Lost my Little Black Book

This morning I woke up earlier than everybody in my room, so I picked up my iPod, and rambled on north of Medag. Nobody has really gone up there at all (most/nearly all of the city is south of us and east of us), so I decided to check it out. I actually really liked the area, but it is almost nearly residential (4-5 story apartment buildings). Also, it's very hilly. However, some non-residential stuff I found included some really really cheap Chinese restaurants. Maria Younes, our envoy for ND students, said the Chinese restaurants are the best deal. I can see why: everything was like 3/4 euro. I saw one place had fried frog. I'll bring my camera when I eat that.

After that, we headed out to the open air market five minutes south of Medag. Lots of cheese, meats, fish, fruit, etc. there. There are also some cheap clothes there to buy. Anyways, I was pretty much in heaven. Delicious food (I bought a pound of salume for like 3 euro, some ricotta that was like 1.30 a kilo, some delicious parmaggiano, and some seeded grapes. All were fantastic), and it was a very cool sociological/econ thing. Nearly all locals, so I got to practice my Italian (a lot of the vendors seemed surprised to see a Irish-white boy in shorts asking about their favorite meats). Also, it was cool to see how all the prices of the meats/cheeses/fruits were all very, very cheap and around the same, and the places that had "rare" goods seemed to jack up their prices. For example, there was only one place I found that sold nuts (cashews, peanuts, etc). It seemed pricey. I was bothered because that was the first place I saw, and I was disappointed that the market was going to be so expensive. Once I went to a cheese place, though, I realized what was up.

So then we walked down to JCU to sign up for a few trips. I signed up for two hiking trips at five euro a pop (subsidized!) and an unsubsidized day trip to Tuscany with wine tastings and a three course meal prepared on the countryside (75 euro). Then we went to look through Trastevere, and as we went south past Santa Maria in Trastevere I was noting all the places in my Little Black Book that looked so good. Well, Dan and I decided to go West to go up into a park-like area (Rome doesn't really have parks as much as the Villas of the families that used to be really unbelievably rich that are very plush and green) in Trastevere, and it was fantastic. You go up a hill there and have a terrific view across the city. Sadly, somewhere along the way, I lost my Little Black Book. Now I'll have to find good restaurants on my own. And that's a huge pain, because there are, like, none of those anywhere around this city.

So today is the beginning of college football season back home. I do miss that a bit, but hopefully Friday night around 9:30 we'll be watching the ND kickoff at an Irish pub around town. That should be a good time.

As for, you know, the time of my life I am having here 5500 miles away from tonight's games, today was a more relaxed day. Up early (early being 9:00, of course) to go to a bus tour of Rome. We were up on the double-decker thing, and I got a bunch of pictures, but none were especially great. My highlights of the day were going to the Piazza di Spagna with the famous Spanish Steps. We went there for a very brief period the first time I visited, and it was cool to see them again (I'm sure I will be back. Often). There also was the worlds nicest McDonald's a block away. I did not see a Royale with cheese (think Pulp Fiction), which reinforced my stand against eating McDonalds (over 5 years now!). I keep finding reasons to never eat that stuff again.

Also, it was my first time in the Piazza del Popolo. The obilisk there is really old (dates back to Ramses II), and that is sweet because I think Egyptian obelisks are pretty awesome.

The rest of the day was fairly low key. Despite my lack of sleep I haven't gotten too tired. I also have not been eating much, surprisingly. Instead of McDonalds I had like 1/4 of somebody else's piece of pizza they got outside the Metro (it was a large piece, mind you, because the person at the store kept ripping off the Ugly Americans by giving them way bigger pieces than they wanted. In America, this would be great, but here the cost of the slice depends on the weight of the slice. There were some 8 euro "pieces" of pizza). And for dinner I had gelato at Old Bridge. That's it. I think the heat is killing my appetite, and my need for sleep too. It is supposed to cool a bit (5 degrees. Fahrenheit, sadly) the next few days, so I have that to look forward to.

The next few days are wide open too. Should be good.

Sleeping issues

So, it's 4 in the morning, and I can't sleep (maybe this isn't so bad. 4 of my roommates are still out in Rome partying it up somewhere). We have to be out of here at 9:45, so there is still some hope to get a few hours. Why can I not sleep?

To begin, it is approximately a hundred milliondy degrees in my room. Centigrade.

Next, I realized at about 12 at night that they switched a class of mine, leaving me with a conflict. Did they tell me? Of course not, and why should they bother to do a silly little thing like that? So I spent two hours freaking out trying to find another class that fits into my perfect three day schedule (I may have found two. I emailed a bunch of people at ND for approvals. They're obviously lame sleepy-poos who are not checking their emails at night. Can't a kid get a damn favor around here?). So that stressed me out.

I'm also stressed about my visa. I don't know if I mentioned this yet, but yesterday a guy told me I may not exactly be able to leave/ get back into Italy if I travel beyond the expiration date of my visa. Well, despite asking for a 140 day visa, I got a 115. The study abroad woman who works with the Rome program shrugged it off as no biggie, and said I should have no problems. Well, sounds like I may have problems: my visa expires Dec. 30, and I want to come back Jan. 8. My hope is that maybe if I leave Italy before Dec. 30, come back in later, I have gone from resident to tourist, and it's all good. But, I'm wondering if, technically, in order to get back as a tourist, one needs to touch back in the motherland, in which case I'm up a creek lacking a paddle.

And then there's the France trip to see the Lion King. I booked my hostel today. It's really a steal, from all I can gather (well located, breakfast, etc for 24 euro). I'm waiting on the plane tickets (they went up like 20 euros in a day... I'm going to see if they go back down 20 euro). So actually, minimal stress from that angle. But, otherwise, yeah. I'm dying here. Did I mention it's hot?

Here is a picture of a church right next to the ND architecture building. From the outside, it looks like nothing. Inside, it is amazing. So many things in Rome are like that.

Tonight we got a free meal from the Nanovic Institute, our collective sugar daddy. We could pretty much order whatever we wanted. The meal almost certainly ran over 500 euro. What a deal.

All too much

I write to you from the computer lab at JCU (I needed to set up a password, and now seemed like as good time as any to write a post). This post will not have any contractions in it because I cannot find the apostrophe on the keyboard (getting an @ sign is a serious pain, which is suprising because it is so common with emails and whatnot).

Too much has happened since I last posted. We went out to Friends for the same food as the night before, decided to head across the river, ended up walking all the way down the the Colosseum for the first time, walked back to the Campo de Fiori (we= myself, my roommate Andy, and about 7 of the girls who wanted some guys to walk with them). Two of the girls stayed with me (right now I just realized there are no quotation marks on the Italian keyboard, either. For quotes Italians use <>. This robs me of the easiest way to convey sarcasm over the internet. So if and when I do this to a word <>, mentally insert quotations) <>, waiting for Dan and what I thought were going to be my roommates, but ended up being Dan and a bunch of girls. Anyways, we then went to the Piazza Navona, then the Pantheon (my favorite building on the planet), walked home and got back around 1:15 AM, which all things considered is fairly early for a night out.

The highlight of the night was stopping on the bridge leading up to the Castel Sant'Angelo at 12:45 at night (I found the apostrophe! I knew once I started typing Castel Sant'Angelo it had to be here somewhere. Here come a string of contractions to express my joy: can't won't don't wouldn't. Ahh much better). From there we had a beautiful view not only of the Castel, but of St. Peter's Basilica.

I also ate my first cannolo at a pasticceria in Trastevere. Why oh why can Americans not get gelato or cannoli right?

Today we woke up around 9 to get to JCU to meet Maria, our envoy. She took us to the ND Architecture building, where we heard about some things that the Nanovic Institute, a European studies thing at ND, sponsors (I will probably go on a free trip to Tivoli). Anyways, we also get up to 30 euros for any <> we get, so I will be able to get a subsidized soccer game simply for writing a paragraph summary of how good a time I had. Hooray for rich people throwing money at us. We then had pizza there, then met with some guys from Campus Ministry (hey, did you know there are a few places to go to Mass in Rome? You learn something new every day), and then met with another cultural envoy who had a preoccupation with explaining cultural differences using the picture of the glacier where it shows how much of the glacier is beneath the surface (hey, did you know that people in different countries view the world differently?). Anyways, because that lady ran over her end time I couldn't go on my JCU gelato tour.

Between speakers I had my first caffe granita, an icy coffee/sugar concoction. Absolutely fantastic (probably not especially healthy), and I had a nice caffiene buzz. I can get used to this coffee culture, methinks.

Bee sting

It's okay momma - one pair of khakis can go a long way for this boy, especially with exercise shorts. No real worries, just using my blog for the format's most popular usage: whining.

So, anyways, I completely forgot one of the exciting (though not positive) moments of my day earlier: a bee crawled into my Birkenstocks immediately after I was done with the permesso di soggiorno, couldn't get out, and proceeded to sting me. It hurt. My #3 and #4 toes got really swollen, and I couldn't walk right for about 4 hours. Ouchies. But it's all good now.

Tonight, the plan is to be the male escort (not that kind of male escort) for a bunch of the girls who did not go to the Friends bar last night for the free food (I think the "safety in Rome" orientation thoroughly frightened the girls about going out without a guy friend). I have no idea what the plan is after that, but it should be fun.

My first pizza place

Today I woke up on my own at 7 in the morning. My alarm was set for 7:45, but it was probably for the better, because I got to shave (without shaving cream... forgot to buy a big thing of that at the GS yesterday). We left at 8 for our appointment for our permesso di soggiorno, a bureaucratic necessity here in Italy. I had to copy every single page of my passport for it. And we have another meeting for that on two Mondays from now. Ugh. Romans are big fans of the slow bureaucratic process, that is for sure.

We then sauntered back towards Medag after getting out of another orientation meeting, and two girls and I broke off from the group and found pizza somewhere a little east of the Vatican (menu pictured here). It was a very nondiscript place. Mediocre pizza (though I was very hungry, so in some way it hit the spot), which was a little surprising considering that it didn't seem touristy at all. Plenty of locals and whatnot. Oh well.

We then came back here. I should seriously take a nap right now. This is our first real downtime during the day we've had. I just want to make a couple of notes. First, Romans wear shorts. Plain and simple. I should have brought more than one pair of khaki shorts, considering it is hot hot hot outside. Second, the whole Italian "eat a pastry for breakfast" thing doesn't work with me. Those things hold you for about 15 minutes, and then you're hungry again. All Bran is certainly missed, though I did get these All Bran bar things at the GS (not enough fiber for an All Bran product, I'd say. There's more fat than fiber!), and there was original All Bran there. I guess that will have to suffice.

I didn't bring my camera. Whoops.

Today was the second trip to JCU. We went to get student IDs, sign some forms, go to a meeting about housing and get told all the cool trips that are offered (for a tidy fee, of course). But many of them sound fantastic. Sailing trips around the Amalfi coast (expensive, but very cool sounding), skiing down a glacier (I didn't hear about that one, but somebody was talking about it. But we do seem far away from glaciers, don't we?), day trips to Capri, day trips to Tuscan villas for wine tasting... lots and lots of fun things. Dan and I are going to talk to some girls to discuss where we are planning to go. I'll let you know.

After that, Dan, about 8 girls, and I went around Trastevere for the first time. My first impression is that it is very very interesting. Not too much touristy is there, so just about everyone there seemed like a local. We then walked across the bridge to the island, and crossed the Tiber for the first time. We then hiked over to the Forum for a view (we walked up the Campidoglio. From there we could see across the Forum to the Colosseum. Very pretty view), then down through the Victor Emmanuel II monument at the Piazza Venezia, where I had never been. That was a very pretty area as well. From there we went to the Campo de' Fiori, a hotspot that doubles as a chilling area at night (many restaurants in the Little Black Book) and a market during the day. I will be spending a lot of time there, because it is near the school and has plenty to do between classes.

We crossed back via the Ponte Sisto, and found the restaurant where we were to meet with a bunch of JCU kids called "Friends" (Friends is also in the Little Black Book). They fed us finger food and water. We stayed for a little while, but then I ran off to go find this chocolate shop in the Little Black Book (Ciocolatto e Vino, I think), which was closed. It had weird hours (6PM-2AM), but it was probably already 7 PM. Still not open. From there, I took off by myself, because all the guys wanted to grab pizza because they were still starving and all the girls were nowhere to be found. I decided to head towards home. Seeing the Castle St. Angelo made me think of Gelarmony and made me crave some delicious gelato. Well, it was good. I had crema, and some flavor that I couldn't pronounce that started with an "a". Up to the point where I bungled the pronunciation of that flavor, the people at Gelarmony thought I was fluent. So I'm doing okay so far.

From there I got lost. That area wasn't exactly on the map they gave us (too far north from school). Medag (our apartment complex) is not on there either. So I kind of guessed (an educated guess, I would say) my way back home. I came out right at the market near our complex, and I was quite happy to know where I was. Rome isn't too huge, but the roads are in no way gridded. Everything juts every which way.

Getting back, me and the roommates chilled with a "shirts-off" party, because it is really really hot in the apartment. Dan and I then went up to talk to seven girls about the trips. The primitive plans involve a day trip to Tuscany with wine tasting, and a weekend sailing trip in early October. If they sail that weekend, I probably won't be able to go, especially if I'm going to Paris.

It's getting late. I must add one thing that I am not sure if I have noted before: we are so dehydrated that when we drink water about 45 seconds later we immediately start sweating for about ten minutes, and then the water is gone. I kid you not. It's pretty futile drinking anything at this point.

Nearly lost passport

First real scare already: the guy at the front desk said he lost my passport. That's right. I was freaking out inside, but I figured "maybe he gave it back to me yesterday". Well, he did not. After going to the supermercato (GS - "grocery store"?) for the first time, we came back, I went through all my stuff, but I couldn't find my passport. I went down to talk to him again, made him go through a bunch, and he found it. Then he blamed me for his putting my passport in the wrong place. I think Italians enjoy verbal conflict. I ignored his attempt to get uppidy (partially because I was thrilled to have my passport). I ran upstairs and put my passport in the safe.

I was thrilled to find out that the gelato place we ate at last night, Old Bridge, was in the Little Black Book. I am going to guard that thing with my life.

Oh what a night

Lots of fun was had tonight. After lounging around, we decided to go to John Cabot University (from here on "JCU") to check out the location/get some free pizza. I led the way, and now it seems that just about everybody knows me (not that I know them... hopefully within the month I'll have it). Well, the pizza was terrible. Despite that, and despite the fact that I didn't feel hungry (I should have), I downed a piece of pizza and a sandwich quickly. They did not have enough drinks. What a failure of preparation. Liquids are necessary right now. We left quickly.

A couple of highlights of stuff up til this point include all the happy little Catholic children seeing the Vatican for the first time. I think the whole "we're going to be living here for four months... this is awesome" thing hit a lot of people then. St. Pete's is amazing at night. Highlight #2: gelato. Oh how I've missed thee. Oh, how badly I've missed thee. Dan said he knew a place just outside the Vatican that was cheap and delicious. This flies in the face of my ideal place, which should not be near a major monument (high rents=high prices/low quality, right?). Plus, I have heard more than once not to get gelato outside the Vatican. I was dubious. Well, I was completely wrong. I got the smallest (2 euro) cup of gelato. It was massive, and the rich and creamy goodness made my day. Plus, we headed back into St. Pete's (we=Dan & I, another guy, and like 15 of the girls... sadly, I do not know the names of any of the other people. Somehow, nobody picked up on this) and sat for about half an hour admiring the square. Very enjoyable.

I come back to a house of kids playing drinking games. They got in a bit of trouble earlier carrying wine bottles into JCU, but how were they to know it was a dry campus? I think nothing will come of it, because nothing should.

The big travel day

12:09 Eastern Time – So far, today has been a very successful travel day. I got up on my own (excitement, I suppose) around 4:40 in the morning. I still got about seven hours of sleep, but hopefully I will be able to sleep on my Rome flight. Anyways, we (my mom, dad, and I) packed up, put the bags in the minivan, and headed out around 7. We got to Charlotte Douglas earlier than necessary, especially when I learned that my flight to Washington Dulles was delayed because the pilots got in to Charlotte late last night. The delay didn’t bother me in the least bit, though, because I had a seven hour layover in Dulles changed to a six hour layover.

The flight to DC was short (looked over some Italian culture books and listened to an episode of the Tony Kornheiser radio show). Upon arrival to D.C., I realized I truly had nowhere to go, because my flight isn’t even up on the departure board yet! The arrival of the plane from Rome at 3 PM doesn’t give me any help, either, because it doesn’t have an arrival gate. I did find a sweet lunch destination on the airport layout board, though: Five Guys! What a thrill; I can eat a cheeseburger and feel like crap for the rest of the day. Excellent! So now I sit here, prepping myself for a delicious meal, looking at the Five Guys sign, quite contented with the discovery.

1:46 Eastern – The Five Guys cheeseburger & fries was as greasy as expected, and by “greasy” I mean “delicious”. I actually demonstrated some self-restraint and only ate half the fries (this is not nearly as impressive as it sounds; an order of Five Guys fries is like two orders of any other fries). Anyways, the reason I did this live“blog” update (other than finding an unused electrical outlet was to try to describe the machines at Dulles that take people between gates. They are these four-wheeled (big wheels), dune buggy-like machines that have steering wheels on both sides of the vehicles. They can probably hold about 30-40 people, and they are among the oddest looking transporters I have seen (nothing beats a Segway for weirdness). They may look weird, but it works very well for what it is. The terminals are not connected, and are too far away from each other to do a Detroit-style underground walkway, but too close for some sort of subway-type thing. A tram could have worked too, I guess. Probably would have less of a carbon footprint, too, but whatever works for the Dulles folks works for me, I guess.

3:22 Eastern – In Concourse C, and finally found an open outlet. I wanted to charge my iPod, even though it was only out of a quarter of the battery. No reason not to. Plane is still on as scheduled.

8:48 Eastern – I’m writing 35,000 feet above the Pennsylvania/New York border. We took off half an hour ago, and right now we are flying through a lightning storm. It’s kind of cool to watch out the window. I am in an aisle seat, next to a student from UW studying in Bologna and across the aisle from a family. The mom appears to be American and the dad is definitely Italian. The 1 ½ to 2 year old kid has not been a noise problem… yet.

The plane was delayed about 2 hours (6:15 scheduled departure switched to 8:08 takeoff), though the more I think about it the more I realize this is a blessing in disguise. It may give me more time to sleep on the plane, so I won’t be so tired for that potentially bad first day in Rome.

Speaking of potentially bad, I was really beginning to worry when I got to the gate about an hour before the scheduled takeoff. I realized that I only know one person pretty well in the group (Dan Krcmaric), and only know the names of two others. Combining that with my natural introversion/shyness, it made for a painfully awkward first ten to fifteen minutes, but my faith was restored in the Notre Dame student body when a slightly inebriated (“five to six drinks deep”) student struck up some not-so-awkward conversation and after that the next hour and a half seemed about as long as the awful fifteen minutes.

Everyone seems to have grand plans (“Ooh, we HAVE to go to Octoberfest” “I’m definitely going to Croatia” “Cinque Terre… sounds good to me!”). I’m not so sure about myself. I kind of want to wait and see. My aversion to spending money when I don’t think it’s necessary combined with Italy’s having tons of stuff to do (Rome itself could keep a person busy for a lifetime, obviously) make me think I may only make one or two ventures out of the country before my parents come. I have tentative plans to go to the Lion King’s premiere in Paris with Peggy, but other than that I don’t have anything close to set.

9:31 Rome Time – Currently directly north of Marseille. The screen says about 50 minutes left in the flight. It has been painless. I slept the first five hours, maybe a little more after that, and now am listening to my iPod. I completely slept through dinner, but a small breakfast was just passed out, so I just got my first bites of food in 14 hours, but the pastry they served was very dry. Oh well, I was/am hungry.

4:36 Rome Time – Wow. Sensory overload. I need a break. So, since I last posted, a lot of stuff has happened, including the humongous mistake I made which will impact my entire semester negatively, by which I mean my choice of room. But back to square one.

So, anyways, the rest of the flight was painless. Very quiet, including the young kid across the row. Customs was a breeze, just a stamped passport. There was no search of the bags, which is nice. After that, there was a lot of waiting (Rome is going to be a great test of my patience), and then we finally trudged around with our 50+ pound bags (some of the girls went up to 73ish pounds) to the bus, which did not have enough space in its undercarriage to hold all the bags, so we filled the middle walking row of the bus with our bags as well. As we pulled up to the Medaglie d’Oro (our apartments), we were told we had some more waiting to do, because we had to go through this huge bureaucratic thing to get our keys and make a security deposit. Rome seems to have a huge make-work bias, putting many people to work to do the job that one person could do easily. Not especially efficient. Anyways, I got my room assignment, #123, which is, sadly, not on the first floor, but rather the “second” (and by second they mean third). I trudged up the stairs with my bags (there are elevators, but it was full and I was feeling ambitious), got to #123, and went in. The whole complex is much nicer than I expected. MUCH nicer. I had my choice of beds: either sleep in a double room with plenty of closet space, foot space, etc with an unknown roommate, or get in this teeny tiny little room that was a single. Being a complete moron, I was drawn to the single, mainly because I wouldn’t have a roommate’s alarm waking me up and it wouldn’t be too bright in the morning (it is like a little hovel whereas all the other rooms are very bright whenever the sun is out (no good shades, it seems).

This was not an especially intelligent decision. The room has little to no room for my clothes and stuff. I rectified this situation somewhat, though, by claiming some drawer-like thing that is out in the foyer area we have as my own, and a lot of my clothes I will not be using anytime soon went right in there, so now I do not feel so pressed for space. I have seven roommates, and they all seem nice. I only know like two of their names (Dan, however, is one of them, thankfully), though. And they’re already drinking. (If you want to see the pictures of the apartment and my teeny room, I’m going to try to put them on facebook. EDIT: hosted here)

The reason I have plenty of clothes that will be unworn for awhile is that I brought a lot of cold-weather clothes, and it is unbelievably hot right now. Like 95 and humid hot. I have barely eaten anything in nearly 21 hours (3 grapes, two bites of a pastry, and 2 very small sugar cookies) but I am not hungry because of all the sitting combined with the nasty heat. I am also completely dehydrated, despite a 1 euro coke zero (God, I am going to be killing myself over this money stuff sometimes). I have had a bit of the tap water, though I’m afraid of some bacteria I am not used to making me feel bad tomorrow. We shall see.

One last thing of note: everyone here seems WAY more enthusiastic about doing 10000000 things all the time than I am. They’re running around looking at all the rooms and getting booze for the night and planning all this crazy stuff to do. I guess I’m a little more laid back or something. This ends the live“blog” style posts. I may post later tonight, but not in such a huge post.

Ready to Go

At least sort of ready. Actually, technically I'm not done packing yet. This is a problem because we are going to take off in about 75 minutes. But I feel ready.

Woke up on my own at 4:40, so I guess I'm a little excited. Just reading the papers and prepping to go.

The Last Day (at home)

I sit here finishing off my All-American day with my favorite American activity: football viewing! Carolina Panthers vs. New England Patriots (okay, okay, it's only preseason, but I'm clinging to what I can get).

Another great part of my All-American day was eating at Mac's Speed Shop, the place with the best BBQ in Charlotte. I had a Texas beef brisket sandwich, which may be even better than the 'que. Also had a piece of bourbon pecan pie with a scoop of ice cream (also delicious), so I probably had my fair share of saturated fat today.

So today was the official packing day. My mom was acting very worried, as she usually does when some air travel is going on. Both of my bags are ~48 pounds, so I am pushing the 50 pound per bag, but I think I'm safe. My real worry is that I will have a problem with some TSA super-bureaucrat who has a problem with me counting my backpack as my "personal item" that goes along with my carry-on bag. Still, I have travelled with bigger carry-ons before, so I should be all right.

My highlight of the day (other than the beef brisket) was realizing that I was going to be stuck in a middle seat, but doing online check in I was able to switch it to an aisle. That saved me a lot of discomfort.

My plan to document my travel day is taking a lot of pictures and keeping a Microsoft Word file done liveblog style, so that I can just copy and paste. Hopefully that is possible (in other words, hopefully I remember).

RICK STEVES

So, after having a delicious cheeseburger at Five Guys (I figured that the perfect burger would be an appropriate meal soon before leaving; there probably aren't too many great, Five Guys-esque burgers in Italy), I got back home to discover the UPS guy blocking the entrance to our driveway. He wasted some precious seconds of my life to deliver the Rick Steves Money Belt, a nifty looking little contraption that is allegedly helpful with carrying valuables while travelling. One minor problem: it says you wear it under your pants. Where, exactly, is this thing supposed to go? What happens if you need your money/passport? Tell the police "wait one second while I reach down my pants to grab my super sweet money belt"? Because I don't know how to say that in Italian.

The Pile of Clothes

So there is all (or nearly all) of my stuff, ready to be packed in a couple of bags and be taken to Europe. It doesn't look too pretty, but I think it will do the job.

Most of the day was spent relaxing, actually. The advantage of spacing out "packing" over the course of nearly a week is that no one day, even the organization of all the stuff, really takes all that much work.

Tonight I'm going out to dinner with my brother (I'm not sure where). In fact, I'm getting pretty hungry now (6 PM), so I should probably talk to him about that.

Packing. Very slowly.

Today was another day of preparation. Preparation for packing, that is. In terms of things I have done/will do for Rome today, it essentially consists of a soul-sucking trip to Wal-Mart and some tedious ironing. When I say the trip to Wal-Mart was "soul-sucking", I do not mean it in some elitist "Oh my God Wal-Mart is the worst thing ever!" manner. In fact, I think Wal-Mart is a true monument to human progress: I bought a perfectly functioning (well, I guess I am assuming this, though it looks fine) battery-powered alarm clock for $4.75! That's the price of a latte for some people.

No, when I call the trip to Wal-Mart "soul-sucking", I mean to say I went shopping. I generally loathe shopping. It's irrational, but I do. So for anyone who would like to give suggestions as to what I should do while in Europe, keep that in mind.

Anyways, I bought some exercise shirts, random things like travel shampoo/conditioner, as well as school supplies, because we were advised to bring those with us. I am kind of afraid of bringing too much junk along those lines that weigh too much instead of clothes, but I think I'll be fine. And the best part about packing that stuff is that it doesn't come home with you, which means more room for chocolate.

Monday

Today I started my packing (in earnest) by making a list of the stuff that I will need to pack. I think it may be a little too big right now, but I think I will pare it down. Apparently a good idea is to bring all the toiletries and whatnot (shampoo, etc), and leave any leftovers there if I need the space. I also received a packet from ND that has a bunch of information in it about the trip. I'm pretty excited at this point.

Just about everybody is back at school now, other than myself of course. The kids in the northern schools are still here, and Blake has yet to take off to Tulane. Dave is in Texas, but will be back tomorrow, so I will have somebody to eat good food with until Saturday. Speaking of good food, my mom and I went to Taste of Havana over on Albemarle Road for lunch (our first time there). I had the Cuban sandwich, and it was excellent. I plan on heading back over there before I go to Italy.

My first post

Today I am about one week from beginning my trip to Rome. I figured I should set up some sort of journal to chronicle the trip, on the advice of my parents and Mrs. Ake.

This summer has been spent doing clinical research in the Emergency Room at CMC for Dr. Jeff Kline. I do not think I will be doing that again next summer, but I did enjoy the job to the extent that it allowed me to listen to the Tony Kornheiser Show from Washington Post radio while working on Excel.

The last few days (Sunday-Thursday) were spent visiting New York City. I stayed with the Ake family, who were very, very gracious hosts. I met some people in the finance industry, and did the touristy stuff. My impression was that the city (or at least Manhattan, where I spent all of my time in the city) is the modern equivalent of what Rome was 2000 years ago. NYC is also a true testament to capitalism: specialization to the extreme, and everybody must be good at what they do, or they can't afford the rent. I really liked it.

On the trip Mrs. Ake convinced me to start the blog, so that I will be able to remember the events that are to come whenever I want to. That seems like sage advice. On the blog, I will try to document all different types of experiences in Rome, from my room to memorable meals (I probably will focus more on the food than an Average Joe would: I like food). I want to post pictures, but most of the time I think I will do that through Facebook.

My picture is what I will be missing most when I am in Roma, of course. That and football.