Sweden and the exciting conclusion 5/7/2010

So tonight i'm leaving to come home for good. I can't say that i'm going to really miss Torino, but last night i had a tinge of pain pass over me as i realized i wouldn't be traveling anymore.
So the last trip that i went on was to Gothenburg City in Sweden. The city itself wasn't terribly impressive because it is a port town and very industrial. The people were so stereotypical though and we loved it. Everyone was blond and at least six feet tall. We found out that one of the days that we were in the city there was a massive labor parade taking place. So... we set out to go find some swedish people to socialize with at the parade.

At the parade we met a couple groups of people and one directed us to the greatest Swedish meatball restaurant in existence. I know that i talk about food a lot in my posts, and this one won't be any different. Well it was one of those meals that panics you because your so afraid that it will end before your full . I shamelessly vacuumed up the food in front of me like a bulimic elephant alone in a room with a mound of peanuts. Needless to say I think you know what happened next. I wiped my face clean and headed for a celebratory bonfire that the swedes were having that night.

At the bonfire, we met this really interesting group of people. We started talking, and they asked if we wanted to hang out in there apartment. So of course we went with our safest option and said "okey dokey" and followed these people through the woods to their apartment. When we got there we talked for a while and everything was going great (Except for the fact that they were all a foot taller than us) UNTIL the girl who owned the apartment came over to me and insisted that if John and I wanted to stay we had to pick a dance from her "Big book of American dance moves" and perform it. I told her no, of course, and we started to argue until she told us to leave. We of course did the intelligent thing, and stayed. I sat in my chair listening to that girl go on and on about dance moves, verbally raping my eardrums until i couldn't take in anymore. I looked over at John who was engaged in what seemed to be a one sided conversation about women's rights, and i realized it was probably time for us to leave. We said our goodbyes and left.

In the park we walked through to get home we came across a free zoo which was fun. Seals, Moose, the works.

Anyway, that is the exciting conclusion to my adventures in Europe. Can't wait to see you all.

Bruges 4/27/10

We went to Bruges this last weekend, and it was as amazing as i remembered. Everything is so clean compared to Torino, but the prices of everything are over the top. Our first day there, John and I went to an all you can eat rib place called "De Hobbit". It was themed after Lord of the Rings, and the menu was a newspaper called, the daily hobbit. We stayed in a eight bed hostel and we met so many people. The second night we met up with these french guys and tried to labor through hours of conversation. Really tough. They were nice, but the language barrier was so severe. The next day we went to a chocolate museum and a french fry museum. Both were fun, but i'd say the fry museum was the best. All i really wanted was to eat french fries and chocolate, but they felt they had to give you a huge history on everything. Also the chocolate museum had a giant Barack Obama carved out of chocolate. Very offensive. The girls and boys go crazy for Barry over here, i dont get it. I guess they all want hope and change. We went to the outskirts of the city and saw some decomissioned windmills. Apparently, in Belgium Rock and Roll is just catching on, and by rock and roll i mean eighties glamor rock. We went to this bar in brussels where there was a gun's and roses cover band and in bruges we saw a white snake cover band. Then one of the bands played an original which killed the mood and everyone dispersed. This has to be a short blog because im recovering from an illness and need to sleep.

Florence

So it has been a while since my last post because i have been extremely busy. School work has picked up and James is still living in our apartment because his flight was cancelled do to the Volcano and junk. I am however writing this email from my favorite place in all of Europe-Bruges. Florence was really spectacular and even more fun because James was there. I saw Michelangelo's David, the wooden Mary Magdalen, and I climbed to the top of the duomo.
I even took a picture of Michelangelo's David statue despite the screams of numerous employees foaming out the mouth trying to maintain their monopoly on post cards. People say that air traffic controllers have stressful jobs, but i think that being a "junk yard dog" for Michelangelo's David would be worse. You flounder around the room screaming "No Pictures, no pictures" like a superstitious Navajo Indian for about 8 hours a day. It seems like a combination of cruel and unusual punishment with a hint of situational comedy thrown into the mix. The only way to describe the personal hell that is this security guards life would be to imagine a person in a wheel chair finding himself in a very narrow handicap stall whose door only opens in.
Anyway i got a picture and as blurred as it was---- It was still a picture
The next day James took us to his favorite restauraunt where we were flooded with an impressive number of employees who all seemed to know James on a very personal level. It couldn't help but draw attention to the fact that John and I will be leaving behind very few friendships in Torino. The Kebab people, a teacher or two, and maybe the homeless woman outside the Grocery Store i pretend not to notice everyday.
The next day we climbed to the top of the Duomo which, suprisingly enough, is covered with a horribly barbaric mural. It appeared to be a massive depiction of the heinous torture involved with going to hell. As i gazed at the graphic artwork i couldn't help but think- After all the bible classes i've taken this really isn't what my interpretation of hell is like, at all. JUST THEN as i was thinking that, i saw it, my own personal hell captured in art form. It was rather hidden and it took me near 15 minutes of surveillance to find, but it embodied everything that i fear and loathe in this world. It was what appeared to be a frog person standing on two legs like a Neanderthal beating a skinless man un-mercilessly with a sock full of batteries. Pretty diabolical, and yet it definitely put the fear of God in me.
We did a lot of fun things while we were in Florence, one thing i'm not proud of is my decision to eat a double decker waffel and nutella sandwich. The story is as follows:
The day was like any other day, a little colder maybe, but that was the charm of the morning hours in the shade of the duomo. The cafe was small, quaint one might say, and exceedingly close to our place of stay.Thats where the mistake happened.
--- To eat a double decker waffle and nutella sandwich you have to have 3 things
1. No pride
2. No friends
3. No fear of kidney damage
"I'm good on two out of three of those" i thought as i strolled in with my two friends. Fast forward to the end of the meal- at this point i had diagnosed myself with type two diabetes, and "Finding a nice dialysis machine" had catapulted its way to the top of my priority lists. I left the cafe a broken man.
I realize that the format of my writing is very similar to that of Matt Drudge and therefore near impossible to understand. I apologize for that. I also apologize for my unnecessarily graphic depictions of my poor eating habits the last two blogs. That being said i can continue with my depiction of Florence.
The streets were crowded, but for good reason because the weather was spectacular and so was the city. One more eventful thing happened while i was in italy, Italians never stand in line, they don't understand the concept of a line which, of course, can be incredibly frustrating to you if you have been standing patiently in line while herds of lemmings speaking gibberish flow past you on either side. So late Saturday evening i finally snapped. You think ?Snapped?, but John your a piece maker- you defuse situations- too that i would say, i agree. This guy, however, pushed me too far, and so i decided to put this Jack back in his box. I pushed my way over to him and told him he better move back to the end of the line unless he wants to "make something of it". Which in case you don't know could mean anything, but i think the general implication is fighting. We both stood and looked at each other until he finally said, "You Americans always have to have your lines." He may have dissed America in that moment, but i had gotten him to back down and so i feel like once again its America 1 and Italy 0. Don't worry Mom i'm coming home soon. haha
Love you all
John

And the picture of me on the broom stick, is in a cemetery

April 10, 2010 Ibiza

So i have been in Ibiza for an unholy amount of time, and i can't say that i was at all pleased to come home to my "saving grace" Torino. Ibiza was filled with a lot of memories, but i think most notable one involved John and I meeting up with these two marines. We didn't know them before we go there- we just kinda met up with them. Anyway as fate would have it, only weeks before our own arrival to Ibiza a yacht had run aground right on the edge of the most popular beach in all of Ibiza. Unfortunately, the yacht was under the category of what the Spaniards like to call "dirty money" so needless to say they just left it there. Anyway that night we climbed aboard and were just messing around-It was all fun and games-until from the depths of the behemoth we caught a glimpse of what was below deck. We had only moments before descended below deck with nothing but a flip phone to guide us when we were struck by the sight of a small army of homeless people laying side by side in the base of the yacht. Excuse my insensitivity, but it looked like something from a holocaust video, because when the light hit them what looked like a pile of corpses started to move. We quickly left the boat, but we were freaked out. More importantly though the two marines were freaked out.

We spent most of our time in Ibiza just meeting people and talking. The beaches there were spectacular, John and I had arrived about 3 weeks too early for the "season" so there was rarely anyone on the beach with us. Our original plan was to island hop around ibiza to islands named "Palma del mellorca" and "Menorca" but we found out that the 30 minute ferry ride was going to cost us 60 euro one way so we canceled all of our hostel reservations and stayed in Ibiza. The food there was incredible and i even found mountain dew in one grocery store. Of course the backwards spanish don't use artificial sugar, so what i thought was moutain dew was more like citrus flavored kool aide sweetened with a small twig of sugar cane. I reached all new levels of despair when i took that first sip. I contemplated cutting my wrists, but i decided against the idea. The jury might still be out on that one.

Every day that we were in Ibiza we ate at the same restaurant. I couldn't tell you the name because i think that the spanish in all there eloquence might have simply called it "bar/restaurant". I'm not one to venture into new avenues of taste, but i decided to try the "lomo y queso" or "lamb and cheese" against my better judgement. One bite into this sandwich and you would have thought that this was a double decker "manna and quail" sandwich with cheese. I was so pleased by the sandwich i returned the following day, and the next, and the next. What i neglected to realize however is that your body becomes accustomed to things that you eat, and i threw it a curve ball when, after 7 years of no lamb, the dam was broken and i barraged my insides with lamb after lamb after lamb sandwich. I imagine my stomach spent hours sifting through the nutritionless lamb distraught and panicked to find something of value. People say that there is no reason for the appendix, but i know that after this last week your stomach probably uses that to stick lamb into when your body is over run by the stuff. Did i throw up at one point, yeah. Was it because of the lamb, probably. Did i go back the next day and get a lomo y queso, Yeah. Did i feel sick the next day, definitely.

Life goes on. Torino is a cruel mistress, and to return to her is to kiss the devil with open eyes. I'm exaggerating, its not that bad, but this next weekend i'm going to Florence to see James and then only one more trip before i come home. I miss you all.

I am the highway

So its been such a long time since my last blog post so i'll make this one extra long to make up for that. As you know, Jamie came to see me and we went to cinque terre, which is spectacular. We stayed in the last town (Riomaggiore) and brilliant me went the wrong direction until we ran into a couple of Russians who said we were nowhere near any town. The views were spectacular, and the walk from Corniglia to Vernazza was my favorite. We ate in this little restauraunt on the water and then we got some gelato. It was really everything you could ask for from Italy. We stayed there about three days and then we headed back to Torino. We took a quick the train the next day and saw the Duomo in Milan and then we grabbed some McDonalds and headed back to the human roach motel. The next week was littered with great times, Jamy had an opportunity to spend time with my friends and I, and they all really liked her. I took Jamy to my favorite restauraunts and we had a lot of fun. One of the kids who worked in the Kebob shop had an obvious crush on her, and so i had Jamy say a couple things in Italian. (Really made his day).

Ok so in non-jamy related news. Today i had a gigantic presentation that counted for 30% of my grade in a class. I had to do a report on peddlers so i put together a very professional paper and then a slideshow. The slide show was ridiculous, but i think my teacher really liked it. (I attached the slideshow below)

I think that i will reel in a high A+ after the extra effort i put into that slideshow.

After my project, i went to the grocery store and bought head phones and a couple of other things. The woman at the register forgot to ring up the headphones and as i was walking out i said off the detector. The security guard pushed me into the back room patted me down and started accusing me of being a thief. He was really starting to annoy me because he kept pushing me and yelling, so i kinda just walked away and got the woman who rung me up and had her explain to him her mistake. She did and my name was cleared, but it still was a huge time drain and pretty irritating. No one has ever accused an Italian of being overly intelligent.

Life goes on and i will try to post more, more frequently now that the barrage of visitors has ended.

March 1, 2010

This weekend we were supposed to go to Barcelona, but after a two hour train ride, a 40 minute bus ride, and 3 hours waiting in the airport they canceled our flight without any warning. I argued with the Ryan Air people just to have them tell me to sleep in the air port for 10 hours. So John and I returned to Torino at 2:30 and went to bed disappointed. I believe i got my money back for the ticket, but i still had to pay a penalty for not showing up at my hostel and i had to pay for the transportation to and from the airport. We were disappointed, but we made the best of the weekend. We went to an Italian party this weekend because we heard a lot of noise in the apartment above us and we went to check it out and ended up stumbling on an Italian party. I ended up talking in broken Italian for a while and in English to this random Chinese guy and his girlfriend. After that, we went down to a restaurant in this sweet part of town, but as we were walking down the main strip i saw my roommate (Not John) standing in the middle of the road with blood all around him. He was missing his two front teeth and he had been hit by some other kid in the program. After helping him find his teeth, he left for the hospital and i continued on my merry way. Yesterday, we went and watched the Canadian/American hockey game and cried a little afterward. We went to this Bar that had an American and a Canadian room and i was so loud that i embarrassed myself. I hurt my hand from banging it on the stove so that was a bit of a downer as well. Peace be with you all

February 23, 2010

We didn't go anywhere this weekend instead we stayed in Torino and relaxed. We play this game, "Antagonize the gypsy" where we do everything in our power to waste the time of a random gypsy. Gypsies specialize in disrupting dinners and turning stomaches. They primarily have emmigrated from India and Bangledesh. This weekend i was able to keep one long enough to recite my entire oral composition to him. This weekend wasn't terribly eventful, but we found ways to occupy our times. My final for elementary Italian is on Thursday and im leaving for barcelona that night. I will keep you all updated on what goes on this coming weekend. Looking forward to returning to my old stomping grounds.

Sorry about your car dad

2/16/10 Sicilian Pavillion

So here was the plan as of 7 days ago. We bought tickets to fly from Torino to Trapani, Sicily. From the airport, we would take a bus to the city center where we would spend the night in a hostel. The next morning we would leave for Palermo by bus (2 hours east)and spend two night in a hostel in Palermo, and then finally we would leave by bus and go to a hostel in Agrigento (3 Hours south) for two days and then take a bus back to Trapani and leave.
Trapani
Well we arrived in Trapani and we took a bus to the city center. Unfortunately, Trapani is like West Philadelphia. Let me take a minute now and build a mental picture of Trapani for you. The best way that i can describe this cradle of filth called Trapani is to present to you the image of two monkeys flinging their excrement at a brick wall covered in graffiti for about two hours. This is the only true way to describe the city. Trapani is on the coast so we thought "hey lets go out to the beach" No you can't go out to the beach because the beach is covered in trash. I walked down to the water only to see a series of bathtubs that and oildrums that had carelessly washed up on the shore like cocunuts on a desert island. Thats right, bathtubs. You think ok, i can handle rusted out bathtubs, well did i mention that this army of God forsaken porcelain maggot bowls also harbor wild dogs. Well yeah, obviously, as every good Trapani citizen knows you can't go near the bathtubs surrounded by trash and oil drums because they are protected by an array of wild dogs. I have one picture of the island and i think it does it justice. It will take me a while to put it up because its on someone elses camera. We walked along the coast for a while, commenting on the disarray of the island and picking out our favorite wild dogs until it starts sleeting. At that point i felt like my jenga tower of bad luck was one block away from falling over so i suggested that we cut our time short in Trapani and head to our next destination- Palermo.
Palermo
We get to Palermo and all of a sudden i feel immediately revitalized. The city was cleaner the people were nicer, and i had my dancing shoes on. I headed to the hostel that i had booked in advance with high hopes. When i got to the hostel with my four friends, who should answer the door but the lovable Gesepee. Gespee ushers us in and shows us our room and he gives us a map detailing every conceivable thing to do in the city. It takes him about 30 minutes to go through everything and he is unbelievably thorough. He tells us that we should go grab a snack at a cafe down the road and come back for dinner because he was making an authentic Sicilian meal.
We did as he said and we came back around 7 or so for the "dinner"
THE DINNER
The words of one of the other hostel guest resonates in my ears. "Gesepee parties like a crazed animal" I had never heard this expression, and it was a little colorful, but their is no other way to describe that dinner. He brings out his "wine" and he gets us all sicilian pizza and encourages us to drink as much of this wine/juice he had made as possible. Well none of us our drinkers, we are all conservative good natured ambitious men, but we didnt want to offend him so we drank what he poured us, which was a lot. Before i knew it he was pushing us all to go out and sing Karyokee. I didn't drink that much because thats not my bag and it doesn't coincide with the moral equation i have laid out for my life, but anyway he took us all out and had us all sing our favorite song in this bizarre district of Palermo. Well one of my friends did drink a lot and he starts getting angry and he makes a scene by punching random cars, and another one of my friends starts flipping tables over. I don't know what was in Gesepee's jungle juice, but i do know that none of us went to dinner the next night. One thing is for sure I had confused Gesepee with the lovable character from disney's Pinochio (Japetto) but i would not any longer.
So before we left Palermo we decided to go to the famous catacombs that are on the outskirts of the city. To call the catacombs disturbing would be like calling the movie Babe 2 (Pig in the city) mildly bizarre and off putting. (Both of these are horrendous understatements). Basically, the catacombs consist of about 200 bodies that are anywhere from 100 to 200 years old that have been ripped from their coffins and nailed to the wall. These catacombs made the "controversial" bodies exhibit look like the Chuck E’ Cheese birthday band. In fact, some of the bodies still had flesh on them, most of them had hair, oh yeah and did i mention their is a children’s section where feti and children under 10 are still rotting suspended to the wall. Some sadistic animal with a sense of humor had them all doing poses too. (Anything ranging from the simple “Uncle Sam” pose to the more complex ‘john travolta’ Saturday Night Fever pose. Nevertheless, I dont think i ever truly left the catacombs because i have had nightmares for the last couple of days. I’m probably going to be carrying a piece of that experience with me for the rest of my life. Anyhoo, we left Palermo and headed for Agrigento.
Agrigento
Agrigento is the picture of cleanliness. If i was in the awkward position of comparing Sicilian cities to Charlie Brown Characters, i would call Trapani (Pig pen-The filthy boy), Palermo (Snoopy), and Agrigento (Charlie Brown). The city has an open market that extends for half a mile and sells everything under the sun. There was not a piece of trash in site, no karyokee bars, and no rotting corpses hanging on the walls. Agrigento is known for its Greek Ruins. Supposedly in southern sicily their are more Greek Ruins then in Greece itself. The ruins can date back as far as 1500 BC and they are pretty spectacular. Agrigento was really a lot of fun and we were able to find a relatively inexpensive place to have a nice dinner and watch a parade that was coming through the city. Our hostel owner was really interesting. He had had multiple death threats from the Sicilian mafia because he was a part time journalist who wrote about the inter-workings of the Sicilian Mafia. He also had discovered some Greek ruins during his stay in Agrigento that had got him some press coverage

February 9, 2010 Roman Holiday

Our actual "Traveling" to Rome was a nightmare. Our flight in Milan left at 6 so we had to leave the night before from Torino and sleep next to the train station waiting for a bus to the airport for about 4 hours. Its funny how so quickly you adapt to being a homeless person. Before i knew it i was one of them, talking a feeble amount of Italian and looking for food and change. We ended up talking to this taxi driver for a while about American music. Apparently, we are both fans of the Electric Light Orchestra, which i thought would never be of any value to me. When we got to Rome, we stayed in this 10$ hostel called Carlito's way which is basically a group dorm. I got to know a couple turkish people, a peruvian, an ecuadorian, some Spaniards and some other American people. The dorm was really great for the price that we paid. We went to see the Trevi Fountain, The Colloseum, the Roman Forum, Palantine Hill, The Vatican, the Vatican Museum (The Sistine Chapel), the sculpture of the ecstasy of St. Teresa, the pantheon, and the Spanish steps. We found this really cool night walk, and we traveled through the city seeing all the sights lit up at night. The Trevi fountain and the pantheon were especially spectacular. We had gotten a tip that near the four rivers fountain their are some extremely gifted struggling artists, so we stopped by just to see if any of them were worthy of our time, and as a matter of fact their was one artist in particular who was absolutely incredible. He did all of his work with spray paint and he had to be one of the best artists i have ever seen. He was the farthest thing from professional, he had a pig tail and paint covered overalls and he was selling his art for 10e, but he was absolutely incredible. The night walk was a lot of fun because their are a ton of street performers out every night trying to gain exposure, and they really add to the atmosphere. Their was everything from mimes to world class singers. On Sunday night, we really wanted to watch the superbowl so we walked about 2 miles to find an Irish Pub. Its somewhat dangerous to walk the streets of Rome at 2 or 3 o clock in the morning, but what the criminal element doesn't know is that i carry next to nothing on my person and that they would actually lose money (opportunity cost) in the time that it would take to rob/pickpocket me. Well anyway we found a pub and we stuck around for a while before leaving in the 3rd quarter so that we get some sleep. I would say that my favorite part of Rome was the Vatican. I heard someone say something to this effect, and i think it embodies exactly how i felt: "To call the inside of the Vatican vast would be like calling God smart." I was absolutely dumbstruck by the gigantic size of the pillars and the art, and John and I climbed to the top of the Vatican and that had to be the best view i have seen. (One of the pictures below is of me on top of the vatican). On Monday, we went to the Vatican Museum and saw the Sistine chapel. It really was amazing, and we got a steep discount because we are students. That night we hopped on a bus to the Rome (Bergamo) airport and then flew back to Milan where we met up with that same taxi driver (haha) and headed home to Torino. Today I had my first Italian Cuisine class. We learned how to make a 3 course meal that was really great.



My computer is about to die so i will continue later

February 3, 2010

For those of you who are wondering what the negative aspects of Torino are, here is a slice of reality. I'm having a ton of trouble with this Marketing professor here at the school. I view myself as being extremely structured when it comes to academics and the Italians are fly by the wind, and they have no real Hierarchy of authority structure. Well this marketing professor tells us to read 50 pages of this giant textbook and that he is going to ask 4 people randomly at the beginning of class a general question from the material. Based on the size of the class you will probably only get one of these questions all semester. This question counts for 25% of your grade. Now of course i freak out and study really hard for the question and OF COURSE i get called on. Well i nail my question and the other three people bomb and so he decided not to give any of us credit. I laid into the professor for a half hour and he just kept telling me that im being selfish because i should think of my classmates and that the only reason i got my question right is because i took TOO extensive notes. So i told him he was an Ideologue who didn't understand how grading worked. If i put the work in i should get credit especially because if i miss a question that means i dont get credit for the class, because i need a B or higher to get credit. I'm going to try to complain to the administration, but i imagine it will be the usual italian garbage where they tell me to lighten up and smile more. I told them i was forced to pay 70 extra dollars a month for internet that i didn't have and that i wasn't going to pay it unless i got that internet, and they told me to smile more.

Reality

February 1, 2010

So this weekend we traveled to the French Riviera. We drove a rental car from Torino to Monaco (The country), to Niche, to Cannes, to Grass, to Mercaille,to Martigues, and then to tigues. Niche was incredible, we stayed a night in a hostel there that was amazing. The hostel had about 9 flat panel computers on the wall that had free internet access and there was a club built into the side where you can meet people from other countries. We met a group of Australians traveling to Italy (Of all places). At about midnight, this supposedly world renowned pianist who was going through Niche to get to Milan in order to do a concert came into the club and started playing some of his music. He was unbelievable, i think he was at the hostel because the hostel owner was a friend of his or something.
The beach and the view in Niche are probably the best that i have ever seen in my entire life. Niche is right on the waterfront were the mountains meet the shore. We were able to climb on top of a mountain that was in the middle of the city to get the most spectacular view of the city, the Mediterranean, and the mountains. (First picture) The sun was setting as we came down the mountain and we decided to walk out to a relatively famous lighthouse in the area and watch the sunset. We spent the night in the hostel and then got up the next day and rented bikes to ride along the coast. Biking is huge in Niche because of the "tour de france" influence and so they have bike paths that stretch all along the coasts. After we finished riding along the beach, we traveled to cannes (Home of the European film festival), and then to Martigues where we stayed in a really cheap condo for a night. The way we broke it down the condo only cost us 15 dollars each a night, and it was probably a little better quality than the apartment Sam rented this past summer in Miami.
Actually, it took us about 3 hours to find the condo because we got lost in this small town. We got really frustrated after driving around for a while so we decided to eat pizza at this local shop in town. We asked the waiter in broken french how we could find the condo, and he disappeared into the back. About 25 minutes later he emerges from the kitchen with a map and like 5 or 6 other people from the restauraunt. Before long we had the entire restauraunt gathered around our table, like a war room, arguing in french about the "location" of the condo. It was incredibly bizzarre and chaotic until this stereotypical frenchman silences everyone by walking into the jumble of people holding up a "GPS". They fooled around with the GPS for a while until they finally just decided to just drive us to the condo. (Which is borderline impossible to find). When we woke up the next morning we drove into mercaille to see some of the sites. On the way we started driving through the French alps and we decided that it would be a good idea to pull the car over and try to climb one of the smaller mountains to get a view of the Mediterranean. This of course is a horrible idea because we were obviously on private property and the temperature was well below freezing, but we did it anyway. After about 1 hour of climbing the altitude was too severe, and i started to feel like passing out so i turned around and headed down. On the way down i saw the owner of the properties trailer and his collection of junk yard dogs. Thank God their was a gate. haha After we all got down, we visited as many cathedrals as we could and headed home.

January 25, 2010

So this weekend, we did not get a chance to go to the Matterhorn because it was way too cold, but we found a lot of interesting things to do in the city itself. First we went on a chocolate tour in which we were able to sample some chocolate cake and truffles from a couple of really famous places. The tour was a lot of fun but unfortunately we had to walk from store to store in about 10 degree weather and the stores were not close at all. I would say that we walked about 4 miles total on Saturday. On Sunday we went to the Egyptian museum that Torino is famous for. The museum itself is the second biggest in the world next to the one in Cairo. The museum was interesting, but their was mostly pottery and books which get old pretty quickly. They had some mummies on exhibit though which were really interesting. Apparently, the reason why their is a Egyptian museum in Italy is because during the Napoleonic era a high ranking official who was served as the French ambassador to Egypt started an extensive collection and had the items shipped to a home that he had built in Italy.

We have bought our tickets to a number of places.
Next weekend i'm driving with a European friend to the French Riviera.

I'll keep you guys updated. Here are some of the pictures from this weekend

January 21, 2010

So the last few days have been pretty low key. I went out to lunch with some friends after school and then stayed in most of the night. Tomorrow we are thinking about catching a really cheap train to the Matterhorn so that we can spend a couple of days in Switzerland. Finding cheap flights is difficult, but with enough time you can really get good at it. 2 Weekends from now we are going to Sicily and 3 weekends from now we are going to Rome. The price of both round trip tickets isn't even a 100 dollars. Sometimes the hardest part can be finding your way from the airport around the city. We have figured out that taking the metro is the ideal way, but sometimes it can be nonexistent in less developed cities. Right now were working on getting flights to Spain and Scandanavia, but its not easy because the flights are rare and expensive. I miss everyone at home and i'm looking forward to some of you coming over.

January 18, 2010

We went to Milan this weekend, and we saw a number of really awesome places. First we saw the Duomo, a giant cathedral. When we showed up at the Duomo, i was assaulted by about 15 Nigerians who were trying to give me their "lucky bracelets." My question to them was "How lucky can the bracelets be if they each have about 5,000 of them and they are still living off the street." I guess they didn't think that through, and my superior intellect was probably dazzling to them. Nevertheless, I still bought one. After i obliged the black guy, we continued on to see the statue of Leonardo, and a really incredible castle. Behind the castle was a Milka festival where there were people widdling and sampling food. Milka (The company sponsoring the event) also built these gigantic artificial ski slopes that you could pay to ski down. I however wen the cheap route and decided to take the free picture with the Giant Milka Cow . We tried to see the last supper, but we weren't able too because their was a month long waiting list. Instead we decided to go to this science museum where a lot of Leonardo Da Vinci's ideas are on display. The museum also had a collection of giant globes that represented how Europeans have historically viewed the geography of the earth. The earliest one didn't include Australia or much of Canada and it had giant sea monsters plotted onto the pacific. It was really interesting.
Today i went to my first real day of classes, it was 8 hours long. I know your probably thinking, "John, in every one of your blog posts you say you are attending your first day of class'" well to be more clear, today was my first day in which i attended all three classes on the same day. Italian starts early so i began those classes last week. I'm looking forward to traveling more and learning Italian.