Jake is still alive!

Well, what can I say.  Its been a while since I have written in this thing.  Not sure exactly how it happened, but the same thing happened in my own personal journal.  It’s just easier to write in that, since I can take it everywhere.  With this it gets a bit hard since internet access is limited, and so was my time.  So here’s briefly what I have been doing in the past few months.

Paris- Loved it.  Could see myself spending a bit of time there, provided I learn the language.  Had the old 21^st there with my buddy Ben who is studying there.  Laid out at a park, had a nice dinner, then to a jazz club.  A nice relaxing b-day in Paris, so I was pretty happy.  Other than that, lots of museums and parks, and saw Roma get their asses handed to them by Manchester United in a Canadian bar.  Problem happened when the people who were supposed to come later and meet me, had some passport troubles and couldn’t come, so I was left to frantically find a place to stay for the last few nights.  Ended up in a seedy place near Montmartre.  All turned out well though, and had a great time.

Dad came- Had a blast, and was so touched he came all the way out to visit me.  Showed him a lot of the city, and also saw a lot that I had not yet seen.  Went out to Tivoli, and the Villa D’Este, where there is a huge fountain garden.  We had a dinner one night with Vanessa, and one night with Paolo.  Had a lot of fun, and he got to meet the two people I am closest to here.  One of his favorite stories from the trip was the first dinner we had, where he ordered a pasta with all sorts of ingredients; one of them being “Piselli”.  I stopped him for a second, because I knew the word as the plural form of the word “pisello,” a slang term for the male genitalia.  I asked the waiter what was up, and he laughed, and said that they were just peas.  Thank goodness.  I didn’t want my dad’s first night in town to end up with him eating a plate full of dicks.

Got pickpocketed-  Some guy wanted to show me some soccer moves, and in the process, slipped his hand into my back pocket.  5 sec after he left, I realized it, and tore off after him.  There were way too many people, so he got away.  Cancelled everything, and only got away with 60 euro, and an expired drivers license.  Mom wired me some money, and to get it, I spent hours and hours crossing Rome to find a specific place on the other side of town, only to have them tell me I had the wrong verification code.  Tried again later in the week when I found a different place, which then sent me to yet another place, which did finally give me my money with the same code I had the whole time.

Mom and Liz came- Had a great time, but who couldn’t with those two.  Unfortunately I was doing exams that week, so I couldn’t squeeze away from school as easily as I could when Dad was here.  Luckily they were together, and of course have no trouble entertaining themselves.  They also got to meet Vanessa and Paolo, and did some dinners with them.  They left on a Sunday, then Vanessa and I went and met them in Florence for two days.  Florence was beautiful, and I had not yet been there.  We did the Uffizi and walked around a lot.  Left the next morning for Rome, and the girls went back at night, and Liz left for the states the next morning.

Greece- Mom turned around and we went together on a big bus tour of all of Greece together.  Turned out to be really fun and educational.  Saw lot of things that otherwise I would never see by myself, since most of the biggest archeological sites are out in the middle of nowhere.  I was a bit worried coming into it, expecting it to be super lame, with a bunch of old people.  There actually was a pretty equal spread of people, and even a couple my age.  Everyone was really nice though.  We also had a great tour guide.  Started off a little rough around the edges, and I don’t think she liked us at first since we were always late wherever we went, and kinda did whatever the hell we wanted.  But she eventually grew on everyone.  We celebrated Mom’s birthday in Athens, saw the Acropolis and some museums, then had dinner on top of the highest hill and watched the sun set over the mountains behind the city.  Had such a great time there, and was really glad to have some more quality time with Mom.

School went fine.  Took all the exams and did ok.  Glad it’s all over though.  School took a lot of time, and the classes weren’t great, or for the most part well taught.  Half I really liked, and the other half were terrible.  Work remained fairly boring.  I finished out sending out emails and moved on to faxes, but none of the fax numbers were complete.  No one who previously filled out this form could figure out how to write in their own city/area code, let alone their own country code.  I would have tons of 7 digit American numbers that I would have to go and individually look up.  I can’t understand how someone filling out a form for an “International” organization, based in Rome, would not put in their city or country code.  I would say about 98% of the people were like this.  Got pretty familiar with international telephone codes though, which will be extremely useful for my future…

Vanessa and I became pretty close over the past few months, and spent as much time as we could together.  It was hard since we both knew that it eventually had to end, but we both really liked each other.  She goes to Spain every summer to live and work, and wanted me to come with her, but I just couldn’t.  She’s there now, and will be until after I return back to the states.  Better this way, that we don’t get too close, and then still have to leave each other in August.  I’ll go out there in July and visit her though.

Well, that’s a cliff notes version of the past two months.  I really will try to be better about updating this thing, now that I don’t have to be constantly working and studying.  Wednesday I go to Switzerland, to be legal to stay in the country for the summer, since my student visa expired.  Then I come back and look for a summer job.

Hope all is well back home and I miss you all

TTFN

The Last 2 Weeks (part 2)

And thus continues the saga of the last two weeks…

So I woke up Monday feeling like death, and had to be at work at 9.  I got almost nothing done, and am not really sure how I passed the 2.5 hours.  Left and had to go to class the rest of the day, since it was the lesson before the exams, and I needed the review.  Really going to the classes was just about worthless, since I couldn’t keep my eyes open.  Saw Vanessa for a moment, since it turns out one of the campuses she goes to for class, I can throw a paper airplane at from my school.  I saw her, but couldn’t think straight, so really I didn’t see her.  The student health lady at the IES center gave me the number of the doctor they use, who does house calls.  So I called him for him to come by that night, expecting it to be 1.5 hours more or less for him to get there, but he said he would be there in 20-30.  This would be great, were I at home, but I was still at school, and the bus decided not to come for about 20 minutes.  I ran home, expecting to have to explain myself for being late, but he wasn’t there.  In the end, he came over almost exactly 1.5 hours after I called him.  Go figure.  He did all the doctor stuff, and wrote me a prescription, that Paolo got filled at a nighttime Farmacia, since the normal ones close at 8. 

Doc told me I had to stay home at least one full day.  This also would be great, except the President of the entire IES organization was coming to my Internship the next day.  She was visiting the IES Roma chapter to see how things are going, and the staff here thought me and my internship would good to show here how the internships work here.  So I dragged my half dead ass out of bed at 7 the next morning to get ready and make the hour commute to work.  The president, the Roma director, and the director of the internships all came down, and I talked to them for a while, in addition to some representatives from the organization.  I had hoped to get out a bit early to go back home and crawl into bed, but ended up finishing right at the normal time.  Went home, slept, and studied a bit for my film studies exam I had that night.

 I went to school for the film exam, for which we had had no review, preparation, or anything because our teacher had been in Argentina for the past two weeks.  The past two weeks we just watched two movies.  I still am having a hard time sitting down after the spanking that test gave me.  Worst test I have ever taken.  It was all stuff that we had basically never covered, and filled with little unimportant details that really no one should need to know.  I guess everyone had the same trouble, but it still doesn’t feel good to get bitch-slapped by a test like that. 

Next day, felt pretty good, but skipped work to study.  Next two tests went better.  Sociology went fine, Art History went better than I would have expected, but not great.  Afterwords, I was feeling ok, and so I finally met up with Vanessa, who I felt like I hadn’t seen in a while, with me being gone the last weekend.  We went and saw this movie called Lezioni di Volo (Flying Lessons) about two Italian friends who end up in India, and happen upon another Italian.  Not too bad, but the cool thing was that Paolo told me his cousin actually did the casting for that film, and also was one of the assistant directors.  Apparently she has done a lot of movies.  His family is actually pretty crazy.  His uncle is a very famous theatre actor from Milano, who has played the role of Arlecchino for like 40 years.  He has another relative who has published a couple of books on sociology.  Anyway, Vanessa and I talked, and it looks like the dates we have been going on won’t be stopping anytime soon, which to say the least I am very happy about.  Things have been going great and I like her a lot.  Only problem is that I’m only here til the end of may (but maybe a few months more…). 

This weekend, we left at 7:30 on Friday for an IES field trip to Napoli, Sorrento, the Amalfi Coast, and Pompeii.  Friday was beautiful, and we first rolled into Napoli.  Napoli is kind of like a Jackson Pollack painting.  Street lights and speed limit signs are purely for decoration.  Its absolutely crazy, but I loved it, and really wished we could have stayed longer.  You have to watch out, because there’s a lot of theft and petty crime there, but the say the pizza is the best in the world, and so is the caffe.  Moved along to Sorrento, where our hotel was, and had dinner there.  After, a couple of us went out and found a little lounge to grab a drink, and we ended up dancing til about 1 or so.  Next day, we went down the Amalfi Coast a ways, which is absolutely stunning.  Pictures don’t do it justice, let alone words.  We stopped at a few little towns on the way, got to stick my feet in the Mediterranean and walk barefoot on the beaches.  Italian beaches by the way don’t have sand, but small rocks, which don’t feel great on bare feet.  Spend the day mostly driving on the coast, in a gigantic coach bus, on winding cliff roads and through tiny towns.  Nice seafood dinner.  Next day to Pompeii, but the weather was pretty awful.   By the end, it was raining pretty hard.  Very neat though.  Got to see plaster casts of bodies frozen in time, and the famous whore house, where they have frescoes above each door depicting that particular person’s “specialty”.  Lunch, and then hit the road back home.  Beautiful trip, just wish I would have brought another pair of dry shoes…

The Last 2 Weeks (part 1)

Alright, I know I’m way behind, but this last week was mid-terms, on top of being sick as a dog, so I’ve got a bit of catch up to do.  I think I’ll do this in a two-part mini-series of the accounts of Jake’s time in London, Rome, and Southern Italy.  I’ll start from two weeks ago, before London

During the week, it was fairly busy.  I had to write a 3 page paper for my internship seminar, in Italian, and with 11 pt font, and 1.5 spaced (what the hell is that about? What happened to 12, doubled?)  So that made 3 pages a lot longer, but I got it done, and Paolo gave me a lot of help with the first draft, and Vanessa looked it over again when it was finished.  It’s a lot of flipping words around, problems with prepositions (since they are always different from English and never what you think).  Thursday night, I wanted to make ribs for my friends, but BBQ sauce was the limiting reactant in that experiment, in addition to time.  So instead I made Chili.  The ingredients required a little improvisation, since many aren’t common here, especially the spices.  I couldn’t find chili powder or many of the other spices, but after going to 5 stores, I found cumin, and then one called “Chili Mexico” which had a lot of the things I needed, but was heavy on the heat, which was good for me, but it was a bit spicy for the others.  All in all it went very well, and the liked it, Paolo had some afterwords and loved it. 

 Next day IES took a trip to this museum with censored advertisements, which was pretty funny.  Too many good ones to recall.  Some funny, some highly erotic, some disturbing, and some all three.  Left from there for the airport on the hour long bus.

Arrived in London around 8 or so, and when I tried to call Hayley, it went straight to machine.  Way to turn your phone off Hayley when I’m trying to get into town and meet you guys.  Upon listening to the message however, she actually had left me a personal message on her machine saying that they were in the Tube and keep trying to call, since they had reservations at an Indian restaurant.  Brava Hayley.  Met John in the street on the next Tube stop, and we went to the restaurant and met the rest.  To my surprise, Rachel Goins was there, which I had no idea about.  Great though.  After dinner, we went to Hayley’s for a bit, then to the small neighborhood Pub right on the corner: Quinn’s.  Met Kevin Quinn, who knows intimately all of the 30+ beers they had there, and was cool as hell.  Had a Guinness, but from a bottle, and was the recipe for how Guinness was made at the turn of the 20^th Century.  Probably the tastiest beer I’ve had. 

Next morning John and I got up and went together down the street and had a big English Breakfast: Fried eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, grilled mushrooms and tomatoes, beans, vegetable puree, and some sort of “pudding” that resembled thin black hockey puck.  Post breakfast, I was informed that this pudding was made from blood; a bit of information I could have gone to the grave without.  All in all, the breakfast wasn’t too bad.  Kind of like an American breakfast, in its size and “weight”, and not at all like Italian breakfast, which is a caffe, and a pastry. 

Walked around the city, and tried to go check out Westminster Abbey, but closed 7 min, before we arrived.  But someone told us that there was a Evensong service in an hour, which we went to.  The church is remarkable and huge.   As we were walking in, the organ started with this huge, low, haunting organ prelude, which was absolutely surreal.  The service was mostly choral singing, but we had no idea where the choir was, from where we sat, which in a way was almost cooler, that the choir came from nowhere. 

The rest of the day was St. Patty’s, so we hopped a lot of Pubs, and ended up at our buddy Kevin Quinn’s, for a tasty Belgian beer.  I stayed up for most of the rest of the night, but eventually crashed, but I had to be at the bus stop at 5:10 am to get to the airport.  Missed the bus, and could have just taken a later one, but decided to take the train instead, and slept basically the whole way.

Got home without a hitch, but tired as hell, and my cough that I have had for about a month was awful.  The rest of the day I felt like hell, and thought it was just because I was tired.  I wasn’t hung over, since I actually didn’t drink a lot the night before.  I realized the next morning that I was actually sick as hell.  All ready to go for exam week…

Weekend Update

Friday, I met up with Vanessa again.  We went and saw a movie together: Ho Voglia Di Te.  My first film all in Italian, without subtitles or anything.  I did pretty well, and understood most of it.  Afterwords, we met up with a big group of friends, and went to Trastevere, a really cool part of town.  Cobblestone streets, and lots of small pubs and places to sit and hang out. 

Saturday, I went back to Trastevere where some other friends live and hung out at their place.  Nothing real exciting, but a good night with friends.  Only problem is Trastevere is super far from where I live, so getting to and from is kind of a pain. 

Sunday, Paolo's nephew had a basketball game in Anzio, a small town on the ocean south of Rome, that we went to.  It took about an hour to get out, and 2 to get back, since everyone was returning to Rome after their weekend at their ocean homes. 

Tonight, I will be meeting up with Vanessa again. Things are going pretty well, and I am pretty excited about it all.  It will be a great way to help with my Italian, and to get to know more Italians, through her friends.  Plus she's real cute and sweet.  Not sure exactly where it is going at this point, but we both seem very interested in each other.  We'll just have to wait and see.

TTFN

Heyo