Brain Tumors and Fiber

So I read recently that cell phones have officially been linked to brain tumors. One of the only reasons all of us in this program are currently glad to be cut off from technology. The computer is all we have. It really isn't that bad, but I miss laying in my bed all day every Sunday and watching whatever trash chick-flick is on TBS. I think someone is sending me Kraft FF Zesty Italian Dressing this week, so my nerves should be calmed.

One interesting fact, fiber supply is slim pickings over here, so I supplement my diet every day with "Kellogg's Nice Morning." Although I think the motto should be altered to, "Nice Morning, Horrible Afternoon." But it gets the job done.

I cannot WAIT for the month of December to get here! I get to return to the land of FREEDOM for a month and while enjoying the wonderful conveniences of Target, Starbucks and WaWa, I also get to travel to NYC, DC and TX to see all the cats I've missed. Oh and only the single most amazing event ever on January 8th, which is Brett and Baker's wedding in the 757. Wedded bless coupled with a tasteful open bar. CAN'T WAIT.

Oh also, I lock my bedroom door whenever the maid is around the palazzo. Everyone judges me for this. I think I am being logical.

Little Post-Communist Tour

Below are a few pics from fall break where a few of us went to Prague, Budapest and Bratislava. It was tight. I will spare you the tedious details, but basically Prague will probably always be my favorite city, Budapest is always beautiful and Bratislava.. well.. it was very Slovakian; or maybe not, almost seemed like a mini-easten block Disney World, but no rides and no crowds.

Since I've been to Prague and Budapest before I did all my favorite things again [aka 5 story clubs, thermal baths, meat and potatoes, Pilsner Urquell, all the good stuff] and some new stuff, but in short, it was awesome to be out of Italy and back to the part of Europe I love the most. And best of all, cheap as hell. If you wanna hear more you're going to have to ask.

Bratislava, Slovakia:

Budapest, Hungary:

Prague, Czech Republic:

A Random Assortment

Things in Italy I miss more than value menus or diet coke:

Cinque Terre Weekend

Soooo this weekend was full of incredibly fun activities, and needless to say, after the past two weeks that I have had, incredibly fun activities were desperately necessary for my life.

Thursday Night: I learned how to say "I don't associate with people like you" in Italian while walking/stumbling the streets of Florence at 3am. I am assuming you can guess my state by this description, but if I remember correctly, it is "Non vado con persone come te." That may be correct, it may not, but the important thing is that I learned this to shoo away the homeless people selling roses.

Friday: I am pretty sure I never left the palazzo. Maybe I did?

Saturday: I went hiking with Krisztina and Stephanie in Cinque Terre finally, and my God was it amazing. I would put it and hiking Old Rag as a 10 on the 1-10 life experience scale, but I would like to argue that this hike was maybe more beautiful. Okay.. it was far more beautiful. I would tell you about the hike but that is boring. If you want more info visit their wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinque_terre It basically involves hiking a seaside trail inbetween 5 fishing towns on the northwest coast of Italy.

Here is the rundown of the day, if you would like to suffer through it:

I roll out of bed at 4:30am in an extreme delusion about what time it is or where I am and then proceed to prepare myself and even shave. We then walk about 20 minutes in the pitch black of night to the train station where we board a train to La Spezia, Italy (the closest town to Cinque Terre).

After having an angry British man yell at us about where the train is going, at 7am a strange phenomena occurs; the entire train (which is more like a bus in the form of train) FILLS with young high schoolers. Reminder: this is a Saturday. Does Italy have school on Saturday? and why are all of these acne ridden, socially awkward children getting on a train to this strange weekend school? Dear Europe, I will never fully understand you.

After carefully observing a.k.a. blatantly staring at these children fight and make jokes (none of which I understand) I see one plump boy with gravity defying spiked hair, tell some story about another student sticking his hand in his pants and smelling the odor of his nasty bits. (I understood from his hand motions) Thankfully they all swiftly departed at the next station.

We finally arrive at the station in La Spezia, where we await our next train to Cinque Terre. Here is what happens: I avoid making friends with a solo American backpacker (he is clearly solo for a reason), I am greeted by the wonderful golden arches of McD's, but resist, I eat a packed turkey sandwich and semi-bbq chips for breakfast, I observe that an elderly, mildly-overweight lady is wearing a verrrrry see-thru shirt and platform heels, I apologize, but I did not take a picture, the scar that is left in my mind is enough.

When we finally get hiking, we see another elderly lady FACEPLANT into the trail/sidewalk. She is fine, but I hope she got back to her pensioner cruise in one piece. The rest of the hike is of course sheer beauty and enjoyment. I will spare you the rainbows and butterflies.

The train home is mostly sleep and random stops, but we are rudely awoken by a middle-aged Italian man yelling at the train attendant who is checking tickets. I still do not fully understand the entire situation, nor will i ever, but here is what went down: The angry Italian, obviously drunk, blocked in the train attendant and was trying to be overly nice, but at the same time managed to aggressively back him into a corner (I was entertained by said event until I noticed the look of terror on the attendant's face). After the drunk man did not achieve what he wanted and the attendant walked away, he proceeded to rip the curtain off of the window, pull a huge slab of meat?! out of his bag and wrap it in the curtain.

I will let you interpret this for yourself, but I am thinking he has murdered someone or something worse. At this point, he and his friend? partner? (a small foreign man with a rat tail) lit up and began smoking in the cabin. Not allowed. He proceeds to harass the hippie American next to us, who had earlier emphasized how much she loved hugging people, all people, and we hurriedly left the train cabin and escaped to another. I will never know what that slab of meat was, and I will never want to.

It was an eventful day, to say the least. The foccacia was unbelievable and the platter of octopus I ate was um, bearable. The Mediterranean air smelled amazing and the water was crystal clear blue, hence the "Azure Coast." Here are a few pics:

Un prodotto d'Italia: Frollini

[This is a new mini-post that I should update quite often that will give you some sort of insight into my daily life with a focus on some Italian product that I deem delicious or bizarre]

These tasty little nibblets are the best cookies that Italy has to offer, out of the six varieties that they offer.. They have slight hints of cocoa [cacao] and hazelnut [nocciole] and a wopping load of deliciousness. The tiny white stars imprinted on top and the heavy dusting of sugar granules take you back to a sweeter, more simple time and the fact that they only cost a euro doesn't hurt. If you ever find yourself walking the streets of Italy and craving a sweet treat, stop by and get some of these frollini to dip in your coffee or nutella. YUM.

Rainy Week in Firenze

Sadly the rain prevented me from traveling to the beaches of Cinque Terre as previously planned, but I will make it there eventually I am sure. It has all worked out for the best anyway, because this week classes officially started and wow, grad school is definitely a step above undergrad. Readings are intense, sometimes boring and always long. I am very glad that I know without a doubt that I am doing the right thing for myself, otherwise I would having a much harder time coping with the amount of work. Also, I am pretty sure I have yet to adjust fully to my new timezone seeing as this weekend I repeatedly went to sleep at 5am and slept until 2pm.

Over the past week we have had the chance to be part of a film festival of independent short and full-length films highlighting the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. It has been a mixed bag of some very insightful and entertaining films along with some cocmpletely off-the-wall, experimental pieces. Regardless, I have a renewed desire to travel to and explore Berlin some weekend this year.

The first pangs of missing the U.S. has started to hit as well. Dreams of Taco Bell and utter hatred towards the impossibility of purchasing dryer sheets and paper towels anywhere that would normally sell such products. This evening, however, I did give in and paid a visit to one of two Florentine McDonald's. PURE HEAVEN. Even though I spent €7 on a value meal [the same amount allowing me to purchase 10 McDoubles off of the dollar menu in the states] it was completely worth it. Sadly, Taco Bell does not exist outside of the U.S. as far as I am aware. The Crispy McBacon will have to suffice for now.

________ + pasta = good

I haven't had much to really post about, seeing as I have been sitting in orientation sessions for the past 2 weeeks and haven't traveled anywhere since Pisa. I've been spending most of time getting to know Florence/Firenze and trying to figure out the good and the bad places to do my everyday things.

One thing has not changed. While living with a window that overlooks a piazza is quite nice sometimes (i.e. this morning when I woke up and there was a street fair going on), the noise at night is relentless. I just try to drown it out with simplynoise.com (a white noise thingy) because its cheaper than sleeping pills.

Classes start tomorrow and my guess is they're going to be pretty intense, but I'm looking forward to is regardless. Oooo next weekend me and few other people in the program made reservations to visit Cinque Terre (as everyone, especially John Heiner has advised me to do) to go hiking/beach lounging. I'll let you know what it's like after I go of course, but here's a preview of it:

I have also discovered the art of the international drunk dial, as many of you are probably aware. Based on the correlation of the time difference and my sociability, it really has worked out quite well. Thanks Skype! Other things I have discovered to be nice: tuna in pasta, €1.69 liters of wine, linen pants, deli-turkey in pasta, the town of Fiesole, wizzair.com, green beans in pasta, well really anything in pasta that is cheap...

I guess that is it for now, but do not worry, I am slowly collecting postcards to send to everyone as long as you have given me your address. (if not just put it in the comment box below here)

PREVIEW: I am going to Venice, Prague, Bratislava and Budapest for fall break. Trying to finalize plans and book everything tomorrow. If you have any advice, throw it at me.

Miss everyone!

Welcome to "Graduate School"

After spending nearly 48 hours in airports/planes [completely not normal for transatlantic travel] I have arrived in my new home, Palazzo Capponi, for the next year. Even though it used to be den for squatters and drug dealers/addicts, JMU has done quite the lovely job at making it livable, air-coditioned and IKEA themed. The neighborhood we are living in is on the not so popular side of the river and is known as Santo Spirito. It is lovely during the day and has an open air market, but for some reason at night the piazza outside my window [see image below] becomes an open air party for the homeless of the city and fills my night with the soothing sounds of dog fights and bottle smashing.

Just to to give you an idea of how seriously all 17 students are taking the program thus far, we have to this date: gone bar hopping, completed a scavenger hunt, wandered around Florence aimlessly and sampled at least 4 different gelatarias. In other words, classes don't start until a week from Monday.

Sorry this post is so long, but I just wanted to give you a general overview of life thus far.

Tonight has been themed blackout night by the rest of the group and we are planning on playing a rousing game of wine pong in the kitchen of our building, seeing as large quantities of beer are non-existent in Italy. This should all make my day trip to Pisa quite interesting tomorrow. You will obviously be updated on this.

Which brings me to the game....

What Florence does not have -

-Taco Bell

-Hot Showers

-Splenda

-Vagrancy Laws

-Paper Towels

-Cars larger than an oversized suitcase

-The History Channel

-People who wear too much deodorant

-Total Cereal

Things Italy does have-

-T.B.D. (not that there is nothing I like, just that listing things now would not be fair to Italian culture)

Alright, I shall leave you for now, but I think you should probably keep up with this blog because I am quite sure that things will get much more interesting with time. Ciao!

OH. Skype: nsdoleman and/or follow me on Twitter: @seff86