As of a couple days from now my withdrawal will be complete. I turned in my form today, filled out a transcript request, and turned in my meal token. Tahnee just finished moving her things into my room. I felt a bit bad because I haven't cleared everything away just yet; I'm working on it slowly but surely. I have one suitcase entirely packed, and the other is half-packed. I'm planning on finishing it this afternoon after I go into downtown with Katie and Deniz. Moving from one continent to another is exhausting business. I'm so ready to be done with it!
Just thought I'd update you on my packing position. I heard Washington is suffering some mega-wind and power outages. Hope this doesn't affect my flight too much. More soon, perhaps. :-) Ari
Friday, December 15, 2006
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Ari is Stumped
As how to how she could possibly fit all this stuff lying around her room into two suitcases. It's true. I've spent more than an hour now taking things out, making a mess, staring at my suitcases, expecting them to magically fill themselves up. I have no idea how I'm going to squeeze all this in; and I have no way to weigh them, so that sort of makes me nervous too. I've decided to pack the most important clothing first (sweaters to t-shirts, let's say), then all the gifts and souvenirs. I am going to compress and package up my down comforter tomorrow morning; once I figure out how much room that is going to take up, I think I'll feel a lot better. But I'm still thinking there are going to be some clothes I have to leave behind--now it's the tough decision of what and which. I'm thinking my t-shirts are probably going to have to be the one to go, even though I LOVE them. :-( But sacrifices must be made if I ever expect to get home. Home > T-Shirts.
And, so you see, I was planning on buying more chocolate tomorrow, but I think that plan has been revised. No more chocolate. I bought 25 bars at the factory, then I've got another four or five Kinder Riegel boxes (thin ones, about the same size as normal chocolate bars). And about four Milka bars from Germany. I think that's plenty of chocolate right there. I've been working on taking the tags off of things, in order to go through customs without having to pay anything. I think I could use some Oma-packing-advice right about now. I don't know how I'm going to get the rainboots home that Angi sent me. Fitting them in my suitcase seems to be a physical impossibility right now. Baah. And Tahnee's moving her stuff in at one tomorrow afternoon, so I sort of need to have things pretty well sorted-out by then. Her parents are helping her drive everything down here. And I still have plenty of cleaning to do. I have been tracking the vacuum for two days now without success. I'm still not stressed, at least not outwardly, but there's a feeling of impending stress rising in me as I look around at my little stacks of things to pack... atop my down comforter. And mailing things isn't so much of an option any more.
I went to FoxTown with Deniz today, on perhaps my last Swiss Travel Adventure. We took the train to Mendrisio, got considerably lost for a bit, eventually found the place. FoxTown is pretty much a designer outlet mall; it wasn't very impressive... and it was still really expensive. So we poked around a bit, but I know I was feeling rather drained, so we came back and I made dinner around 6:30pm, and Katie came over, too. I had my Math and English finals this morning. I still need two more signatures on my withdrawal form; I couldn't find the Deans anywhere today. Grr, frustrating. In any case, it's 8:30pm, and I'm more than ready to go to bed. I wonder if I should do just that, then get up early as usual and get all my business done tomorrow. We'll see. Hope all is well on your side of the Atlantic, and I might be seeing you soon! :-) Ari
And, so you see, I was planning on buying more chocolate tomorrow, but I think that plan has been revised. No more chocolate. I bought 25 bars at the factory, then I've got another four or five Kinder Riegel boxes (thin ones, about the same size as normal chocolate bars). And about four Milka bars from Germany. I think that's plenty of chocolate right there. I've been working on taking the tags off of things, in order to go through customs without having to pay anything. I think I could use some Oma-packing-advice right about now. I don't know how I'm going to get the rainboots home that Angi sent me. Fitting them in my suitcase seems to be a physical impossibility right now. Baah. And Tahnee's moving her stuff in at one tomorrow afternoon, so I sort of need to have things pretty well sorted-out by then. Her parents are helping her drive everything down here. And I still have plenty of cleaning to do. I have been tracking the vacuum for two days now without success. I'm still not stressed, at least not outwardly, but there's a feeling of impending stress rising in me as I look around at my little stacks of things to pack... atop my down comforter. And mailing things isn't so much of an option any more.
I went to FoxTown with Deniz today, on perhaps my last Swiss Travel Adventure. We took the train to Mendrisio, got considerably lost for a bit, eventually found the place. FoxTown is pretty much a designer outlet mall; it wasn't very impressive... and it was still really expensive. So we poked around a bit, but I know I was feeling rather drained, so we came back and I made dinner around 6:30pm, and Katie came over, too. I had my Math and English finals this morning. I still need two more signatures on my withdrawal form; I couldn't find the Deans anywhere today. Grr, frustrating. In any case, it's 8:30pm, and I'm more than ready to go to bed. I wonder if I should do just that, then get up early as usual and get all my business done tomorrow. We'll see. Hope all is well on your side of the Atlantic, and I might be seeing you soon! :-) Ari
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Escapar
I've been busy since I last wrote... and I can't believe it's coming down to my last three or four days in Lugano. Crazy. I really am going to miss Switzerland, but before I get too nostalgic I had better update you on my goings:
(O, but first do check out my photos from Neuchatel)
So on Friday I took my first real Swiss train ride (not on the Cisalpino, in other words, which travels between Switzerland and Italy). I was planning on studying for finals during those cumulative nine hours (4.5 hours each way), but of course there was no way that I was going to stare at some math problems or historical dates instead of the spectacular scenery!! Oh my goodness, it was magnificent. The best part was from Bellinzona to Arth-Goldau. In any case, after I switched trains in Arth-Goldau, a man and woman who work at a travel agency ended up sitting next to me. They both were speaking in English for some reason (not sure why, since her first language was German and his was French, but he spoke German and Italian as well). In any case, they were trying to pronounce "awkward," so I helped them out. The woman got off in Lucerne, but the man ended up being on all my subsequent trains (he lives across the lake from Neuchatel), so I talked to him for a good part of the train ride and he helped make sure I got on at the right place. He was really interesting to talk to; especially since he knew so much about traveling.
I got off the train in Neuchatel, of course, where Bardia met me. I had forgotten how tall he was, and he was shocked at our short I am. :-) The look of surprise I received was quite entertaining, I believe his words were: "You're so small! I expected you to be much taller from the pictures." I'm not sure how that happened to be honest. So he spent the rest of the trip referring to me as his little niece, in a very nice way of course. Teehee. We ended up getting fondue on top of a mountain, and it started snowing! It was perfect. Exactly how I had imagined Switzerland to be from the beginning--something like the Land of Christmas, you know? And the Christmas lights!! Oh my. In any case, after fondue, we tried to make it up the mountain but the car we were in didn't have snow tires, so it didn't quite work... we ended up spending about fifteen minutes backing down the mountain and then going the other way where there wasn't nearly as much snow.
Saturday morning we went for a hike and searched for animals. I think I'm going to have to tell you more about this adventure in person, since I don't have time to type it all right now, sadly! To summarize: we hunted down some wild animals that looked like little antelopes, but are related to cows, and then our Swiss-hunter-man-guide gave me a sausage made out of one Saturday night (I'm going to try and bring it home as a souvenir). But do look at the photos. We had lunch, then went to Bardia's best friend's house for coffee and hazelnut torte. Then we went to the archaeological museum, which was very well done and really interesting. I was impressed, especially since it's such a small town. Then we went back to the house to nap for a bit, and then it was off to a football-fundraising dinner for Bardia's Swiss sister's daughter. It was pretty small, but it was fun. I ended up befriending the youngest daughter, who was nine or ten. She was quite cute and had a good time styling my hair. There are some strange pictures floating around out there somewhere of me with lopsided pigtails. We traded hairbands as parting gifts.
Sunday morning we had breakfast then went for a walk on the roads behind the house (it's a pretty out-there area; cows, farm roads, forests) and through the SNOW! It was wonderful. I caught the 12:27pm train from Neuchatel to Olten to Lugano, about 4.5 hours again. And there was so much snow. I quite enjoyed it.
And since then, well I've had three finals (German, Marketing, Western Civ--by far the most difficult ones), I've taken out a tremendous amount of recycling and garbage, and I've been working on packing and moving out (passing things on to friends, etc.). And I made chocolate chip cookie dough yesterday, that I baked today, to go with the Sloppy Joe's I'm making for dinner. Keely's leaving for Zurich tonight to fly home tomorrow morning, so I thought we'd do an end of the semester dinner. Then tomorrow I don't have any finals, so Deniz and I are going to go shopping downtown and then there's going to be some sugar-cookie baking downstairs. I already made the dough for those too, it's sitting in my fridge, waiting to be baked. How lovely it all is. So I think things are under control. And I also mailed a box today, come to think of it. I did a trial-run for packing today, and I was able to get about 60% of my clothes and all my souvenirs into the bigger compartment of my suitcase, so things are looking good in terms of packing. Anything that won't fit at this point will not be coming home. I can't stand the idea of paying another 70CHF to mail a box home.
Hope all is well and see you soon! And make sure to check out those photos! :-) Ari
(O, but first do check out my photos from Neuchatel)
So on Friday I took my first real Swiss train ride (not on the Cisalpino, in other words, which travels between Switzerland and Italy). I was planning on studying for finals during those cumulative nine hours (4.5 hours each way), but of course there was no way that I was going to stare at some math problems or historical dates instead of the spectacular scenery!! Oh my goodness, it was magnificent. The best part was from Bellinzona to Arth-Goldau. In any case, after I switched trains in Arth-Goldau, a man and woman who work at a travel agency ended up sitting next to me. They both were speaking in English for some reason (not sure why, since her first language was German and his was French, but he spoke German and Italian as well). In any case, they were trying to pronounce "awkward," so I helped them out. The woman got off in Lucerne, but the man ended up being on all my subsequent trains (he lives across the lake from Neuchatel), so I talked to him for a good part of the train ride and he helped make sure I got on at the right place. He was really interesting to talk to; especially since he knew so much about traveling.
I got off the train in Neuchatel, of course, where Bardia met me. I had forgotten how tall he was, and he was shocked at our short I am. :-) The look of surprise I received was quite entertaining, I believe his words were: "You're so small! I expected you to be much taller from the pictures." I'm not sure how that happened to be honest. So he spent the rest of the trip referring to me as his little niece, in a very nice way of course. Teehee. We ended up getting fondue on top of a mountain, and it started snowing! It was perfect. Exactly how I had imagined Switzerland to be from the beginning--something like the Land of Christmas, you know? And the Christmas lights!! Oh my. In any case, after fondue, we tried to make it up the mountain but the car we were in didn't have snow tires, so it didn't quite work... we ended up spending about fifteen minutes backing down the mountain and then going the other way where there wasn't nearly as much snow.
Saturday morning we went for a hike and searched for animals. I think I'm going to have to tell you more about this adventure in person, since I don't have time to type it all right now, sadly! To summarize: we hunted down some wild animals that looked like little antelopes, but are related to cows, and then our Swiss-hunter-man-guide gave me a sausage made out of one Saturday night (I'm going to try and bring it home as a souvenir). But do look at the photos. We had lunch, then went to Bardia's best friend's house for coffee and hazelnut torte. Then we went to the archaeological museum, which was very well done and really interesting. I was impressed, especially since it's such a small town. Then we went back to the house to nap for a bit, and then it was off to a football-fundraising dinner for Bardia's Swiss sister's daughter. It was pretty small, but it was fun. I ended up befriending the youngest daughter, who was nine or ten. She was quite cute and had a good time styling my hair. There are some strange pictures floating around out there somewhere of me with lopsided pigtails. We traded hairbands as parting gifts.
Sunday morning we had breakfast then went for a walk on the roads behind the house (it's a pretty out-there area; cows, farm roads, forests) and through the SNOW! It was wonderful. I caught the 12:27pm train from Neuchatel to Olten to Lugano, about 4.5 hours again. And there was so much snow. I quite enjoyed it.
And since then, well I've had three finals (German, Marketing, Western Civ--by far the most difficult ones), I've taken out a tremendous amount of recycling and garbage, and I've been working on packing and moving out (passing things on to friends, etc.). And I made chocolate chip cookie dough yesterday, that I baked today, to go with the Sloppy Joe's I'm making for dinner. Keely's leaving for Zurich tonight to fly home tomorrow morning, so I thought we'd do an end of the semester dinner. Then tomorrow I don't have any finals, so Deniz and I are going to go shopping downtown and then there's going to be some sugar-cookie baking downstairs. I already made the dough for those too, it's sitting in my fridge, waiting to be baked. How lovely it all is. So I think things are under control. And I also mailed a box today, come to think of it. I did a trial-run for packing today, and I was able to get about 60% of my clothes and all my souvenirs into the bigger compartment of my suitcase, so things are looking good in terms of packing. Anything that won't fit at this point will not be coming home. I can't stand the idea of paying another 70CHF to mail a box home.
Hope all is well and see you soon! And make sure to check out those photos! :-) Ari
Sunday, December 03, 2006
ShokoLand
Yesterday was a lovely time. I was up by seven, and Alauna and I were heading to the FLP train station by nine. We rode the FLP train to Ponte Tresa (where there's a little market). And then as we stepped off the train, we realized that Alauna had forgotten her passport. Since you're technically stepping into another country, you're supposed to bring your passport with you in case they check. We decided to go over the border anyway, not really sure of our plans if we were indeed stopped. Alauna did get a little nervous while walking through town though, when we saw an official checking a man's papers randomly... We just kept on walking.
Ponte Tresa is really nothing overly spectacular, although you can, indeed, find a number of cheap goods. Alauna ended up buying her parents Christmas gifts, and we walked around and looked at all the market had to offer. Mostly, a whole lot of clothes and shoes. There were some fruit and meat stands, too, but I didn't really need to buy anything--so I didn't. Then we had to make it back over the border (we came up with all sorts of crazy plans). We ended up walking back the way we came through the Italian border patrol, where there weren't any officials positioned. The Italians just generally don't care so much as the Swiss about who comes and goes. So we walked against traffic (we walked out the "in" way, so to speak). We must have been rather obvious. But we didn't get pulled over; just kept on walking. Had no problems. I was not about to be stranded in yet another country.
Then we waited for the next FLP train to arrive, and took it down one-stop to Caslano, where the chocolate factory is! It was spectacular. They had balloon arches flying high over the buildings, and lots of small children on carnival rides and eating hot dogs... We went in and checked out the chocolate museum and free samples, watched a video in Italian about how they make their chocolate, then went and bought some chocolate to bring back as Christmas gifts. Looks like my Christmas shopping is officially done. :-)
We then took the FLP train back to Lugano, and I made lunch and cleaned my room before going downtown with Keely and Deniz, who needed to do some Christmas shopping, etc. I stopped in at the grocery store and bought some milk and cereal, as well as some popcorn (the kernels that you make on the stove). We got back to Girasole around 4:30/5, I want to say. I made a Christmas wishlist on Anthropologie.com, while watching The Life Aquatic, and talking to Soraya online. Soraya, do let me know how Christmas Dinner went.
Sometime around eight, I walked up to Giardino (another residence, up the hill) with Keely, Deniz, and Katie and went to a Christmas party put on by Tahnee. We ate some cookies, and she made some crepes and hot cocoa. Honestly, I think there was a little too much chocolate involved in yesterday. Deniz and I got back down here around here to Girasole around 11:30/midnight or so. It was a nice night.
Then I've been up for a couple hours now but have only accomplished eating breakfast and making a list of the things that I need to do. Hmm, better work on that.
Ponte Tresa is really nothing overly spectacular, although you can, indeed, find a number of cheap goods. Alauna ended up buying her parents Christmas gifts, and we walked around and looked at all the market had to offer. Mostly, a whole lot of clothes and shoes. There were some fruit and meat stands, too, but I didn't really need to buy anything--so I didn't. Then we had to make it back over the border (we came up with all sorts of crazy plans). We ended up walking back the way we came through the Italian border patrol, where there weren't any officials positioned. The Italians just generally don't care so much as the Swiss about who comes and goes. So we walked against traffic (we walked out the "in" way, so to speak). We must have been rather obvious. But we didn't get pulled over; just kept on walking. Had no problems. I was not about to be stranded in yet another country.
Then we waited for the next FLP train to arrive, and took it down one-stop to Caslano, where the chocolate factory is! It was spectacular. They had balloon arches flying high over the buildings, and lots of small children on carnival rides and eating hot dogs... We went in and checked out the chocolate museum and free samples, watched a video in Italian about how they make their chocolate, then went and bought some chocolate to bring back as Christmas gifts. Looks like my Christmas shopping is officially done. :-)
We then took the FLP train back to Lugano, and I made lunch and cleaned my room before going downtown with Keely and Deniz, who needed to do some Christmas shopping, etc. I stopped in at the grocery store and bought some milk and cereal, as well as some popcorn (the kernels that you make on the stove). We got back to Girasole around 4:30/5, I want to say. I made a Christmas wishlist on Anthropologie.com, while watching The Life Aquatic, and talking to Soraya online. Soraya, do let me know how Christmas Dinner went.
Sometime around eight, I walked up to Giardino (another residence, up the hill) with Keely, Deniz, and Katie and went to a Christmas party put on by Tahnee. We ate some cookies, and she made some crepes and hot cocoa. Honestly, I think there was a little too much chocolate involved in yesterday. Deniz and I got back down here around here to Girasole around 11:30/midnight or so. It was a nice night.
Then I've been up for a couple hours now but have only accomplished eating breakfast and making a list of the things that I need to do. Hmm, better work on that.
Friday, December 01, 2006
Naptime
I thought today was going to be a very productive day, but then it failed me. I had no German class this morning, so I didn't need to get up the hill until 9:40 for Marketing. After Marketing, Christina wasn't at the Writing Center, so I ended up staying there for two hours, until her meeting was over. I actually got to review someone's paper today; for only the second time in probably three months. I was supposed to be meet with Karen Ballard at 11:00am to get her signature on my withdrawal form, but I ended up conferencing with someone at the Writing Center instead. So that fun event was pushed to Monday; same with getting my advisor's signature.
Then I had lunch at North Campus and walked down the hill. I proceeded to take a three-hour nap, which took a considerable chunk out of my day. By the time I woke up it was too late to go to the post office and mail this box back home, which has been sitting my room for the past couple of weeks. How frustrating. In any case, it shall be mailed out on Monday. I went up to dinner with Deniz at around 6:00pm; had turkey meatloaf and potatoes (lunch today was fish and boiled potatoes). Then we went over to the Grotto where Deniz and Keely used leftover meal credits to buy sandwiches; we walked away with eight sandwiches and eight bottles of various drinks, worth approximately 96CHF.
Now I am back in my room... Trying to figure out what to do with my Friday night. I think I am going to watch movie, but I can't decide which one. I am going to Italy with Alauna tomorrow mornign to check out the Ponte Tresa market. More soon. :-) Ari
Then I had lunch at North Campus and walked down the hill. I proceeded to take a three-hour nap, which took a considerable chunk out of my day. By the time I woke up it was too late to go to the post office and mail this box back home, which has been sitting my room for the past couple of weeks. How frustrating. In any case, it shall be mailed out on Monday. I went up to dinner with Deniz at around 6:00pm; had turkey meatloaf and potatoes (lunch today was fish and boiled potatoes). Then we went over to the Grotto where Deniz and Keely used leftover meal credits to buy sandwiches; we walked away with eight sandwiches and eight bottles of various drinks, worth approximately 96CHF.
Now I am back in my room... Trying to figure out what to do with my Friday night. I think I am going to watch movie, but I can't decide which one. I am going to Italy with Alauna tomorrow mornign to check out the Ponte Tresa market. More soon. :-) Ari
Thursday, November 30, 2006
It's been a good day.
Today's been a good day.
I went to the 8:30 yoga class this morning, then went on to the drudgery of classes. But that was all right. I worked on my Marketing write-up in-between history and math. Okay, so the day wasn't so exceptional, at least to begin with. But after classes things started making me smile.
As I was walking back down the hill today, toward Girasole, the crosswalk-man was there. He's pretty much always guarding the crosswalks, since there's an elementary school nearby. He also does all sorts of other odd jobs for them--I've seen him washing windows, pushing the lunch cart, etc. He always says "bongiorno" (sp?) when any of us Franklin kids pass by; he's just a very nice, old Italian man. In any case, today as I passed by him he said "buona sera" and I replied with the same, and then he handed me a Mars bar! How random is that? So then I was rather surprised and smiled and said "grazie" and continued on. I think this happened to another girl too, to whom he gave a Lindt chocolate.
I eventually made it back to Girasole and waited until it was a decent hour back at home and called Baba and Angi, since they're going on their cruise in a few days here. That was nice! I got to talk to Oma too, except with a much better connection than usual. And then I called UPS and talked to my academic advisor, who helped me register for classes. I was on the phone with him for almost an hour. Things went really well though, and I'm feeling a lot better about next semester, even as I start to get a little sad about leaving (not so sad as to dampen my excitement to go home, however). There are a lot of people I'm going to be missing though. :-(
So here are my classes for next semester:
Contemporary Economy
International Political Economy of Southeast Asia
Pre-Calculus (yet again, you'd think I would have escaped by now)
Spanish Writing Seminar (I couldn't fit German into my schedule, but there's still hope of things moving around...)
And then I'm trying to decide on a Phys. Ed. class. If you have any recommendations, please do let me know. (I've been toying with folk dancing... just kidding...)
Then I walked up to dinner with Keely and we had 4P, which people always get really excited about for some reason. It's essentialy pasta with creamy tomato sauce and chicken. Then we went and saw the Variety Show, which was very happy. There were a lot of good acts, even though the show was pretty short--around 40 minutes. But everyone was really supportive and enthusiastic and it was fun. I'm quite pleased that I went. Plus, we had the chance to have a Barcelona-Trip-Reunion!
And I also found out that Alyssa and I are going to be on the flight back from New York to Seattle!
So many happy things today. And Alauna and I are going to Ponte Tresa (in Italy) on Saturday, then I'm going to spend part of the day shopping with Keely and Deniz (Keely wants to buy a beret...).
Life is happy. :-) Ari
I went to the 8:30 yoga class this morning, then went on to the drudgery of classes. But that was all right. I worked on my Marketing write-up in-between history and math. Okay, so the day wasn't so exceptional, at least to begin with. But after classes things started making me smile.
As I was walking back down the hill today, toward Girasole, the crosswalk-man was there. He's pretty much always guarding the crosswalks, since there's an elementary school nearby. He also does all sorts of other odd jobs for them--I've seen him washing windows, pushing the lunch cart, etc. He always says "bongiorno" (sp?) when any of us Franklin kids pass by; he's just a very nice, old Italian man. In any case, today as I passed by him he said "buona sera" and I replied with the same, and then he handed me a Mars bar! How random is that? So then I was rather surprised and smiled and said "grazie" and continued on. I think this happened to another girl too, to whom he gave a Lindt chocolate.
I eventually made it back to Girasole and waited until it was a decent hour back at home and called Baba and Angi, since they're going on their cruise in a few days here. That was nice! I got to talk to Oma too, except with a much better connection than usual. And then I called UPS and talked to my academic advisor, who helped me register for classes. I was on the phone with him for almost an hour. Things went really well though, and I'm feeling a lot better about next semester, even as I start to get a little sad about leaving (not so sad as to dampen my excitement to go home, however). There are a lot of people I'm going to be missing though. :-(
So here are my classes for next semester:
Contemporary Economy
International Political Economy of Southeast Asia
Pre-Calculus (yet again, you'd think I would have escaped by now)
Spanish Writing Seminar (I couldn't fit German into my schedule, but there's still hope of things moving around...)
And then I'm trying to decide on a Phys. Ed. class. If you have any recommendations, please do let me know. (I've been toying with folk dancing... just kidding...)
Then I walked up to dinner with Keely and we had 4P, which people always get really excited about for some reason. It's essentialy pasta with creamy tomato sauce and chicken. Then we went and saw the Variety Show, which was very happy. There were a lot of good acts, even though the show was pretty short--around 40 minutes. But everyone was really supportive and enthusiastic and it was fun. I'm quite pleased that I went. Plus, we had the chance to have a Barcelona-Trip-Reunion!
And I also found out that Alyssa and I are going to be on the flight back from New York to Seattle!
So many happy things today. And Alauna and I are going to Ponte Tresa (in Italy) on Saturday, then I'm going to spend part of the day shopping with Keely and Deniz (Keely wants to buy a beret...).
Life is happy. :-) Ari
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Back from Barcelona
Hello all,
I've had quite the time of it the last few days--the excitement really hasn't stopped until just now, since I've returned to the ever-peaceful Lugano. Barcelona was a wonderful trip, riddled with little problems (I assure you they didn't dampen our enthusiasm for being in Spain, they were just a bit inconvenient). Where to start, where to start? At the beginning, I suppose.
Wednesday night/Thursday morning:
Following the Thanksgiving dinner up at the North Campus Dining Hall, our little group (Alyssa, Alyssa, Alauna, Marcel, and me) headed down to the train station to catch the 9:48pm train to Milano. The train was late, but that was fine; no big deal. From Milano, we took a bus to Bergamo airport, arriving there around midnight or so. Bergamo does not stay open at all hours to its fliers; instead, they corral all those who need to spend the night at the airport (like ourselves) into a cement, holding tank of sorts. (And just to clarify, we had to spend the night at the airport in order to catch our 8:45am flight to Girona. We took the last train to Milano.)
Now Bergamo was quite the place. We ended up being shut into this cement tank filled with probably near a hundred or more fanatical Portugese football fans, all decked out in team colors, and faintly smelling of both urine and vomit. There were very few women about, and we were the only unaccompanied-by-a-male-companion girls in the place (aside from a few other girls from Franklin, who also had to sleepover). Really, it ended up being quite the adventure. There was a man with thet most enormous belly I've ever seen--he could've been carrying triplets--who was walking around shirtless showing off his football-fanaticism with the tattoo on his back. There were a number of men sleeping on their team flags on the floor, or curling up around their team scarves. At one point, a few of us decided to head over to the vending machine--this was around two or three in the morning--to get a snack and move around, since the floor was so darn cold. The vending machines were where the most lively of the fans had positioned themselves, ready to chat up anyone silly enough to try and purchase something. I think I will summarize this anecdote with the following few lines which were shouted after us after we decided it was time to book it: "Where are you running my prey?! Come to Portugal with me!" Yeah.
At around three-thirty or four they let us into the actual airport, which was really only a slight improvement--we were awarded with metal chairs, but were still freezing. We waited around until finally we were able to check-in, go through security, and wait it out on the other (heated) side, which happened around 7:00am. Not too much interesting happened after that...
Thursday:
Our plane arrived at Girona (about an hour outside of Barcelona) at about ten in the morning. We walked off the plane and to the side Alyssa (Roland) spotted the burnt-out skeleton of an airplane. Comforting, I know. RyanAir is slightly sketchy, admittedly, but cheap, nonetheless. They also have fend-for-yourself-seating, which requires that you sit in any seat that's open. They were actually incredibly efficient, both of our flights with RyanAir ended up coming in at least twenty minutes early. After we arrived in Girona, we took the bus to Barcelona, which took about an hour, and we checked into our hostel. We decided it was naptime after our serious lack of sleep. We met up with Alyssa (Roland)'s dad and his cousin, who had come to meet up with Alyssa and travel back to Lugano with her. We ended up walking around La Rambla for a while, then wandering around the side streets, and eventually ending up at a Mexian bar/restaurant where I had a chicken burrito, and we they had dolls, flip-flops, and garden gloves posted on the walls as decoration. It was more tastefully done than I am sure my description makes it out to be. We also went and saw a really cool opera house from the outside, as well as some palace/castle of some sort, that may have actually been a cathedral (we were tired). We turned in pretty early.
Friday:
We had a pretty late start since everyone was pretty exhausted still. We met Alyssa (Roland)'s dad and cousin at the Templo de la Sagrada Familia at around one in the afternoon, after doing a few hours of browsing and shopping in Jaume, just off La Rambla. We had our first metro ride of the trip on our way to the Templo, and we were not very successful to be quite honest, but we eventually got the hang of it. The Templo was spectacular! We also checked out the Gaudi museum housed underneath it. We then went to lunch, I'm pretty sure, although I don't quite remember where. Then us girls went out and checked out another museum, which had more crucifixes than any of us had ever seen in one place. It was incredible, and a little bit scary... Then we headed over to Barceloneta and visited the beautiful beach at around twilight--it was so wonderful! And there were still surfers out, which was pretty cool. Eventually we went and found dinner at a sketchy little place that served paella, pizza, and pasta... An odd combination to be sure. Alauna couldn't get into the women's restroom because, as we later discovered, one of the waiters was in there smoking. Awkward...
So here's where the real excitement begins. We went to Starbucks around nine, since Alyssa (Roland) had been having a real craving. So we all got something or other, and sat down at a little table that had walls on three sides, with Alyssa (Jeter) and Marcel sitting on the "outside" side. We had been about to get up and go and Alyssa (Jeter) had reached down to pick up her backpack, and it was there. But then we got to talking some more, so we sort of re-situated ourselves and, ten minutes later, her backpack was gone. This struck us all as quite absurd. Alyssa (Jeter) was quite justifiably freaking out a bit, and the rest of us were just trying to figure out exactly what this entailed. We told the people at Starbucks about it and gave them our contact information in case the bag showed up, then Alyssa (Roland) and Marcel went to search for the bag in hopes that someone took the cash and tossed the rest, and Alyssa (Jeter), Alauna, and me went to search for the police station, since I'm the one with Spanish, supposedly. After going up and down La Rambla asking the people at the kiosks where the police station was, I finally found a policeman and asked him and he pointed us in the right direction. It was way far down a very sketch side street. But we found it. They gave us the number to cancel Alyssa (Jeter)'s credit card, and then we had to wait to file the police report. In the meantime, I tried to ask them about the number for the American embassy. There was a fair amount lost in translation however, and it took a while before they figured out what I was talking to--it required the help of an English-speaking policeman. While there is no embassy in Barcelona, there is an American Consulate (thank goodness!). So we picked up those numbers.
By this time, it was way past the time that we were supposed to go back and meet with Alyssa (Roland) and Marcel, who we had agreed to meet back at the Starbucks. So Alauna and I left Alyssa (Jeter) at the police station, and we high-tailed it back to the Starbucks. We found Alyssa (Roland) and Marcel and Alyssa (Jeter)'s backpack--albeit empty. Alyssa (Roland) and Marcel had found two boys, one wearing the backpack and had grabbed it off the kid's back. They tried to question the boys, but it was to little avail, since the girls only spoke limited Spanish. The boys told them they had "found" the bag, and that they had seen the passport and camera a way down some road that they later found had a great number of male prostitutes...
So we all went back to the police station, eventually filed the police report, and got a taxi back to hostel at around two in the morning. Then Alyssa (Jeter) made various phonecalls back home and to the embassy hotline.
Saturday:
We were determined to get this business straightened out as quickly as possible, so we went to the consulate first thing on Saturday morning. It was closed. Consulates, apparently, are generally only open from about 9/10am to 1/2pm, Monday through Friday. Good piece of information to know. Going there on Saturday proved to be invaluable yesterday however, as we were able to pick up the forms that needed to be filled out and find out about getting photos taken, etc. So then we trekked back down to meet Alyssa (Roland)'s dad and cousin at the Plaza Catalunya, near the fountains. Then we headed over to Park Guell, one of Gaudi's many masterpieces (see photos). Had lunch at a quaint little place called El Fornet, which had nice little sandwiches and pastries. Then, I guess, we spent most of the rest of the day wandering about. We had a gelato and met a girl who worked there from Holland, who had spent a number of weeks in Wisconsin this last summer, so she spoke better English than Spanish. Then we walked down La Rambla trying to find a place to eat, and ended up with Chinese food. We also went down to the end of La Rambla, to the port, and poked around at the mall down there, look at the outside of the Aquarium and so on. Just sort of hung out. We ended up getting back pretty early since Alyssa (Roland), Alauna, and Marcel had to take the 3:45am bus to Girona on Sunday morning. We had decided that I would stay with Alyssa (Jeter) until the passport business could be figured out.
Sunday:
Alyssa (Jeter) and I found ourselves stranded in Barcelona on Sunday, but we made the most of it. We meandered along La Rambla and into Jaume. We went to the Textile/Clothing Museum in Jaume, right near the Museu Picasso. It was so cool! Soraya would have loved it. We continue to poke around that area and explore. Eventually we ended up going to the Aquarium, which is supposed to be the biggest in Europe. It was fun. Then we went back to Jaume area and had falafel for dinner and then got a pastry at a cappuccino place. We also went over the little outdoor market that they have on La Rambla on the weekends, and I bought a couple of things. Then we headed back to the hostel. You know, I may have things out of order here...
Monday & thereon:
We went first thing to the American Consulate, and got Alyssa's passport. The whole process was expediated greatly by having all the forms and photos and whatnot ready. That sort of killed our day, though. We got back down to La Rambla area around noon (it was a fairly substantial bus ride up and down to the Consulate). We went back to the hostel directly, and booked our tickets back to Bergamo. Then we went back into town, and we kept getting lost, which didn't make any sense since we'd been getting around just fine. I think we were just a little exhausted and distracted by everything that had happened and all the schoolwork we were missing and needed to get done... We went over to La Boqueria (the big market on La Rambla) for lunch and had some sort of organic burrito, then had a gelato. Then we walked around a whole lot more, found a few things that I had wanted to get before leaving... Eventually had an early dinner on La Rambla, then headed back to the hostel. We met a lot of really nice/interesting people at the hostel, and we talked to them for a long time last night. But we still went to bed early and then got up at 2:45am and left by 3:15am to find the bus station. Of course, we got lost. But I was determined that we would not miss that bus, so I hailed a cab that was going by and we hopped into and took the 3Euro drive to the bus station, and just made the bus with a couple minutes left to spare. (When we got to the station everything was locked up, and we had to go around and down to find the buses, then we hadn't bought a ticket yet so we had to go back up and buy one, etc. etc.--it was quite nerveracking.) But we made the bus, and we made our flight, and now I am safely back in Lugano. And have a ton of work to do. And some sort of dog crap on my shoe that I think I picked up this morning in Barcelona. Pretty much almost anything that could have gone wrong this trip, really did indeed go wrong. Well, not everything. But it was still a wonderful trip and we had an excellent time--and learned a whole lot about travel...
And do check out the photos. I'll write more soon. :-) Smile, Ari
Barcelona Adventure Album: Part One
Barcelona Adventure Album: Part Two
PS If you have e-mailed me and I have not responded in ages, I promise that I will soon! Things have been a tad crazy...
I've had quite the time of it the last few days--the excitement really hasn't stopped until just now, since I've returned to the ever-peaceful Lugano. Barcelona was a wonderful trip, riddled with little problems (I assure you they didn't dampen our enthusiasm for being in Spain, they were just a bit inconvenient). Where to start, where to start? At the beginning, I suppose.
Wednesday night/Thursday morning:
Following the Thanksgiving dinner up at the North Campus Dining Hall, our little group (Alyssa, Alyssa, Alauna, Marcel, and me) headed down to the train station to catch the 9:48pm train to Milano. The train was late, but that was fine; no big deal. From Milano, we took a bus to Bergamo airport, arriving there around midnight or so. Bergamo does not stay open at all hours to its fliers; instead, they corral all those who need to spend the night at the airport (like ourselves) into a cement, holding tank of sorts. (And just to clarify, we had to spend the night at the airport in order to catch our 8:45am flight to Girona. We took the last train to Milano.)
Now Bergamo was quite the place. We ended up being shut into this cement tank filled with probably near a hundred or more fanatical Portugese football fans, all decked out in team colors, and faintly smelling of both urine and vomit. There were very few women about, and we were the only unaccompanied-by-a-male-companion girls in the place (aside from a few other girls from Franklin, who also had to sleepover). Really, it ended up being quite the adventure. There was a man with thet most enormous belly I've ever seen--he could've been carrying triplets--who was walking around shirtless showing off his football-fanaticism with the tattoo on his back. There were a number of men sleeping on their team flags on the floor, or curling up around their team scarves. At one point, a few of us decided to head over to the vending machine--this was around two or three in the morning--to get a snack and move around, since the floor was so darn cold. The vending machines were where the most lively of the fans had positioned themselves, ready to chat up anyone silly enough to try and purchase something. I think I will summarize this anecdote with the following few lines which were shouted after us after we decided it was time to book it: "Where are you running my prey?! Come to Portugal with me!" Yeah.
At around three-thirty or four they let us into the actual airport, which was really only a slight improvement--we were awarded with metal chairs, but were still freezing. We waited around until finally we were able to check-in, go through security, and wait it out on the other (heated) side, which happened around 7:00am. Not too much interesting happened after that...
Thursday:
Our plane arrived at Girona (about an hour outside of Barcelona) at about ten in the morning. We walked off the plane and to the side Alyssa (Roland) spotted the burnt-out skeleton of an airplane. Comforting, I know. RyanAir is slightly sketchy, admittedly, but cheap, nonetheless. They also have fend-for-yourself-seating, which requires that you sit in any seat that's open. They were actually incredibly efficient, both of our flights with RyanAir ended up coming in at least twenty minutes early. After we arrived in Girona, we took the bus to Barcelona, which took about an hour, and we checked into our hostel. We decided it was naptime after our serious lack of sleep. We met up with Alyssa (Roland)'s dad and his cousin, who had come to meet up with Alyssa and travel back to Lugano with her. We ended up walking around La Rambla for a while, then wandering around the side streets, and eventually ending up at a Mexian bar/restaurant where I had a chicken burrito, and we they had dolls, flip-flops, and garden gloves posted on the walls as decoration. It was more tastefully done than I am sure my description makes it out to be. We also went and saw a really cool opera house from the outside, as well as some palace/castle of some sort, that may have actually been a cathedral (we were tired). We turned in pretty early.
Friday:
We had a pretty late start since everyone was pretty exhausted still. We met Alyssa (Roland)'s dad and cousin at the Templo de la Sagrada Familia at around one in the afternoon, after doing a few hours of browsing and shopping in Jaume, just off La Rambla. We had our first metro ride of the trip on our way to the Templo, and we were not very successful to be quite honest, but we eventually got the hang of it. The Templo was spectacular! We also checked out the Gaudi museum housed underneath it. We then went to lunch, I'm pretty sure, although I don't quite remember where. Then us girls went out and checked out another museum, which had more crucifixes than any of us had ever seen in one place. It was incredible, and a little bit scary... Then we headed over to Barceloneta and visited the beautiful beach at around twilight--it was so wonderful! And there were still surfers out, which was pretty cool. Eventually we went and found dinner at a sketchy little place that served paella, pizza, and pasta... An odd combination to be sure. Alauna couldn't get into the women's restroom because, as we later discovered, one of the waiters was in there smoking. Awkward...
So here's where the real excitement begins. We went to Starbucks around nine, since Alyssa (Roland) had been having a real craving. So we all got something or other, and sat down at a little table that had walls on three sides, with Alyssa (Jeter) and Marcel sitting on the "outside" side. We had been about to get up and go and Alyssa (Jeter) had reached down to pick up her backpack, and it was there. But then we got to talking some more, so we sort of re-situated ourselves and, ten minutes later, her backpack was gone. This struck us all as quite absurd. Alyssa (Jeter) was quite justifiably freaking out a bit, and the rest of us were just trying to figure out exactly what this entailed. We told the people at Starbucks about it and gave them our contact information in case the bag showed up, then Alyssa (Roland) and Marcel went to search for the bag in hopes that someone took the cash and tossed the rest, and Alyssa (Jeter), Alauna, and me went to search for the police station, since I'm the one with Spanish, supposedly. After going up and down La Rambla asking the people at the kiosks where the police station was, I finally found a policeman and asked him and he pointed us in the right direction. It was way far down a very sketch side street. But we found it. They gave us the number to cancel Alyssa (Jeter)'s credit card, and then we had to wait to file the police report. In the meantime, I tried to ask them about the number for the American embassy. There was a fair amount lost in translation however, and it took a while before they figured out what I was talking to--it required the help of an English-speaking policeman. While there is no embassy in Barcelona, there is an American Consulate (thank goodness!). So we picked up those numbers.
By this time, it was way past the time that we were supposed to go back and meet with Alyssa (Roland) and Marcel, who we had agreed to meet back at the Starbucks. So Alauna and I left Alyssa (Jeter) at the police station, and we high-tailed it back to the Starbucks. We found Alyssa (Roland) and Marcel and Alyssa (Jeter)'s backpack--albeit empty. Alyssa (Roland) and Marcel had found two boys, one wearing the backpack and had grabbed it off the kid's back. They tried to question the boys, but it was to little avail, since the girls only spoke limited Spanish. The boys told them they had "found" the bag, and that they had seen the passport and camera a way down some road that they later found had a great number of male prostitutes...
So we all went back to the police station, eventually filed the police report, and got a taxi back to hostel at around two in the morning. Then Alyssa (Jeter) made various phonecalls back home and to the embassy hotline.
Saturday:
We were determined to get this business straightened out as quickly as possible, so we went to the consulate first thing on Saturday morning. It was closed. Consulates, apparently, are generally only open from about 9/10am to 1/2pm, Monday through Friday. Good piece of information to know. Going there on Saturday proved to be invaluable yesterday however, as we were able to pick up the forms that needed to be filled out and find out about getting photos taken, etc. So then we trekked back down to meet Alyssa (Roland)'s dad and cousin at the Plaza Catalunya, near the fountains. Then we headed over to Park Guell, one of Gaudi's many masterpieces (see photos). Had lunch at a quaint little place called El Fornet, which had nice little sandwiches and pastries. Then, I guess, we spent most of the rest of the day wandering about. We had a gelato and met a girl who worked there from Holland, who had spent a number of weeks in Wisconsin this last summer, so she spoke better English than Spanish. Then we walked down La Rambla trying to find a place to eat, and ended up with Chinese food. We also went down to the end of La Rambla, to the port, and poked around at the mall down there, look at the outside of the Aquarium and so on. Just sort of hung out. We ended up getting back pretty early since Alyssa (Roland), Alauna, and Marcel had to take the 3:45am bus to Girona on Sunday morning. We had decided that I would stay with Alyssa (Jeter) until the passport business could be figured out.
Sunday:
Alyssa (Jeter) and I found ourselves stranded in Barcelona on Sunday, but we made the most of it. We meandered along La Rambla and into Jaume. We went to the Textile/Clothing Museum in Jaume, right near the Museu Picasso. It was so cool! Soraya would have loved it. We continue to poke around that area and explore. Eventually we ended up going to the Aquarium, which is supposed to be the biggest in Europe. It was fun. Then we went back to Jaume area and had falafel for dinner and then got a pastry at a cappuccino place. We also went over the little outdoor market that they have on La Rambla on the weekends, and I bought a couple of things. Then we headed back to the hostel. You know, I may have things out of order here...
Monday & thereon:
We went first thing to the American Consulate, and got Alyssa's passport. The whole process was expediated greatly by having all the forms and photos and whatnot ready. That sort of killed our day, though. We got back down to La Rambla area around noon (it was a fairly substantial bus ride up and down to the Consulate). We went back to the hostel directly, and booked our tickets back to Bergamo. Then we went back into town, and we kept getting lost, which didn't make any sense since we'd been getting around just fine. I think we were just a little exhausted and distracted by everything that had happened and all the schoolwork we were missing and needed to get done... We went over to La Boqueria (the big market on La Rambla) for lunch and had some sort of organic burrito, then had a gelato. Then we walked around a whole lot more, found a few things that I had wanted to get before leaving... Eventually had an early dinner on La Rambla, then headed back to the hostel. We met a lot of really nice/interesting people at the hostel, and we talked to them for a long time last night. But we still went to bed early and then got up at 2:45am and left by 3:15am to find the bus station. Of course, we got lost. But I was determined that we would not miss that bus, so I hailed a cab that was going by and we hopped into and took the 3Euro drive to the bus station, and just made the bus with a couple minutes left to spare. (When we got to the station everything was locked up, and we had to go around and down to find the buses, then we hadn't bought a ticket yet so we had to go back up and buy one, etc. etc.--it was quite nerveracking.) But we made the bus, and we made our flight, and now I am safely back in Lugano. And have a ton of work to do. And some sort of dog crap on my shoe that I think I picked up this morning in Barcelona. Pretty much almost anything that could have gone wrong this trip, really did indeed go wrong. Well, not everything. But it was still a wonderful trip and we had an excellent time--and learned a whole lot about travel...
And do check out the photos. I'll write more soon. :-) Smile, Ari
Barcelona Adventure Album: Part One
Barcelona Adventure Album: Part Two
PS If you have e-mailed me and I have not responded in ages, I promise that I will soon! Things have been a tad crazy...
Monday, November 20, 2006
O, Happy Day
I've really had a wonderful day today; I just had to write and tell you. I've finished six magnificent pages of my Flannery O'Connor paper, without too many stumbles. Every time I actually sit down to write it, my inspired analysis is fluent as I listen to Enrique and the Mexican Institute of Sound. I'm having a party over here. The weather was beautiful today too--no rain, just beautiful blue sky and sunshine, along with a bit chilly weather. But all the better, I got wear my scarf! I went o classes this morning, then chatted with Christina about my O'Connor paper and how to better focus it. Then I came back down the hill, worked for a bit on various things, went back up to the school for yoga, talked to Alauna until dinnertime. Had an unsatisfactory dinner with many potatoes, then went to the gym and kept Keely company for a bit, until we got kicked out by the basketball team. Then talked to my mom on the phone for quite a while about all sorts of things, then I've been writing ever since.
But for some reason I'm having a party and a half all by myself. Writing a research paper. That doesn't sound right. Maybe I had better stop. Ah well, more soon! Hooray for happiness. Miss you! Smile, Ari
But for some reason I'm having a party and a half all by myself. Writing a research paper. That doesn't sound right. Maybe I had better stop. Ah well, more soon! Hooray for happiness. Miss you! Smile, Ari
O, Happy Day
I've really had a wonderful day today; I just had to write and tell you. I've finished six magnificent pages of my Flannery O'Connor paper, without too many stumbles. Every time I actually sit down to write it, my inspired analysis is fluent as I listen to Enrique and the Mexican Institute of Sound. I'm having a party over here. The weather was beautiful today too--no rain, just beautiful blue sky and sunshine, along with a bit chilly weather. But all the better, I got wear my scarf! I went o classes this morning, then chatted with Christina about my O'Connor paper and how to better focus it. Then I came back down the hill, worked for a bit on various things, went back up to the school for yoga, talked to Alauna until dinnertime. Had an unsatisfactory dinner with many potatoes, then went to the gym and kept Keely company for a bit, until we got kicked out by the basketball team. Then talked to my mom on the phone for quite a while about all sorts of things, then I've been writing ever since.
But for some reason I'm having a party and a half all by myself. Writing a research paper. That doesn't sound right. Maybe I had better stop. Ah well, more soon! Hooray for happiness. Miss you! Smile, Ari
But for some reason I'm having a party and a half all by myself. Writing a research paper. That doesn't sound right. Maybe I had better stop. Ah well, more soon! Hooray for happiness. Miss you! Smile, Ari
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Four Pages Down.
Have not been up to too much this weekend. I've been working on catching up on my 123 pages of outstanding Western Civ reading. It's done now, thank goodness. I've been prioritizing my homework schedule by which classes are going to transfer over to UPS as more than elective credit (ie WesternCiv, German, and Marketing)--the three classes I am doing the most disappointing in right now. I have the "first version" of my Flannery O'Connor paper due on Thursday (although mine needs to be done Wednesday, since I'll be in Barcelona); so I've been doing a lot of research reading on that, and I now have four pages done. I have no idea how I'm going to contain it to only ten pages, seeing as I have only written about half as much as I need on O'Connor's biography, about half as much as I need to on "A Good Man is Hard to Find," and I haven't even started writing about "Revelation," comparing and contrasting the stories, and relating it all back to O'Connor's Catholic background, and then concluding!! I'm going to need more than six pages to do all that in. Ahh, I think I might need to cut down my topic, but I'm not sure how. Maybe I should just use "A Good Man is Hard to Find?" I would, except that I love "Revelation." I'll keep you updated.
I also went and saw the school production of Dracula; it was all right, but I still think that CWA's production was better. They also used a different script for this one. I also watched Love Actually last night; that was good; also did some cleaning. And I decided today that something had to be done with the rest of that cookie dough that I made last Sunday, so I finished baking it. I went down and turned on the oven to preheat it, and when I came back five minutes later, someone had stolen it from me. So I went back upstairs, and I came down again, ten minutes later, and someone else had stolen it from me! How terrible is that?
There's going to be a Girasole Thanksgiving Potluck Dinner on Tuesday, so I think I'm going to bring mashed potatoes and gravy. Then on Wednesday night the school dining hall is putting on a Thanksgiving dinner, so I'm going to that too. I really want my Flannery O'Connor paper to be done. I think I might talk to Christina Bell (the writing center director) about it tomorrow when I'm technically supposed to be working--I only "worked" on Monday last week; she had nothing for me to do on Wednesday or Friday, so I just left. And tomorrow I need to go to Agno, where the Lugano Airport is and have my ticket changed. I am going to get this done before I go to Barcelona! In any case, I think I'm going to take a break from writing and work on the Marketing reading I need to catch up on. Time to work again.
Ah, but I forgot to mention that I went for a walk for a little more than an hour today. It was nice; although I spent a fair portion of my walking time contemplating why the tens and tens of toddlers I was surrounded by were better dressed than me. I guess that's what I get for being a Washingtonian in Lugano. Miss you! Smile, Ari
I also went and saw the school production of Dracula; it was all right, but I still think that CWA's production was better. They also used a different script for this one. I also watched Love Actually last night; that was good; also did some cleaning. And I decided today that something had to be done with the rest of that cookie dough that I made last Sunday, so I finished baking it. I went down and turned on the oven to preheat it, and when I came back five minutes later, someone had stolen it from me. So I went back upstairs, and I came down again, ten minutes later, and someone else had stolen it from me! How terrible is that?
There's going to be a Girasole Thanksgiving Potluck Dinner on Tuesday, so I think I'm going to bring mashed potatoes and gravy. Then on Wednesday night the school dining hall is putting on a Thanksgiving dinner, so I'm going to that too. I really want my Flannery O'Connor paper to be done. I think I might talk to Christina Bell (the writing center director) about it tomorrow when I'm technically supposed to be working--I only "worked" on Monday last week; she had nothing for me to do on Wednesday or Friday, so I just left. And tomorrow I need to go to Agno, where the Lugano Airport is and have my ticket changed. I am going to get this done before I go to Barcelona! In any case, I think I'm going to take a break from writing and work on the Marketing reading I need to catch up on. Time to work again.
Ah, but I forgot to mention that I went for a walk for a little more than an hour today. It was nice; although I spent a fair portion of my walking time contemplating why the tens and tens of toddlers I was surrounded by were better dressed than me. I guess that's what I get for being a Washingtonian in Lugano. Miss you! Smile, Ari
Friday, November 17, 2006
Why does die Schweiz stink when it rains?
I have come to the conclusion that the German name for Switzerland is much more concise and user-friendly; plus it sounds so cool--die Schweiz! I live in die Schweiz! I wish I knew how to say that whole sentence in German. Alas, that's why I probably didn't pass that German test today... Actually it had nothing to do with that kind of vocabulary... But still. In any case, that's why I'm not a fluent German speaker, if you hadn't already made that assumption. Okay, this paragraph needs to end.
So not too much has been happening over here. I went and saw Ivan Cooper speak last night, he's an old friend of Professor Matthews. He helped to organize a number of nonviolent marches in Northern Ireland demanding equal rights for Catholics and Protestants, including the march on Bloody Sunday--he was there. Mr. Cooper was a phenomenal speaker--by far the best we've had so far. So that was quite nice and refreshing.
There were many quizzes this week, one in every class minus English. I really didn't do very well on any of them, so I've decided that I need to use this weekend to redeem myself. Hence, I've been studying for the last few hours even though it's Friday night--but let's be honest, what else would I be doing on a Friday night? Sleeping? That's what I thought. Read a number of sources on Flannery O'Connor for my paper that's due next Thursday; I need a draft of that by Sunday night...
Oma just called a bit ago. That made my day! I love hearing from people. I leave for Barcelona with Alyssa, Alyssa, Alauna, and Marcel on Thursday morning, early, early. So that's exciting, but I'm not quite excited yet. Although I know I will be. I'm going to the airport tomorrow to have my ticket changed for my flight from Zurich to New York. I need, need, need to get that out of the way. Deniz is going to go with me, and then we might get Turkish food afterwards; remains to be seen. And then there's Dracula tomorrow night up at the school (well it's tonight too), and I'm going to go see that with Katie, Keely, and Deniz. Then Sunday is back to the books, and then Alauna's hosting a fondue party up at North Campus with an exclusive viewing of Finding Nemo, so I think I'll be attending that as long as I can manage to complete this paper, which I think I will be able to. I have all the information, I have my outline, I just need to sit down and write it all down. It's all in my head, I swear. And then I'll be home four weeks from tomorrow.
Oh, and it's back to rain outside. It's quite nice, actually--I love the sound of it. Although I went into downtown this afternoon, and I probably shouldn't have, as it started sprinkling by the time I got into about the center of town, then I couldn't remember where the ATM I needed to use is located. I decided to turn back and use the ATM tomorrow morning, since I knew that it was going to be pouring by the time I got back up to Girasole. And indeed it was--my clothes were quite soaked. And I know, I should have taken my umbrella--but I was out jogging and was not convinced that it was going to rain, since it had been threatening all day, but nothing had happened. I also went grocery shopping earlier today. I went fruit-crazy; I bought six tomatoes, a 2kg bag of clementines, a cucumber... in addition to the nine apples I already had on my counter. I think that's a lot of fruit for me to consume before it goes bad. I've eaten four clementines since I got back. And I made dinner for myself tonight rather than going up to North Campus and partaking in yet another dissatisfying meal of potatoes and pasta. I bought itty bitty vegetarian spring rolls, which were pretty all right; I don't think I baked them long enough. Better luck next time.
Hope everyone's having a happy Friday. Smile, Ari
So not too much has been happening over here. I went and saw Ivan Cooper speak last night, he's an old friend of Professor Matthews. He helped to organize a number of nonviolent marches in Northern Ireland demanding equal rights for Catholics and Protestants, including the march on Bloody Sunday--he was there. Mr. Cooper was a phenomenal speaker--by far the best we've had so far. So that was quite nice and refreshing.
There were many quizzes this week, one in every class minus English. I really didn't do very well on any of them, so I've decided that I need to use this weekend to redeem myself. Hence, I've been studying for the last few hours even though it's Friday night--but let's be honest, what else would I be doing on a Friday night? Sleeping? That's what I thought. Read a number of sources on Flannery O'Connor for my paper that's due next Thursday; I need a draft of that by Sunday night...
Oma just called a bit ago. That made my day! I love hearing from people. I leave for Barcelona with Alyssa, Alyssa, Alauna, and Marcel on Thursday morning, early, early. So that's exciting, but I'm not quite excited yet. Although I know I will be. I'm going to the airport tomorrow to have my ticket changed for my flight from Zurich to New York. I need, need, need to get that out of the way. Deniz is going to go with me, and then we might get Turkish food afterwards; remains to be seen. And then there's Dracula tomorrow night up at the school (well it's tonight too), and I'm going to go see that with Katie, Keely, and Deniz. Then Sunday is back to the books, and then Alauna's hosting a fondue party up at North Campus with an exclusive viewing of Finding Nemo, so I think I'll be attending that as long as I can manage to complete this paper, which I think I will be able to. I have all the information, I have my outline, I just need to sit down and write it all down. It's all in my head, I swear. And then I'll be home four weeks from tomorrow.
Oh, and it's back to rain outside. It's quite nice, actually--I love the sound of it. Although I went into downtown this afternoon, and I probably shouldn't have, as it started sprinkling by the time I got into about the center of town, then I couldn't remember where the ATM I needed to use is located. I decided to turn back and use the ATM tomorrow morning, since I knew that it was going to be pouring by the time I got back up to Girasole. And indeed it was--my clothes were quite soaked. And I know, I should have taken my umbrella--but I was out jogging and was not convinced that it was going to rain, since it had been threatening all day, but nothing had happened. I also went grocery shopping earlier today. I went fruit-crazy; I bought six tomatoes, a 2kg bag of clementines, a cucumber... in addition to the nine apples I already had on my counter. I think that's a lot of fruit for me to consume before it goes bad. I've eaten four clementines since I got back. And I made dinner for myself tonight rather than going up to North Campus and partaking in yet another dissatisfying meal of potatoes and pasta. I bought itty bitty vegetarian spring rolls, which were pretty all right; I don't think I baked them long enough. Better luck next time.
Hope everyone's having a happy Friday. Smile, Ari
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Pelf.
It has not been a very exciting week (and I think I use that word way too much, maybe one day I'll take the time to find some new words to add to my vocabulary). Funny that I should bring up that topic so soon because I really wasn't planning on telling you about my work at the Writing Center on Monday until much later on in this post. Ah well. So, Monday, since I really have very little purpose at the good ol' Writing Center, Christina had me make (English) vocabulary cards to expand people's vocabularies. Or, if they're bored they can just flip through them rather than looking at decade-old copies of the Gazette (the alumni magazine). So I made two sets--one of useful vocabulary words, the other with obscure words--examples for the latter might be cowcatcher, crackerjack, pelf, etc. The best part of this story is that I loved making silly vocabulary cards, and if I were actually paid to work at the Writing Center I would be thrilled.
So that was my Monday for the most part--that and I went to yoga and mailed my first box home. I packed a second box today, which I think will be my last. I packed up pretty much all my summer clothes, my sandals, two books, two photo albums, my fleece blanket, my big pillow, two teddy bears (that were gifts), and various other articles of clothing. So, I'm hoping two boxes mailed will be enough and that I won't need to mail any more... Especially since I'm probably going to have to take a taxi up to La Posta with this second box, it's a bit of a monster. Maybe I'll try carrying it... Hmm, we'll see how cheap I'm feeling. (I carried the last one up just fine.) Yesterday I was pretty busy with classes and homework--I was somewhat productive. It helped that I stayed in the library for the two hours between my last class and dinner. Worked on my Flannery O'Connor paper and finished my math homework. Now I should probably start studying a bit for my Western Civ quiz tomorrow. And my German quiz on Friday. I had a Marketing quiz today that I did decidedly so-so on. And I should probably also pick up the miniature whirlwind created by packing that box up.
And in case you were curious, I now receive dictionary.com's Spanish Word of the Day. Yoga tonight, I'll post again soon if anything miraculous happens.
Smile, Ari
So that was my Monday for the most part--that and I went to yoga and mailed my first box home. I packed a second box today, which I think will be my last. I packed up pretty much all my summer clothes, my sandals, two books, two photo albums, my fleece blanket, my big pillow, two teddy bears (that were gifts), and various other articles of clothing. So, I'm hoping two boxes mailed will be enough and that I won't need to mail any more... Especially since I'm probably going to have to take a taxi up to La Posta with this second box, it's a bit of a monster. Maybe I'll try carrying it... Hmm, we'll see how cheap I'm feeling. (I carried the last one up just fine.) Yesterday I was pretty busy with classes and homework--I was somewhat productive. It helped that I stayed in the library for the two hours between my last class and dinner. Worked on my Flannery O'Connor paper and finished my math homework. Now I should probably start studying a bit for my Western Civ quiz tomorrow. And my German quiz on Friday. I had a Marketing quiz today that I did decidedly so-so on. And I should probably also pick up the miniature whirlwind created by packing that box up.
And in case you were curious, I now receive dictionary.com's Spanish Word of the Day. Yoga tonight, I'll post again soon if anything miraculous happens.
Smile, Ari
Sunday, November 12, 2006
More Photo Links...
Okay, so Facebook, where I normally upload all my photos for my friends to look at, now offers the possibility of linking my albums here. So that's what I'm going to do. You should be able to click on the links before to see more of my photos than ever before:
Munich Photos
Sicily: The First Part
Sicily: The Penultimate Part
Sicily: The Last Part
Swiss Adventure Album
Swiss Adventure Album: Part Two
Swiss Adventure Album: Part Three
Okay, let me know if these work... I'm not sure if they will or not. So please do let me know.
Smile, Ari
Munich Photos
Sicily: The First Part
Sicily: The Penultimate Part
Sicily: The Last Part
Swiss Adventure Album
Swiss Adventure Album: Part Two
Swiss Adventure Album: Part Three
Okay, let me know if these work... I'm not sure if they will or not. So please do let me know.
Smile, Ari
ChocolateChipCookieHeaven
To be honest, it has not been a very productive weekend. Goodness, I hate that. But it's all right. I've started cleaning my room compulsively. Yesterday was pretty chill... went grocery shopping, putzed around, etc. Then last night when everyone else at the school went up to Greek Night, Alyssa, Alauna, Deniz, and I had crepes. I made them for the very first time. It was exciting, and they were quite delicious, if often clumpy and irregularly shaped... Then we sat around and chatted and ate clementines. I took some pictures, so I might post them tomorrow. We had a good time, in any case.
Then I slept in later than usual today, had breakfast... Cleaned the kitchen yet again. Surfed the internet for a while for my Flannery O'Connor paper, made chocolate chip cookie dough... Did more homework. I went walking in downtown today, but there far too many people for my taste. Probably because it was so nice outside--about 60degrees and sunny. I went to an ATM to get some cash for the post office, so I can finally mail all those letters that I wrote to all of you! And then I came back and did laundry and baked a dozen of my precious chocolate chip cookies, and dropped a few off with Deniz and Keely. That was probably the highlight of my day. Oh they're so delicious! In any case, that was my weekend. And now I'm heading off to bed to start another week. :-)
Smile, Ari
Try this link to look at CREPE NIGHT photos: http://fc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001917&l=73204&id=84200446
Then I slept in later than usual today, had breakfast... Cleaned the kitchen yet again. Surfed the internet for a while for my Flannery O'Connor paper, made chocolate chip cookie dough... Did more homework. I went walking in downtown today, but there far too many people for my taste. Probably because it was so nice outside--about 60degrees and sunny. I went to an ATM to get some cash for the post office, so I can finally mail all those letters that I wrote to all of you! And then I came back and did laundry and baked a dozen of my precious chocolate chip cookies, and dropped a few off with Deniz and Keely. That was probably the highlight of my day. Oh they're so delicious! In any case, that was my weekend. And now I'm heading off to bed to start another week. :-)
Smile, Ari
Try this link to look at CREPE NIGHT photos: http://fc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2001917&l=73204&id=84200446
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Fibrous Cereal w/o Milk = YUCK.
Okay, so I've only been awake for about 45 minutes, so not much has actually happened--yet--but I thought that I had better update the world on a very bad decision. This morning I attempted to eat ceral, but, alas, there was not enough milk to make it delicious. Especially since it's the healthy kind of cereal, high-fiber with lots of unappetizing dried fruit and nuts (now I normally like dried fruit, but it's really not very good when found in cereal boxes). So, after I had picked out all the cereal's accessories, it came to my attention that I had maybe one or two tablespoons of milk left in my milk jug. I poured it on anyway, but there simply wasn't enough to make it appetizing. To be honest, it sort of reminded me of when Angi used to be really economical about pouring out milk, so she would give us just barely enough to cover the bottom of the bowl. And it would always be the Frosted MiniWheats cereal, so without enough milk it would just be really dry and difficult to swallow. Cereal NEEDS milk people. I don't understand how anyone could just eat it spoonful by dry spoonful. Yikes.
I am also using this post to procrastinate (of course). I have a lot of things that I want to accomplish today, and I'm not sure I have enough motivation. Ah! Oma just called--it's so nice to hear people on the telephone every once in a while. Makes me believe y'all still exist. It's rather foggy today. I think my motivation has been restored. Amazing what an Oma-call can do. :-) Okay, I've got to put this motivation to work while it's still available, more soon.
Smile, Ari
I am also using this post to procrastinate (of course). I have a lot of things that I want to accomplish today, and I'm not sure I have enough motivation. Ah! Oma just called--it's so nice to hear people on the telephone every once in a while. Makes me believe y'all still exist. It's rather foggy today. I think my motivation has been restored. Amazing what an Oma-call can do. :-) Okay, I've got to put this motivation to work while it's still available, more soon.
Smile, Ari
Friday, November 10, 2006
One box packed, five weeks to go...
I just finished packing my first box to be sent in the mail. It might be one of two--I just checked on shipping charges, and they are incredibly expensive (I mean, I knew that already, but I can still be shocked). In any case, to send 10kg, it costs 86CHF. And that's "economy" shipping. To give you a better idea of the exchange rate, 86CHF = $69.53. Yikes, I know. But I don't think this box is too heavy--I focused on packing bulky, but light items. My next box will probably include my big blanket (the one that Erin gave me that one year), as well as my extra set of sheets. I don't know if I should pack up some of my photos and mail those too? Or if I should just pack them? My closet seems a lot emptier since I took out most of my summer clothes--got rid of all my brightly colored tanks, shorts, capris, skirts... Shouldn't be needing those. Darn, I forgot to pack my little white sundress; I'll have to stick that in with the sheets. And don't worry Oma, I put so much tape on the box it looks like graph paper (especially since the tape is brownish, rather than clear).
And I received the package of all packages today!! From Oma. It's filled with chocolate chips, cinnamon, vanilla, and just about everything else I need to bake the best chocolate chip cookies of all time! Hooray! This worked out perfectly since some of my Sicily-trip friends were going to come down on Sunday for some cookies and milk, with or without chocolate chips. My exaltation knows no limits.
And now that I know that I'm not going to be needing all those boxes that I've been sent things in, I should probably start getting rid of them--rather than getting rid of them all at once at the end of the semester. Have I mentioned that my stack of boxes reaches the ceiling? Because it does. Even though there are sitting on top of my suitcases, that only gives them a couple of feet. THEY REACH THE CEILING, PEOPLE. That's crazy. My door doesn't open all the way, since I've been storing them behind it. Tee hee.
In other news, I had a German quiz this morning, which I'm pretty sure I didn't fail. I cannot believe I only have five weeks left here! I must admit, there are a lot of people I'm going to miss...
Oh, Enrique, you are my hero! (My iTunes just started playing "Escapar." Genius. On a stick.)
And I received the package of all packages today!! From Oma. It's filled with chocolate chips, cinnamon, vanilla, and just about everything else I need to bake the best chocolate chip cookies of all time! Hooray! This worked out perfectly since some of my Sicily-trip friends were going to come down on Sunday for some cookies and milk, with or without chocolate chips. My exaltation knows no limits.
And now that I know that I'm not going to be needing all those boxes that I've been sent things in, I should probably start getting rid of them--rather than getting rid of them all at once at the end of the semester. Have I mentioned that my stack of boxes reaches the ceiling? Because it does. Even though there are sitting on top of my suitcases, that only gives them a couple of feet. THEY REACH THE CEILING, PEOPLE. That's crazy. My door doesn't open all the way, since I've been storing them behind it. Tee hee.
In other news, I had a German quiz this morning, which I'm pretty sure I didn't fail. I cannot believe I only have five weeks left here! I must admit, there are a lot of people I'm going to miss...
Oh, Enrique, you are my hero! (My iTunes just started playing "Escapar." Genius. On a stick.)
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Hands and Knees100
Oh, English class--today, we really did accomplish close to nothing. I think this is as close to a conversational class as I've ever been in; maybe even more so than when I was taking Conversational Spanish. Today Professor Matthews told us all about how he had proposed, at one point, to have a class called "Hands and Knees100." The class would consist of crawling around looking for various insects and... then... well, this is where I got confused. Learning to communicate with their simplicity? Translating their simple elegance into English? I don't know. In other news, I turned in my The Big Lebowski paper today.
Today was almost stressful, but that's only because that I wasn't really prepared for it, but I still wasn't actually stressed out at any point. Maybe a little disappointed with myself, but in a very aloof sense.
I went to yoga this morning with Alauna (we were two of the three attendees at the 8:30am class). It was wonderful! Perfect for the morning, not quite so tough as the last couple of days have been, but I'm starting to get better at it again. Thank goodness. After class, Alauna and I went to change into school clothes, since we have a class immediately following. When we went up the stairs to the exit, we realized that we had been locked into the gym. Natalie didn't realize that we were still down below in the locker room, and she accidentally locked us in. We proceeded to bang and knock on the doors for a solid fifteen minutes before we were finally rescued by a rather bewildered looking man from the Bursar's office. Even though it was passing time (between classes) and there were plenty of people about, no one would recognize us in our time of need. It was a little bit strange to be encased like that. But it was also highly entertaining. Then we went onto to Western Civ and life as usual. Today we discussed barbarians and time of Charlemagne. Then I had a couple hours beween classes, so I finished my English paper and did my math homework, then went onto math and then English.
I went up to dinner at 6pm, and met with the girls that I'm going to Barcelona with. I ended up staying there and chatting until almost 8pm--we definitely strayed from our original topic... I've just about convinced EVERYONE that they need to come and visit me, and it sounds like they're all going to do their best to make trips out to to see me. :-) Hooray! So that made me happy. And it sounds like my weekends from here on out are going to be quite busy (with the exception of maybe this weekend, during which I'll actually need to work). Here's a plan for the next few weekends of my life:
This weekend, Saturday: crepes for dinner with people not attending Greek Night, Sunday: cookie and milk night with Sicily friends
Next weekend, go to Milan to see the Last Supper, do some random, cheesy Christmas shopping, Sunday: hike San Salvatore with Katie and Keely
Thanksgiving weekend, BARCELONA!
First weekend in December, Neuchatel to visit Bardia (if that works out)
Second weekend in December, Zurich for the Christmas Bazaar
Third weekend in December, head home!!
And somewhere in there, of course, I'll have to do write my Flannery O'Connor paper, a paper for math class, a case study for Marketing, etc. etc. You get the idea. Lots of quizzes next week, come to think of it. And sadly much German vocabulary on a quiz tomorrow. I'm not very good at German, at least so far.
All right, more fascinating tales from the Life of Ari coming soon. I know you can't wait for more... Just kidding... I might go to the grocery store tomorrow. I'll make sure to detail every movement of that adventure.
I miss you dear family and friends. Smile, Ari :-)
Today was almost stressful, but that's only because that I wasn't really prepared for it, but I still wasn't actually stressed out at any point. Maybe a little disappointed with myself, but in a very aloof sense.
I went to yoga this morning with Alauna (we were two of the three attendees at the 8:30am class). It was wonderful! Perfect for the morning, not quite so tough as the last couple of days have been, but I'm starting to get better at it again. Thank goodness. After class, Alauna and I went to change into school clothes, since we have a class immediately following. When we went up the stairs to the exit, we realized that we had been locked into the gym. Natalie didn't realize that we were still down below in the locker room, and she accidentally locked us in. We proceeded to bang and knock on the doors for a solid fifteen minutes before we were finally rescued by a rather bewildered looking man from the Bursar's office. Even though it was passing time (between classes) and there were plenty of people about, no one would recognize us in our time of need. It was a little bit strange to be encased like that. But it was also highly entertaining. Then we went onto to Western Civ and life as usual. Today we discussed barbarians and time of Charlemagne. Then I had a couple hours beween classes, so I finished my English paper and did my math homework, then went onto math and then English.
I went up to dinner at 6pm, and met with the girls that I'm going to Barcelona with. I ended up staying there and chatting until almost 8pm--we definitely strayed from our original topic... I've just about convinced EVERYONE that they need to come and visit me, and it sounds like they're all going to do their best to make trips out to to see me. :-) Hooray! So that made me happy. And it sounds like my weekends from here on out are going to be quite busy (with the exception of maybe this weekend, during which I'll actually need to work). Here's a plan for the next few weekends of my life:
This weekend, Saturday: crepes for dinner with people not attending Greek Night, Sunday: cookie and milk night with Sicily friends
Next weekend, go to Milan to see the Last Supper, do some random, cheesy Christmas shopping, Sunday: hike San Salvatore with Katie and Keely
Thanksgiving weekend, BARCELONA!
First weekend in December, Neuchatel to visit Bardia (if that works out)
Second weekend in December, Zurich for the Christmas Bazaar
Third weekend in December, head home!!
And somewhere in there, of course, I'll have to do write my Flannery O'Connor paper, a paper for math class, a case study for Marketing, etc. etc. You get the idea. Lots of quizzes next week, come to think of it. And sadly much German vocabulary on a quiz tomorrow. I'm not very good at German, at least so far.
All right, more fascinating tales from the Life of Ari coming soon. I know you can't wait for more... Just kidding... I might go to the grocery store tomorrow. I'll make sure to detail every movement of that adventure.
I miss you dear family and friends. Smile, Ari :-)
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Rabid Jackals Full of Lice.
Ha ha. So. Back to not taking school seriously. Example A: I am writing a paper on The Big Lebowski for English class. There are a number of scholarly articles written on it, actually; so I should have a fair amount of material, outside the movie, to work with. I am supposed to be writing an evaluation essay--evaluating anything, something of my choice. So there it is. The best thing that I could come up with was The Big Lebowski.
So I had a number of very amusing things to write to you about. I know it because I've been writing things down (in my head) all day! I just wish I could actually remembe them when I sit down to write. In any case, I went back to yoga for the first time in three weeks yesterday (I hadn't gone for two weeks because of Academic Travel, then I was sick last week). And sometime during all those missed classes, we went from beginning level to intermediate, I swear. Long story short: you know that woman in the Aerobics class who can't keep up with everyone else? She's always a step behind... can't quite keep up... always a little confused about what's going on and very prone to falling over? Now, let's imagine: Ari is that woman, except instead of Aerobics, she's doing yoga. Yes, I know, I should probably start charging admission. My arms are sore today. At least it makes me feel like I actually accomplished something with all that falling over and whatnot.
In other news, apparently there is a lice scare over at Lewis & Clark and Erin's semi-freaking out about it, although I haven't actually talked to her about it. In better news, a new, more effective method for de-lousing was introduced yesterday. If you would like more information on it please visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/07/health/07reme.html. Thank you. Apparently it blows hot air and kills those darned lice. Take that! No lice over here in Switzerland, at least not to my knowledge... Hopefully Girasole's not next.
Hmm, Professor Matthews (my English teacher), spent a solid eight minutes or so talking about having a rabid jackal rip out his larynx out today. Then discussing how there should be a newspaper called "The Rabid Jackal," with a drawing of an Irish English poet professor having his larynx ripped out by a rabid jackal. And that is what my English class consists of--wow. I know. Makes for good blogging, I must admit.
All right, I cannot think of anything else so very thrilling to write about. I had a very normal day of classes today, which I sort of wish I hadn't had because I don't feel that I was supremely enlightened... More soon! Miss you, love you, smile :-)
So I had a number of very amusing things to write to you about. I know it because I've been writing things down (in my head) all day! I just wish I could actually remembe them when I sit down to write. In any case, I went back to yoga for the first time in three weeks yesterday (I hadn't gone for two weeks because of Academic Travel, then I was sick last week). And sometime during all those missed classes, we went from beginning level to intermediate, I swear. Long story short: you know that woman in the Aerobics class who can't keep up with everyone else? She's always a step behind... can't quite keep up... always a little confused about what's going on and very prone to falling over? Now, let's imagine: Ari is that woman, except instead of Aerobics, she's doing yoga. Yes, I know, I should probably start charging admission. My arms are sore today. At least it makes me feel like I actually accomplished something with all that falling over and whatnot.
In other news, apparently there is a lice scare over at Lewis & Clark and Erin's semi-freaking out about it, although I haven't actually talked to her about it. In better news, a new, more effective method for de-lousing was introduced yesterday. If you would like more information on it please visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/07/health/07reme.html. Thank you. Apparently it blows hot air and kills those darned lice. Take that! No lice over here in Switzerland, at least not to my knowledge... Hopefully Girasole's not next.
Hmm, Professor Matthews (my English teacher), spent a solid eight minutes or so talking about having a rabid jackal rip out his larynx out today. Then discussing how there should be a newspaper called "The Rabid Jackal," with a drawing of an Irish English poet professor having his larynx ripped out by a rabid jackal. And that is what my English class consists of--wow. I know. Makes for good blogging, I must admit.
All right, I cannot think of anything else so very thrilling to write about. I had a very normal day of classes today, which I sort of wish I hadn't had because I don't feel that I was supremely enlightened... More soon! Miss you, love you, smile :-)
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Just got to keep that kitchen clean
Hi there. Still not much to report as I've been in hibernation in my bedroom for most of the weekend--done a bit of cooking, lots of cleaning, and I should be starting on homework any time now. I think Deniz and Keely might come over for dinner. And I'm feeling much better, as soon as this cough clears up I should be just like new.
I have a couple of pictures from Gabi and Salvatore's, but my internet connection is too slow to upload them right now, so I'm going to post them tomorrow. I watched Remember the Titans with Deniz on Friday night, the "Director's Cut" version. I think I like the original much better... without all the added, previously cut scenes. It's just much better that way. And not so long. But I do love that movie! And yesterday morning I watched Some Kind of Wonderful. Oh, and I talked to Mom, Soraya and Oma.
It sounds like everyone is doing well. I'm finding it difficult to motivate myself to do homework, but I am going to begin as soon as I finish this post. So you should be hoping that this is a short post... I did do my German homework. Funny enough all the stuff that I missed in class on Monday, was stuff that I learned while I was visiting the family! We went over days of the week and months--both of which Onkel Tobi and Tante Rosie were trying to teach me while I was there. This chapter we are going over the family tree and possessives...
Oh, I also caught up on some snailmail correspondence this weekend... Got to send that out tomorrow or Tuesday hopefully. Okay, to work I go! For real this time! Miss you!!
Smile, Ari
I have a couple of pictures from Gabi and Salvatore's, but my internet connection is too slow to upload them right now, so I'm going to post them tomorrow. I watched Remember the Titans with Deniz on Friday night, the "Director's Cut" version. I think I like the original much better... without all the added, previously cut scenes. It's just much better that way. And not so long. But I do love that movie! And yesterday morning I watched Some Kind of Wonderful. Oh, and I talked to Mom, Soraya and Oma.
It sounds like everyone is doing well. I'm finding it difficult to motivate myself to do homework, but I am going to begin as soon as I finish this post. So you should be hoping that this is a short post... I did do my German homework. Funny enough all the stuff that I missed in class on Monday, was stuff that I learned while I was visiting the family! We went over days of the week and months--both of which Onkel Tobi and Tante Rosie were trying to teach me while I was there. This chapter we are going over the family tree and possessives...
Oh, I also caught up on some snailmail correspondence this weekend... Got to send that out tomorrow or Tuesday hopefully. Okay, to work I go! For real this time! Miss you!!
Smile, Ari
Thursday, November 02, 2006
My voice sounds funny.
Just an ordinary day today. I had Western Civ today, then College Algebra, then English. I picked up a sandwich for dinner, walked down the hill, and have been working on cleaning my room. I cannot believe it's only 6:45pm because I am totally ready to go to bed and it's pitch-black outside. I also picked up my withdrawal form today from Dean Guggiari's office. So I've got to start working on that. I've been feeling a bit under-the-weather since I got back from Munich; I had been pretty sick in Sicily near the end, had started feeling better, then started feeling yucky again on about Monday. So I'm hoping lots of sleep will help. I'm just going to take it easy and do some studying this weekend. Maybe do a little packing and shipping? In any case, back to cleaning--still need to wash the dishes. Miss you guys!
Smile,
Ari
Smile,
Ari
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Ari is Loved. And everyone knows it.
So, I'm back in Lugano.
And I had quite the armfuls of booty waiting for me in the Reception!
What was the count you ask?
Four packages.
Seven letters.
Ha ha! How wonderful is that? It made me so happy! My thanks to the following Ari devotees... Oma, Soraya, Mom, Baba, Angi, Guity & Baba Amir, Anita & Chuck, David, Mr. Middlebrooks, Cary... Hooray! Thanks everyone!
In any case... Halloween was last night, and I'm not so sorry to say that I did not doing anything to celebrate, other than going over to Deniz's room and chatting with Katie and Keely--and watching Keely attempt to construct a toga for the Halloween Party at the Falcon's Nest. It was probably a good idea though as I was very congested/tired following my flights back to Lugano from Munich, which were both glitch-free. And right now I should be cleaning up the enormous mess that is my room, but instead I'm typing out my excitement.
So on Monday, I went to Munich with Tobi and Gerlinde for a weisswurst breakfast and some sightseeing. It was a lot of fun. Found a couple of gifts for Soraya--she's going to have quite the spread at Christmas, at this rate. We saw all the big sights of Munich, which I've never done before (neither had Tobi or Gerlinde), so that was nice. And we did some shopping around the Mariensplatz (sp?) and around various other shops. Unfortunately I can't tell me about my purchases because they are to be gifts... We got back to the house around 5:00pm, I want to say. Maybe a little earlier. Then later Tante Anni, Onkel Tobi, Tante Rosie, Melanie and Florian came over, and that was fun too. I showed Florian some pictures, videos, and music that I had on my computer and talked to Melanie about all the things that I should send her from the States. I like that the Germans have a sense of humor; funny people are more fun to be around.
Then yesterday morning Tobi went into work around 7:00am, and he woke me up before he left in order to say goodbye. I ended up getting up around then anyway. Gerlinde and I had breakfast together, then I worked on the computer (on some photos, which I'm going to post in a second here) and packed up all my stuff (including all the extra lebkuchen and chocolate that was gifted to me). Then Gerlinde made lunch, and I went and said goodbye to Tobi and Rosie, then we Gerlinde took me to the airport, and I was off. I had the best time! I really had no desire to leave... I can't wait to visit again; maybe Soraya and I can go together next time. And I'm so excited for Gabi and Salvatore to come and visit too!
All right, I'm going to post some pictures so you can see what I've been up to...
I miss you guys!
Smile :-)
And I had quite the armfuls of booty waiting for me in the Reception!
What was the count you ask?
Four packages.
Seven letters.
Ha ha! How wonderful is that? It made me so happy! My thanks to the following Ari devotees... Oma, Soraya, Mom, Baba, Angi, Guity & Baba Amir, Anita & Chuck, David, Mr. Middlebrooks, Cary... Hooray! Thanks everyone!
In any case... Halloween was last night, and I'm not so sorry to say that I did not doing anything to celebrate, other than going over to Deniz's room and chatting with Katie and Keely--and watching Keely attempt to construct a toga for the Halloween Party at the Falcon's Nest. It was probably a good idea though as I was very congested/tired following my flights back to Lugano from Munich, which were both glitch-free. And right now I should be cleaning up the enormous mess that is my room, but instead I'm typing out my excitement.
So on Monday, I went to Munich with Tobi and Gerlinde for a weisswurst breakfast and some sightseeing. It was a lot of fun. Found a couple of gifts for Soraya--she's going to have quite the spread at Christmas, at this rate. We saw all the big sights of Munich, which I've never done before (neither had Tobi or Gerlinde), so that was nice. And we did some shopping around the Mariensplatz (sp?) and around various other shops. Unfortunately I can't tell me about my purchases because they are to be gifts... We got back to the house around 5:00pm, I want to say. Maybe a little earlier. Then later Tante Anni, Onkel Tobi, Tante Rosie, Melanie and Florian came over, and that was fun too. I showed Florian some pictures, videos, and music that I had on my computer and talked to Melanie about all the things that I should send her from the States. I like that the Germans have a sense of humor; funny people are more fun to be around.
Then yesterday morning Tobi went into work around 7:00am, and he woke me up before he left in order to say goodbye. I ended up getting up around then anyway. Gerlinde and I had breakfast together, then I worked on the computer (on some photos, which I'm going to post in a second here) and packed up all my stuff (including all the extra lebkuchen and chocolate that was gifted to me). Then Gerlinde made lunch, and I went and said goodbye to Tobi and Rosie, then we Gerlinde took me to the airport, and I was off. I had the best time! I really had no desire to leave... I can't wait to visit again; maybe Soraya and I can go together next time. And I'm so excited for Gabi and Salvatore to come and visit too!
All right, I'm going to post some pictures so you can see what I've been up to...
I miss you guys!
Smile :-)
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Family Matters
So yesterday was good--at around 2:00pm, Paula and Gunther (sp?) picked me up and took me to Gabi and Salvatore's. I had a really great time with them. First we had coffee and cake, then we went for a walk in a very old town (nearby) with a couple of very nice churches. And there was a river going through the town, as well as a little falls. It was very pretty. (And I'm afraid my English is getting worse, and that it's starting to sound like the German-version of English--like Tobi's English. It's sort of entertaining, but I have to think twice about how I write.) After we went into town, we went back to the house and Gabi and Paula made dinner--some sort of Tuscan pasta, I think. It was quite nice. Then after dinner we talked for a long time, and I told them about the States and where I've been--and what I think it worth seeing, and what's not worth seeing.
And I talked a lot with Sarah and Valentina, which was fun. I'm so excited for Sarah to come visit with the family, so that I can show her around and we can go to the grocery store and look at the ridiculously large amounts of food that are so very cheap compared to everything here. Oh, and Salvatore is learning English--he's been attending a night course for three months, so he should be prepared by the time they come to visit. I found his English very entertaining--especially when he pronounced "cheese" and "k-heese." But I think he's making good progress. I told him that to talk to my dad, though, he probably doesn't need to know the same language as my dad. I think the both of them are very good at communicating without a common language. And apparently Salvatore also pretends to know how to speak English, just like Mo pretends to speak Spanish. Gabi was telling me that there was an English couple he met at the Oktoberfest, who were convinced that he spoke English because he just kept saying things like "very good," "yes/yeah," "really," etc. Definitely seemed like a Mo in Costa Rica moment, where everyone thinks that he is a Mexican. So I had a very nice time with them.
This morning I was very confused about the time of day. I knew that Daylights Savings time was today, so last night I changed my clock--but I set it ahead on accident. But I wanted to call Soraya and I knew that the time difference would not have happened back at home, so I set my alarm clock an hour earlier than necessary to make sure that I would get up at the right time. So, I think, somehow I first woke up at around 4:00am--which was not very pleasant, so I fell back asleep. And then I eventually figured out to call Soraya. It took me a while to figure out my mistake though.
Then today we went to Tante Anni's for dinner/lunch. It was wonderful! So at Tante Anni's it was Tobi, Gerlinde, Florian, Tante Hilde, Tante Anni, and me. It was good, although I could not understand a sizeable amount of the conversation, since it was in German, but that was okay. I have decided that Germans are much happier people than the Swiss--the Germans laugh and joke a lot more. I think it's healthier. Going back to Lugano rather than staying here or going home sounds terrible right now!
Then this afternoon I went with Melanie and her boyfriend to the market/fair that happens twice a year in Lohhof. The Germans are very practical people--most of the things on sale were all sorts of cleaning brushes and socks. And there were lots of clothes and jewelry and some food vendors. And there was the smallest merry-go-round that I have ever seen; it's the one thing for kids at the market, according to Melanie. They had a lot of chocolate-covered fruits on a stick too. So that was all right.
Oh and Bardia secured a job in Neuchatel, so he is going home to Australia on Tuesday, but he will be returning at the end of November, and his job starts on the first of December. So I am going to visit him sometime before I leave, but not next weekend. This is probably a good thing, as I am probably going to have a lot of homework to get out of the way. And it would be nice to have a weekend just to chill.
Tomorrow I am going into Munich for some sightseeing and maybe some souvenir shopping. I haven't sent any postcards! I should at least buy a few here. More soon. I miss everyone!
And I talked a lot with Sarah and Valentina, which was fun. I'm so excited for Sarah to come visit with the family, so that I can show her around and we can go to the grocery store and look at the ridiculously large amounts of food that are so very cheap compared to everything here. Oh, and Salvatore is learning English--he's been attending a night course for three months, so he should be prepared by the time they come to visit. I found his English very entertaining--especially when he pronounced "cheese" and "k-heese." But I think he's making good progress. I told him that to talk to my dad, though, he probably doesn't need to know the same language as my dad. I think the both of them are very good at communicating without a common language. And apparently Salvatore also pretends to know how to speak English, just like Mo pretends to speak Spanish. Gabi was telling me that there was an English couple he met at the Oktoberfest, who were convinced that he spoke English because he just kept saying things like "very good," "yes/yeah," "really," etc. Definitely seemed like a Mo in Costa Rica moment, where everyone thinks that he is a Mexican. So I had a very nice time with them.
This morning I was very confused about the time of day. I knew that Daylights Savings time was today, so last night I changed my clock--but I set it ahead on accident. But I wanted to call Soraya and I knew that the time difference would not have happened back at home, so I set my alarm clock an hour earlier than necessary to make sure that I would get up at the right time. So, I think, somehow I first woke up at around 4:00am--which was not very pleasant, so I fell back asleep. And then I eventually figured out to call Soraya. It took me a while to figure out my mistake though.
Then today we went to Tante Anni's for dinner/lunch. It was wonderful! So at Tante Anni's it was Tobi, Gerlinde, Florian, Tante Hilde, Tante Anni, and me. It was good, although I could not understand a sizeable amount of the conversation, since it was in German, but that was okay. I have decided that Germans are much happier people than the Swiss--the Germans laugh and joke a lot more. I think it's healthier. Going back to Lugano rather than staying here or going home sounds terrible right now!
Then this afternoon I went with Melanie and her boyfriend to the market/fair that happens twice a year in Lohhof. The Germans are very practical people--most of the things on sale were all sorts of cleaning brushes and socks. And there were lots of clothes and jewelry and some food vendors. And there was the smallest merry-go-round that I have ever seen; it's the one thing for kids at the market, according to Melanie. They had a lot of chocolate-covered fruits on a stick too. So that was all right.
Oh and Bardia secured a job in Neuchatel, so he is going home to Australia on Tuesday, but he will be returning at the end of November, and his job starts on the first of December. So I am going to visit him sometime before I leave, but not next weekend. This is probably a good thing, as I am probably going to have a lot of homework to get out of the way. And it would be nice to have a weekend just to chill.
Tomorrow I am going into Munich for some sightseeing and maybe some souvenir shopping. I haven't sent any postcards! I should at least buy a few here. More soon. I miss everyone!
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Day of the Cousins
So yesterday was my first full day here in Germany. I started the day by going into Munich with Florian around 9:30am. We went to a cafe and had "breakfast"--if you can call a cheeseburger and french fries breakfast. But it was good. We got back to Tobi and Gerlinde's around 1:00pm, I think, and Melanie came to pick me up to go shopping at about 2:00pm. We went to a new shopping mall, and looked around for a number of hours. I bought four long-sleeved t-shirts (two black and two blue, the colors do seem a little emo, no?)--I have mostly short-sleeved t-shirts back in Lugano. For some reason, when I packed I was only thinking of hot summer weather and cold snowy weather--not the in-between weather, where neither of the above clothing types are comfortable. So that was good. Then we went to the bar that she worked at, and we we stayed there until about 6:45pm. I had a bottle of water (no gas) and Melanie had an iced tea. Then Melanie dropped me off back at the house and I changed to get ready for Melanie's best friend's birthday party.
Melanie picked me up at 9:00pm, and then we went over to her friend Tina's house. It was all girls, and there was some Ghoulash (sp?) soup and little cakes and things, and Tina opened presents. Then sometime around 11:00pm, everyone organized themselves into the different cars, and we drove to Munich to go to a club. The club in Munich was much better than in Lugano. It was much cleaner, and it was not so smokey (in Lugano, you couldn't see more than a foot or two in front of you because of all the smoke), and the music was much much better. To my surprise I owned a large number of the albums that they were playing music from--they played everything from the Gorillaz to Ray Charles to Justin Timberlake, the Roots, a sampling from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and lots of hiphop and whatnot that I'm not familiar enough with the titles of (and all of the music was mixed, etc. of course). But it was much better than the House/Techno/Electronica they play all the time in Lugano--it's so redundant it just gives you a headache. So that was good. I think I've decided that after people have a drink (at least the German girls), their English improves. Or maybe it's just that they are less shy. One Russian girl could all of a sudden speak English after a couple of drinks--it was quite a surprise.
We left the club around 3:30am, and I got back to the house around 4:00am. Then I went to sleep, and got up around 9:00am and had breakfast with Tobi and Gerlinde. At 2:00pm today I am going over to see Gabi and Salvatore, I think. That should be good. I wish I knew more German. If only they spoke Spanish. All right, more soon. And I'm going to try and complete a little more of my Sicilian adventures too...!
Melanie picked me up at 9:00pm, and then we went over to her friend Tina's house. It was all girls, and there was some Ghoulash (sp?) soup and little cakes and things, and Tina opened presents. Then sometime around 11:00pm, everyone organized themselves into the different cars, and we drove to Munich to go to a club. The club in Munich was much better than in Lugano. It was much cleaner, and it was not so smokey (in Lugano, you couldn't see more than a foot or two in front of you because of all the smoke), and the music was much much better. To my surprise I owned a large number of the albums that they were playing music from--they played everything from the Gorillaz to Ray Charles to Justin Timberlake, the Roots, a sampling from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and lots of hiphop and whatnot that I'm not familiar enough with the titles of (and all of the music was mixed, etc. of course). But it was much better than the House/Techno/Electronica they play all the time in Lugano--it's so redundant it just gives you a headache. So that was good. I think I've decided that after people have a drink (at least the German girls), their English improves. Or maybe it's just that they are less shy. One Russian girl could all of a sudden speak English after a couple of drinks--it was quite a surprise.
We left the club around 3:30am, and I got back to the house around 4:00am. Then I went to sleep, and got up around 9:00am and had breakfast with Tobi and Gerlinde. At 2:00pm today I am going over to see Gabi and Salvatore, I think. That should be good. I wish I knew more German. If only they spoke Spanish. All right, more soon. And I'm going to try and complete a little more of my Sicilian adventures too...!
Friday, October 27, 2006
Out of the European Wilderness... Comes Ari.
Hi there! I know it's been a while since I last wrote--let me say, my, I've been busy! It takes a lot of energy to see everything worth seeing in the birthplace of western civlization (as Sicilia prefers to be known). In any case, I am now in Munich staying with Tobi and Gerlinde. My flight got in yesterday morning to Munich at about 10:30am. I went over to Tobi and Rosie's and tried communicating with my six words of German for quite some time--Oma, you should probably call Tobi and ask him about his conversation. I think he was pretty entertained, especially when I started drawing pictures to explain myself. But I really did get a lot of out of the conversation, to my surprise (especially considering that I pretty much only know the names of furniture pieces). But we talked about Florian and Melanie's apartments and their furniture (ha!), as well as Soraya and her duck (first thing I did was ask after your duck, Soraya; did you know Tobi named it Sorto as in Soraya-Tobi; it was looking to be in excellent condition by the way), my Mom and her kindergarten, how old the kids are now... We had a pretty good conversation. After our chit-chat, Gerlinde came over and took me back to the house for some lovely pumpkin soup. Then Tobi and I went and picked up Tante Anni for afternoon coffee at three and Gerlinde had made an apple cake (I'm not sure what it's proper name is). Present at coffee were Tobi x2, Gerlinde, and Tantes Anni, Rosie, and Hilde. Then there was lots more chatting, and later I walked over to Tante Hilde's (sp?). Then Gerlinde made wienerschnitzel for dinner with potato salad and green salad (I cannot remember being more excited to see fresh vegetables after being in Sicily for so long without them), and Florian came over for dinner, and then Melanie came over after, and I showed them pictures of Soraya, Louisiana, and prom. I need more family pictures--I have mostly pictures of my friends on the computer. And then Florian's girlfriend, Kirsten, came over too, and I tried to help her with her English vocabulary (she had a test on it today). It was immigration reform-themed vocabulary, which I found very entertaining--with such vocabulary as "The American Dream," "to be deported," "to vote for Bush," and so on. I think there were some words in there that the average American doesn't know. But I think she's learning Business English--so that makes sense.
All right, so I was hoping to provide everyone with a full account of my Sicilian travels, but I'm not sure how much I'm going to be able to write before getting burnt out. We spent almost every waking hour touring ruins, cathedrals, palaces, castles, theaters, etc. etc. etc. There was so much to see! I think I've seen almost everything worth seeing or of great historical significance in Sicily now. So I made a few notes the first five days or so, but then I just couldn't remember everything we saw--even the day after it happened. I probably should have written everyday, but alas, I had no time. And every time we got back on the bus we were so exhausted we feel asleep--every time, without fail. You could turn around five minutes into the ride and everyone would be passed out even if it were 8:00am--and no one ever went clubbing, etiher. Okay. So here goes my epic attempt at recalling my trip to Sicily:
Monday, October 15:
I started the day by rolling my enormous blue suitcase up the hill along with Erinn. (Coming down the hill when we got back to Lugano on Wednesday, I was very impressed with us, I must say.) In any case, the two of us were too cheap to get a taxi. That morning the Austria/Germany trip was leaving too, so we saw all of them gathered. Then we hopped on the nicest bus I had ever seen, which took us to the Milan Linate airport. At the Italian border a customs official got onboard and checked out all of our passports--he spent a little extra time on Bahar's Persian passport... That happened a lot during the trip. In any case, then we flew with Alitalia from Milan to Catania, where we took a tourbus to Taormina. There was an enormous group of American boys on the flight. From the sound of it, their parents were with the Army and were stationed in Germany, and they were playing in a soccer game with kids from another base. I was impressed by efficient and on-time Alitalia was--even though it was a tiny flight. I haven't been on an on-time flight in the States in a long darn time. In any case, as were got off the airplane, it promptly began to rain, to our great distress. Later that night, Professor Cappiello showed us how to take the Funi into town and how to navigate the main street, then set us loose for dinner. Marcel, Samantha, and I ended up losing the rest of our group, and continued to search for them in the rain until we became too hungry to continue. We went to a nice little pizzeria, and I had "Diavolo" pizza, which had spicy peppers, spicy salami, mozzarella, and pomodoro. Then later we found a few more people, but Sam and I went back down to the hotel rather early.
Tuesday, October 16:
This was a very busy day, but really it was just the beginning. We first went to Siracusa, where we met our first tour guide, Suzanna, who was a little bit kooky, but nice. We saw Greek theater, and Roman amphitheater, as well as a number of other ruinds. The Greek theater was very cool--and just behind it, right in the middle at the top, there was an enormous fountain of fresh spring water. We also visited a number of churches that have unfortunately blended into one... We visited a small island just next to Siracusa, as well, which I cannot remember the name of. But we saw a Greek temple that had been turned into a church of Santa Lucia, and you could still see the Doric columns, which is quite rare. After Siracusa, we left and had lunch at the AutoGrill. I had rustichella, it was sort of like a pita bread panini. Then we went onto Catania, where we had a guide named Giuseppe. Catania seemed to be pervaded by a sense of death, doom, and destruction. So many disasters have taken down the city so many times, it seems incredible that it still exists. Everything has had to be rebuilt eight times. All of the buildings were made of black lava stone too, which was very striking but also made the city seem that much darker and foreboding. It probably didn't help that it was a cloudy kind of day, threatening to rain (once we got to Catania at least; we had had some sun in Siracusa). After our tour of Catania we went back to Taormina for dinner as a group.
Wednesday, October 17:
This was an early one. We went up to see Mount Etna. We didn't get to see any lava, but we stopped at Crati Silvestri, which was plenty cool on its own. Everything was black, and it was all huge. Mount Etna is made up of like 35 craters or soemthing huge like that. And the fog even cleared a bit so that we could see around us too--usually the fog sets in pretty early and you don't have a very good view. After Mount Etna we visited the beach at Naxos and had lunch there. It was a very pretty beach and there was a big cruise ship in the harbor. After Naxos, we drive to the highest part of the Taormina area, Castelmola (sp?), which had a spectacular view. Once we got back to Taormina, in the later afternoon (but not evening yet) we had the rest of the day free. I went into town by myself, but eventually met up with Ryan, then Bahar, Gabi, Devon, and Marcel. We shopped around until about 8:00pm, when we scouted out a place for dinner. We found a quaint little place where the chef spoke some Spanish, and he sort of fell in love with Devon and made her a Sicilian specialty of some sort of seafood marinara pasta--that was good. We spent a long, long time there. Then we went and had gelato, and then went to an Irish Pub for coffee, where the waiter was Moroccan. We ended up going to bed around 1:30am, I'd say. It was fun and I sort of found people to hang out with over the trip.
Thursday, October 18:
The day before we went to Palermo, we got to get up a little bit later. We met at 10:30am to go up to town (Taormina) in order to meet some students a private language school. That was good, but it was also difficult because both sides were very shy--most of the language students were taking French too, so for those of us English/Spanish speakers, it got a little awkward. But they had lots of pastries for us to try. Then we had a couple of hours free until our walking tour or Taormina; we met again at 2:30pm in front of the church. We saw the botanical gardens and the Greek-Roman theater, which had a great view of the water. Then we were free until 7:30pm, when we met for pizza. During that in-between time, I got some monstrous mosquito bites that turned into welts. And that was pretty much our night.
Friday, October 19:
We moved to a hotel just outside of Palermo, in a town called Mondello. Palermo is the largest city in Sicily with about one million inhabitants, including illegal immigrants (mostly from North Africa, as the distance is only 120-150 miles across the water). You can actually take a train to Tunisia from Sicily. I was very surprised to find out you can take a train to Sicily too, for that matter; you get on the train and then eventually the train gets loaded up onto a big ferry boat, and the train is floated across to the rest of its tracks. Amazing, huh? In any case, we were all a little disappointed by the hotel in Palermo because we were a bit spoiled by the one in Taormina, but it wasn't so bad. We left Taormina at 8:30am and arrived in Palermo at about 4:00pm, during which time we made two bathroom stops and toured a very well-preserved Roman villa, with some spectacular mosaics covering all its floors. It had some very entertaining rooms--like the Bikini Room, which had all mosaics of women from different countries in bikinis. So they're not such a modern invention.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
In Sicily
Not much time to write, as I am at an internet cafe, but I thought I would let you all know that I am alive and well in Taormina, and it is absolutely beautiful! I cant wait to upload photos for you to see. Wish you all were here! Smile, Ari
Saturday, October 14, 2006
Clean Sheets
I do apologize for the lack of blogging this week--it's probably a good sign, actually, means I've been keeping busy. :-) And it's getting late here and I'm almost done packing for Sicily and getting everything ready (but not quite), so this might turn out to be a short blog.... Not sure.
Okay, so I last wrote on Tuesday. What has happened since then? I don't think there was anything of interest to report on Wednesday. I took all my midterms this week, and I now know that I'm getting an A- in College Algebra. I'm not sure what my other grades are looking like, but they mail them home to the parents, so parents, you'll know soon enough. I wrote a paper for English class on Wednesday defending the respectability of country music. It was an okay paper, but nothing I'm particularly proud of. Wednesday was mostly studying
Thursday I had my Western Civ midterm, which I felt pretty good about. I didn't really feel insecure on any questions, with the exception of a primary source question on Anaximander (sp?) and an identification on Mycenae. But other than that I felt it went pretty well. I also turned in my country music essay in English class, and we discussed lots of random things, I'm sure because that's what English class is. Not much happens in it. After class I went back down the hill, then went back up the hill for the 6:00pm lecture, which I really liked. It was all about Sesame Workshop, which is, essentially, Sesame Street and how they bring it to other countries. It was really interesting--all about how it's pretty much local production companies and educators who build the programming for any given country. So in South Africa, for example, they have the first ever HIV-positive muppet; in Egypt they focus on strong female characters who enjoy reading, etc. because they have problems with female literacy; in Japan they don't need to work on cognitive whatnot, but they need to work on socio-emotional development. And there were video clips too, so that was cool.
After the lecture Christina, the Writing Center Director, took us writing consultants out for dinner. First we went over to Italy (Ponte Tresa to be exact) but the Chinese restaurant we were going to go to was remodeling and therefore not open for business. So we walked back over the border into Switzerland and went to a little grotto. It was a lot of fun. I think I found my people--I'm going to need to continue working in Writing Centers. We spent a good long time laughing about the thesis statement... Just to give one example. I would relay more of the hilarity, but I have the feeling that you had to be there. I didn't get back from that until like 11:30pm. I know, crazy writing consultants. Then I had my German midterm yesterday (Friday morning) and then Marketing. I went to the Writing Center for an hour to "work" and was the only one there for some reason, Christina wasn't even there, so I left after an hour and got lunch and went back down the hill. And I've pretty much been getting ready to leave ever since.
Deniz and I went to the train station to exchange money. The exchange rate sucks, I might add. Before that though I went grocery shopping, got a few things to sustain me until we leave tomorrow morning. We also had a bit of a "food-fest" last night in the Common Room kitchen, and a ton of people showed up. I made Bademjan Kookoo. It turned out all right, nothing special (there were a number of obstacles it faced during production, so it was impressive that it was edible, in my opinion), but everyone loved it and ate it anyway. They were highly delighted by my eggplant. I also made oatmeal raisin cookies, which I finished baking today (I didn't use all the cookie dough yesterday). Alauna made an amazing tiramisu, and Alyssa made potato curry and rice. And lots of other people came downstairs too and started cooking; it seemed like a mad attempt to get rid of any food that might spoil before Academic Travel.
And then I watched Gone with the Wind, the first half, last night and then the second half today. I love that movie. And that book for that matter. Then today I've pretty much been cleaning and doing laundry all day. Dishes all day, I swear. Washed all my sheets, all my towels, all my clothes. Everything's clean and organized for the most part, with the exception of my desk, which should be clean by the time I leave tomorrow. I'm really paranoid about forgetting some important part of the puzzle on my way out the door tomorrow morning. I think I'm going to get up around 6:00/6:30am to make sure that I get everything in order. I also made a list, of course. Okay, I should really go to bed, so that I'm not tired tomorrow...
But before I go, here's what my travel schedule looks like for the next month or so:
>October 15-25, Sicily (Taormina & Palermo, if you want specifics my mom has the itinerary)
>October 26-31, Munich (staying with Tobi & Gerlinde)
>November 3-4/5, Neuchatel (Switzerland, staying with Bardia)
>November 23-26, Barcelona
I may or may not have communications available in Sicily... I'm bringing my Swiss cellphone and possibly my US cellphone too. So you can always call my Swiss phone with a phonecard--I think it works the same way? And then I may or may not be able to find an internet cafe or two. They're supposed to be everywhere in Europe, but Lugano has shaken my faith in that belief.
And Happy Birthday Michele! I hope you guys have a great time at the pumpkin patch!! I miss you!
Smile, Ari
Okay, so I last wrote on Tuesday. What has happened since then? I don't think there was anything of interest to report on Wednesday. I took all my midterms this week, and I now know that I'm getting an A- in College Algebra. I'm not sure what my other grades are looking like, but they mail them home to the parents, so parents, you'll know soon enough. I wrote a paper for English class on Wednesday defending the respectability of country music. It was an okay paper, but nothing I'm particularly proud of. Wednesday was mostly studying
Thursday I had my Western Civ midterm, which I felt pretty good about. I didn't really feel insecure on any questions, with the exception of a primary source question on Anaximander (sp?) and an identification on Mycenae. But other than that I felt it went pretty well. I also turned in my country music essay in English class, and we discussed lots of random things, I'm sure because that's what English class is. Not much happens in it. After class I went back down the hill, then went back up the hill for the 6:00pm lecture, which I really liked. It was all about Sesame Workshop, which is, essentially, Sesame Street and how they bring it to other countries. It was really interesting--all about how it's pretty much local production companies and educators who build the programming for any given country. So in South Africa, for example, they have the first ever HIV-positive muppet; in Egypt they focus on strong female characters who enjoy reading, etc. because they have problems with female literacy; in Japan they don't need to work on cognitive whatnot, but they need to work on socio-emotional development. And there were video clips too, so that was cool.
After the lecture Christina, the Writing Center Director, took us writing consultants out for dinner. First we went over to Italy (Ponte Tresa to be exact) but the Chinese restaurant we were going to go to was remodeling and therefore not open for business. So we walked back over the border into Switzerland and went to a little grotto. It was a lot of fun. I think I found my people--I'm going to need to continue working in Writing Centers. We spent a good long time laughing about the thesis statement... Just to give one example. I would relay more of the hilarity, but I have the feeling that you had to be there. I didn't get back from that until like 11:30pm. I know, crazy writing consultants. Then I had my German midterm yesterday (Friday morning) and then Marketing. I went to the Writing Center for an hour to "work" and was the only one there for some reason, Christina wasn't even there, so I left after an hour and got lunch and went back down the hill. And I've pretty much been getting ready to leave ever since.
Deniz and I went to the train station to exchange money. The exchange rate sucks, I might add. Before that though I went grocery shopping, got a few things to sustain me until we leave tomorrow morning. We also had a bit of a "food-fest" last night in the Common Room kitchen, and a ton of people showed up. I made Bademjan Kookoo. It turned out all right, nothing special (there were a number of obstacles it faced during production, so it was impressive that it was edible, in my opinion), but everyone loved it and ate it anyway. They were highly delighted by my eggplant. I also made oatmeal raisin cookies, which I finished baking today (I didn't use all the cookie dough yesterday). Alauna made an amazing tiramisu, and Alyssa made potato curry and rice. And lots of other people came downstairs too and started cooking; it seemed like a mad attempt to get rid of any food that might spoil before Academic Travel.
And then I watched Gone with the Wind, the first half, last night and then the second half today. I love that movie. And that book for that matter. Then today I've pretty much been cleaning and doing laundry all day. Dishes all day, I swear. Washed all my sheets, all my towels, all my clothes. Everything's clean and organized for the most part, with the exception of my desk, which should be clean by the time I leave tomorrow. I'm really paranoid about forgetting some important part of the puzzle on my way out the door tomorrow morning. I think I'm going to get up around 6:00/6:30am to make sure that I get everything in order. I also made a list, of course. Okay, I should really go to bed, so that I'm not tired tomorrow...
But before I go, here's what my travel schedule looks like for the next month or so:
>October 15-25, Sicily (Taormina & Palermo, if you want specifics my mom has the itinerary)
>October 26-31, Munich (staying with Tobi & Gerlinde)
>November 3-4/5, Neuchatel (Switzerland, staying with Bardia)
>November 23-26, Barcelona
I may or may not have communications available in Sicily... I'm bringing my Swiss cellphone and possibly my US cellphone too. So you can always call my Swiss phone with a phonecard--I think it works the same way? And then I may or may not be able to find an internet cafe or two. They're supposed to be everywhere in Europe, but Lugano has shaken my faith in that belief.
And Happy Birthday Michele! I hope you guys have a great time at the pumpkin patch!! I miss you!
Smile, Ari
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
So I Have an Australian Uncle Who Happens to be in Switzerland
I'm about to head to bed, but I thought I'd post before sending myself a'sleeping. Things went pretty well today--lots of class time, a midterm in Algebra. Nothing too exciting to report. I went over to the Grotto and got a sandwich and a salad for lunch today, as North Campus didn't really hold anything promising for me. (They didn't really for dinner, either.) Everything went as normal today, did some studying for Western Civ (midterm on Thursday), and I talked to Erin and Cary! Hooray!
And I had quite the surprise today--Bardia e-mailed me, he's in Neuchatel, which is about four hours away from here by train. Who knew? He's going to be hear through the first week of November, so I'm hoping I'll get the chance to see him before he leaves. How often is your Australian uncle just a few hours away? It's a shame that I'm going to be gone to Sicily and Munich for so much of the time he's here--but I do hope to see him!
We have our last Academic Travel meeting tomorrow afternoon--going to finally find out the itinerary for the trip and what to bring, etc. So that's exciting. I wish I could bring something smaller than one of my huge blue suitcases. Ah well, maybe this means I'll have lots of room to bring stuff back? Hmm, I'm going to have to figure that out. I'm so looking forward to traveling--getting out of Lugano and seeing a little bit more! Palermo... Taormina... Munich... Neuchatel?... Barcelona...
More soon! Miss you guys!
Smile :-), Ari
And I had quite the surprise today--Bardia e-mailed me, he's in Neuchatel, which is about four hours away from here by train. Who knew? He's going to be hear through the first week of November, so I'm hoping I'll get the chance to see him before he leaves. How often is your Australian uncle just a few hours away? It's a shame that I'm going to be gone to Sicily and Munich for so much of the time he's here--but I do hope to see him!
We have our last Academic Travel meeting tomorrow afternoon--going to finally find out the itinerary for the trip and what to bring, etc. So that's exciting. I wish I could bring something smaller than one of my huge blue suitcases. Ah well, maybe this means I'll have lots of room to bring stuff back? Hmm, I'm going to have to figure that out. I'm so looking forward to traveling--getting out of Lugano and seeing a little bit more! Palermo... Taormina... Munich... Neuchatel?... Barcelona...
More soon! Miss you guys!
Smile :-), Ari
Monday, October 09, 2006
Clear, 61 degrees, Ticino
Today was a pretty good day--I kept busy! This morning I had German class, and then a Marketing midterm, which went so-so. Not fabulous, but I didn't bomb it (I don't think). I wasn't sure what kind of test it was going to be, so I found it a little bit difficult to study for it. In any case, no excuses. After Marketing, I went and took charge of the Writing Center for two hours. I did some homework for a bit--some studying for math and bit of letter-writing... then, miracle of miralces! Someone came in and she needed help!!! So I had my first experience as a real writing consultant, and I think it went very, very well, if I do say so. I think she was actually looking forward to writing/revising her paper once we were done. It made me feel all warm and happy inside.
After I was done there, I went and grabbed lunch, then went back to the Writing Center to pass off the key to one of the other writing consultants. After that I went over to the Main Villa campus, where the library is, and I discovered a package with my name on it... from Michele! I must admit, it was quite exciting. :-) Then I headed over to the library to finally choose my research topic and find some books on it; I couldn't find enough books for the cult/fanatics topic, so I decided to stick with something safe and go with Flannery O'Connor. My topic will essentially be how her religious background influenced her work. It should be good--like the Junior English project except more low-key. Library didn't take too long, so then I headed back down the hill and finished washing dishes after yesterday's baking/cooking bonanza. Eventually went up for yoga, which was outside on the soccer field today. There were lots of itty bitty Italian bambini on the field attempting to play soccer, who thought we were ballerinas. That was rather entertaining. I don't think we're nearly as graceful as that.
I was planning on staying up there for dinner, but I wasn't hungry and it sounded to heavy, so I came back down the hill to study and work on homework, which has yet to be worked on. But soon, I promise. We had more beautiful weather today; very chilly this morning, but it warmed up to about 70 degrees. It's getting darker earlier too... Ah! Well, Sicily on Sunday! Anything else worth mentioning? I can't think of it now. Deniz has her first basketball game on Wednesday; I'll have to show up at that of course. I've only got one episode of Fresh Prince left... O, woe is me. (That was for you Soraya.)
So that was my day; productive, if not particularly interesting. As long as it's productive, I'm happy. More soon!
Smile, Ari
After I was done there, I went and grabbed lunch, then went back to the Writing Center to pass off the key to one of the other writing consultants. After that I went over to the Main Villa campus, where the library is, and I discovered a package with my name on it... from Michele! I must admit, it was quite exciting. :-) Then I headed over to the library to finally choose my research topic and find some books on it; I couldn't find enough books for the cult/fanatics topic, so I decided to stick with something safe and go with Flannery O'Connor. My topic will essentially be how her religious background influenced her work. It should be good--like the Junior English project except more low-key. Library didn't take too long, so then I headed back down the hill and finished washing dishes after yesterday's baking/cooking bonanza. Eventually went up for yoga, which was outside on the soccer field today. There were lots of itty bitty Italian bambini on the field attempting to play soccer, who thought we were ballerinas. That was rather entertaining. I don't think we're nearly as graceful as that.
I was planning on staying up there for dinner, but I wasn't hungry and it sounded to heavy, so I came back down the hill to study and work on homework, which has yet to be worked on. But soon, I promise. We had more beautiful weather today; very chilly this morning, but it warmed up to about 70 degrees. It's getting darker earlier too... Ah! Well, Sicily on Sunday! Anything else worth mentioning? I can't think of it now. Deniz has her first basketball game on Wednesday; I'll have to show up at that of course. I've only got one episode of Fresh Prince left... O, woe is me. (That was for you Soraya.)
So that was my day; productive, if not particularly interesting. As long as it's productive, I'm happy. More soon!
Smile, Ari
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Stewed Apples
I spent most of the waking hours of today baking for the baking contest that was earlier this evening. I enjoyed all five hours of it, I must say; I love that feeling of creating something, especially something delicious. So I guess a recipe and some pictures will have to do to summarize my day:
Cinnamon Apple Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
(modified from the recipe for Long Winter cupcakes at shimelle.com)
250g unsalted butter
400g sugar
5 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
3/4 cup milk
170g self-raising flour
170g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 3/4 cup stewed apples
Heat the oven to 160C. Place liners in cupcake pan and set aside.
In mixing bowl, beat softened butter until smooth, then add sugar and beat until fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time and mix until well distributed.
Stir in the self-raising flour until consistent.
Add the milk and vanilla and mix again.
Add the remaining dry ingredients and mix until even.
Fold in the apple pie filling. If your filling is too solid and the batter seems excessively thick, add milk or apple juice to thin slightly.
Fill cake cases 3/4 full and bake for 18-20 minutes, until a chopstick comes out clean.
Makes about 32 average sized cupcakes.
Six regular-sized apples, peeled & chopped
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
Combine in a saucepan, cover, and let "stew" until tender (depending on the type of apples 25-45 minutes).
Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing
Ingredients:
500g cream cheese
175g unsalted butter
150g light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons cinnamon, plus extra for sprinkling
Soften the cream cheese and butter in a bowl and mix with a spatula or mixer until there are no lumps.
Add remaining ingredients and mix until even in colour and texture.
Chill overnight in the fridge to thicken and improve the texture of the sugar (brown sugar is crunchy until it sets).
Pipe or spread over cupcakes.
Sprinkle with cinnamon to garnish.
All right, I've really got to study for my Marketing midterm tomorrow morning!!
I miss you guys!
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Ari Goes Clubbing... Say What?
Yes, that's right, folks. I went to a club for my first time and most likely last time--at least until I'm 21 and can get into the piano dueling bar in Tacoma. My summary of the event is something like this: a high school dance but with fewer people, worse music, and a lung-murdering amount of smoke. No need to worry parents; we all know that clubbing isn't my scene. I went to fulfill two purposes, 1) so I can now say that I've been to a club and can base my dislike on real events and 2) hopefully, I will no longer be bothered to go out and try it out. Many of the Girasole girls who did go out last night went specifically because they were thrilled by the idea of "Ari going to a club." I think it gave them an excuse to go out that they couldn't find with midterms coming up. Alyssa went too, and she hadn't been to a club before either. I think the silliest part was that the club doesn't open until 1:00am, so I had to stay awake at least until 12:30, when we left. I stayed only as long as the first group to peel off--there were three other girls who wanted to head back, so we split the cost of a taxi back, rather than taking the 30 minute walk back at 3:00am. In any case, been there, done that. Italians dress even stranger there than they do normally--there were a lot of men wearing strings of knotted pearls... The people-watching was interesting, in any case.
Today I haven't done a whole lot... I got up around 11:30 and pretty much haven't accomplished anything since then--not even cleaning my room. I was going to bake for the competition tomorrow but some Florida residents (Florida's right across the street from us) are needing to use our kitchen and its oven for the International Food Night tonight, so baking for the time being is out. Maybe I'll work on it tonight when I get back from International Food Night. I'd like to try those cupcakes today, just in case they don't turn out--then I can try something else. I'm not sure what. I think I might actually need to buy some powdered sugar. I should check on that, since the stores close in about 90 minutes until Monday morning.
Okay, I'm going to clean my room now... And hopefully get some studying done. (Unless I don't have powdered sugar, then I might have to make a shopping trip...) Marketing midterm on Monday...
All right, more soon!
Smile, Ari
Today I haven't done a whole lot... I got up around 11:30 and pretty much haven't accomplished anything since then--not even cleaning my room. I was going to bake for the competition tomorrow but some Florida residents (Florida's right across the street from us) are needing to use our kitchen and its oven for the International Food Night tonight, so baking for the time being is out. Maybe I'll work on it tonight when I get back from International Food Night. I'd like to try those cupcakes today, just in case they don't turn out--then I can try something else. I'm not sure what. I think I might actually need to buy some powdered sugar. I should check on that, since the stores close in about 90 minutes until Monday morning.
Okay, I'm going to clean my room now... And hopefully get some studying done. (Unless I don't have powdered sugar, then I might have to make a shopping trip...) Marketing midterm on Monday...
All right, more soon!
Smile, Ari
Friday, October 06, 2006
Blue Skies
Lugano weather has finally turned to autumn--and it's been beautiful! All week (well, except Monday, but no need to mention that) there's been glorious blue sky, sunshine, crisp air, and falling leaves. Looks like fall is finally coming around. Just in time for me to go to Sicily and back to the summer heat... But that's all right! It's nice not to show up totally drenched in sweat and rain by the time I get to class in the morning.
Sorry to have avoided posting the last few days; not too much of note has happened, so I thought I'd wait until I have more to say and consolidate it and make one super post! Let's see, what happened after I went grocery shopping on Monday, was it? Well, Tuesday wasn't too exciting, I'm rather sure, or else something would probably stick in my memory about it. Wednesday I went to yoga, which was excellent. There was lasagne for dinner that night. There were also a few kids whose parents apparently just got their first credit card bill sent home... Whoops for them.
Yesterday turned out better than expected. I went to the 8:30am yoga class, and I was one of two who showed up for it. Patrick, the Taiwanese yoga instructor visiting Natalie, was there in the place of Natalie. We were outside for it too, since it was so pretty; the cold air was nice too because I avoided getting too gross before Western Civ. It was nice to have only two of us, since he was able to help us a lot with the poses and whatnot. I think I'm actually getting better! Then there were classes, blah, blah, blah. I went back down the hill after English (I received that essay that I procrastinated forever on, and ended up finishing about 10 minutes before I had to go to class... B+... would've been an A with proofreading though. I was rather ashamed of turning it in, I will admit.) Okay, so I went back down the hill, and did some homework and whatnot until about 5:45 when I was heading up to dinner. There was a big group of people from Girasole heading up at the same time, and they were all heading to the auditorium for a lecture, so I decided to join them, and I was glad that I did. The lecture was interesting, although I wouldn't say anything especially awesome; but it was good. It was titled "The Devil Wears a Blue Helmet--Why UN Reform Cannot Wait" with the speaker being Edward Patrick Flaherty--he's an American lawyer who works in Geneva/Zurich. He was very pro-UN, and pro-UN reform. He brought up something really interesting points and ideas, so that was good. After that I had dinner with a few other girls from Girasole who were at the lecture, and we had Chicken Curry & RICE! Yes, I did get seconds of rice as a matter of fact. So that was all good...
Oh, how could I forget?! I hosted a Western Civ Midterm Study Session for the Writing Center on Wednesday. It was rather successful--Christina said she'd never had such a big turnout before (thanks to my promotion; so Student Council did teach me something!). Anyway, kids weren't so much as interested in studying as they were in being told how to study. Christina sort of put me on the spot by asking me to rattle off some random examples of identification questions; but I did it! And successfully too, thanks to an hour of studying prior to. They were impressed that I knew at least the basics about the Battle of Qadesh. Yes, I know, awesome party trick, right? Christina was happy with how it went anyway. So that was good.
Let's see... today not too much has happened so far. It's 2:06pm. I'm walking up to yoga with Katie and Margie at 3:45pm. It's with a different instructor, so that makes me a little bit nervous, but it should be good. I had German and Marketing this morning. And then I went to Writing Center and ran it for two hours on my own since Christina's out of town. No one came in for help; people have a tendency not to really bother with unnecessary classes & scholariness on Fridays. But that's all right, I finished my Marketing reading. Then I went and had Pegasius Fish for lunch... And walked back down the hill.
I still need to 1) buy my ticket for Munich and 2) figure out what to bake for the Residence Cup Baking Competition. It would be easy to figure out what to bake except that they don't have all the same ingredients here, as they do at home. Or not in the same forms. You know how it goes... I think I'm going to do some sort of cookie, since I entered myself in the "Dessert of Choice" category (rather than pie or cake). I want to do something both delicious and unusual/interesting, as there are points for creativity. Maybe I should just focus on very delicious? And I sort of want to do something with "Girasole" (our residence name, meaning sunflower); maybe butter cookies decorated? They're simple & good... I don't know! If anyone has any ideas, please feel free to contribute. I think I'm going to go shopping tomorrow morning.
On Munich: I think I'm going to go back to Lugano with everyone else from the Sicily trip, rather than flying out of Milan directly. The flight from Lugano to Munich is actually cheaper than Milan to Munich, and that way I can drop off my enormous suitcase and clean up a bit maybe. So I'm thinking I'll stay in Lugano for one night then fly out early in the morning to Munich? And I'm debating whether I should skip a couple of days of school to visit them, and I think the answer is yes. Family > School. And I don't know when I'll get the opportunity to visit again. So I think I might skip my Monday and Tuesday classes, then fly home on Tuesday. I haven't missed any classes yet, and I'm only planning on skipping classes one other day (for Barcelona). That way I can stay for five nights, and six rather full days. How does that sound?
In other news, to Baba specifically, I finished The Egyptian on Monday. And to Mehran, who I am quite sure never reads this, I started reading White Noise (by Don DeLillo). Sicily in only nine days! I've just four midterms standing between me and my travels... Oh and tomorrow night is International Food Night, which I'm way excited about, although a lot of people don't want to go for some crazy reason. I think I'm going to go with Margie (haven't mentioned her before, but she's from Orange County); she's excited about it too. Plus they're going to have Asian food, and Middle Eastern food, and TexMex food... Why would I want to go? I hope this weather stays just like this until we leave. I actually got to wear a sweater today! And my red hat from Oma... Okay, I've GOT to clean my room and organize myself a bit before yoga!
I miss you guys!
Smile, Ari :-)
Sorry to have avoided posting the last few days; not too much of note has happened, so I thought I'd wait until I have more to say and consolidate it and make one super post! Let's see, what happened after I went grocery shopping on Monday, was it? Well, Tuesday wasn't too exciting, I'm rather sure, or else something would probably stick in my memory about it. Wednesday I went to yoga, which was excellent. There was lasagne for dinner that night. There were also a few kids whose parents apparently just got their first credit card bill sent home... Whoops for them.
Yesterday turned out better than expected. I went to the 8:30am yoga class, and I was one of two who showed up for it. Patrick, the Taiwanese yoga instructor visiting Natalie, was there in the place of Natalie. We were outside for it too, since it was so pretty; the cold air was nice too because I avoided getting too gross before Western Civ. It was nice to have only two of us, since he was able to help us a lot with the poses and whatnot. I think I'm actually getting better! Then there were classes, blah, blah, blah. I went back down the hill after English (I received that essay that I procrastinated forever on, and ended up finishing about 10 minutes before I had to go to class... B+... would've been an A with proofreading though. I was rather ashamed of turning it in, I will admit.) Okay, so I went back down the hill, and did some homework and whatnot until about 5:45 when I was heading up to dinner. There was a big group of people from Girasole heading up at the same time, and they were all heading to the auditorium for a lecture, so I decided to join them, and I was glad that I did. The lecture was interesting, although I wouldn't say anything especially awesome; but it was good. It was titled "The Devil Wears a Blue Helmet--Why UN Reform Cannot Wait" with the speaker being Edward Patrick Flaherty--he's an American lawyer who works in Geneva/Zurich. He was very pro-UN, and pro-UN reform. He brought up something really interesting points and ideas, so that was good. After that I had dinner with a few other girls from Girasole who were at the lecture, and we had Chicken Curry & RICE! Yes, I did get seconds of rice as a matter of fact. So that was all good...
Oh, how could I forget?! I hosted a Western Civ Midterm Study Session for the Writing Center on Wednesday. It was rather successful--Christina said she'd never had such a big turnout before (thanks to my promotion; so Student Council did teach me something!). Anyway, kids weren't so much as interested in studying as they were in being told how to study. Christina sort of put me on the spot by asking me to rattle off some random examples of identification questions; but I did it! And successfully too, thanks to an hour of studying prior to. They were impressed that I knew at least the basics about the Battle of Qadesh. Yes, I know, awesome party trick, right? Christina was happy with how it went anyway. So that was good.
Let's see... today not too much has happened so far. It's 2:06pm. I'm walking up to yoga with Katie and Margie at 3:45pm. It's with a different instructor, so that makes me a little bit nervous, but it should be good. I had German and Marketing this morning. And then I went to Writing Center and ran it for two hours on my own since Christina's out of town. No one came in for help; people have a tendency not to really bother with unnecessary classes & scholariness on Fridays. But that's all right, I finished my Marketing reading. Then I went and had Pegasius Fish for lunch... And walked back down the hill.
I still need to 1) buy my ticket for Munich and 2) figure out what to bake for the Residence Cup Baking Competition. It would be easy to figure out what to bake except that they don't have all the same ingredients here, as they do at home. Or not in the same forms. You know how it goes... I think I'm going to do some sort of cookie, since I entered myself in the "Dessert of Choice" category (rather than pie or cake). I want to do something both delicious and unusual/interesting, as there are points for creativity. Maybe I should just focus on very delicious? And I sort of want to do something with "Girasole" (our residence name, meaning sunflower); maybe butter cookies decorated? They're simple & good... I don't know! If anyone has any ideas, please feel free to contribute. I think I'm going to go shopping tomorrow morning.
On Munich: I think I'm going to go back to Lugano with everyone else from the Sicily trip, rather than flying out of Milan directly. The flight from Lugano to Munich is actually cheaper than Milan to Munich, and that way I can drop off my enormous suitcase and clean up a bit maybe. So I'm thinking I'll stay in Lugano for one night then fly out early in the morning to Munich? And I'm debating whether I should skip a couple of days of school to visit them, and I think the answer is yes. Family > School. And I don't know when I'll get the opportunity to visit again. So I think I might skip my Monday and Tuesday classes, then fly home on Tuesday. I haven't missed any classes yet, and I'm only planning on skipping classes one other day (for Barcelona). That way I can stay for five nights, and six rather full days. How does that sound?
In other news, to Baba specifically, I finished The Egyptian on Monday. And to Mehran, who I am quite sure never reads this, I started reading White Noise (by Don DeLillo). Sicily in only nine days! I've just four midterms standing between me and my travels... Oh and tomorrow night is International Food Night, which I'm way excited about, although a lot of people don't want to go for some crazy reason. I think I'm going to go with Margie (haven't mentioned her before, but she's from Orange County); she's excited about it too. Plus they're going to have Asian food, and Middle Eastern food, and TexMex food... Why would I want to go? I hope this weather stays just like this until we leave. I actually got to wear a sweater today! And my red hat from Oma... Okay, I've GOT to clean my room and organize myself a bit before yoga!
I miss you guys!
Smile, Ari :-)
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