alcohol

i guess i understand the appeal of it now. drink the equivalent of a bucket of beer and magically all your spanish language skills come to the surface, which is surprisingly useful in pirate themed italian pubs. hey, want to hear my romantic history? buy me a shot before i can say no. want to see me repeatedly ask someone to marry me? keep filling my tumbler with wine.

despite all this, somehow the beer goggles make you see things more clearly. move on. let go. jump in. everyone discovers a little bit about themselves and each other at the bottom of a bottle. so maybe it's not all bad. cheers to good fortune, good friends, and all things bueno.

tuscan rain storm

Enter Arezzo, where I'm just one step closer to where I've been before and thousands of miles from where I usually am. Each train trip is alike save for the change in seasons, which always change back. Enter fall and homecoming games and everything you're used as they come storming back. Wait, you're in Italy. Enjoy the rain.

shiny side up

I'd like to begin by say my head is stuck at a 75 degree rightward angle right now. That's what Tuscan bus trips and sleeping on tiny Iranain girl's shoulder's will do to you.

Handwashing my clothes makes me realize that my underwear is the most colorful part of my wardrobe.

I've learned more about the female anatomy than necessary in Italy.

I still don't know what "getting ponied" entails but sign me up.

The end.

Tuesday.

It's pajama day. So do I play the game or hold out? For 21 years more years. I guess Italy just brings out the best in you, as if olive oil makes you confident and social. Maybe that's the wine. So here's to drinking more and to playing games and avoiding drinking games, for tomorrow is Wednesday.

all roads lead from rome.

Roma is quite a town. I could have just stood in the middle of that huge intersection and watched cars flying past me all day. Especially when you look all around and close to a thousand people you don´t know on their way to somewhere.

I didn´t know where i was going half the time and that´s when I understood this whole italy excursion. You can go on the planned field trips and listen to your art history professor talk forever but there´s no point to it all if you don´t run off on your own (or a least with leyla and andrew.) on that note, late night jazz music in front of the pantheon is a great new memory. dinner with smilja and her son milos right up there too.

pompeii was great. pompeii brothels are great. the other dead volcano place was even greater. rinsing oneself of basalt sand in a cutain less shower is difficult. and will hale ever figure out how to use a bidet?

We covered much ground on the way home. And despite what my Dave Mathews impression might say, I´m burned out on pizza.

lost in traduzione

what do you do when you're alone in the one of the biggest, most ancient cities on earth?

where were we?

as classes have now come into full swing you'd think all the crazy travel stories would be ending, but no. let's just summarize by saying the beach was beautiful, camping with russians is fun, and slightly tipsy mass skinning dipping in the mediterranian is unforgettable.

that's all you get there. the real story is getting home. formt he beach a few of us leave later to catch a bus into town to get in the main bus by 530. if someone reads the bus schedule wrong, you have to call a taxi. if a taxi doesn't get there til 515 and the trip from town before had taken 30 minutes, the taxi should drive fast. so there we are-sandy, sunburned and weaving between fiats through the countryside all the while trying to caluculate kilometers per hour to miles per hour to estimate it around 90 mph.

we pull up just in time to see the rest of our gang jumping on the bus. ticketless and tired we take an hour and a half ride through beautiful valleys with a bunch of people from massachussets.

enter sienna. we came in to sienna by bus so you'd think it´d work the other way too. we were wrong again. ticketless again we jump on the train station bus only to find none of the trains we need (imagine italian train station guy basically yelling "impossible" when we suggest how to get back home.) so begins the grand detour.

one tasty can of orange fanta and an hour long train to chiuze later, we are on a deserted platform waiting for the munich overnight train which happens to be on the way to arezzo which just happens to be somewhat close to home. did i mention the train was full of sleeping germans? so the 8 of us quietly sit in the hallway so as not to disturb the sleeping germans while trying not to fall asleep ourselves and wake up north of the alps.

ah arezzo. our provincial mother that sits only 16 kilometers from castiglion fiorentino. but no bus. no train. so as they search for taxis i calculate the walk home to 10 miles (i'm getting good at this). our only sign of hope was a sign that simply said taxi. standing nde it seemed our best chance until sirens started flashing, busses of screaming people zoomed by, and cops with walky talkies and riot gear surround us. "are you americans?" an offical man asked. "then i suggest you not stand here." this was our first encounter with italain soccer hooligans. long, long story made shorter, we walked up & down arezzo a few times, the hooligans disappeared, and we eventually found a taxi around 1 am that took us all the way to castiglion fiorentino, right up to the door.

i find it necessary to mention that i was the one guy amongst 7 girls. birth control, penis size, shaving, waxing, and the ever popular classic "circumsized or not" were all up for grabs along our trip. lucky me.

we all leave for rome for a week tomorrow. yeah, shouldn't run into any problems there, eh? just beware of fiats, hooligans, and foreskin.

cultural overload

no emails? i actually do get bored here after seeing medieval parades and beautiful italian women all day so drop me a line and let me know what happens is america nowadays. how's clinton's ticker?

honestly there's so much going on here that it's hard to remember it all. saw where they filmed "under the tuscan sun" thursday, measured ancient ruins near rome friday, saw a cello/piano concerto in a quaint old church here in town friday night, hiked up to an old castle saturday morning only to lounge out by local the pool that afternoon before it closes for the summer, and then saw medieval parades and beautiful italian women all today. there, i can sumarize. did i mention the italian women?

so about the italian women...no, but really everything seems to be generally beautiful here. all the people are dressed so well and every building actually has character. maybe it's just that i'm seeing what i'm not used to and that an italian going to america would be overloaded just as much. that's what i ould like to think that even my little home of conroe, texas is full of splendor and wonder and stuff...to the untrained eye. and seeing as i'm pulling from garden state themes and christine said i had a blog just so i could be like zach braff i will now digress.

i hope i'm not missing anything.

ciao!

It really is quite beautiful here. I could even say I prefer the day to day life in town more than escursions to Florence, which we did yesterday.

So how do you take classes, read books for those classes, take trips, take pictures with two cameras, paint, draw, write emails, journals, blogs, and postcards al at the same time? You don't so be patient as to when you get your postcards. I've got a lot of time left here and plenty of other places to get cards from.

And now our little campus is full of people surely don't know. I think for now I'll stick with all the new UT people cause they all seem "with it. " That's all I'll say about that.