away. I remember when it used to take a few hours to download a song. ...shows what generation i'm from. I'm sure some of you reading this are thinking "i remember when songs came on big black discs, about 10 to each side." Nowadays one can fit 1000's in a pocket, thanks to the iPod.

Sometimes I'm not all here...

No Photoshop involved.
just a dash of creativity and simple knowledge of how to use a camera.

Brilliant!

I think i've finally figured out the pictures on my blog - why some can be enlarged and not others.. If I center-align the pictures, it seems they cannot be enlarged. but there is no problem with the ones that are left/right aligned. ....To test my hypothesis: a toast to brilliance!

Oktoberfest revisited

no, unfortunately that doesn't mean i went again.
There are just a couple tidbits I wanted to share that I forgot to mention.

The first bit is just a meal i forgot to include in the giant Oktoberfest story. Saturday in the Augustiner Bierzelt, i enjoyed a delicious Bavarian dish for dinner - Kalbsbeuscherl mit Semmelknödel. ...Veal soup with a dumpling. Tasty.

The second bit could have - and actually would have - been its own entry had i not forgotten to mention the Kalbsbeuscherl. So i'll give it its own title, and you all can pretend it's a separate entry.

Homesick?

I know you'd love to think where this is going, mom, but it's not quite what you might expect. Don't get me wrong, It'd be nice to come home to visit for a weekend, but I'm also thoroughly enjoying my time in Europe.

I'm actually referring to a feeling that set in somewhere along the 11 hour bus trip back and lasted until sometime yesterday evening (until I had an "oh yeah, i'm in Rome" moment and regained my excitement for learning Italian). The best way to describe it would be homesickness. ...but is it possible to be homesick for a place that's not really home?

Germany was such a wonderful experience. I stayed in a home. Enjoyed cooked meals (hot breakfasts). I was in a place where i could understand 95% of what people were saying, rather than only 5%. It was easy to get around, and there was noticeably more of an American influence in Germany than there is in Italy (which is not necessarily a good thing nor a bad thing. ..just that much more of a reminder of home).

So call it what you will. I'm not sure if I can technically be homesick for a place where i've spent no more than 60 hours of my entire life. but that's kind of what it was. All I know for sure is that I can't wait to spend next semester in Germany.

Bilingual Transitions

It takes at least one conversation for me to adjust to another language:
After a smooth 12.5-13 hour ride from Rome to Florence, thru the rainy/foggy Austrian alps, to Munich, it was time to switch my brain to German mode. My first conversation (to find the cheapest way to get S-Bahn tickets for 4 ppl for 3 days) with the woman in the info. booth at the Hauptbahnhof went reasonably smooth. Only one hiccup. Answering a yes/no question, i nodded my head, "Si."

To confirm this "One-Conversation Theory" of mine:
Upon return to Italy (at 0:30 last night), my first italian encounter was on the bus this morning. I was standing near the middle doors of the bus. My stop was the next one. A man tapped me on the shoulder, "Scendi?" asking me if i was getting off. I turned around and nodded, "ja."

Gemütlichkeit

First, i need to thank the Tante Peggy Reisebüro for hooking me up with the biggest discount at the most amazing B&B i've ever stayed at.

I also need to thank Uwe and Thea, the owners of the B&B, for the 3 most delicious breakfasts of my entire first month in Europe. And for the shuttle service to and from the Eichenau Bahnhof Friday and Sunday mornings when we were carrying our bags.

please excuse any typos. I've switched the keyboard from italian to german, so i can get my umlauts instead of accents over vowels. The only problem is the german keyboard also switches around the z and y. Im trzing to catch all tzpos, but please excuse the ones i dont correct.

Oktoberfest:
it's all about knowing and meeting the right people.

Friday
Upon arrival in Eichenau, we were starving. Rob, being so cultured, wanted to find a place for a real German breakfast. The best place happened to be our B&B. Thea met us at the station, made some hot tea to warm us up and (not even knowing Rob's desire for an authentic German breakfast) asked if we would be interested in a real Bavarian breakfast. Our eyes lit up, so Thea said she'd be back in 15 minutes to get stuff for breakfest. Feeling guilty that she was going to run out, we asked if there was simply a place we could go buy breakfast, but she insisted. And thankfully so. The Weißewurst mit süße Senf was fantastic.

20 minutes on the S-Bahn. Made our way our way to the Oktoberfest grounds. It was still raining lightly, so the "just follow the masses" plan didnt really work. Twice stopping for directions, we got there with zero wrong turns. I felt like a tour guide. ..except i was only responsible for 3 other people. I guess i need a PR manager..

Arrived at 3:00ish. Walked past a carousel of drunk people. Grabbed a Bratwurst. Didn't notice many lines outside Beer tents. ...and by tents, i mean giant beer halls big enough to hold more than 9,000 people. Headed to the Löwebrau. Saw a crowd of people get let in, so we waited. We were near the front of the line, so we kept waiting... after an hour, someone from the inside came out to say they were completely full. At least by that time it'd stopped raining. So we picked another tent. Spaten. The line outside the Spaten didnt look nearly as long, but not wanting to risk standing at the front of a line for another hour, we grabbed a table outside.

We each had 2 liters. That was plenty to warm us up and put us in good spirits (if we weren't already). Walked around some more. Grabbed ein Bretzel. Had my first and only drunk driving experience. ...i hit a few cars. ...a few hit me. ...i think bumper cars are more fun when everyone is under the influence.

We left the Oktoberfest grounds at 10:00, and found a stand just north of the park selling 1/2 liters of beer. After a brief discussion, we decided to sit down. Good thing we did. We met three really cool Germans: Kai, Nina, and Armin. Armin would turn out to be the key of Saturday's experience.

Saturday
We slept in a little bit. Got up around 10. Had a traditional German breakfast (rolls, pretzels, etc. only with eggs instead of Weißewurst). After delicious breakfast and warm conversation, we finally left for Munich around 1:00. Got to Marienplatz around 1:30. Re-stocked our wallets at an ATM. The two girls were determined to find an H&M. ...not hard, since there were 4 right in the Marienplatz area. While they shopped, Rob and I kept walking, chilled at the foot of the Frauenkirche for a bit. At about 3:00, we decided to go to Oktoberfest to try and actually get in a tent this time. We'd planned on meeting Armin around 4 at the Augustiner.

He was already there when we arrived. But the Augustiner was already full. The girls called him and we met outside the main entrance. He walked us around to one of the side entrances, peering thru the window of door until he found one of the bouncers he knew. The bouncer kinda rolled his eyes when he saw Armin was dragging four people with him, but he let all of us in. Turns out Armin's grandma worked as a server in the Augustiner for 44 years. She's now 75, and this is the first year she's no longer working there. So Armin has connections.

I got to practice even more of my German with the old folks we were sitting next to. They've been coming to Oktoberfest every year for 30 years straight. They left around 7 after downing 13 liters between the three of them. Impressive. Even more impressive is that the only sign they'd had a lot to drink was the old man getting up to pee every hour.

When the two girls we were with went for a toilet break, i joked with Armin that we now had room for ein paar hübsche deutsche Mädchen. (no offense to the American girls, but with the departure of the old folks, i was looking for new company to speak german with). He laughed, but said one was actually her way.

he wasn't kidding. ...eine der hübscheste junge Damen in Deutschland.

Armin lives at least 30 minutes outside Munich, so he left to catch his last train around 11:30. So Kara tried to get us into a club, but both were full. Instead she showed us the city center by night. ...which unfortunately included a stop at McDonalds to satisfy the girls' cravings. It was a goal of mine to avoid McD's my entire time in Europe. ..and i still haven't had a bite. Drunk or not. We left Munich at about 1:30 to make sure we didnt miss the last S-Bahn at 2.

Sunday was a second day of beautiful weather. First time meeting Flora, another great breakfast, goodbyes, and a 12 hour bus ride thru the Alps back to Rome.