Sam Says...

Driving Across America 2010: Part 6

2010-05-19T23:14:00.011-07:00

The final installment is here...finally. Gather round so you can hear about the ridiculous experience we had in Canton.

To start, our drive from Chicago to Canton included the first bad weather of our entire trip. And when I say bad weather, I mean we had to suffer through rain for literally the entire leg. Not only that, but taking I-30 was the biggest mistake of all time. I have done a lot of driving in my day. As has Melissa. We made a unanimous decision that this is the absolute worst highway in America. However, we didn't really know how right we were until the second leg, from Canton home. More on that later.

For now, the journey took us through Indiana, where nothing interesting happened.
And then we crossed into Ohio. We had no idea what we were getting into, planning this impromptu stop at the birthplace of professional football.
I think I already mentioned that I made reservations for a package deal at the McKinley Grand Hotel that included a "welcome gift" (total hoax, it's a deck of HOF playing cards), free breakfast (oh man...just wait), two tickets to the Hall, and access to a 24-hour gym and a most of the day pool and spa. Guess who didn't use either of those? If you guessed me and Melissa, you'd be right.

The rain persisted throughout our stay in Canton. This is a shot of the McKinley in all its superficial majesty. It's taken through the glass window of the parking garage - also complimentary and included in the package - across the street.

So our plan was to hit the town, enjoy Canton, see what it's all about, find out why in the world the Pro Football Hall of Fame exists in such an out of the way location. We did all that and more. But unfortunately, Canton is an absolute ghost town on a Monday night before the busy season starts after Memorial Day.We walked about 10 blocks looking for a restaurant to grab a nice dinner. We wanted to celebrate Melissa's stellar grades (after making plans to retake her entire semester for fear of failing every class but one, she ended up with a 4.11 GPA for the term) with a decent steak dinner. It was cold, windy, and rainy, but we were determined. What we found was disheartening. Each restaurant we came across, if it wasn't boarded up and abandoned, was closed on Mondays. The only available spot to eat was closing at 9pm (it was 8:35 when we found it), and it was a steak house with $40 entrees. Just a bit outside of our budget.

So we reluctantly headed back to Thorpe's Grill at the hotel (named after Jim Thorpe, once thought to be the greatest athlete in the world). The restaurant was closed, but the bar was serving food until 11pm. The place looks luxurious - matches the grand rustic appeal of the hotel - if not a little old and worn. Accompanying us in the bar was a group of large, older gentlemen who looked like former athletes, a small group of AirTran flight staff members, and the bartender, who was nice enough, if not a little unintelligent. The large men were huddled around a TV watching "Two and a Half Men" after refusing to allow the bartender to turn on the Lakers game.

We ordered drinks first. I got a local brew called Great Lakes that was really good. Melissa ordered what I remember to be a Chianti, though she thinks it was either a Zin or a Cab, that she had to send back (item #1) because it had turned feral. We ordered calamari to start. Every question we asked about the menu resulted in the bartender running back into the kitchen to find an answer. Calamari was good, it was served with cocktail sauce and a Cajun remoulade.

For our entrees, we both ordered 10 oz. top sirloin on a bed of grilled portabella mushrooms, served with one starch - I got mashed potatoes, Melissa got baked - and the vegetable of the day - apparently, cold broccoli. Of course, we got ordered the steaks mid-rare. Here is the picture. Note the 'portabella mushrooms' serving as a bed for the steak. I'm no fungus farmer, but I think somethings wrong here.
In any event, the steaks came out well done. Not just kind of overcooked. I'm talking bone dry, cooked all the way through, darker brown on the inside than the pre-fabricated grill lines on the outside of the steaks. So, we sent them back (items #2 and #2). They returned shortly after, the broccoli was colder, the potatoes had cooled off, and the steaks were cooked appropriately. They were still bland and disappointing, but at least they didn't hurt our jaws to chew. Dinner, overall, was a disaster. Melissa had him open a fresh bottle of wine for her second glass. The third glass appeared to be from the original bottle, and she considered sending it back again, but choked it down instead.

After forcing the food down, we moved over to the bar to chat with the AirTran staff. There, we heard the absolute worst story ever told. Craig, if you're reading this, it was like one of your long, drawn out, pointless stories, but we didn't even bother giving courtesy laughs throughout. It lasted about 15 minutes, and it had no punch line. It was a pilot recanting a blind date gone terribly wrong. I'm sure as it happened, it was hilarious. But hearing the story was probably as awkwardly unsatisfying as the blind date itself was.

We also ordered dessert - a molten chocolate lava cake with ice cream. Somehow, they even managed to make this average.

At some point, another gentleman had sat down next to us who happened to be a lawyer in town from Cincinnati, working on some commercial litigation deal. He and I chatted about the state of the legal profession, law school, his alma mater - U. of Cincinnati, and more. He seemed to enjoy our company, as he forewent his declared bed time for another round of Maker's Mark on ice to stay and talk.

We eventually went to bed, eager to get to the acclaimed Hall of Fame and then home to Maryland.

Tuesday
Breakfast at the McKinley, which is apparently really a Marriott according to our now hurting debit account statement, was not to be taken lightly. After the dinner experience, we were afraid to cash in on our free breakfast. But we figured, how badly can you screw up breakfast? Good question. Here's how.

I went against every ounce of culinary intuition I have ever boasted and ordered a seafood omelet with shrimp and snow crab, egg, green peppers, and a hollandaise sauce. It came with toast - I went 'healthy' and chose wheat over white, but it was basically white bread dyed wheat color - and hash browns - the delicious shoe string kind that was not that delicious here. I think the crab had also gone feral, and I was still smelling it in my nostrils for an hour or so after we left the restaurant. Melissa ordered a breakfast skillet with who knows what and got biscuits and sausage gravy on the side - one of my favorite southern dishes that I have gotten her to adopt as her own. The gravy was literally as cold as the other side of the pillow. We sent it back (item #4, in two meals) to be reheated. It came out lukewarm, and the breakfast skillet was piping hot now.

So, we muscled through another painful meal and got packed up to prepare for our excursion to greatness.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame
This has to have the cheesiest welcome sign I've ever seen at any museum. Particularly one as well respected and prestigious as the Hall of Fame. This is where the greatest legends in America's greatest sport (yes, I said it, and yes, it is immediately following an experience at Wrigley Field) go to be immortalized.
It took us an extra 20 minutes to navigate all the street closures of which Google was entirely unaware when we got directions.

Here's a better look at the outside.

Below, the introduction photos in the entrance lobby announcing this year's class. These are my two favorites from the 2010 inductees. Russ Grimm, of Hog fame, currently a coach with the Cardinals, and whose son became a legend at Virginia Tech last season.And Jerry Rice, who needs no further explanation.
There is also a statue honoring Jim Thorpe in the center of the lobby. Not too impressive, and the plaque was written in such poor English, it must have been a direct translation from his native Sac and Fox tongue.

Every team has a tribute with its history, its all-time stat leaders, and lots of fun facts about the franchise.
And then of course, there is the Hall of Fame itself. This is where each player's bronze bust is displayed in a sort of somber but awe-inspiring shrine.Joe Gibbs.
Bruce Smith, the Hall's one and only Hokie.

I won. After an embarrassing number of tries.

And then I found...this. I went against my impulsive judgment and did not buy it.All in all, I'm very glad I finally got to go to the HOF. But it is a bit of a bust. There's tons to learn there, and I definitely learned a great deal about the history of professional football. But it's just not an impressive venue. It's cheesy, there are myriad grammar and punctuation mistakes throughout the Hall, and the surrounding area is boring. I would not recommend making this trip unless it is part of some greater good.

Back on the road, we passed quickly through West Virginia before entering Pennsylvania for a long time. Route 30, at this point, had become even worse.It is a one lane each way rural byway for most of this stretch through Ohio and PA. We got stuck behind trucks going 15 mph under the already slow speed limit. It wound through hills and farms, suddenly dropping from 50 mph to 35 without warning. There was construction and no passing signs everywhere. It's a wonder we made it home on Tuesday at all.
But we got to PA.
And then we got to Maryland. We took the longest route through our home state possible. Through the entire pan handle, past Deep Creek, through Frostburg and Cumberland, past Frederick, a quarter of the way around the Baltimore Beltway, and then finally home to Melissa's house in Severna Park.

Along the way, we made some stops at Subway and Panera for lunch and dinner. There is no Panera in Arizona, and we were pleasantly surprised to find so many new items on the menu. That's nerdiness for you.

I'm sure there are things that I am forgetting. But I wanted to make sure you all got the final experience. I'll recap with Melissa and post one final entry at some point to clear up any missed details.

Right now, I am back in Tempe, about to go to sleep. The Sports Lawyers Association annual conference is tomorrow, and I came out here to get some quality networking done.

Thank you all again for reading. I'll see you next time we do something memorable.

Driving Across America 2010: Part 5

2010-05-18T04:29:00.005-07:00

I'm sitting in our 7th floor hotel room in Canton while Melissa showers, getting ready to tour the Pro Football Hall of Fame - after we eat our complimentary breakfast as part of the McKinley Grand's "Hall of Fame Legendary Getaway" Package. But that's a story for the next edition. You all want to hear about the last leg of Chicago.

Sunday morning, I slept in the latest (10am or so). I woke up to one of the greatest surprises of my lifetime. Melissa was already dressed and almost completely ready to go. I was astonished...stunned...befuddled...you pick a surprise word and I was probably that. So I got up and showered, and by 11 everyone had eaten a little bit and we were on our way to Cubby Bear, a bar outside of Wrigley Field. We had tickets for one of the Rooftops at Wrigley and we were meeting a couple of Jay's coworkers and colleagues there. These Rooftops are brilliant, and I'll get to describing them in a little bit.

The cab ride to Cubby Bear was a smooth sail, and we immediately ordered bloody Mary's so that Jay could try his first ever. They have a unique recipe there, something neither Melissa nor I, both former bartenders, had ever seen. They use the basic bloody mix with vodka, some tabasco and pepper, and then they float a little Guinness at the end. Very interesting. It was not particularly good, but it wasn't bad either. One of Jay's coworkers at Big Ten, Kerry, met us at Cubby Bear and we all chatted while we waited for Ben, who works for the ACC, and his girlfriend to get there. Ben asked us to grab his friend if we saw him as well, who he described as "black, about 5'9, shaved head, and a goofy smile...his name is Brion." In a bar full of people, we were supposed to approach every person who fit that description in the hopes that it was Ben's friend? That's not a recipe for a racial profiling disaster... Jay shouted "Brian" every time someone who came close to the description walked by, but we never found him. Eventually, Ben arrived and located the guy. Anyhow, we headed over to our rooftop seats around 1:15, probably later than we should have, for the 1:20 game against the Pirates.

Rooftops at Wrigley are not actually in the stadium. I'm not even sure they are owned or operated by the Cubs management. Oldest scoreboard in America.

They are on the tops of the buildings overlooking the field, they have bleacher seats, and they offer all you can eat - hot dogs, burgers, chicken sandwiches, Italian beef sandwiches, and brats - and all you can drink - one beer per person per order. They also had a soft serve machine with all sorts of toppings at our fingertips. We immediately got food, as we had saved our appetites for the free spread. The Italian beef gets a 10 out of 10 - this is a true Chicago tradition. The hot dog was better than your average dog as well, but how good can a hot dog really be? We got them with sauteed onions and I loaded my hot dog with ketchup, mustard, and relish. The soft serve ice cream machine apparently gets shut down at last call for alcohol, so I was robbed of my dessert.

The game itself was a bit boring until the end. The Pirates led most of the way, and it looked like the Cubs were doomed to continue a less than stellar run in the season. But in the 8th or 9th inning they rallied for the win. I got to hear the whole stadium sing the "Cubs Win" song, which was pretty impressive for an almost packed house. The entire crowd headed back to Cubby Bear after the game, where a really good DJ was spinning dance music. We made friends with three girls whose names I can't remember, thanks to Jay coming through with one of his classic icebreakers. Thanks to Twitter, Jay had learned earlier in the day that the inventor of the Chipwich had died Sunday morning. One of the girls standing in our area had made a chipwich using the ingredients at the buffet and was thoroughly enjoying it when Jay broke the bad news. Sparks were flying from then on, and they accompanied us to the bar-turned-club after the game for a bit.

I don't remember what time it was when we left there, but we hopped in a cab and headed back to Wicker Park to rest. This set the stage for the road trip's biggest disaster. Getting out of the cab was a tragic comedy. I made it safely to the curb. Melissa did not. She tripped on her way out, skinning her knee on the curb. Jay was rushing to get out and almost fell on top of her trying to stop himself. As the cab pulled off, I proceeded to do my usual pocket pat-down check - wallet in the back, camera in the right, and cell phone in the...gone. No cell phone. It had slipped out of my shorts pocket in the cab. I am not the type to ever lose anything - I'm neurotic almost to the point of OCD about making sure I always have keys, wallet, cell phone, camera, etc. every time I go anywhere. Of course, none of us had noticed the cab number, the cab company, or even what color the cab was. I was annoyed, but not nearly as furious as Melissa was, who thought this was going to lead to the meltdown that ruined the entire road trip. We start walking home, dejected at the loss, when someone - I think Jay - decides we should try calling the phone. I borrow Melissa's phone and dial, expecting nothing at all.

Then magic happened. The cabbie answered! He asked where we were in an unidentifiable accent. I got flustered and started looking for street signs, having no idea where we were. Jay came to the rescue and told me how to describe the intersection - North and Milwaukee, in front of a Starbucks - and the cabbie knew the spot. Thirty minutes later, after we flagged down every cab who drove by to their great annoyance, the man showed up with my phone. I gave him $10 for his trouble, and we went on our way, elated at the turn of events.
This is the now-famous intersection.

Back at Jay's, we weren't too hungry yet, but we knew we would need a little dinner. After some down time, we headed to Silver Cloud for some late night dinner. It was, hands down, the best sloppy Joe I have ever had in my life. Literally. Melissa got a chicken pot pie, which I was not as impressed with though she loved it, and mac n cheese, which was very good. This about did it for the final night in Chicago. We walked back to Jay's and all passed out on the couch watching TV.

Monday
Sleep was restless for all three of us Sunday night, unfortunately, and by about 5am all of us had given up. We decided to head to the Hollywood Grill for a final breakfast with Jay before he headed to work and we headed for Canton. This is typical greasy spoon diner, so it would be inappropriate to expect an amazing meal. We had lots of coffee, Jay and I ordered 2222s (2 eggs, 2 sausage links, 2 bacon strips, and 2 pancakes or hashbrowns). Melissa ordered a veggie omelette with cheese. It was actually pretty delicious, even for cheap diners. After that, Jay stopped for his dry cleaning on the way home around 7. We got back, started showering and cleaning up, Jay left for work, and we were on the road by 10am.

You already know we arrived safely in Canton. We finally hit our first bad weather of the trip. It was only a matter of time after dodging the apocalypse. It rained from Chicago to Canton, and it continues to be cold and wet here in the birthplace of the NFL.

It's time for breakfast now, so I have to go. I'll finish up the Canton write-up tonight when we get back to Maryland. I'll upload all the pictures as well, so be sure to check back to the older blog posts for those. Thanks again to all our many readers (I'm getting about 20-25 people a day reading our adventures - pretty impressive!).

Driving Across America 2010: Part 4

2010-05-17T06:40:00.005-07:00

Saturday started like any other day. But by the time it was over, we had totally immersed ourselves in the big city culture that Chicago boasts.

We (meaning Melissa) slept in the first morning until about 11:30 or so (Jay and I were up, bright eyed and bushy tailed by 8ish). We had a 2 o'clock reservation for Chicago's Historic Architecture Boat Tour (by that other group, not the Chicago Architecture Foundation or whoever is the official guide company of the city). First things first, we had to eat breakfast/lunch. Jay drove us in the G35 to a place called Jerry's on Madison. We ordered beer cheese as an appetizer, which comes with big soft pretzel pieces, little pretzel sticks, and some kind of fried pita to dip in the cheese. It was pretty good. For lunch, they have an endless list of sandwiches to choose from. The menu was so overwhelming, we ended up choosing blindly. Melissa got the largest burger I've ever seen, and it was topped with avocado, cheddar, and bacon (she designed it personally) with fries and mac n cheese as her sides. Jay ordered one of the specials - chicken shwarma sandwich with peanut pasta salad and potato salad. I ordered the John W I think, which was a turkey, brie, and something else with honey mustard, side order of fries and mac n cheese. All three were phenomenal. I highly recommend Jerry's to anyone who finds him or herself in Chicago.

We were running late, thanks in no small part to Melissa's aptitude for sleeping late. We drove back to Jay's to grab jackets and waved down a cab to take us as quickly as possible to the North Pier to ship off. The company recommends that you arrive 30 minutes before departure time. We showed up at departure time. The boat was nearly full, so we decided to reschedule for the 3 o'clock tour so that we could get choice seating. With 45 minutes to kill, we just wandered around the nearby streets. We met Gus, an 11-month-old French bulldog who went crazy if you scratched his back. His legs just gave out and he'd lay in an ecstatic crumpled heap on the grass until you stopped. Then, we meandered into Flamingo's, a hole in the wall restaurant, the ethnicity of which we could not determine. We got a round of drinks while a group of four next to us watched the Milan football game and accosted the bartender when he changed the channel out of the blue.

Once 2:30 rolled around, we headed back to the pier to disembark. The tour guide was a bit too educated, or so it seemed, on all things architecture and Chicago. She talked a mile a minute, taking breaks every time we passed under one of the many bridges of the Chicago River to gasp for air and sip her Starbucks iced tea. Between rambling on about the origins of the city's nickname - "The Windy City" - and telling cheeky anecdotes about previous passengers, we we realized we did not receive what must have been obligatory pre-tour literature on Architecture 101. The terms she used, the architects she mentioned, and the styles and theories she discussed were so far beyond what your average layman would ever understand, I'm not sure why they thought she was a good choice for the emcee. We were lost for the majority of her ramblings on conceptualism and postmodern flying buttresses. Fortunately, the real joy of the tour is the open views you get by taking the water route through the city. One thing Chicago has to offer that most other big cities don't is this open vantage point. Cities like NY and Atlanta and LA don't offer good views of their prominent skyscrapers because you can only reach them street-side, and you are too close to see much of anything. Pictures of the tour are on my flickr page.

After the tour ended, we walked up to the famous Navy Pier and got a fantastic view of the Chicago skyline across Lake Michigan. After wandering through the tourist trap on the Navy Pier and buying some world famous Garrett popcorn, we hopped in another cab to the building formerly known as Sears Tower (now, Willis Tower) to go up to the skydeck. The building allows people to purchase tickets to go up nearly to the top of the tower and walk out onto fully enclosed glass balconies - glass ceiling, walls, and floor - to get a bird's eye view of the city. It was about 6pm when we got there, and the wait was about 2 and a half hours, so we abandoned that plan and headed for the L (name comes either from the fact that it is elevated or electric, we're not sure which, and it might be both). The Blue Line took us back to Wicker Park (Damen stop), where we promptly collapsed on the couch and relaxed a bit before a late dinner.

Dinner
There is a pizza place near Jay that comes highly recommended. It's called "Piece," and it is apparently always crowded. They brew their own beers - we tried several of the brews, including the Goldenarm, the Worryin' Ale, the Wack Job, and the Full Frontal Pale Ale, all very good. After an hour wait, during which we made friends with a big group of girls who ended up being seated next to us, we sat down and ordered a customized pizza. This place doesn't offer the traditional Chicago deep dish with a 98% risk of immediate heart attack, but that doesn't mean the pizza wasn't top notch. We got a medium, feeds 2-3, red-style pizza with garlic, onions, green peppers, mushrooms, and spinach. It turned out Saturday night is live band karaoke, so we were treated to some quality amateur performances on stage. Live band karaoke means instead of a monitor and a DJ playing songs, you choose your song, and the band behind you plays the music while you read lyrics off a piece of paper. The people who went up were, for the most part, actually pretty good.

We headed home after that and called it a night around 11:30-12ish, don't really remember exactly when. Sunday on a Wrigley Rooftop was just around the corner, and we wanted to make sure we were well-rested. Stay tuned for Sunday's adventures, hopefully to come tonight.

It is currently Monday morning. I'm writing this while Melissa showers. Next up, we decided to finish our trip with one grand finale in Canton, OH at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. We reserved a Hall of Fame package at the McKinley Grand Hotel. The package includes two tickets to the hall, a welcome gift, a free breakfast, a 10% discount at the Hall's museum store, all tax and gratuities, and access to one of Canton's nicest hotels - 24 hour fitness room, indoor pool and spa, and more. See some of you Maryland folks in a day or so, then back in Phoenix on Wednesday for the SLA Conference from Thur-Saturday.

Driving Across America 2010: Part 3

2010-05-15T22:50:00.006-07:00

We left the KC Best Western first thing in the morning after enjoying our second 711 meal in a 12 hour stretch.

The drive to Chicago was....wait for it...mostly uneventful!

Once again...picture uploading is failing me big time. Maybe it's a problem with Blogger's software. I'm going to do the write up anyhow, and I apologize for robbing you all of the full experience.

The drive from Kansas City to Chicago is about 8 and a half hours, according to Google Maps. This turned out to be pretty spot on. Despite our frequent stops and some seriously poor traffic outside of Chicago, we left at 10:30am and arrived at 7pm, exactly 8 and a half hours later. Pretty impressive.

I did some cowboy snoozing.

Outside of Kansas City, there was some serious flooding. It didn't affect us, but there were buildings partially under water, and cars that I can only guess were on blocks sitting in 2 feet or so.I wasn't quick enough with the camera to catch the submerged buildings, but this gives you the basic gist.

One of our favorite stops of the trip, thus far, was Springfield, Illinois. We decided to take the Business Route 55 through the city, as opposed to I-55 outside of the city, so that we might find a good lunch spot on our way to Chicago. We found an amazing little cafe called Andiamo. They have their own web site that does not appear to be functional, so that link is the next best thing. I took a picture of the amazing Tuscan Chicken Focaccia sandwich that we both got, and it looks as good as it tasted...We ate on the go, not wanting to delay our arrival in Chicago any longer than necessary.

As we got closer to Chicago, we ran into some bad traffic. So bad, in fact, that the woman in the car in front of us couldn't handle it. She was so mad that she took three separate opportunities to violently projectile vomit out her driver's side window as traffic slowed. Traffic and vomiting couldn't slow her down, though. She didn't even tap the breaks.

Finally, we arrived in Chicago, took a questionable route in to the city, and found Jay's apartment without any problems...except for the nearly impossible left turn from Division St. to N. Ashland (you local Chicago-ans/Chicago-ites? know what I'm talking about). So, just like that, our stay in Wicker Park had begun.

We had dinner reservations at Club Lucky in Bucktown, so we got cleaned up and headed out to enjoy some true-blood Chicago Italian cuisine. Lucky is always busy, and Jay had never managed to get a table before, so this was a treat for him as much as it was for us. We sat promptly and ordered some fried calamari and a Caprese salad to start. For dinner, I got a penne arrabiata, Melissa got chicken parmesan over penne, and Jay got a chicken tortellini dish. All were delicious. After that, we headed out for a mini-bar crawl. First stop was The Southern on North Avenue to enjoy their outdoor patio seating. In a subtle tribute to Kalamazoo, Melissa and I both ordered the Two Hearted Ale from Bell's Brewery. While there, we got in touch with a friend from ASU law who had transferred to another law school in Chicago this year. She met up with us along with two friends she had made doing a study abroad program at some point in her past. The five of us began to do a walking tour of the Bucktown/Wicker Park bar scene.

Next up was a German beerhouse, the name of which I cannot remember or spell. There, Melissa and I struck up conversation with a girl sitting next to us who was not friendly at all. She immediately began talking down to me, telling me that I deserved some humbling once in awhile. I don't know where that came from, but she was convinced. When I told her I was from Annapolis, she seemed pleased. Then we talked about other parts of the country. Then she said she summered on the Bay. I asked which Bay she meant, and she snapped: "Anyone from Annapolis would realize I meant the Chesapeake Bay, obviously...I summered on the Choptank River." From then, there was a serious downward spiral of belittling conversation. She didn't believe I was from Annapolis because I was not familiar with the seasonal blooming patterns of azaleas. She proceeded to comment that anyone from Annapolis should be familiar enough with the local fauna to know when azaleas bloom. I tried to tell her that fauna referred to animals, and that flora was the word she was looking for. But she said her degree from Harvard indicated otherwise. The nearest iPhone proved me right, but she persisted. In any event, that friendship ended as quickly as it began.

Next up was Salud, a tequila bar. Our stay there was brief, and our next stop was Nick's Beer Garden in Bucktown. Reminded me a lot of the Tavern in Tempe on Mill Ave. Nothing special about it. All in all, the night was a blast. On the walk home, Jay bamboozled some pizza from a truck on the side of the road. Melissa fought him for it and they ended up sharing the slice. I got the crust.

At home, we watched the Betty White episode of Saturday Night Live - an instant classic for anyone who has not yet watched it. It was an extremely long day, and we were all exhausted by now. Saturday had a ton of plans waiting for us, so we called it a night. I will write all about Saturday's excursions tomorrow.

For now, it's bed time again. We have a lunch date around noon before a 1:20 Cubs game at Wrigley Field.

Driving Across America 2010: Part 2

2010-05-14T05:52:00.008-07:00

Note: I'm experimenting with picture formatting. Sorry that this post looks horrendous. It probably won't happen again.

Thursday
We gave ourselves a 7am wake up call so that we could get going early for our 14 hour leg through the deadly prairie lands of a tornado ravaged middle-America. Several looks at the doppler radar and whatever other radar weather.com uses showed us that a dark and treacherous journey awaited us. But we were committed. There was no turning back. Trip must go on.

But first, we have to have our cups of cereal with milk for which Melissa was brilliant enough to pack. I made the mistake of buying a 2 gallon milk on Sunday, not realizing we would not be in Tempe long enough to drink it. So, we packed it, some solo cups, some of Melissa's favorite cereals (Peanut Butter Puffins are literally more addictive than crack to her - she has actually abused me on account of them in the past), and had ourselves a free breakfast in the 'Burque.

One quick pass through Old Town Albuquerque for a couple photos later, and we were at the Walgreens getting mousse and allergy meds. Then she saw it. What drive is complete without an official driving hat? Obviously, not this one. (Author's note: I blame this hat entirely for a mishap later in the trip. Stay tuned.).

Old Town 'Burque Statue.

The same winery we stopped at in Las Cruces last year...but this time it was in 'Burque.

Needless to say, once we left Walgreen's, we gathered Silas, Josephine, Henrietta, and Abraham, yoked the oxen and hit the Oregon Trail for a long journey full of alkali poisoning, snake bites, low food rations, and raging rivers. The time was about 10:30am.

Marigolds? Dandelions? I don't know what we're looking at here, but it was a ton of yellow, and it was nice on the eyes.

We stopped here at "Clive's Corner" for a bathroom break, one hour in.

Melissa thought Doug would want to see this. Goes back to an old family trip to the Wagon Wheel restaurant? This is not the restaurant, though. Instead, it is a "town" built around a towing and repair shop called Wagon Wheel. The town consists of said shop...and... a junkyard. That is all.

Driving hats: they work. Driving is now 94% more chic.

Texas

Not a good state to drive through. We crossed in for the tiniest little corner of northern Texas. We thought nothing could go wrong. We couldn't have been less right. For anyone who has not driven on the wide open roads of Tex-hom-ansas, this is how it works: speed limit is 70 until you get close to a town. It swiftly drops in increments of 5s or 10s until you are down to 35-40 in the heart of the town. As you leave, it increases in the same increments.

One small town we passed through had other ideas. Melissa was driving, and we were conditioned for these town speed laws. But what happened next was not okay. As we got to Stratford Texas, we noticed first that the high school has a huge banner on the edge of town boasting the many state sporting championships it had won in the last 20 years. Then, we saw the population of the city: 1991. Fishy, but okay. It must be competing in the 12E District for high schools with enrollments under 50 students (I made that up). The next thing we saw were a bunch of 18-wheelers parked in random spots in the middle of the road. The road itself was decrepit. The signage was terrible. We're trying to find a place to stop for another bathroom break. All the while, we were trying to keep a close eye on the speed limit. Then a cop pops out and pulls us over. We are confident Melissa was going within 5 miles of the speed limit, so we were expecting a warning or something along the lines of "you guys are driving strangely, are you lost? Can I help?" You know, the basic southern hospitality.

Instead, the police officer demands license and proof of insurance (Texas doesn't care about registration). Melissa doesn't have proof of insurance. He tells us he clocked us at 35. We both look at each other and then back at him.

Us: "Officer, isn't the speed limit 35?"

Officer: "It is..."

Us: blank stares.

Officer: "Well, you must not have seen the lights flashing back there. This here's a school zone, speed limit drops down to 20. Proof of insurance, please?"

Melissa and I start looking for her proof of insurance while he goes back and runs her license. No luck. We have a slip from her 2007 Geico insurance from her Saturn. Then a 2008 State Farm insurance card from the Honda. Then a pricing quote from All State, her current insurance, that doesn't have an effective date of coverage, so that's not good enough.

Officer: Returns to car. "Did you find that insurance?"

Melissa: "No, I'm really sorry, the car is packed full and..."

Officer: "Alright then. Sign here."

Melissa: "I'm sorry, let me just look..."

Officer: "You have had ample time. I have to go. I actually have to be...right over here...now" Broadly sweeps his hand in the general direction of absolutely nothing.

Melissa: "Please, sir, I have insurance."

Officer: "You'll have to take it up with the judge. Call her within 2 weeks and you can work that out. I've already checked the box."

Melissa: "How much is the fine?"

Officer: Hands us a crumpled and folded blue sheet of paper listing all the fines, directions for payment, etc. Walks away.

We read the paper. Turns out going the speed limit when the speed limit mysteriously drops to a school zone with very little warning (neither of us saw a school zone sign, flashing lights, or a school, for that matter) is a $160 fine. Furthermore, it turns out that "failure to show proof of financial responsibility" is a $300 fine! Yes, $300, for not having proof of insurance. Court date is in two weeks. In Stratford, TX. As my brother has appropriately pointed out, we received this ticket not for speeding, but for being out-of-town drivers. And, I'm convinced we would have just gotten a warning if Melissa had not been wearing the goofy not quite cowboy hat. She didn't want to take it off for fear of panicking the police officer with 'sudden movements.'

Once again, internet is shoddy and picture uploading is no longer working. I will supplement with more pictures later tonight or tomorrow.

On our way out of town, we passed Tex. He was pointing his gun at us and laughing. "Suckers," he said, with his cold, hard cowboy stare.

We also passed a farm that stretched further than we could see in every direction, made up entirely of livestock mashed into tiny enclosures full of their own feces and waste. It was so pungent, we were coughing and gagging by the time we cleared the area.

All the while, we had been defrosting lunch on the dash board, as our cooler was a bit too cold. Lunch was two sandwiches - one salmon, one garden burger, that Melissa had made in Tempe.

Once she had settled down enough to eat them, we decided that they were awful. Dry, flavorless, and chewy. So we pitched them.

Instead, we decided to take a quick break in Hooker, Oklahoma to grab Subway at Love's. Love's, in Hooker, Oklahoma. Yep. This was tasty.

Shortly after that, on the road again, Melissa is back being a menace behind the wheel. Passing through the farmlands at dusk is dangerous. Birds are starting to go crazy, swooping across the highway looking for food. Generally, they do quick fly-by's and avoid the car well enough. This poor fellow was a little too fat and happy from the day's feasting, unfortunately. With a huge thud, he literally exploded all over our grill. Feathers went everywhere. He just missed rolling up our windshield. We checked the front of the car later, and it is splattered with a little bird and feather, which is probably now stuck permanently on the Honda's grill.

Fortunately, not much more happened after that. We crossed into Kansas. Lots of bright green, sweeping farmlands. Lots of one lane highway driving. Crossing through Wichita was uneventful. Kansas City was also uneventful. We ended up in North Kansas City at another Best Western around 1:30am. We grabbed a snack at 711 and quickly passed out.

It is now about 8:30am on Friday. We're doing the final preparations for the final stretch to Chicago, where Jay is awaiting our arrival. Stay tuned for more tonight or tomorrow!

Driving Across America: 2010 Edition

2010-05-13T06:36:00.007-07:00

We're doing it again. It's time for the 2nd Annual Drive Across America blog! Because we have less time for interesting stops, this go 'round is going to be more of a photojournalistic interpretation of the journey, complete with meaningless candid photos of just about everything we do...as long as the camera is on hand. But enough about that - let's get going.

The plan is to hit the road Wednesday morning and be in beautiful Santa Fe, NM by Wednesday night. All we need to do is get packed up Tuesday after we finish our last exams, wake up Wednesday and do the inevitable last-minute car prep, and we're off. Except we barely did anything Tuesday night, we spent 4 hours Wednesday getting ready, and we didn't hit the road until 12:45pm. But the car was stuffed to capacity.

Car is stuffed.

And this is me frustrated for how long it took us to leave...

I had my blood checked at Fischer (most of you are probably unfamiliar with my Fischer Sports experiences, but that's not a story for this blog) and found out that my proteins are now digesting perfectly, and my blood is well-balanced.

First stop, sell back all of the text books that have been the banes of our existences for the past year or two. We figure to pull in a cool $100 toward the trip with the 15 books we had collected. College Bookstore on Rural actually ended up giving us $238 for maybe 8 or 9 of them, and now the rest are weighing down the car.

Baller.

At this point, it's about 1:15.

After Melissa had spent the morning cooking literally every piece of food left in the refrigerator to fill our cooler with snacks and save money, we decided we were not in the mood for any of it. So, one final In n Out trip was in order! Kicking the trip off right = good idea.
Nom nom nom.

By 2pm, we were actually on the road to Maryland by Santa Fe-Manhattan, KS-Chicago.

Obligatory pre-trip odometer shot.

The trip itself has been completely uneventful. Sadly, the scenery hardly changed. There were no swamp rats, no driving all night for sunrises, no almost running out of gas. We did stop twice for someone to use the bathroom...decided to get gas one of those times.

2:20pm
Entering Tonto National Forest, which actually doesn't have any trees. It's a cactus-ridden stretch of barren desert. But the cacti are in bloom, so that's kind of nice.

2:45pm
Outside of Payson, I was attacked (strangely, for the second time this week) by a bee! It dive-bombed be through the sunroof, made a bee-line (haaa....) for my right ear, and promptly exploded against my earlobe going 80 mph.I'm okay, no permanent damage.

3:30pm
Our first stop.

5:30pm
Our second stop, this time for gas as well. No picture, but this was a "Navajo Travel Center" off Interstate 40. As far as I can tell, the rampant use of "Travel Center" in this region refers to "gas stations with tacky souvenirs."

Random shot of highway scenery.

New Mexico
We weren't ready for the welcome sign - guess whose job it was to know the sign was coming and catch the photo - but we kind of got it in a mad rush.

More and more uneventful driving. This is probably going to be one of the least interesting blog posts I ever write. We listened to music. Talked some. We had an emergency re-routing procedure when we decided Santa Fe might not be the smartest choice of Wednesday night destinations. I guess this is what happens when you throw together a trip route without really thinking about anything but getting to Chicago by Friday.

A quasi-last-minute panic set in for Melissa, who became entirely unsure of our path with no notice. A quick phone call to her mom, and she was on her way to remapping our entire trip. This was due partly to the Armageddon sweeping the heartlands - tornadoes everywhere, flooding, and larger-than-softball-sized hail.

On to Albuquerque! We know virtually nothing about this city. The University of New Mexico is here. It's hard to spell. And we think it's a pretty big city.

9:05pm
We got our first glimpse of real city lights as we came upon the 'Burque (the local name for Albuquerque, because clearly it's easier to say and spell...but it neglects the middle 'quer').

Melissa's Navi-notes: I'm so excited because I was just starting to get really bored, especially after hearing "Forever" by Drake for the 7th or 8th time today. We are definitely stopping!

Unfortunately, navigating a city the size of 'Burque is not easy at night, with no previous knowledge, when you want to find a good, inexpensive hotel near a late night, quality, inexpensive eatery.

Melissa's Navi-notes: Lesson learned. Don't follow big green shiny objects, they'll draw you to the wrong side of the tracks.

She is now 2-for-2 choosing exits that take us straight to the hood (see: The Ozaka Incident). We were afraid to slow down enough to even turn around at one point, so this was an interesting little stretch. We made it back to the highway, found a Best Western, and slipped in to the Albuquerque Bar and Grille (the Zia Lounge, Melissa thinks, was the name of the room where the restaurant was).

My order of Tres Amigos tacos was pretty good, her man-sized Fajita Salad was delicious. The celebratory margaritas were very sugary and sour with not a lot of tequila.
But there was a special on Bud Light ($2) so we ordered the personal maximum (2 each) after we ate and took them upstairs to relax in front of the TV.

The internet in the Best Western Rio Grande Inn (they have so many names for this building) is shoddy at best, and the rest of the pictures will not upload. Hopefully, I can get them up tonight.

Today's plan:
Head to either Springfield, MO or Kansas City, MO, depending on which route best avoids the raging apocalypse in America's heartlands. Severe tornado warnings throughout most of Oklahoma, Kansas, and northern Texas, including flash flood warnings, are threatening our trip. If we make it through, we will be heroes. We spent about 30 minutes last night watching videos of the tornadoes in Oklahoma this week. Probably not a good idea for a worrier like Melissa. But we will be fine. We're mapping the route according to the storm's path.

It's about 8:15am right now. Time to shower up and hit the road! Hopefully, we'll be in Kansas City in about 13 hours.

New Year, New Me

2009-12-31T12:37:00.004-07:00

It's that time again. The new year, and a new decade, loom ominously on the horizon. Looking back on the Aughts, I can think of a lot of things I should have and could have done better. But it was not all for naught, as I have accomplished many things that your average bear probably hasn't even dreamt up in his hibernation. But enough about the great things I've done, what is more important is the great things I have yet to do.

I've always said, somewhat jokingly but secretly seriously, that my purpose in life is to be remembered. I want to leave my mark on the world. I know I have a niche somewhere, but I am still searching for it. One day, however, I will find a way to leave this mark. Whether there is a building named after me, a street, a foundation, or a small blurb in a history book, I want my life to mean something long after I'm gone. And I want it to mean something to people who never met me and who were not related to me.

How am I going to do that, you ask? I wish I knew. But that is the point of ambition: you pick a goal, and you work hard, and you hit forks in the road, you climb obstacles, but you keep moving, you choose your paths, and eventually you reach your destination, a little battered, a little worn, but extremely accomplished and proud, with a list of achievements in your foot prints.

So as this decade comes to a close, I find myself way behind on my path. I envisioned myself doing much more at this point in my life. So this decade is a new beginning. I have a laundry list of goals, many of which I probably won't meet. But what I want to change about myself is the effort I put towards them. Anyone who knows me as more than a casual acquaintance knows that my life has more or less fallen together despite my lack of involvement in it. It has always been my way to put more effort in to putting less effort, when I should be putting that effort in to actually doing things the right way. But as I get older, I realize I'm only cheating myself. No one else really cares what I learn in class, what sense of accomplishment I feel on the inside. What people want from me is results. It's what we want from all of the company we keep. It's not the nature of people to want to be dragged down by those around them. We want to be achievers, and we want to surround ourselves with people of like minds. I've hidden my underachieving self deep beneath a calm, cool, and collected illusion of who I really want to be.

This year, I become a go-getter.

Gone are the days of taking short cuts and cutting corners.

Here are the days of motivation, aspiration, ambition, and achievement.

I wish you all the best in all of your endeavors, and I encourage you to check in on mine. Hold me to my word. A life like the one I want for myself cannot exist without the support of everyone around me.

So Happy New Year to all, and I look forward to walking down the right path with each of you by my side.

And now, for the fun part, a look back at a decade to remember. Some people weren't around for many of these experiences, but that doesn't matter. In staggered chronological order, the highs and lows of the Aughts, with some purposefully excluded for the sake of myself and others:

It was 2001, and high school graduation seemed like the biggest day of my life. A distant memory, the Equestrian Center in Upper Marlboro was packed with a raucous Annapolis High crowd. Three months later, and my new home in Blacksburg, Virginia comes calling. Pritchard Hall, and what would turn out to be "The Worst Roommate Ever." This kid was a nightmare: a cultural abomination, he was born to Koreans, adopted by Jews, educated in the ghetto, and associated with the upper middle class whites. His lack of identity made him stranger than fiction, and his quirks alienated him from the rest of our hall. That, and he made weird noises and stared at me through a conveniently placed mirror while I laid in bed.

Virginia Tech gets credit for my identity. I was an awkward high school kid who never really fit in to any group, but I had plenty of friends. I was athletic, but not a star. I was shy with some kids and a social leader with others. I didn't have a clique, and I was never satisfied with what I was doing. I was smart, but shockingly lazy, which embittered the dumb, hard-working kids and frustrated the smart, hard-working kids. All the while I found myself somewhere in between those genres of people, never sure with whom I belonged. But college was a new beginning and a fresh start. I made friends quickly. I was around people of similar minds, similar intelligence, similar work ethic. I had people to play sports with, people to study with, people to socialize with, others to play video games with. It was a perfect storm of all of my strangely unrelated interests.

And then I joined a fraternity. This opened up the doors. I was on MTV for a show that featured colleges across America (I Bet You Will..., created by Morgan Spurlock of Super-Size Me fame). And then we took the fraternity to new levels. We got it an official house. We established a reputation on campus. I started a charity event that now occurs every year and raises thousands of dollars for various organizations. I found a cultural identity that was missing in the religiously non-diverse schools I had attended in Annapolis, and I quickly decided it was not for me. I got my first job interning with the athletic department. I became a ridiculously passionate VT football and basketball fan. It was my first passion, and it will probably cut years off of my life.

As college drew closer to an end, I made friends that have lasted through the years, and who I expect will still be around until the day I die. I learned to keep in touch with people a little bit better (thank you, Facebook). I moved in to my own house for the first time with a couple other guys. Windswept, on Pheasant Run Ct., will never be forgotten. It is still the greatest estate in AEPi history.

Senior year was a blur. We traveled to all the away football games. And then graduation hit, and I was lost. I had a degree with no direction. I slipped in to the black hole that is the restaurant industry (though I do thank Liz for getting me the job, as I needed an income). I made more friends, but fell further and further from anything resembling pride and self-respect. I knew this was not the place for me.

I started writing sports for the newspaper - another in a long list of accomplishments that fell in to my lap. I worked hard and impressed my bosses, but never gave it the commitment it deserved. It didn't pay well enough to quit the restaurant job. Then Jay comes calling and offers me my first break. Again, a job that didn't require an interview. This is the 6th job of my life now, and still no official interviews. DVSport, Inc. was a great gig. Lots of travel, lots of sports, and a good amount of money. I lived in college football. It was stressful being gone all the time, but I loved what I was doing. I eventually got fed up with upper management, though, and decided my time was coming to an end.

Changes needed to be made. So on a whim, I chose law school and the LSATs. With little effort, I managed to score quite high and began applying to schools all over the country. Unfortunately, my laziness during college held my GPA a bit lower than law school likes, and my LSAT score alone could not get me in to my first choice schools.

It was back to another restaurant in the meantime, where once again I got in with a connection and had to do almost nothing to earn the employment. Money was great there, and I maintained my stint with the newspaper. Law school acceptances and rejections came pouring in, and Arizona State University's Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law became my new home.

It was another fresh start where I could begin anew. This trend is one that I enjoy, as I get tired of the same thing all the time. I easily slip in to routine ruts.

So here we are, half way through law school. I have quickly risen to the top of a a few student organizations and am leaving my mark there. My goals, if accomplished, will improve the law program at ASU for years and years to come.

This is the decade, in brief, that has passed. I hope to be able to include much, much more in the decade to come. Someone's first job is to name this one. The Tens? The Teens? Both are boring. Find me a catchy name and I'll celebrate it.

Giving Thanks

2009-11-26T13:37:00.003-07:00

I supposed the inevitable result of leaving the comfort of my hometown and my family and loved ones, coupled with my relocation to an area heavily populated with Native Americans has changed my outlook a bit on Thanksgiving. It is a clash of ideals, but I think I've managed to focus on the really important parts.

To start with the bad, I have a friend out here who is particularly sensitive about the plight of the Native American people. Anyone who has spent much time with me knows I am not insensitive to others, but at the same time I am not at all sensitive myself when it comes to touchy subjects. That might not be clear: what I mean is, I'm empathetic to others, but I don't easily get bent out of shape by ignorant or derogatory comments directed at my own heritage, culture, background, etc. But this friend of mine, who is normally extremely easy going and laid back, gets very defensive at even the best-humored jokes about his people. And he hates Thanksgiving. He hates what it stands for, he hates how it came to be, its tradition, its values. He also hates the name, "Redskins," for all the same reason. Nevermind that he's a Giants fan. And I think he has every right to be upset about a holiday that is meant for giving thanks for all the things we are lucky enough to possess, but that is based on an era when we took and took and took and then just slaughtered the hands that fed us. I'm sure the real story is somewhere between what the average American thinks, what we read in text books, and what the Native Americans think happened. No one living at that time was going to write this story without some bias.

But while I understand his displeasure with the theme, I think its meaning and its purpose has made it something different. Some of the best inventions are the result of some of the worst decisions and mistakes in history. Thanksgiving might be one of those mistakes. What was done in that time period was undeniably horrible. But what has come out of it is one of the happiest days of the year for so many Americans. It is a time to embrace your family and your loved ones, to bring people together, to relax, to be carefree, to enjoy the best meal of the year with all the people who are most important to you. It is a vacation from the routine, an excuse to let down your guard, a reason to get in touch with old friends, a relief from the stresses of "the real world." Sure, it still symbolizes the meeting of the pilgrims and the Wampanoag tribe, if that actually happened (again, no one seems to really know what actually happened). The way the story goes, the two peoples came together for a joyous day of feast and festivity. That is the essence of the holiday. What happened before and after that celebration are not really a part of what today is supposed to mean.

So, with as much respect and sympathy and appreciation and recognition as I can give to the Native people (as family lore goes, I may even be part Native myself, a distant descendant of Metacomet, better known as King Philip), when an apology will mean nothing, I still celebrate this holiday as a reason to give thanks for family, for friends, for life, and for the amazing feast we are about to enjoy.

Many thanks to the Haiks for taking us in as a part of their Phoenix valley transplant refugee dinner, bringing us in to the family atmosphere that makes Thanksgiving so special.

Everyone enjoy your dinners and your family time. Appreciate that you are able to take this time out of your life, even if you aren't very close with your family, or if you don't get along with them. It's an important day, and it can create some great memories if you'll let it.

Lastly, congratulations to the Wittings for giving birth to healthy twin boys, Dylan

and Tanner Witting.

Afghanistan Revealed

2009-10-04T21:56:00.005-07:00

Not much going on here worth writing about, so I'm expanding my horizons.

Photog. series from Big Picture.

I don't usually get into the world politics mud-slinging that occurs so commonly here, but I feel like this deserves a post.

This is a series of photos from Afghanistan during the recent turmoils there. Some of the best photography I have ever seen. Just wanted to share.

"We Run This Game" - Hokie Nation

2009-09-26T17:24:00.004-07:00

A little pet project we put together. Credits are at the end of the 'video.'

Huge thanks to Jeff Thompson, Anunaki Productions for putting this together on such short notice.

The Great Unveiling: The Unit

2009-09-07T11:08:00.010-07:00

One quick announcement: this is officially post #200 in my blog. I just popped a bottle of champagne to celebrate. I know you're wondering, it's Andre. Only the finest for blog milestones such as this one.

Okay, okay. I slacked off big time. But here are the pictures I've been promising for so long. I'll start with all the move-in pictures so you can see what we were up against. Then we will get to the post-move-in, pre-finished pictures, which is where we currently stand. Or sit, really. I wouldn't write this blog standing up.

Things left to do include:

1. Finishing--more realistically, starting--the guest room/study. We need to find a bed and either one big desk or two small desks to go in there. Right now, it is packed full as our storage room. Outlook appears hopeless. Not pictured below: mess in guest room.

2. Getting all of our art on the walls. Hard to do when you're not sure where all the furniture, etc., is going to end up. But I think we've waited long enough. Main issue: too much wall space, not enough art.

3. Getting either a love seat or a chaise lounge for the living room. One couch just doesn't cut it for the GHS (Gross Household Seating) level when you want to have social events.

4. Getting a TV stand for our newly re-acquired big screen (the original TV from last year's condo is now in our possession, free of charge).

So, without further ado, the pictures!

The living room on moving day.

Dining room on moving day.

The first meal in the house. Picture isn't perfect, but it was phenomenal. We had tomato, fresh mozzarella, basil, and balsamic glaze as an appetizer. For dinner, Melissa made a chicken pasta pesto. A+.

The kitchen on moving day...though it looks much worse now so I won't post current shots. We had a busy weekend.

The guest bathroom on moving day. You can barely catch a hint of the horrendous shower curtain that was included with the condo. Quickly removed.

The guest bathroom currently. With our own southwest-themed curtain, etc.

Not naming names, but one of us tuckered out a little early on Day 1.

Master bathroom on moving day.

Master bedroom on moving day. The balcony outside the door connects the guest room to the master.

Master bedroom, looking at entrance and 'hallway' with closets on either side leading to master bath.

The master bedroom, as it currently stands. The end table on my side of the bed is missing due to pseudo-man cave construction, to be pictured shortly.

And now for the downstairs in its current state.

The living room, as viewed from the stairs just inside the front door (front door would be immediately to the left as you descend the stairs).

The pseudo-man cave. I say 'pseudo' because it's really not a cave, but a real live living room. And basically the only room in the house, since it's all opened up. But this was my college football Saturday set up. Sadly, our Hokies couldn't pull out the big win against Alabama. We couldn't even look good trying. But the gurus seem optimistic about the season still, so I will hold my tongue.

The dining room, complete with a Melissa doing homework.

Looking from the dining room into the living room/fireplace area.

The last thing to include is maybe the greatest part of the house. At least it will be once the weather improves in a few months. Our 'waterfront' back patio.

Deacon followed me around helping with the photos.

This is our living, breathing, fruit-bearing lime tree.

Looking the other way, back into the house.

The tree-obstructed, road-leaping waterfront vista.

Well, that's all she wrote. Welcome to our home. If you want a better look at it, you'll have to come visit and see for yourself. There is a chance we will be doing guided tours via webcam by appointment only.

New House, New Classes, Same Sam

2009-08-28T11:01:00.005-07:00

So it's been awhile. I've made some promises. Regrettably, I didn't keep any of them. I said I'd bring you pictures of the new place. But it's not finished yet. I said I'd blog about Beach Week 09 and Nantucket. I didn't. My procrastination is at an all time high right now with all the things going on. That is not to say I'm not getting things done, because that would be a lie. It just means that I am not necessarily getting all the right things done.

To start with, this summer was probably one of the greatest summers I've had. Maybe ever. It was too good. I don't know how to be a student again. Or still. A month in Italy, topped off with a week of partying in Ocean City with the McDaniel clan, then a perfectly relaxing week in Nantucket/Boston, is probably the best vacation lineup a guy could ask for.

Beach Week 09 was highlighted by Doug's and my (how in the world do you properly write a double possessive like that?) Beach Week 2009 Cornhole Championship with a spotless 8-0 run to seal the title. Tim and I won the BW09 NCAA Basketball Championship playing the 1 and 2 for Virginia Tech (non-basketball fans, the 1 and 2 are the starting guards on a basketball team, with the 1 playing the point--the floor general and the team's best ball handler--and the 2 playing the role of shooting guard--generally a team's best outside shooter). We cut down the nets after a tight battle with UNC, leaving Tyler Hansbrough without his much-coveted trophy. Sucker. Other than that, we set sail with Jerry, rode the high seas with the Captain, and as always, Dumsers was nearby and plentiful.

Nantucket was probably just shy of the polar opposite of Ocean City. Instead of a week long party, this beautiful island was the perfect quiet getaway to finish up a fun but exhausting summer. Much appreciation to my mother and grandmother for bringing us out to visit them at their summer retreat (really, it's more of a secluded cottage in the 'woods' of Nantucket). Melissa's first trip to the Cape started with an easy flight into ACK, Nantucket's newly expanded airport. We rode bikes to Quidnet Beach and Seshachacha Pond (about a mile or two each way) and strolled along the beach there. Melissa and I cooked dinner each night, giving my Mom a much deserved respite from her duties. The produce on the island is unparalleled, the seafood as fresh as can be. The salty, humid air awakens a hunger, literally, that you have never known. We enjoyed sandwiches on the island's renowned Portuguese bread, tasted one of the dessert world's best kept secrets in Indian Corn Pudding, grilled fresh Tilapia from the seafood market, sampled all the brews from the Cisco Brewery located on Nantucket - all delicious. I took Melissa to all my childhood haunts, save for Pocomo, which we did not have time for. We hit Dionis Beach but had to weather a light rain, went to Miacomet but fought the cold winds, walked the Moors but were enveloped in fog, rode bikes to Siasconset (to the locals, it is just 'Sconset, as no one pronounces the "Sia") to show Melissa one of my favorite towns in the world. We wandered the streets of downtown Nantucket, a larger, more glorified and historic version of downtown Annapolis. We both had our first Nantucket bar experience where we met a quasi-celebrity in Rick Pitino's son. He was a very cool guy, and we enjoyed hanging out with him and his wife and their friends. My one complaint about the Nantucket trip is that it was too short. I could have stayed there two more weeks and still felt that way, though. C'est la vie.

On our way back home, we sidetracked through Plymouth, riding the Steamship Authority's Ivanhoe fast ferry to Hyannis, where Darrell and Erin picked us up for a Boston adventure. Plymouth is the site of my ancestry, where my family allegedly arrived on the Mayflower. I saw a replica of the Mayflower, the Mayflower II, stood over Plymouth Rock, stood before a statue in homage to another potential ancestor of mine, Massassoit--the famous Wampanoag chief that created the first Thanksgiving. We ate a delicious seafood lunch on the water in Plymouth before driving to Quincy, where Darrell and Erin live. We took a quick breather at their apartment before heading in to Boston, where neither Melissa nor I had ever been.

We stopped at Government Center to get the notorious scorpion bowls, which as far as I can tell is just a huge bowl full of various types of alcohol. They are meant to be enjoyed by groups of people. We did two people to a bowl. It was a great start to the day. They are only found at Chinese restaurants, and this particular one had all appetizers at about $3 each, so we feasted on some steak on a stick, crab puffs, chicken wings, and other goodies.

In to Boston, we met up with some friends of our hosts who were very welcoming. We hung out at their house, where I fought a constant onslaught of molesting mini-dogs. Then, I got in touch with the younger Rick and met him and his wife at a charity concert in the VIP room at the House of Blues, directly across from Fenway Park. No game there this day, unfortunately. We also stopped at Church, a bar with a homemade 'tequila inferno' shot that is made by infusing gold tequila with habanero peppers. It burned.

We are already trying to find a time to return to Boston for a longer trip. Less than 24 hours in any spot is not enough to really enjoy what it has to offer. Maybe next summer.

I don't have the patience to upload any photos at the moment. All the pictures from the aforementioned trips are on Facebook, so feel free to browse them there if you want to. If you're not my friend on Facebook and are dying to see these pictures, we can probably arrange something.

Pictures of the condo will be up at the end of this weekend, when we finally get everything set up. It has been a slow-going work in progress.

To set the mood, I'll describe it. Then you can see if my description gives you a strong enough mental image that the pictures seem familiar when I post them.

We are on the first floor, and to enter our condo, you have to duck under a low growing tree trunk that snakes up over our walkway. We are on the right hand side as you walk up. The door opens inward to pergo flooring throughout the lower level. Immediately to your right, a floor lamp rises above your head with a horizontal mirror with coat/key/hat hooks affixed to the wall (courtesy of yours truly). On the floor is a wrought iron end table with a glass top for Melissa's purse and things. Just beyond the table on the right hand side is a carpeted stairway that leads to...yup, you guessed it...the second floor. More on that in a minute.

Directly ahead as you close the door behind you, you will see a glimpse into our kitchen. As your view spans to the left, you will see a very open living room with a large, full wall sliding glass door/window hybrid that is entirely covered by those cheap white blinds/slats that hang vertically. If you trace the back wall, the one that the door sits in, you will hit a bookshelf, our entertainment center, another bookshelf, and then our fireplace and mantle, before finally reaching the future dog corner where Deacon will live, and then the wall. Turn that corner and you will reach our dining room, which completes the short end of an L. We have our pub height round table set up against the wall with one side flipped down so that it is flush with the wall. Four chairs - two matching wood and two metal afterthoughts - sit around the table. Underneath is an Ikea rug with three bands running longways - dark brown, light beige, and dark brown again. Turn to your right again and you hit the kitchen. As you step into the kitchen, you have counter tops on either side of you. To the left, you have a microwave, a dish drainer, then the double sink, then some open counter, then our older-than-dirt refrigerator. A small gap after the fridge leads to two sliding/folding doors that open to our in-house laundry room (just a nook with a washer and dryer and a shelf above them). As you stand in front of them, look to your right and you will see down the hallway to our front door again, which has a narrow vertical window with more of those blind/slats covering it. On the opposite counter, beginning from the dining room end again, you hit the coffee maker, our toaster, our oven/stove, and then lots of open counter space. Next to the laundry room is a deep pantry, past that a coat closet. Once in front of the coat closet, you are again in the living room. To your right, sitting against the wall that is shared by the kitchen and living room, is our couch. We have two black Ikea Lack series end tables and a large black Lack series coffee table. If you sit on the couch, you will be treated to my 32" LCD HDTV and my brand new LG 5.1 surround sound (partially thanks to birthday money from Mom). An area rug sits under the coffee table with leafy patterns set in various earthy colors--dark and light browns, reddish hues, and some brown-green shades.

Stand up from the couch and take a hard left towards the stairs. Ascend, and at the top you will be looking directly into the study/guest room/Liz and Mom's room. To your right is a full bath, decorated in southwestern themes with mostly browns, reds, and oranges. Kokopellis enjoy the room here. And the air is filled with a pumpkin spice scent, courtesy of the Leo's reed diffuser birthday present to Melissa.

To the left, a midget full-length mirror is attached to the wall at the end of the short hallway. The study is not at all set up yet, so there is not much point in a description. But in the room, directly to the right is relatively deep closet. Directly ahead is another sliding glass door/window hybrid with the same white slats hanging. Beyond the sliding door is a small balcony that is shared by the master bedroom to the left. Walk back out of this room and take a quick right and another quick right and you'll be in the master suite. Directly in front of you is our oscillating tower fan, a matching floor lamp to the one downstairs, and a red Ikea dresser. There is an identical sliding door/window set up against the far wall that leads to the balcony. Melissa set up our festive white light string around that door. The bed sits against the left wall, with the non-existent head board against the wall and the bed stretching out into the middle of the floor. Matching black Ikea Lack end tables sit on either side of the bed - his and hers.

To the left, you will have a narrow 'hallway' that is about as long as it is wide...which is to say "not very." On either side are small closets. Beyond the closets is the master bathroom. It does not have much decoration in it yet, as it has a sliding door and does not require a shower curtain. We haven't picked a color scheme for it yet. For some reason, both bathrooms have the same pergo flooring, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

So, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed the tour. Pictures will be coming shortly, as officially promised in writing here. Hopefully I'll be a little more consistent with the blog from now on.

Tonight, we are going to the Cardinals v. Packers preseason game with the Gulleys. Can't wait!

Wrapping Up Italy - Birthday Weekend

2009-07-02T01:29:00.003-07:00

The days got away from me for a bit there. Sorry I haven't written in so long. Things got busy and exhausting. Since my last post was almost a full week ago, I'll just give a quick rundown of the things we've been doing. For picture references, refer to my Facebook page (for people pictures) and Flickr for landscapes, etc.

Friday, June 26
My birthday unofficially started on Friday. The French girls made us dinner - quiche and pizza - and then we went to Meccano, one of the many clubs in the 'disco region' (my name for it) for the night. We walked there, which took almost an hour. There is an exponential decrease in rate of travel as the number of group members increases. Maybe one of the pour souls fighting through calculus this summer can write up a formula for that?

The club was lots of fun. The French are a great group. We also had Israelis and and Australian with us, if I remember correctly. The walk home took about 30 minutes as well. There's not much else to report for Friday.

Saturday, June 27
Birthday! We woke up, don't remember what time, and went to the Pitti Palace to do some museum browsing. Pitti is impressive. There are hundreds of rooms, one after the other, all full of paintings and sculptures. The ceiling frescoes are so detailed and ornate, it's amazing to think how annoyed we, Americans, get when we have to paint roll the ceiling white. "It's too hard!" Cameras were not allowed to be used inside the museums, but I managed to steal one picture (on Flickr) of a particularly interesting room. In my rush to snap the shot, I didn't get a great photo, though. The alarms in there are extremely sensitive, on another note. I walked over to a closed window in a niche to check out the view of the Boboli Gardens and set an alarm off trying to look through. Johnny was walking up close to a painting to see how it looked from up close as opposed to far away (Van Gogh style painting) and set another alarm off. That time a woman came into the room quickly to check things out. I looked at her and shrugged. She said "Too close," and we were on our way.

We had plans to meet a ton of people out for dinner at an apperitivo (if you're not keeping track, those are the all you can eat buffets with drinks), so we couldn't take too much time at Pitti. But I definitely recommend going to see it if you are ever in Florence. There are two tickets that you can buy for the palace, one takes you inside, and the other lets you into the Boboli Gardens, among other places. We didn't do the Gardens today (12 Euro for inside, 10 Euro for gardens).

To back things up a little, Memento-style, as I remember more, we made a fantastic discovery on our way out to Pitti. We had recently discovered a bakery directly across the street from our apartment that has amazing bagels (we've been getting them with lox regularly now). We wanted to get food there before heading out, but as we walked up they were closing the gate. The owner turned out to be American, and he informed us of Notte Bianco, or "White Night." It was going on tonight, and it is an all night street festival, where the lights of all the shops light up the night white. There would be bands and live music everywhere, street vendors with food and drinks, bars and shops would be open really late. He said an estimated 60,000 people would be wandering the streets.

So, we came home, got showered up and left to meet the group at Piazza del Signoria. We walked to Piazza della Repubblica by accident, which is about five minutes further, and had to double back. This made us late for the first time all trip. The French are habitually late. They say that is the custom in France, but I'm not buying it. If you tell them 8, they see it as rude to show up before 8:30, apparently. But, it is my birthday, so they can't get mad. We start the long walk around the city looking for a good place to eat. The one they were hoping to go to had just been shut down for drug deals, so that was out. We ended up going to a place called La Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life), which happens to be about two blocks from our apartment. After 45 minutes of walking, that is where we ended up. As we ate--and the food was good, but a little lacking in selection--we saw the streets begin to fill up with tents and booths and people. Notte Bianco was getting in to full swing.

We wandered around the Piazza del Carmine for a bit, browsing a big street market that had been erected, then headed to Piazza di Santi Spirito for a live band. On the way, we came across a spontaneous salsa dance lesson in the middle of the road. Onward, we discovered (and ate) crepes. All the food at all the stands looked amazing. I wish we could have eaten some of everything. Throughout the course of the night, we (meaning at least someone in the group, and I tried it) got some French fries, crepes, a pork panino, a panino with some delicious cheese and spicy sausage-like meat, and...that might be it. But it was all fantastic. The band was playing a very good set (according to Johnny, who is much more in to music than the average bear).

The rest of the group began to trickle off. Some of the French and one of the Israelis were going to Cinque Terre in the morning so they didn't want to stay out late. When it was down to just Johnny and myself, we started to wander. We ended up finding a DJ in the middle of the street blasting dance music with a huge group of people dancing around him. His turntables were hooked up to a generator for power. Across the Ponte Vecchio, we found the lucky boar that everyone touches (pictures on Facebook). Here, Johnny got hit on by an Italian guy and was not happy about it when the guy pinched his cheek.

Back south to the Arno - we ran into Jean and his girlfriend, Claire, who was visiting for the weekend. We sat on the river with them for awhile before heading back to Santo Spirito to eat (some of the food mentioned above had not happened at this point). I have no concept of time while I'm out here because there are no clocks anywhere, so I don't know how late we were there. I haven't carried a cell phone since I got to Florence, and it is extremely liberating. I may start leaving it at home in Annapolis sometimes. This trip was a great exercise in learning to detach from technology (though I've been sadly attached to the computer more than I should be - I blame my efforts at keeping all of you informed and entertained).

Sunday
Futbol! Johnny and I met Jean at Salamanca, the Mexican bar, to watch USA v. Brazil in the Confederations Cup Championship. We got there around 7 for an 8:30 start so that we could eat. And eat we did. We started with nachos, then moved on to split chicken flautas and a steak dish. All of it was magical. Jean arrived just before the game started. The US jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first half, only to have it erased by three unanswered in the second half by the Brazilians. The US goals were not flukes, but to win the game might have been. Brazil dominated almost every aspect of the game throughout (60% possession), taking something like 4-5 times the number of shots we took. Tim Howard had a great game in the goal, but there is only so much you can do against a team like Brazil when they are knocking hard at your door all night long. The final score, 3-2, was very respectable, and this looks like good things to come for next year's World Cup. Our server was, coincidentally, Brazilian, and we had a good time joking around with him (his English was pretty decent).

After this, we walked around a bit, then met up with two French girls for a couple minutes to say bye to one of them, who was just in Florence visiting and not studying. She left early the following morning. On our way home, we ran into two Israeli friends of ours and walked with them to Lion's Fountain (remember - American Irish bar). Class at 9:30 kept us honest, and we retired relatively early to our apartment.

Calamity in the Cuisine: Culinary Catastrophe!

2009-06-26T03:49:00.007-07:00

It all started one rainy morning, when gray, dreary skies kept us indoors with our meager kitchen stock at our disposal. Breakfast was coming, but in what form?

Eggs? Check.
Meat? Check, question mark.
Vegetables? Check, check, and check.
Milk? Check.

I was going to make a big, sloppy, U.S. Egg-style skillet dish with all of the above ingredients. I diced up some red and yellow bell peppers, some onion, and some tomato.

I pulled out the ground beef leftover from our spaghetti masterpiece. First question of the day: is it still good? Just a small aside, this entry is not for either the faint of heart, overly-worrisome people, or chefs, so please pardon our ignorance when applicable. We have no saran wrap or tin foil or anything of that sort to store things in. We keep forgetting to pick it up at the store. So the meat was in the 'freezer' of our mini fridge, which is hardly a freezer, until yesterday afternoon when I pulled it out to thaw for dinner last night. We didn't end up cooking, though. I'll admit, it had changed colors slightly since the last time I saw it. But it smelled like raw beef, so I assumed it was just a bit of harmless oxygenation. In hindsight, eating meat rust is probably not the brightest idea. But as I said, it didn't smell bad, and my motto with food is that if it smells okay, it probably is okay, unless it's chicken, in which case it may still not be okay, even if it smells like chicken.

So I cooked the ground beef and set it aside to wait until the other ingredients were ready. I rinsed the pan and threw in the peppers, onion, and tomato and let them sautee for a little while. Threw the toast in the toaster so that everything would be ready at the same time.

Then, I cracked four eggs into a bowl and whisked them (with a fork). Eggs come in half-dozen cartons here (that would be six if you're counting at home). Yet another sign manifested itself when one of the eggs was stuck to the carton. Eggs are not sold in a container that allows you to check them before you buy here. My Mom's words resonated deep down in the recesses of my memory banks, "Never use eggs that are stuck to the container, it means they cracked open and they might be spoiled." Smell test: check. Normally, I crack them straight into the pan, but I had so many things going on I wanted to make sure I had time to stir them around before they cooked too much. The fact that I was (quasi)-inexplicably changing my routine should have been yet another sign that all was not right with our breakfast.

I poured the eggs in, quickly sprinkled salt, pepper, and our spicy powder on them, then grabbed the milk out of the fridge. I dumped the beef back in with the rest of the ingredients in the pan. Expiration date on the milk is June 30th. Good by a long shot. It is my usual custom to smell milk every time I open it because, of all the things that can go bad, milk and eggs are the most potent and the most odorous when spoiled. For those of you who do not include milk in your scrambled eggs, I highly recommend it. It gives the eggs a perfect amount of fluffiness (I believe this is a trick from my Dad, although I could be wrong).

I only pour a splash of milk in, so it is a slow, careful practice not to overload the eggs with milk. In this instance, two things happened. One, I caught a slight whiff of something unholy. Two, I saw chunks of curdled milk plopping into my eggs. I instantly stopped pouring, my reflexes a fine-tuned machine when it comes to rescuing food. But it was too late. In the middle of our eggs was a small pile of milk lumps looking up at me with a scowling smile.

I cursed. I told Johnny what happened, but he had no immediate reaction. I thought to myself, the meat should have been my sign. The cracked egg should have been my sign. The change in routine should have been my sign. Someone didn't want us to have a delicious breakfast today. On the day before my birthday, of all times.

I grabbed a spoon and started scooping out the chunks. But with each successful extraction, I also succeeded in spreading the milk around, forcing it deeper into the non-navigable depths of our uncooked eggs. When I got what I felt was about all of the milk out, I made Johnny come look at it. We debated for a good five minutes. I cooked while we weighed our pros and cons.

Johnny hopped on the computer and Googled, "is it okay to cook with spoiled milk?"

Google's response was a resounding, no-questions asked, are you f'ing nuts, "No."

We questioned it. What's the worst that could happen? Stomach ache for a couple hours? Maybe throw up and get it out of our systems quickly enough to avoid any lingering effects?

Not on my birthday, not on vacation...er...study abroad in Florence. The eggs were a wash. We had to give in to reason. It was just not meant to be.

The toast burned, by the way. I slathered peanut butter on the two pieces and poured the last little bit of jelly on top so that we could at least have an open-faced peanut butter and jelly. Of course the jelly would be running so low that I had to scrape the jar to get a satisfactory amount on to the bread.

We will probably go to a restaurant in a little while and wallow in a slight bit of misery at the thoughts of what could have been. But we will take a little spending and peace of mind over violent bodily rejection of our breakfast.

Also, on a totally unrelated note, what is with the celebrity deaths all around us? Ed McMahon was a fixture on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, widely considered Hollywood's greatest sidekick. Farrah Fawcett was an international sex symbol and a fashion icon in her day; she remained beautiful until the day she lost a three year battle with cancer.

But Michael Jackson: how do you pay homage to one of the world's greatest entertainers, and the butt of more jokes as a result of his transformation from child star to the King of Pop, and then freakish regression to asexual man-child who found himself constantly surrounded by criticism, controversy, and legal battles? I recognize, appreciate, even celebrate what he has done for music and culture, and he will no doubt be remembered for generations to come. But what he became was far from a role model worthy of our praises. Watching his downward spiral was both comedy gold and tragedy, woven together into an unfortunate string of bad luck, bad decisions, and bad jokes. The hard part is figuring out whether to be sad for him or relieved that he doesn't have to live in a world that hasn't accepted him since the early 90's. I don't think I care as much as I should, but I just thought I'd write something down about it. It's always a good way to figure out how you feel about something. Share your thoughts on here if you have any. I'm curious to hear how other people feel.

USA
One more quick shout to USA soccer, who stunned the world the other day in upsetting #1 Spain in the semi-finals of the Confederations Cup. Our goals may have been lucky, and the win may be written off as a fluke, but you don't shut out one of the best offensive teams to play the sport in a long time with luck alone. Spain's 35-game unbeaten streak in international play came to a crushing end with the loss.

Homemade Italian Feast

2009-06-24T04:58:00.005-07:00

Bored of our plain spaghetti with red sauce, we decided to get a little fancy with the Italian staple. We went out for a stroll on Monday to go to the Uffizi Gallery, only to find out it was closed. It was also raining a little bit, but not so much that it was a hindrance.

Since the gallery was closed, we took the opportunity to just wander the town. We did a little window browsing looking for souvenirs (still a fruitless endeavor) and a tee-shirt for me (also unsuccessful). We gave up eventually and got hungry, so we went to the market on the way home.

Purchases:
1 red bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
1 tomato
1 jar of pomodoro sauce (pure red tomato sauce)
1 package of ground beef
1 package of italian sausage

Preparation and Cooking:
Johnny diced up the veggies (add in some onion that we already had in the house) while I set some water to boil (with a little salt and oil) and cooked the meats. For those of you at home, ground beef cooks slightly quicker than sausage (which I had also cut up), so keep that in mind if you are ever combining them. I sprinkled some of our spicy pepper powder on them as they cooked. I tried to slightly undercook so that when I combined all the parts of the sauce later, they could cook a little more in the pan without being overdone.

Once the meat was satisfactory, I drained the grease and put it on a plate to hang out while everything else was prepared. I rinsed the pan (we don't have a lot of pans here) and put a little peanut oil in the bottom, then threw the diced peppers and onions on to sautee. Meanwhile, the water was boiling, so I threw in a healthy handful of spaghetti noodles (I break them in half to make serving and eating easier).

Next, I poured the tomato sauce over the veggies and let that start to bubble a little. I turned the heat down so the sauce would have a little time to absorb the flavoring from the veggies. Sprinkled salt, pepper, spicy powder, and chili flakes into the sauce.

Then I threw all the meat back in with the sauce and the vegetables, and I threw the diced tomatoes in as well.

We made toast (plain old white bread and butter). Poured some cheap white wine. Serve and enjoy!

This picture doesn't look too appetizing, but I assure you this was delicious.

European Adventure: Cinque Terre

2009-06-22T09:07:00.011-07:00

Hands down, the greatest hike a person can ever take. This, while not for the faint of heart, is a beautiful trek through the coastal hills of the Liguria region of northern(ish) Italy. If you take the low road, which we did, the entire journey is about 11 kilometers, or just under 7 miles. Don't let the relatively short distance fool you, though. There is an elevation difference of about 500 meters, or about 1,640 feet, between the lowest and highest points of the trail. And let me assure you, you don't just go up and down once. But I don't want to give anything away. Let's start from the beginning.

Sentioro Azzuro
The famous trail along the coast, sometimes called Sentioro No. 2, literally means, I think, Sky Trail, or Blue Trail, or something like that. It passes through the Five Lands of the region, so we'll take them in order.

Riomaggiore

The first stretch of the hike from Riomaggiore to Manarola is affectionately referred to as Via dell'Amore, or Lover's Walk. There is a spot along the way with a kissing bench and a gorgeous backdrop of the deep blue Mediterranean. Behind the bench, which actually has a rudimentary carving of two people kissing as its back, is the deep blue of the Mediterranean. People put locks anywhere they can with their names written on them as symbols of their eternal love. Very romantic, but Johnny and I decided that was not really necessary for our trip.

This stretch was mostly paved, but the views (below) were astounding.

Manarola

Our first sign that Manarola was close, unfortunately, was the train station. We came across it after coming around a bend in the cliff line. Our path took us up and around it, though, so at least we didn't have to trudge along the tracks.

Then, we caught a view of the city, high atop a craggy jutting rock. These towns were founded by Dark Age colonists who wanted to protect themselves from marauding pirates, so they are in very strategic places with good vantage points and sheltered harbor. Manarola's 'harbor' isn't really a harbor in the true sense of the word, though, as it would be hard to navigate much more than a dingy into the town itself, as you can see for yourself below. The two non-landscape pictures are of the central 'square' in the town and a strange carving in a little fountain just below it.

This is the Manarola harbor in all its glory.

On our way out Manarola, we got--of course--some amazing views again. I should probably stop saying that. From now on, when you see "we did x," assume the view was indescribably spectacular. The water along the coast is a blue that Crayola could never dream of capturing. There is a hint of green reflecting from the lush hillsides. Try imagining the deepest blue sky at high noon, and make that the color of the water. As we climbed and descended amongst vineyards and olive gardens, that was the glory we were treated to. There were locals living on the hills in practical little houses, fully self-sufficient, never having to leave their land for anything. The prospect of living that sort of lifestyle is intriguing, if not a little claustrophobic.

Corgnilia
The next town is the only one not directly on the water. Corgnilia sits high up in the rocks, overlooking the rest of the lands. You can't actually see any of these towns from any of the other ones, but for some reason they have always been linked as the Five Lands of the Italian Riviera. We didn't stop here for whatever reason. It seemed like we just passed the outer edge of the town as we followed the Sentioro.

This was the town as we left on our way to Vernazza. In a blunt bit of foreshadowing, it turns out Johnny is not nearly as sure-footed as a mountain goat. Throughout the hike, I either saw him stumble or heard him stumble countless times. Twice he just missed smashing his camera on the rocks. Keep that in mind. And before you clever kids try to guess what happened: no, his camera was not damaged.

Vernazza
As we made the descent to Vernazza, the fourth town, it began to drizzle. We were both hiking shirtless so it got a bit chilly. We put shirts on before arriving in town after making the decision to stop here for food since it was starting to rain.

This was on the way.

This is the approach to Vernazza. Next to Monterosso, this was the most beautiful town on the itinerary.

And the view as we left. Towards the right hand side of the picture below the food, if you look where that little cluster of blue and yellow umbrellas is, is the spot where we ate lunch. Just outside of the built up part of the city next to the coral colored buildings. I don't remember the name of the restaurant, but it was good. We got a couple beers with names we couldn't pronounce. As an appetizer, we ordered bruschetta with pomodoro (tomato) e (and) pesto (pesto). For the entree, we each got pizzas. Johnny's was a frutti di mare (literally, I think 'fruit of the sea' or 'food of the sea') that came with octopus, mussels (in the shell), prawns (in the shell, with heads) and cheese and tomato sauce. Mine was mozzarella with ham, artichoke, and something else I don't remember. I had them hold the olives. Very good pizzas, and just the right amount of carbs (and the wrong amount of beer) to get us going on the next stretch.

Forgot to mention, the red pepper flakes you see in the pizza picture were taken from the apartment as well. Again, sorry girls if you read this. We were being economical, and those things are impossible to find in Florence. We view them as an absolute necessity to most meals.

Little did we know that we were in for the hardest stretch of them all. I didn't count, but I would estimate that we went up and down at least 1,000 steps throughout the city and the trails.

Monterosso
As I said, this was the hardest stretch. We went straight up, straight down, hugged cliff sides on walkways that were no more than a foot or two wide. We had to pass people coming the other direction, which was tricky. But the place looks like a fairy tale. We went deep into the forest, crossed bubbling creeks, ran into countless stray cats. At one point, we actually found a cat neighborhood, I kid you not. There were little pet tents scattered around a rock grotto, and several cats were lounging on the rocks and in the dirt. We saw farmers at work, hikers from all over the world, lizards, birds: nature at its most purest. No one had strewn empty bottles on the side of the paths. No one had defaced the purest parts of the coastline with graffiti or office buildings or anything remotely human.

And this was all before Monterosso was in sight. That changed everything. The beauty of Monterosso is unparalleled. After climbing stairs until our legs burned, resting, and then descending more stairs until the other side of our legs burned, we were greeted with a voyeuristic preview of what was to come.

Monterosso is known for its beaches. Many would argue that Vernazza is actually the most picturesque of the five towns. It would be a tough argument to win, though. This place is incredible.

At this point, as we walked into Monterosso, where our day had started, we were beyond exhausted. To bring my foreshadowing full circle, just as we approached the final guard station checking our Cinque Terre cards to ensure we had paid our fee to hike the trail, Johnny yelps. There was a small, sharp rock jutting out of the dirt that he managed to kick head on with his big toe. At first, we thought nothing of it, but when I looked down, his toe was split open and oozing blood. He got the picture on his camera, so I can't post it here. Fortunately, we were literally five feet away from the guard post and a first aid kit when it happened. It was gross, but he soldiered on.

We went straight to the beach and laid down in the rocks around 3:30 or 4pm. Didn't even lay out towels. We just passed out laying in the rocky sand, listening to the waves gently crash, kids laughing and playing, and a soft breeze across the water. Cue music.

We took turns swimming in the Mediterranean, washing off the day's toils from our skin, while the other person stayed ashore to watch our bags.

Around 5:30, we got up to find food and a train schedule and ran into one of the Australian kids from our class. We knew he was going to be there at some point, but we never got in touch. They were on their way out, so we just walked around a bit and sad our goodbyes so that Johnny and I could find dinner.

We settled on a place called Barabba's in White. It was just after 6 when we got there and their kitchen didn't open until 7. We waited at a table and got a bottle of wine that turned out to be Prosecco. It was called Spumante Monterosso, but it was actually made further up in northern Italy, despite the name. Prosecco is, as far as I can understand, the Italian version of Champagne. Our server, with whom Johnny fell in love instantly, brought us some snacks (no charge) while we waited. It was a big panino with ham and mozzarella that she had cut into bite-size niblets. In front of us, a small, net-enclosed soccer field was full of kids playing the world's most famous game. To our right, the water. To the left, the town. Behind us, the bar in the restaurant. We just relaxed. Enjoyed the wine. When 7 o'clock rolled around, we ordered sort of tapas style. We split a pasta dish that was called, I think, Cacio e Pepe, which was a Roman-style (spaghetti) noodle in some oily sauce with pepper. We ordered calamari fritti with tempura vegetables and some french fries (strangely, we were both craving french fries when we, surprisingly, saw them on the menu) to share as well. The food was delicious. We took our time getting finished up, then paid and headed to the train station.

The train schedule to get home was nothing short of a nightmare. We had tickets already to get back to Spezia, so we did that. Upon our arrival there, we were lost as to how we returned to Florence. The ticket window was closed, as was the information desk. There was one operational machine to self-serve tickets (biglietta: "bee-lee-YETT-ah"). There was a long line full of impatient people behind some non-Italians struggling with the machine.

We commissioned a particularly fed up Italian woman to press all the buttons for us so that we would not delay people. She was more than happy to oblige. We had to take one train to Viareggio, then switch onto the train to Santa Maria Novella, our stop in Florence. The timing was absolutely perfect. We waited about 5 minutes for the train to Viareggio. When we arrived there, our train was scheduled to leave in 5 minutes. We got on, and it was delayed about 2 or 3 minutes, but left relatively promptly.

Three hours later from when we left Spezia, we were walking home in Florence, where the temperature had dropped considerably.

My hands are tired of typing, so this will do it for the details of our journey. More internet problems when we got home, but I have finally figured out the problem. Now it's just a matter of avoiding it. I will discuss that later.

Ciao.

The Ultimate European Journey: First Night

2009-06-22T04:23:00.005-07:00

As you should have read below, we arrived in Monterosso around 9:30 or so at night. We had a basic plan. Find something fun to do. Find a quiet, secluded spot on the beach to sleep after exhausting the fun. And...break.

We walked around trying to find a good bar in Monterosso, and it turns out only one exists. It is absolutely overrun with American college students. They were beyond obnoxious. It was actually almost embarrassing to us that Americans are perceived that way in Europe. It's no wonder everyone hates us around the world. The bar was small and expensive and crowded, but the beers that were available--the draft only had one or two beers working at a time because the lines heat up and they won't pour properly--were pretty delicious. We managed to swoop in and grab a table as soon as a big group got up that was right in the middle of the bar. It was called something like "Fast Dice" or "Easy Dice" but I can't remember for sure, and I can't find it on Google.

Anyhow, we set up shop and watched the train wreck around us of ridiculously drunk American kids mixing with ridiculously drunk American adults and caught highlites of a few of the Confederations Cup matches on TV behind us. We struck up conversation with everyone that came near in the long-shot hopes of finding a free place to stay for the night. I chatted with a group of brother and sisters who were very nice, all from Chicago. One went to Purdue, one to Indiana, the brother was silent, and the third sister was a political consultant living in Iraq. She looked like she was 18 at the oldest, so I don't know how that's working out for her. Then, three Swedes came and sat with us for a few minutes, but they were a little bizarre. One of the two guys was a close-talker and had Johnny cornered. The girl was a little difficult to talk to because her English was pretty poor. The third guy was silent until he asked if they could leave. We were grateful.

Two Australian girls came by that were pretty boring as well.

Then finally, the magic happened. Two American girls, cousins, came and started talking with us. They were really cool. One was an aspiring pro golfer, but has recently decided that she might move to Tempe to get certified as a PGA instructor and then teach golf in Hawaii. The other is hoping to start a masters in Sports Administration or something similar in the near future. They were staying in the Hotel Punta Mesca on the other side of town with their two guy cousins, who were at home sleeping. The four of them had a 5:15am train to catch. As we talked, it became clear that they were concerned about us sleeping on the beach and offered to let us sleep in their extra bed. They were staying in an apartment/hotel that had two bedrooms and a pull out bed in the kitchen that was unoccupied. We quickly accepted and bought them a drink as a show of appreciation. I think they might not have wanted it.

Anyhow, the moment we stepped outside, two things happened. (As a preface, I just added these two girls on Facebook, so if either of you happen to come across this post, I hope you're not offended by our perspective. You two went above and beyond generosity for two absolute strangers. This is all meant in fun). One, we began to sense a little apprehension in their disposition at allowing two strangers to stay at their place. Two, a serious monsoon hit Monterosso - lightning, thunder, downpour, and strong winds. They were committed. So they said they had to make sure it was okay with their cousins if we stayed, and that we would walk over there and find out. The walk was very chilly, but it was fun. I didn't bring a jacket. Johnny did, and the two girls had shawls.

We got there and waited outside while they went in and talked it over with the cousins. We didn't hear any talking, and we're not sure they actually talked to anyone, or if they just decided it was too weird. Either way, they came out a few minutes later with really apologetic looks on their faces. They said their parents had given strict rules on the use of the hotel, among other things, and allowing two strange young men to sleep there was obviously excluded from the 'allowed' category. We were disappointed, but not surprised. They did throw us a handful of blankets and pillows and told us no one else was staying on this floor, so we would be safe to sleep there.

So, we did. They said they would wake us around 4:45am or so when they left for their train. We went head to foot, by the way, in case anyone is wondering. It didn't cross either of our minds that we could move the bedding and not sleep cuddled together in the same part of the hallway. Exhaustion is a funny thing, that way.

I think Johnny was asleep by the time that photo was taken, and I stayed awake for a few minutes listening to the storm. I've always loved thunderstorms. It was a bit of a restless night; I woke up several times in the 2-3 hours we were in the hall, but it was not too uncomfortable. Right on cue, they came out a little before 5am and woke us up. They said we could go into their room at that point and sleep in a bed, but that we had to be out by 8 or so. They also said we could take advantage of their breakfast in the morning. We were too groggy to know what that meant, so we assumed they had left food in the fridge or something.

We went to our separate rooms and fell asleep instantly. Alarm was set for 7am.

The Following Morning
We woke up and started searching the kitchen for food. When I say search, I mean we did a 360 and saw every nook of the room, which was about 8'x8' if you don't include the bed. There was nothing but these weird little individually wrapped baked things that were not good. They did have a shower, though, so we took full advantage of that. Our original plan had been to shower in the Mediterranean in the morning before starting the hike. Had we slept outside, we would not have needed a shower at all.

We grabbed a few things that we assumed would be thrown away if we left them--uncooked spaghetti, and about 50 packs of chamomile tea--and headed down. As we walked out of the hotel, we noticed the breakfast buffet. We went in and made sure it was free to guests and began to chow down. After our first course, we were approached by a server and asked what room we were in. I showed him our key and said "4," which seemed to satisfy him. Until about five minutes later when the hotel manager came over and confronted us about where we were staying.

As it turns out, anyone who stays in an Italian hotel needs to register their passport information with the front desk. The police check everyone regularly, so you can be hauled off to jail for not being registered, or the hotel can be fined significantly, or some other strange form of European punishment could be enforced. Anyhow, we tried to explain the situation as best we could, not wanting to get our saviors in trouble. He ended up being really nice about it. He even let us finish eating before we left. And we took some bananas from the buffet for the road. These things were massive. We handed in the keys and, with full, happy bellies, headed toward the train station to begin our hike from Riomaggiore.

Along the way, we got a decent look at Monterosso in the hazy early morning light.

We decided that this was the perfect European experience.

Future Note: Writing this on Monday from our apartment in Florence, we just used the bananas to make what might have been the greatest peanut butter and banana sandwiches of all time. No joke.

Pisa and Spezia

2009-06-22T03:15:00.006-07:00

Pisa, once a huge sea-trading power (around 1000-1300 AD), has now become, as far as I can tell, an official tourist trap. Rick Steves doesn't suggest much more than walking around the world famous Campo dei Miracoli, the "Field of Miracles" that boasts the Duomo, the Baptistery, and of course, the Leaning Tower. There is also a large university that still holds some world renown somewhere in the city, though we didn't find it. The field is boasted as the greatest lawn in Italy, and so far we have no reason to argue it. It is a wide open expanse--sort of, it has those three buildings at its center--of lush green that is chained off with "Do not walk on the grass" signs every few yards. People walk all over the grass. I'm not sure if they even think enforcing the signs is worth a feeble attempt. But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

We looked up the train schedule ahead of time and found a 3:30 train to Pisa, so we headed there around 3 to get tickets. I told the lady at the counter we were heading to Cinque Terre but stopping in Pisa, so she gave us a ticket to Spezia Centrale via Pisa Centrale. She never spoke a word. We found our train about five minutes before it was due to leave and got comfortable. The ride was about an hour or so. We almost had to pay a 40 Euro fine each for forgetting to validate our ticket, but the attendant was very nice and we played the dumb American card to a "T." We watched three Italians try to dodge him and get the fine for not having tickets at all. Along the way, the terrain changed from urban to rural to mountainous and beautiful. The name of the mountain range is proving harder to find than I expected, but it is an extension of the Alps of northern Italy.

Rick Steves recommended busing it to the Tower, rather than taking the 45 minute walk through Pisa's heart. We declined to take his advice and walked it instead. No regrets at all. The walk due north took us through one long street market that was bustling with people--locals walking their dogs, tourists shopping, restaurants, street vendors, you name it--and the architecture was very pretty. It looked exactly like Florence, really. We even had to cross the Arno River here, as it cuts through both cities identically.

Once past the market, we came upon some ruins that I now know are the remains of the old city walls. Our first glimpse of the Tower was exciting, though it was criss-crossed with power lines. As we rounded the corner and entered the Campo dei Miracoli, we were offered a much nicer view.

The sky was a perfect mix of bright blue and fluffy white clouds, for the most part. The sun was somewhat low in the sky directly over the Duomo, which gave it a sort of spiritual aura as we approached, which you can see in the picture above.

We headed clockwise around the field and saw a fashion model photo shoot for wedding gowns going on that had attracted a large crowd. We stood and watched that for a little while. The models seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Then we hopped the 10" chain link that was supposed to keep people off the lawn--everyone was doing it--and set up shop about 100 yards west of the tower to eat our packed lunch. We brought peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and apples. (Strange aside: Peanut butter does not exist in France. We were told it is too unhealthy mixing the peanuts and the butter. Instead, they use Nutella. Get it?)

The sandwich and apple weren't nearly enough, but we exercised a little discipline and decided to wait until we got to Monterosso and Cinque Terre to get a quality dinner. So we took some more photos, opted out of doing the whole 'holding up the tower' picture, and started the scenic walk back to the train station - Pisa Centrale.

As it turns out, Spezia Centrale was not the train station in Cinque Terre we thought we were getting to. It is more of a hub, and we needed to get an additional ticket to get up to Monterosso, the northern most land of Cinque Terre. It was about 8pm when we got to Spezia, and fortunately the ticket window was open for another 25 minutes. We were confused at first, but between the ticket window and the informazione guy, we got it straightened out. Our train didn't leave for another hour so we decided to get dinner in Spezia.

A short walk led us to a piazza with a large Red Cross festival going on. There were EMTs and medical personnel everywhere, with lots of people eating and some live music blasting. We did not really know what the deal with the food was there, so we pressed on and found a little pizzeria across the street where we could still hear the music. At one point, they played the theme song to The Last of the Mohicans, which may be one of the greatest movie compositions of all time.

We got pizza and had some Peroni. The woman running the pizza shop was really nice, but her English was not really nice, so we had a little trouble getting organized there. The pizza was good, a little burnt, and the beer was cold and delicious. We ate our fill and headed back to the train station to wait for our delayed train to Monterosso.

We arrived in Monterosso around 9:30 or so with the plan of finding a bar, making some friends, and then sleeping on the beautiful beaches of Monterosso al Mare. We would wake up to the rising sun and hop back on the train down to Riomaggiore to begin the famous trek up Cinque Terre's majestic coastline.

That story will be for another post, as it is full of excitement, suspense, intrigue, hilarity, and a little pain and suffering, but it was all worth it.

The Weekend

2009-06-20T02:59:00.002-07:00

Not a whole lot going on in Florence at the moment. We've had a lot of class this week, so there hasn't been much sight-seeing or adventuring. Today, however, we are heading to Pisa to see the Tower, and the one or two other sites worth looking at in that town, then heading onward to Cinque Terre.

The plan is to stay in a hostel in CT tonight after Pisa, then conquer the four hour coastline hike that takes you through each of the five lands of Cinque Terre. We will probably add on some detours into the mountains during that hike.

This entry is more to let people know we will be sans computers until Sunday night, most likely late. Have a good weekend!

Ciao.

A Day in the Life of a Student Abroad

2009-06-18T12:53:00.006-07:00

It started with the trip to the Accademia, which I already chronicled. I won't retell that story, so read below if you're interested.

On the way back, we passed one of the many street markets Florence has to offer. Nothing worth noting, but I stole a quick photo.

Class was the same old, same old. Half of the people in class, if they show up, leave at the break. The entire class doesn't pay particularly close attention to the lectures. And for decently good reason. The professors don't seem to agree. One frequently cuts the other one off, and he is relatively hostile with the student responses. Not so much actively hostile, but more passively aggressive with the way he scoffs or rolls his eyes no matter what anyone says. At the very least, he'll show a frustrated cringe at the side of his mouth when he is displeased, which seems to be constant.

Of course, we Americans maintain our studiousness, as you can see. As it turns out, American law school is much more difficult and demanding than any other law school. The international students treat it as if it were undergrad, where nothing particularly matters.

After class, we made our typical train ride home to the Santa Maria Novella train station. We stopped at the market to pick up a lemon and some more wine for the apartment. The lemon was for the sword fish we bought yesterday. After consulting with Melissa, I had a basic recipe for how to prepare the pesce spada, and all I was missing was lemon. On the way, we caught the sunset yet again.

I'm afraid they might stop being so spectacular if we see them every day. Though if that's the worst of our problems, I certainly won't complain.

The basic gist:

Rice
No measurements: put water in pot, pour rice in pot, pour a dab of peanut oil in pot, sprinkle some salt in pot, turn heat on, put butter in pot. Watch rice cook.

Pesce Spada
Thaw. Coat bottom of pan with peanut oil. Put a dollop of butter in pan. Put sword fish in pan after removing bone and skin. Turn heat on low. Sprinkle salt, pepper, and spicy peperoncino powder on fish. Let cook. Put a little more butter on fish. Flip fish. Sprinkle salt, pepper, and spicy peperoncino powder on other side of fish. Let cook. Flip fish. Repeat.

Rice: "I am finished cooking."
Me: "Okay. I'll turn off the burner."

Pesce Spada
Turn off heat. Squeeze lemon wedge on fish. Flip. Squeeze lemon wedge on fish.

Distribute rice evenly. Distribute sword fish evenly. Enjoy.

Results
The rice was absolutely perfect I think. It was moist, a little sticky, and flavorful. The fish was a little bland, I may have overcooked it a tad. But it was decent. We added some cayenne pepper sauce to give it a kick. That did the trick. All in all, I'd say my first time cooking sword fish was both a success and a learning experience. What more could a man ask for?

Galleria dell'Accademia

2009-06-18T03:57:00.008-07:00

The Galleria dell'Accademia was built specifically to house Michelangelo's famous David, considered to be the consummate Renaissance statute. His Prisoners--named after he died, these sculptures are possibly unfinished--are also here, as is the famous Rape of the Sabines. The Prisoners represent men twisted in strange positions, trying to 'escape' from the bed rock from which they were carved. It is unclear whether Michelangelo thought these were finished sculptures, or whether he got bored with them and moved on to other things. To quickly quash any expectations, photographs were not allowed at any point in this gallery, so I am sorry for the glaring lack of pictures. The Rape depicts a young, muscular man standing over a defeated old man, and forcefully clutching on to a nude woman. Its title was also given by someone other than the sculptor. Its design allows you a good view from any angle, which was a popular method of sculpting in that day.

Statue of David
Originally, this statue--representing the lowly shepherd boy who slayed the Philistine giant, Goliath--was kept outside of what was City Hall under the Medici rule in Florence. However, the weather, a crazed artist who assaulted the statue's feet with a hammer during a protest, and a flying bench from the window of City Hall during another protest that broke off his arm, prompted the Fiorentines to build the Accademia with a dome specially designed to do the sculpture justice. And that it does. Standing 17 feet tall, David has plenty of head space, and the skylight dome above him sheds a sort of halo of light around him. It is an amazing sculpture, perfectly carved human form.

What makes it particularly impressive, in my eyes, is Michelangelo's method. Traditionally, sculptors would build scaled models of their projects and then, with that as a reference, would carve the actual sculpture out of a slab of rock/marble. Michelangelo, however, did everything freeform. He believed that the rock contained the desired sculpture within it, and it was god that willed him to reveal it. He needed no scaled model, he only used god's guidance in finding the form with his chisel. That may not be too difficult for a small project, but to create a 17-foot tall figure, and to have it become possibly the most famous sculpture in the world, without any sort of visual aide to guide his work, is amazing.

Other Things of Note
There was a photography exhibit in this museum by an American photographer, Robert Mapplethorpe. His work was interesting, but it was surprising to see an American's work in such a prestigious Fiorentine gallery. His work centered on the human body, though, so it fit well with David.

The gallery also hosts a musical exhibit, full of extremely old stringed instruments, horns, flutes, and pianos. My musical knowledge is very limited, so I won't say any more. But it was neat.

One thing that really piqued our curiosity was a painting of Jesus in one of the rooms. I'm no religious buff, nor am I well versed in the world of art, but there are a few things in religious art history that seem commonplace. One of the big ones is the way Jesus is generally depicted on the cross - head slumped to one side with the crown of thorns, Mary Magdalene often at his feet, angels often flying around him--sometimes catching his blood in goblets, one nail in each hand, the spear wound in his ribs, and one nail through both of his overlapping feet. This painting, however, which was unattributed and untitled, had Jesus' feet nailed separately, with one nail through each one. We searched the entire gallery, which probably has over 50 paintings of the crucifixion, and did not find any other paintings with this feature. Anyone know why? We couldn't figure it out.

Regardless, this exhibit was pretty impressive. There was a wing full of sculptures--busts, reliefs, frescoes, and statues--that were the final exams of art students at the Accademia. Some of them were spectacular. The attention to detail, particularly in the folds of flowing robes and sheets (I thought), was breathtaking.

I'm not sure what else to say about the gallery. It was impressive, and we were both very glad to have seen David. This statue is a huge part of history, and I imagine the majority of the world never has the chance to see it.

On the way home, we stopped for lunch. We both got sandwiches on what I would compare to a round disk of ciabatta bread, with prosciutto and mozzarella. We shared a fruit cup (I know...) with the biggest grapes we had ever seen, canteloupe, kiwi, orange, and pineapple.

Now, I am sitting in the apartment waiting for the landlord to get here with our allegedly fixed router. Johnny has gone running.

Class at 4:45. No plans for tonight as of yet.

It Finally Happened

2009-06-17T07:50:00.004-07:00

We have been joking that, on account of the ridiculously narrow streets, myriad parked cars everywhere in places where they don't really fit, crazy Italian drivers, and extremely narrow sidewalks, one of us was going to get hit by a car at some point during this trip.

Before anyone gets freaked out (particularly families), everyone is okay.

So we were leaving our flat on Via Della Chiesa, which is one of the more narrow streets with cars lining one side, making it even more crammed. The cars and motorcycles often park partly over the sidewalk, which is only about 2 feet wide to begin with.

As we walked, we saw a big truck coming, about the equivalent of a dump truck, slowly up the street. It seemed to be moving a bit more quickly than might be appropriate. As it got to us, there was a loud crash and Johnny yelped. At that moment, Johnny became one of the few people in the world ever to have been hit by a parked motorcycle.

The truck smashed the front end of the bike, spending it spinning directly into Johnny's hip. Hopefully, we were due that one, and we won't get hit by anything else. We have been dangerously close to getting knocked in the head by bus side mirrors on several occasions already.

A Tribute to Sien(n)a

2009-06-17T05:31:00.004-07:00

My mother, always vigilantly searching for news relative to the goings-ons of her children, sent me an article about Siena that brought back a wave of memories from my childhood.

Anyone who was once a kid in the CME (that is the Crayola Modern Era) will remember the plethora of colors available in crayon form. I remember a few colors standing out above the rest. There is a chance I am confusing Berol Prismacolor pencils with Crayola's famous spectrum of colors, but I'm pretty sure that is not the case. Goldenrod, periwinkle, forest green, and burnt sienna stand out most vividly in my mind.

Here is a tribute to burnt sienna.

If you ask me, the contest mentioned at the end was a no-brainer. Blizzard blue? What does that even mean?

Dinner and a (Platonic) Walk

2009-06-16T13:33:00.004-07:00

We went to the Asian market and discovered that they sold nothing but Ramen-style dried noodles for soup, Asian sauces like soy and teriyaki, and various other things in packages of which we could only guess the contents. But they did have cheap hot sauce, so we got some. We went around the corner to a produce market and got some bell peppers--red and yellow was all they had--and a purple onion. It was 1,80 Euro, doesn't seem too bad for fresh veggies. Then we went back to Asia Market and got teriyaki, hot sauce, and two big cheap Moretti beers (Note: There is nowhere that we have found to buy cases of beer, it appears only to be sold individually here).

So we walked back. I had the daunting task of figuring out the directions for the rice in Italian, and then making good rice (which can be very tricky; rice is a much more exact science than one might think) without a measuring cup. I tasked Johnny with chopping the peppers, onion, and the remaining humongous chicken breast we had gotten the other day. For the rice, I eyeballed what ended up being a little too much water, poured a little peanut oil in and sprinkled some salt into the pan, and then poured what was probably the exact amount of rice I wanted.

I prepped the other pan with a little more of the peanut oil while Johnny finished chopping.

First, I threw in the peppers and onions and a few of those nefarious peperoncinos to make it spicy. I kept stirring to make sure nothing burned. The rice was going strong, and I slowly became aware that I had, in fact, used too much water. No big deal, though. I just made sure it didn't boil over. When it seemed like the rice was nearly done, I threw the chicken in with the veggies and then poured the teriyaki 'juice' on top. I say juice because this was not your typical viscous teriyaki. It had the consistency of soy sauce.

If I could have photographed the smell in our kitchen, I would have. And I would have blown it up and framed it and carried it with me everywhere. But here is the finished product.

We settled down to the table, cracked open our giant Morettis, and went to town. And this meal was delicious. Not to pat myself too hard on the back, but I was proud of this one.

We decided we were bored of sitting in the house and wanted to get out for a bit. A few of the French were going to walk around the city, so we decided to go meet up with them. Our timing was perfect. I'll show you why:

Sunset over the Ponte Vecchio is a "can't miss" event in Florence. I am now lucky enough to be one of the privileged few to experience it. I'm not going to bother trying to describe it because the pictures speak a thousand words.

We walked around to actually cross the Ponte Vecchio (most of those pictures were taken from the Ponte alle Grazie, the next bridge down the river). There was a man performing cover songs on the bridge with a guitar and an impressive throng of listeners. He was very good.

We went to one of the bigger squares and got some gelato at a corner shop. And guess what? This gelato was totally the BEST gelato in the world. The guide book says so. It has to be true.

I ordered three flavors in a cone - tiramisu, pistacchio, and amaretto. It was delicioso! Johnny got some fruity stuff, raspberry we think, and I can't remember what else. The five of us sat in the square and listened to another concert going on around the corner with cover songs as well. The weather was perfect. We headed home around 10. And now, here I am.

Tomorrow, we have class again at 4:45. Boo that. Sometimes I forget I'm here as a part of an academic exercise. It is quite inconvenient.

Ciao.

The Things We Do

2009-06-16T08:40:00.004-07:00

Sorry for the short hiatus. We had a couple of lazy days, and I didn't want to just write a blog about how we are in Florence doing absolutely nothing. But I don't want to disappoint, so here we go.

Internet
The landlord finally came by to check out our internet. She had claimed adamantly that there was no way it was password protected, and she was clearly annoyed at having to come by on her lunch break. On a side note, I would expect "I'll come by during lunch break" to mean sometime around noon or shortly thereafter. It turns out that, although we were home and waiting for her, her lunch break didn't really get her here until about 2pm.

When we first got here, we had working internet on the network "Libero." It was not password protected, and when she asked us if it was working, we said it was. I pointed out that I thought it was not the right network, and that the one in this apartment was protected. The router says "Infostrada" on it, and the network that was showing up with the strongest signal was called, coincidentally, "Infostrada," and was password protected. She brushed it off and said there was no password and that we were good to go. So, with that back story in mind, here is what happened.

She came over, after some texts on Sunday in which she reaffirmed that there was no password, on Monday. After the texts seemed insufficient, I sent her an email proving that the network was protected. I had simply unplugged the router and we still had working internet. The Infostrada network was gone.

She got here, quickly made this same discovery, and quickly became annoyed. After about 30 minutes of rapid Italian on the phone, she packed up the router, said she'd get it fixed, and left. Turns out, she had set up the network herself, she should have known its name, and by leaving it unprotected, she left it open for anyone who wanted to to protect it his or herself. No admission that we were right and she was wrong, no apology for the rudeness of how she approached the problem. Such is the Italian life.

More Interesting Stuff
Monday was a relatively lazy day. We made some eggs. There was a plan to go see the statue of David, but we didn't make it. We didn't make it again today, actually, but we will. Maybe tomorrow before class.

We met all the French students for dinner at Kitsch, this time arriving early enough to get a table. This place is phenomenal. For 7 Euro, you can get an all you can eat buffet. And this isn't your typical Ryan's, or OCB, or anything like that. The spread was extensive. Everything looked like a home cooked meal, and tasted like one, too. That's no easy task in the modern world of mass-produced restaurant sludge that most buffets offer. I didn't know what half of the choices were, but I filled my plate with some of everything, literally. There was a dip that tasted like spinach and artichoke, but with brussel sprouts in it (good), and another dip that was cream cheese with truffle oil (not as good). There were rices, barley, fresh pizza slices with prosciutto and/or mozzarella. There was even a dish with sliced up hot dogs. One thing appeared to be Thanksgiving day bread stuffing. There was steamed broccoli, grilled eggplant, zucchini, and red peppers. There was penne pasta with red sauce. They had risotto in a creamy concoction. Fresh bread, both white and wheat. Cous cous with veggies mixed in. Grilled chicken cutlets that looked really dry but somehow tasted phenomenal. There were home fries (small cubes of fried potatoes).

For one additional Euro, you could get one of any drink on the menu. Johnny and I both went for Long Island Iced Teas. When getting a deal, always make the most of it. As the saying goes, "When in Rome."

So the food was spectacular. It was, hands down, the best buffet of all time.

After dinner, we went to the Israelis' apartment to hang out. Their place is very swanky. It has a huge balcony overlooking the city (6th floor). At one end is a spiral staircase leading up to a second tier of the balcony (7th floor). At the far end of that is a painter's ladder leading up to the roof (roof). We hung out up there for awhile, but the hosts were nervous having people on the roof so they asked us down.

As it got later, we got the idea to stay up there until the sunrise to see it ascend over the city. Seemed like a great idea, but no one realized the hosts weren't too keen on it until they politely asked us to leave about 20 minutes before the sun was scheduled to come up. This was not convenient. So we hustled out and walked to the river to see it rise from there instead. It was no rooftop view, but it was pretty spectacular.

Another lazy day today. We are about to go to the Asia Market down the street because I am craving Chinese food. Stir fry tonight.

Ciao.

Siena +

2009-06-14T13:42:00.004-07:00

+
The buffet was not meant to be. We arrived there too late. Apparently, buffets in Italy mean you arrive, you sit down, and you don't leave until you are forced out the door at closing time. So if you don't arrive early, you are out of luck.

Instead, we walked around for a little while (we had a group of 11, so any restaurant on a Saturday night at 8:30 was going to be difficult, especially with how small most restaurants here are). After awhile, we located a spot that the French guide book recommended very highly. The girls all wanted pizza and the guys were too hungry to care what we ate.

They sat us in what was probably a dungeon at one point: down several stairs, through some hallways, and into a back room with one small door in and out, a cavernous ceiling, and torch fixtures scattered throughout the stone walls. We were the only ones in the room, yet the service was abysmal. I've mentioned before, this country is not service-oriented. They don't get tipped, so they don't particularly care how good of a job they do. The fact that we were a mixed group of French and American students certainly didn't help our cause. Johnny and I got a bottle of Sangiovese (they were out of the Santa Cristina Antinori we requested)--pictured above--and an appetizer of prosciutto e melone (same as before, canteloupe and cured ham). It was, again, delicious. I ordered spaghetti carbonara, which I have recently learned may be the most basic of basic European dishes, available anywhere and everywhere (not just Italy). It is not all that common in the States, though, so I'll take it where it's cheap! Johnny got a huge calzone, and most of the French got pizzas or calzones. The waiter was very slow to get anything done, and when he did finally bring the food, Johnny got the wrong calzone. We didn't discover this until one of the other servers came with another calzone to investigate.

As luck would have it, the one we had was already partially eaten, so they were just going to throw it away. True to my nature, I swooped in and managed to keep it, language barrier and all! It was delicious - ham and mozzarella. And it ended up being the perfect amount of food.

After dinner, all but five of us went home to call it a night. Remaining were myself, Johnny, Jean, Florian, and Claire. If you (French students) are reading this, I apologize for having to make this clarification, but Jean and Florian are guys. We went to a nearby piazza and hung out on some steps. The place was packed, but we had a good time. It's very interesting learning about their culture, language, and experiences, and getting their perspectives on America and its culture, language, and experiences. We are gaining all sorts of worldly knowledge outside of the classroom, making this trip a success already in my eyes.

We arrived home to discover that we had no internet. Tragedy!

Siena
We awoke to discover, still no internet. Worse tragedy! This meant we couldn't coordinate our trip to Siena with the French students. We were, of course, late, and our tardiness was expounded by the fact that they decided to meet earlier. They sent us Facebook messages to inform us of the change in plans, but of course we had no way of knowing. We had managed to avoid phone use up until today, but today it became a necessity.

We got to the train station around 9:15 and found out they had left on the 9:10 bus. We had no idea where to catch the bus. And everyone we asked pointed in a different direction and gave us different misinformation. Finally, after a dead sprint to the real bus station at 10 o'clock to catch the 10:10 bus to Siena, we could relax. It turns out the bus station is not actually in the train station, as we were told it was. It is around the corner. But we made it, we got round trip tickets, and we got seats on the bus.

Quick Note: Thus far, we have ridden on at least five buses and at least six to eight trains, and have only had our tickets checked once. I point this out only because it is bringing us dangerously close to temptation.

Anyhow, we arrived in Siena about an hour and a half later. For any novice who wishes to travel through Italy, remember this little tidbit: "diretta" does NOT mean direct. If you want a "direct" bus, take the express. The group, expecting our arrival, had waited for us at the Piazza di Camp. This was a huuuge, open square with an enormous church at its base. The square sloped down towards it with nine sections patterned into the stone ground, representing the nine districts of Italy that existed at the time (if I understood the French explanation correctly).

Siena is advertised as a medieval town, which didn't really mean anything to me until I got there. It is pretty amazing though...incroyable, as the French would say. Every building looked like part of a castle. The Duomo here was not as impressive as the one in Florence, but still pretty humbling. Especially on the inside (we have yet to enter the Florence Duomo, but it is on the agenda).

We grabbed lunch at a crappy little ristorante. The food was overpriced, there was very little meat on the sandwiches, and they forgot two of our dishes. I think we need to find some locals to show us the ropes on how to choose a restaurant, how to order, and what not to do. It was extremely hot today--the French kept mumbling 'chaud'--so we got some ice cream (gelato) as well. Their guide book (Le Guide) recommended a gelateria, 'best in the world' of course, so we headed in that direction. While I'm hesitant to conclude that any gelato is different from any other, this place was probably better than the gelato we had in Rome near the Pantheon. I got a three flavor mix in a cup: mascarpone e nutella, stracciatella, and extra fondente (dark fudge, as far as I could tell). It hit the spot in a way I can't describe.

After some more wandering, we found ourselves ascending to the upper heights of Siena where we were graced with some pretty incredible views of the city.

Further on, we found a park with a small pond full of pigeons, ducks, and a pair of swans. Two women were feeding the swans ice cream, which I imagine is not too good for them. We rested in the shade as a few people in the group went to look at the Palace di Medici (had I understood the French when they announced that plan, I would have accompanied them, but such is life).

We boarded the return bus, the express this time, a little after five and bunkered up for the hour long ride home.

+
Johnny and I stopped for some groceries at our usual market on Santa Monaco (Monica?) to make dinner. We got some more eggs, chicken, pasta sauce, and olive oil. Our first meal to include protein (other than eggs) was a success. It was Johnny's first time cooking chicken in a frying pan. I was tending to the internet problems. I meant to show him how to use the oil and everything to grease the pan, but I forgot. He ended up coming as close to deep frying the chicken as you can without actually using a deep frier. It was delicious! We made spaghetti with chicken, toasted some bread and buttered it, and finished off the last of our jug of red wine. We are again living in a dry house.

No one made plans for tonight, so we are staying in and getting rested up for the new week.

Unrelated Author's Note: Melissa did most of my packing for me while I 'supervised' and hung out with my Grandmother a little (she was staying at my Mom's house, but my Mom had an executive seminar to lead and so she was alone for the evening). She did a remarkable job, but in my usual distracted mode before any big event, I didn't listen to all of her careful instructions as to where to find all my stuff. I just today found a secret pocket full of goodies that I had, up to this point, been missing. The sad part is, these 'goodies' were four pairs of boxers. The happy part is, I'm overly excited because it means I have four more days to go before needing to do laundry!

Piazzale Michelangelo

2009-06-13T10:27:00.006-07:00

This area comes highly recommended by just about everyone who has been to Florence. It's on top of a hill just south of the Arno and east of the Duomo. It offers the best view of the city of Florence. I don't have a whole lot to say about it that pictures won't tell, so I won't waste your time with filler here.

Other than that, we met up with the French girls/guy and walked around a street market for a little while. Then, we lost all but one of them in the crowds, then found one more with her Italian friend, and we trekked down to the Piazzale. This square, like countless other spots in Florence--and Italy for that matter--centers around a reproduction of Michelangelo's David. This statue is everywhere. I'd like to see the original, though I'll admit I don't know where it is kept at the moment. I'm guessing the Louvre, but that is an entirely uneducated guess. There's even a chance it is in DC. Two minutes of research could save me the embarrassment of letting everyone read this, but that just wouldn't be my style.
The important thing is that the view from the Piazzale is unparalleled (any of you VT people reading this--Will--you could say it is "Nonpareil"). We plan to return for a sunrise or a sunset at least once for some quality photo-ops. Until then, enjoy the photos from the hottest day we have had thus far.

We paused at a fountain half way up the hill to dip our feet in and cool off.

Claire and Solene are two of the French students: very nice girls.

Along the way, we got some nice shots of the Arno, although the river itself is probably the single filthiest body of water I have ever seen, with the only possible exception being the stagnant puddles of water that result from the melting of huge piles of plowed snow in mall parking lots that have turned jet black from car exhaust.

We are off to eat dinner at a buffet, if we can find it, where we are told you pay 8 Euro (about $11) for an all you can eat experience that includes drinks. I'm so excited at the prospect that I can barely contain myself. Here's to hoping it is delicious.

Ciao.

Thoughts on Italy: An Introduction

2009-06-13T03:24:00.004-07:00

There have been so many glaring differences on this trip in culture and tradition, it has been a bit difficult to adjust.

It seems that everywhere we go, people are resentful of us. They try to take advantage of us with all sorts of added charges, hidden fees, lies, and false amenities. Of course I'm exaggerating, but it isn't completely untrue. Americans are not popular here in the normal sense of the term - they love us because they can shake us down without a second thought and make some extra money. We had restaurants throw costs on the bill out of nowhere that they wouldn't explain. "Cover charges" everywhere. My friends said they got a 30 Euro cover charge at a decent restaurant, which is absolutely absurd. A cab driver tried to charge us an extra Euro for each of our bags and for each person (just Johnny and myself) on top of the meter charge. Another cabbie charged us double the expected rate when we couldn't see the meter.

On the plus side, Rome and Florence are such user-friendly cities, it makes me wonder why I love small towns so much. The concept of being able to walk everywhere is so liberating. There are little sandwich shops and cafes on every corner that sell paninis, pizza, beer and wine, among other things, for extremely cheap. We frequent these. Bars stay open very late. There are taxis, buses, and trains everywhere that don't cost too much. We are going to take a round trip to Pisa next weekend most likely that will only cost 11 Euro (about $15 or $16). There are markets scattered throughout the cities as well, selling all sorts of fresh produce--fruit and veggies--for very little money. ATMs and water fountains are scattered throughout the city (moreso in Rome than in Florence).

The restaurants, so far, have not been as nice as I expected. Probably as much to do, if not more, with our inability to find the good restaurants as with an actual lack of quality restaurants. But we are both craving huge steaks and In n Out burgers in a bad way. The portions are small, and while it may be weaning me off of my gluttony, it is leaving me hungry all the time.

The nightlife has been completely up to par. To answer everyone's question, you don't really tip out here. The tip cost is almost always worked into the check. If you get exceptional service, it is normal to leave an extra Euro or two. Bars are open late and full of people every night of the week. Unfortunately, it's mostly Americans filling them. But business is business.

The sense of history here is pretty astounding. Everything is so old and tattered, but in a way that makes it beautiful. Crossing the Arno last night with all the lights from the city shining, we enjoyed a phenomenal view. But it is really nothing more than old row-houses spanning each bank of the river. It's almost the equivalent to project housing being pretty, but it is undeniable. The lack of grass is a little tough to get used to (for me at least: prior to Tempe, the largest city I had ever lived in was Annapolis, at about 50,000 people). I do love all the terraces and widows walks (as we call them in the states; think rooftop patios). The number of churches and museums and cathedrals is pretty impressive, too. For how small all the cars and the streets and the sidewalks are here, you forget Rome has 5 million people, and Florence has about 370,000. Add in the number of tourists at any given moment and who knows how high those numbers jump.

When I started this entry, I thought I would have a lot more to say! As things come to me, I will throw them into supplemental posts. Just trying to help everyone get a feel for what it's like to be here. Until then, salut.

News and Gaffes from Florence

2009-06-12T05:30:00.004-07:00

Thursday
Pretty uneventful day. No one was going out from our class, so we made our own fun. We had hoped to watch Game 4 of the NBA finals, but it wasn't airing until 3am here, so we changed our plans.

We forgot to eat dinner, minus some pizza from a little spot around the corner from Monash during our break (they sell pizza by weight there, cut to order), which explains the detrimental effects of the wine we had now that I think about it.

We went back to the same Irish pub hoping to make some friends. We are on the fence, trying to decide whether we would rather hang out with Americans, where there would be no problem communicating, or Italians, who would be able to take us around to all the great spots and show us a better time, while struggling to communicate. It's the age-old dilemma. For this night, we opted to American. We met a group of people and went to a club with them. That lasted about 20 minutes before the princess of the group suddenly decided everyone had to go home. We walked home ourselves.

Friday
I awoke to our door buzzing. Someone was coming up. Turns out it was the guy who had let us in on Monday and another older gentleman (picture the most typical old, Italian man you can, then put a scooter helmet in his hand). He was dropping off a huge bag of blankets and sheets for us. No idea why he thought we needed so many, but it was a nice gesture. He also fixed my shower so it no longer leaks (read: wastes us tons of money on utilities).

I have been searching for things to do with our long weekend, now that Paris is out of the picture. If we had another day, we would consider a trek from Florence to Siena, which looks absolutely incredible. Five days walking through ancient Italy. We would have to skip a class or two if we wanted to do it, and that is assuming we could plan it last minute and leave today. Not meant to be, unfortunately. Some of the people in our class are talking about going to Siena on Sunday, which is a medieval town full of castles and the like. For now, that is the plan. I'm sure we can/will find something else interesting for a day trip tomorrow.

For breakfast, we made eggs again. No one out here appears to believe in spiciness. We tried saute-ing those hot peppers into the butter we used to grease the pan. Two things went wrong, hence today's title (gaffes). One, as Johnny was stirring the peppers around in the butter, the pan took a leap off of the burner and hit the deck, sending boiling butter and red peppers everywhere. No injuries. The second gaffe materialized a little later. We both started sneezing and getting really runny noses out of nowhere. All of a sudden we realized that, in trying to infuse the butter with some spicy peppers, we actually created homemade pepper spray and let the steam diffuse it throughout our dining room. We were almost teary-eyed when we realized what we had done.

We made it through, and the eggs ended up being pretty delicious, though still not spicy. We might have to spring for the 4 Euro bottle of Tabasco after all.

We expect to meet up with some classmates tonight in Central Park (I think that's what the area is called, but it was the French who told us about it and they were unsure of the name...in any language).

Ciao.

Report from Italy

2009-06-11T02:47:00.005-07:00

I may be a little less organized in this post, as it has been a little while. I will try to include everything that we have been doing. When I left you last, we had just taken our run I believe.

Tuesday: Prato
Tuesday was our last day before class started, so we decided to head up to Prato where the University is and find our way around. We weren't sure what to expect from Prato, as all the kids who studied with this program last year from ASU told us it was a dump and you shouldn't stay there. We walked to the train station (about 15 minutes, but it's a nice walk) and purchased month long travel cards for the train. They were 34 Euro, but a round trip ticket would have been 3,80 Euro, and we have more than 10 class sessions, so it was well worth the money (and the convenience factor).

We quickly found our train--getting much better at figuring out the schedule at the station--and climbed aboard. It was already waiting in the station when we got there. Strange side note: when we arrived at the train station, there were camera crews everywhere. They were filming either an Italian TV show (the acting quality would indicate a soap) or a low-rate Italian movie in the station. They did two takes while I was standing there of a girl walking in from a cab with an older woman. Kind of neat.

And the train is off. On the way up to Prato, the ride is only about 15 minutes. We arrive in Prato and begin walking. For whatever reason, I thought I would remember the exact route from looking at a rudimentary PDF map online of central Prato. Turns out I would not remember the exact route. But our wrong turns (in fact, these were the first wrong turns we have taken since we arrived in Italy, which is pretty impressive I think) took us on a very interesting adventure.

The city is a strange mix of quaint old buildings and newer office buildings. It's considered an industrial town, but we didn't get that feeling. The backdrop, when we could see through the buildings, was set against rolling green hills.

We reached a large stone wall with a 'doorway' for cars to pass through to a bridge and walked through. The river, as all rivers here, was quite filthy. It made Spa Creek look drinkable. There were two guys fishing on the west bank, and a bike path ran along the east bank. We took little note of anything else.

Continuing across the bridge, we began asking people for directions. We had the feeling we had gone too far; this area was almost entirely residential. No one seemed to know where the University was. We turned around to try to retrace our steps to a tourist information kiosk. That's when I saw it. I have an affinity for spotting wildlife, and today was no different. As I gazed over the bridge again, I saw a flock of ducks stirring in the water. Then I saw an otter swimming in front of them. But then I had second thoughts. This might have been a small dog, albeit a mangy one. Then I saw the tail, trailing behind it. And I am convinced that it was a rat. We are still debating this, and minimal efforts at research have produced nothing conclusive. The head and face are somewhat otterish, but the tail is without a doubt rattish.

The only possible explanation is that we discovered the first "Ratter."

Pressing on, we kept asking people where the school was, and most people seemed never to have heard of it. Our final request was to two girls, who vaguely waved their arms and said they didn't know. As they walked away, we rotated about 90 degrees to our right and saw a huge "Monash University" banner hanging over a large doorway. Thank you, ladies.

Inside, the building is kind of a confusing maze. We walked through every hallway trying to figure out how to find our classroom, our text book, where to register, etc. Everyone we asked had a different answer. Eventually, we knocked on the door of an office marked 'administrative' and talked to a woman there with a heavy Australian lilt. She informed us that (1) there was no registration, (2) we could purchase the book from her, but that it was 190 Euro, and she did not expect anyone to buy one, (3) that our professor created to law program here, but is the most relaxed professor in the world. All good news. She also told us where our classroom would be and sent us on our way. Satisfied, we began the confusing trek back to the train station. This time, we walked pretty much due north and made it without much trouble.

The train ride home was much longer, stopping twice as many times. We had a strange group of kids sitting on our car this time around. They were all dressed in suits and dresses. There was a painfully blatant clique-y-ness to them (I say painfully because it was clear that two of the guys in the group had not yet made a friend during their travels). They appeared to be studying music abroad. We actually saw them later on in Florence at a musical performance near our flat that was put on by the University of Michigan.

Back in Florence, we decided to take our first trip to the market. Our American landlord had shown us where to find a decent one, so we went in that direction. We found it, and we found it to be small and somewhat pricey. We hope to find a real super market at some point very soon. We got some basic foods - eggs, fake butter, spaghetti and tomato sauce, cereal, jugs of wine, and I got shampoo because I did not bring any (not as dumb as it sounds, I was dutifully advised not to to save weight/space in my bags because I could buy it here). Lunch meats don't appear to be in the same category here. First, we have yet to see turkey anywhere. Second, it is sold in packs of three or four slices for about 4 Euro ($1.40=1 Euro). We got peanut butter and jelly and some bread.

From there, we walked home (I wish I had a pedometer out here to see how far we have walked so far) and put away groceries. Exhausted, we both took naps and then had spaghetti for dinner. Johnny has turned out to be quite the home body, as he cooked and cleaned happily. The spaghetti was very basic. We didn't get anything really to add to it - spices or vegetables - so it was just noodles and sauce. But it tasted fine, and we got into the 3 gallon jug of white wine that cost next to nothing. We decided to stay in and save money. And that was about the end of that.

Wednesday
We had not yet done any walking around in Florence, so before our 4:45 class, we decided to tour the area a little. We did not rush to get going, ended up leaving the house a little after 11. Johnny made eggs with spinach (forgot to mention we got spinach) and I toasted some bread. The eggs were really good, and I complemented them with toast and blueberry jelly. We found 'peperoncinos' in the cabinet and Johnny threw some on his eggs after cooking them. If you have ever had General Tso's Chicken, you will recognize these as the dried red spicy peppers that is often cooked into stir fry. Generally not to be eaten straight. He learned his lesson.

So we hit the old dusty trail to central Florence. We saw the Ponte Vecchio (Ponte = "bridge"), which seems to be little more than a tourist trap. It is pretty--and famous--but it is covered with people, jewelry shops, tee-shirt shops, street vendors, etc. We wound our way through town to the Duomo, which is actually called the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore. It was designed by Arnolfo di Cambio, but it took about 200 years to complete. Brunelleschi designed the dome, which is the second largest in Italy behind the Pantheon (which I think is second largest in the world behind the Superdome). The Duomo is the largest brick dome in the world. The outer facade is built with green and white marble in a Gothic Revivalist style.

From there, we went to the building that is thought to have been Leonardo da Vinci's workshop, though it is now a church. There was service in progress when we went in to the lobby, and nowhere really to go once inside, so we left disappointed. We saw several piazzas and wandered through a street market where tons of vendors were peddling all sorts of things, from leather jackets to shirts to souvenirs, hats, belts, shoes, paintings, you name it.

With little knowledge of what to do in Florence (next time we will bring our guide book, courtesy of Barb and Jonathan, to make sure we are hitting the right spots), we headed home to eat lunch and get ready for the first day of school.

Lunch was uneventful. We had PB & J, got showered up, and headed to the train station a little late. It was a 15 minute walk again, but we found a more direct route. We arrived at 3:45, but our train didn't leave until 4:08, which was pushing it. We waited, both reading our respective copies of Angels and Demons (can't remember if I mentioned this, but we both bought this book to read on this trip without discussing it). The train arrived at Prato Centrale at 4:30, giving us 15 minutes to find our way to the school and be in our seats.

We headed straight to where we hoped the school was at a decently quick walking pace. Somehow, despite taking the least direct route the previous day, we made a beeline for the school and didn't make a single wrong turn. Instincts are impressive. We sat down in our chairs (back of the classroom) at 4:44. The professor arrived around 4:55. Oh well.

Our professor, Judd Epstein, seems like a very cool guy. He is originally from California, went to Stanford, but has been living and teaching abroad for 30-some years. The other professor is from the University of Paris (I think that's the name, but whatever it is called it's a university in Paris). His name is Christophe but I didn't catch his last name, though he gave it to us in three languages. He has a heavy accent, while Epstein, despite being somewhat Australian, does not.

Our class has about 10-15 Australians, 5-6 Israelis, 8-10 French, a couple Canadians, and two Americans--that would be yours truly.

The course is called international commercial arbitration, and we spent the entire first day discussing what exactly that means. Pretty basic stuff. International, meaning that it involves parties from different nations, parties of the same nation with the subject matter in a different nation, parties of the same nation who agree to govern their contract under international law, or other variations of those scenarios. Commercial means what it sounds like, involving the exchange of goods and services. And arbitration itself involves an unbiased third party hearing both sides and making a decision that is binding and not subject to appeals. Should be interesting. We're looking forward to learning more, though we are not particularly happy about the reading load. But it is class, what can you do.

Class got out early so that we could go to orientation and meet all the students and faculty. They had wine, 'champagne' (in quotes because it was not French, much to the dismay of the Parisians), beer, and some cheese and fruit and crostinis, as well as some bulk sandwiches that were not good at all.

Many of the students already know one another from other classes here or from their native lands. We sat down with a couple of the French girls (they were the only ones not sitting in a huge group) and were shortly thereafter joined by maybe seven Parisians. Their English is good, but not great. My French is experiencing a resurrection. It has been 8 years or so since I spoke any French, but I am remembering far more than I expected to. I can't understand their rapid tongues though.

After orientation, a group of about 20 of us headed to Florence and went to an Irish pub that seemed very Americanized. It was full of American students, one of whom was from Ellicott City and went to Spalding. I can't remember her name, but we knew one or two of the same people.

The bar was very cool, but a little pricey. We kept our drinks to a minimum and just got to know everyone. The Israeli guys were very cool. We didn't talk much with the Australians. The French girls are cool as well. It looks like we should have a pretty solid group in our class. Everyone we spoke with was at least 21 or 22, so our fears of a class full of 18-year-olds have been quashed.

Thursday
Nothing to report today. We have class at 4:45 again. We were hoping to go to Paris this weekend for our one big trip, but it looks like the cheapest round trip ticket (flight or train) is about 300 Euro at such short notice. That is very unfortunate. But we will figure something out. I guess we will stick to travels within Italy.

Ciao.

Benvenuto a Firenze

2009-06-09T01:52:00.004-07:00

Our view as we first set foot in Florence - note the tip of the Duomo in the background. I keep mentioning the Duomo, but I admit I don't really know what it is. Some sort of church at one point, I'm sure.

Our trip has had its first hang up, unfortunately. Despite our best efforts, our ATM cards have a somewhat low maximum daily limit (we were not aware of this) on international withdrawals. So we were unable to pay the full cost of the apartment.

Rather than pay a cabbie, we chose to walk (with luggage) to our apartment. This would be a beautiful walk if I didn't have about 70 lbs. of bags. But we made it easily enough, just a little drenched in sweat.

We had to sit for about 2 hours at the apartment (someone was here to let us in, but he spoke no English and promptly left) waiting for the landlord to show up to explain our problem, fearing that she may send us to a hostel until we had the money. Fortunately, they expected this, and they were prepared.

The landlord has an American associate who handled all the negotiating, etc. She brought us some apples, breakfast cookies, coffee, toilet paper, and cleaning supplies. For some reason, she thought we were girls so she decked the place out in girly colors and left feminine products out for us. Whoops.

But, we have a home! I will get pictures at some point. It has been a little hectic since we arrived. We had a ridiculous ordeal with a not-quite-local while trying to find a place to eat dinner. A random girl on the street was offering advice to an American couple walking ahead of us in English, so we listened and then asked her for a good place to eat dinner for not too much money. She seemed a bit overly excited and took us around the corner, promising to introduce us to the owners of a small, non-touristy restaurant. We should have been a little on guard at this point, but our naive tourist minds are not quite attuned to the local customs.

The place was in the Piazza del Carmine, and I believe it was called Trattorio.

She strikes up a pretty flirty conversation with all of the Italian men working and they all seem to know her. She had claimed that she went to this place every day (in the first of many contradictions that came out of her mouth, she later claimed that she had eaten here only once, but that she often came down to open wine...no idea what that means). So we expect that the interaction is over and that she will be on her way. She says she has to go pack for Amsterdam and that she will come back and join us for a drink. We assumed she was being cordial with empty 'promises.' We were so wrong.

We order. I got Penne al Tonno Fresco (penne with fresh tuna) that was good, but not great. The tuna was a little fishy. Johnny tried to get (this will not be spelled right, but I have never heard of this kind of pasta) Tragglieteri (I think that's close) al Salmone. They were out of salmon, so he got it with the same fresh tuna. They brought us some bread but no oils or anything to dip it in. We also got a bottle of Antinori's Santa Cristina Merlot (cheapest bottle on the menu, but Antinori is pretty well respected in America at least, maybe not so much in Italy).

Just as we finish up, wouldn't you know it, Angela shows up. She gets a grappa and we sit and chat. I can't do justice to the conversations we were having, but she was clearly not entirely right in the head. She talked about her mother passing, the several properties she inherited around the world (in LA, San Diego, NYC, maybe in Florence and Amsterdam and Bulgaria), her two brothers both named Pete, her stint at NYU and subsequent graduate work at USD (San Diego, whom she thought were the Trojans--in fact, they are the Torros), her many worldly travels, and then repeat.

So, we finally pay the check. We aren't sure, but we think we got hosed a little on the check. It is very difficult to tell out here what is a valid charge, and what is what can best be considered an "American tax," or "scam." But we think we paid for her grappa. She argued that she should pay. We declined, trying to thank her for helping us find a good place. She insisted, we declined again. Then the server came over and said that it was on him anyhow. We were confused.

So she promised to buy the next round. A round we did not realize we would be sharing with her. We walked around the corner to a sort of club bar and she went up to order drinks. Johnny went to the bathroom. She asked if we would like Mojitos, which of course we would. Then she kept telling me to go look at the moon, almost ordering me to go. So if none of the other chatter had raised my red flags, this finally did it. I thought we were about to get rufied. So I walk a few steps away, pretend to look outside, then hover just outside of her sight range and watch her. She keeps yelling to the bartender in Italian to make the drinks extra strong for her American friends.

Johnny came back, and I tried to warn him of what was going on, but then she walked over and with a sheepish scowl, she said she only had 10 Euro for a 24 Euro check. Typical.

But we stayed and chatted through the drinks. It became more and more clear to us that she was on some sort of pharmaceuticals. We were trying to figure a way out of the bar when all of a sudden she up and left. And that was that.

The Mojitos were pretty good. No pictures yet from Florence. That was the end of our night, though. We walked over to the Piazza Santo Spirito to check it out, then went home.

The Following Morning
Without putting too much thought into it, we decided it would be a good idea to start going for morning jogs. As I'm sure you are doing as you read, we thought it would be a great way to see the city, get some exercise, maybe not so much fresh air with all the cars and cigarettes. What we failed to realize ahead of time, and what you may also have failed to realize thus far, is that these streets, they are narrow. We were dodging vespahs, bicycles, pedestrians, cars, cats, armed guards, garbage bins, and more.

I use 'dodging' lightly here, because we weren't always lucky enough to have time to dodge. As we were coming up a narrow sidewalk, there was a man sitting on a scooter talking apparently to someone in the doorway who we couldn't see. As luck would have it, right as Johnny got up to this man, he discovered that the gentleman he was talking to was a glass worker, and he was at that very moment, handing over a glass tile he had cut for the guy on the scooter. It shattered everywhere. Johnny got a little knicked up on his arm. Scooter guy at first seemed angry, then was apologetic and concerned for the cuts on Johnny's arm. We slowed the pace significantly after that, and tried to press on. We thought we would run in the Giardino di Boboli, as it would not have cars. Instead of cars, though, it has guards at the gate who don't appear until you have walked through illegally. Another failure.

We jogged around a little more before finally giving up in frustration and returning home.

We both unpacked and are now slowly getting around to heading in to Prato to explore, make sure we can find the campus, hopefully get a month long travel pass so that we don't have to pay 2 Euro every day for the train. Fingers crossed.

Ciao.

Roma: Citta del Vaticano

2009-06-08T16:27:00.008-07:00

Our final day in room was worth the wait, though slightly rushed. We had made loose plans to arrive in Firenze around 6 or 7, which meant our landlord et al were expecting us around that time. But we never heard back from them to confirm, so we were operating as if that was the confirmed plan. Adventure ensues.

The agenda for today included a trek to Vatican City. This was day 2 without an Italian speaking guide. Moreso, this was day 1 without an enormously detailed map leading us on every step. We were forced--meaning, Paule decided it would be more productive for her to go to work than it would be for her to show us around a bit more--to find our way to the bus station, navigate the schedule that probably confuses the locals almost as much as the tourists, and find our way to Piazza St. Pietro entirely on our own.

But first things first, we needed breakfast. We decided to revisit our old haunt, and this time, I got a picture. The Gelateria Bar.

We had less trouble communicating this time. It was the same staff, they appeared to recognize us (if not our faces, at least our touristy-ness), and our Italian was a day more advanced. I may have mentioned before that Italians don't really do breakfast as we Americans understand it. There are no bacon and egg platters, no sausage, no biscuits or muffins. They have coffee--espresso, macchiatte (spell check), latte--and breakfast cookies. In a bit of foreshadowing, I will tell you our current landlord subscribes to this practice. So we got 'croissants,' which were hardly croissants in the French sense of the word. Sure, they were flaky, tasty, baked goods. But there was something missing, a certain...je ne sais quoi. These were more...croissantis - Italian croissants. Mine was filled with Nutella, which was a pleasant surprise as I expected chocolate (cioccolati?). Johnny's had what looked like Boston creme in it. He ordered what he thought was a coffee to go, but which turned out to be a tiny espresso to stay. We ate quickly and marched onward to the Marmorata bus hub. Our goal was to find Bus 23 to St. Pietro. Success! The bus was beyond crowded, but nothing was stolen.

As we wound our way through the city streets, the bus became exponentially hotter, mustier, and more full of Italian human odor. Not that I'm complaining, it is part of the experience. We took a wild guess on where to get off the bus, and were pretty close to our destination. We got off near the Castel Sant Angelos (Angel Castle) and hoofed it the rest of the way to Vatican City. We ignored our map and followed the crowd of like-minded tourists wearing baggier clothes, backpacks, and cameras around their necks. Here, we assimilated. Yet we were still approached countless times by locals offering English tours (sign #1 that we stuck out as Americans from afar).

As we reached the entrance, we discovered that we were coming in to the Vatican from the museum side (Musei Vaticani).

We also discovered that girly men in bathing suits are not allowed.

This was not what we wanted. By not wanted, I mean we wanted it, but did not have the time, nor did we want to spend the money. We went inside anyhow, and Johnny was berated by the gentlemen at the bag check counter. We got help from the extremely friendly Information lady and promptly left on our way to St. Pietro. The same bag check men, who had rudely chucked Johnny's bag onto a bag cart directly behind their seats, refused to accept his claim ticket.

Bag Check: (stern look)
Johnny: (hands them ticket)
BC: "Non."
Johnny: "What?"
BC: "You cannot have it."
Johnny: "What?"
BC: "Non. Go around." (motions for us to go through the museum and come out at the exit after the guided tours)
Me: "His bag is right there." (points at bag)
BC: "Non."
Johnny: "We're leaving. How else am I supposed to get it?"
BC: (picks up phone, speaks Italian)
Us: (confused)
BC: (grabs bag and tosses it at Johnny)
Us: (exit stage right) "Assholes."

Information lady said to hug the Vatican wall and continue to turn right until we were at the square. Easy enough. As we walked, we were approached by many of the same tour guides. We also saw some intriguing architecture (see below).

Johnny decided he was fed up with all of the prejudging tour guides who automatically assumed we wanted their help. They were almost insulting. So he decided to ready his camera and take pictures of everyone who approached us. This was much more hilarious than we ever could have imagined. As a backstory, there are people all over the place here who dress peculiarly (as a sarcophagus, as the Statue of Liberty, as Roman Gladiators) who expect you to take snap shots with them and then pay them 5 Euro (to the locals, it's actually Euro 5). The first guy, when he caught on, laughed and--despite having perfect English--talked with a thick, fake Italian accent saying "Yah, photo, 5 Euro, come on!" We pressed on, pleased with result, and the quality photograph that came of it. The next girl was actually decently attractive, and when Johnny raised the camera, she freaked out. She quickly threw her hands in front of her face and turned away. "No way," she stated, quite frankly and sternly. This is not particularly funny in the retelling, but I promise it had us laughing for the rest of the walk to the square. The icing on the cake was the cooky little old Asian lady peddling the same guided tours laughing hysterically at us trying to take the other girl's picture. Mission: accomplished.

As we entered the square, I was astonished. It is a pretty spectacular piece of architecture. Breathtaking, really. All I can really do is post the pictures. For better descriptions and titles and interesting tidbits, go to my flickr page.

There are two circles on the ground of the piazza worth noting. On each one, if you stand and look out at the pillars that surround the square (which is actually more of a circle), each of the columns align perfectly. There are also circles that denote the changing of the seasons. At high noon on the day when the season changes, the shadow of the cross on top of the obelisk in the center of the piazza hits dead center on the circles. That was a terrible run-on sentence, I'm afraid. Forgive me.

We hung around for awhile, absorbing the magnitude of the construction, then left for the Castel Sant Angelos. This sounds very romantic and endearing, but it is actually really ugly. The bridge that leads into the castle is quite beautiful, though.

From here, we eventually made our way to another bus station. It was a little more difficult here, but we found our way. We shared the bus with a group of belligerent locals who appeared to offend every woman seated within ear shot of them. They were singing and jeering, though we have no idea what they were saying.

We got home, got showered, and got organized on the train situation to Florence. We took a 3:30 fast train. If ever you are in Italy, I highly recommend a journey by train. The Italian countryside is nothing short of spectacular. Within a stone's throw of each other, you will find thatched-roof homes, old brick ruins of (apparent) farmhouses, and starter castles in the hills. Farmers and shepherds tended to their fields and flocks. Rolling hills contrast with the backdrop of rocky mountains.

The authorities on the train were nice enough to wait until just after I fell asleep to check for tickets. I was woken up with a fright. But I actually had a ticket, so there was no real scare. I got about 70 pages into Angels and Demons, which is already quite interesting. I am looking forward to learning more of the mysteries of Rome as I read (whenever I find the time).

This completes our journey to and through Rome. I'm sure I left out all sorts of things, but it is too late right now to do a summary of my thoughts. I promise that will come soon.

For now, I have to sleep. Tomorrow holds a long list of things to do. Until then, ciao.

Roma: Part 2

2009-06-07T17:02:00.009-07:00

We are still getting acclimated to the time difference, so sleeping at night isn't really on a schedule yet. We woke up around noon today, which was a nice surprise. We both expected to sleep until 3 o'clock. Neither of us had the foresight to set an alarm. We have remedied that for tonight, as our plan for tomorrow actually requires a little bit of timing.

Paule went to some beach today, but she left us one of the most detailed maps we could have asked for. She took a tourist's fold out map of Rome, drew a red line to mark the route we walked yesterday, and traced her suggested route for today in blue. She also circled several spots along the way for us to see.

Our first stop was a 'breakfast' spot in Testaccio. Italians don't really do breakfast, so generally a breakfast cafe offers espresso or coffee and impostor croissants. We didn't make it there until the early afternoon, so we went for the lunch option. After a little difficulty conversing with the Asians running the Italian cafe, we managed to get the food we wanted - I had a turkey and cheese panino that I thought would have more on it, Johnny had a salami, egg, cheese, and lettuce panino that was exactly what he expected. We sat outside on their 'sidewalk' seating (in the street, but with a barrier separating us from cars). The sandwiches were pretty delicious. No pictures from this cafe.

After this, we set out on our blue-line path to see central Rome. We had no idea what was in store for us. The first area we went to was Trastevere, (trah-STAY-veh-ray - which literally translates to 'across the Tiber [River]), where we meandered through narrow streets full of cars and cafes and apartment buildings. Eventually we found ourselves at a church, St. Cecile I believe. Nothing incredible to report, though it was a pretty impressive structure. We have quickly become desensitized to the average Roman architecture, although it puts to shame most American architecture.

The next stop was the Isola Tibero (it's dark and I can't check the map for spelling, but it is the Tiber Island, don't ask me why Tiber can be 'Tibero' and 'Tavere'). I use stop generously here, as we really just walked across the island and into the Jewish ghetto (officially, Jewish Quarter). Ghetto doesn't mean what you think here. It was actually a really nice neighborhood with an extremely impressive synagogue. I found a shekel on the ground outside of it.

Across from the synagogue was the Portico D'Attavio, a porch built for the then-emperor's wife Attavio. I could be wrong, but I feel like 'porch' lost something in the translation. It is possible that this place was the original fish market, and that Portico actually meant 'port.' Our sources disagree. Regardless, the ruins were beautiful. Nicest porch I've ever seen.

From there, we began to hit square after square. All of Rome is littered (in a good way) with open squares where people congregate. The squares almost always have fountains at their centers. Inside the fountains, you will find either a very Roman sculpture, or an obelisk. These obelisks were brought from Egypt at some point, and there is currently a battle going on to have them all sent back to Egypt (I imagine the Italians pillaged them and they rightfully belong to the Egyptians, though adverse possession might indicate otherwise).

Anyhow, if you check out my Flickr page, you'll get a name associated with each square that I photographed (well enough to be worth posting). It is too dark in here for me to correlate all the photos with the map. My associate is sleeping on the other couch.

Our next major stop was the Pantheon and the Piazza Della Rotonda. The Pantheon is nothing short of amazing. It boasts one spherical room and was built in the 1st century I believe. It's dimensions are what are most amazing. It was built at a time when many people could afford no more than mud huts or even caves, yet its perfection would rival even the most precise American architecture of today. It is exactly as tall as it is wide. An opening at the center of the roof (think chimney in an igloo) is designed and built so perfectly that, although it is probably 30 feet in diameter (rough estimate), the air pressure does not allow any rain to fall in to the building. I am baffled. We have yet to verify the specifics of this feat, but I assure you it is true. The inside is far too ornate to risk water damage. My pictures did not turn out of the inside because it was too dark unfortunately.

However, on another very strange note, I actually ran into a friend in Rome. I was taking snapshots of one of the many piazzas (squares) when I saw a very familiar color - Chicago maroon and burnt orange, the staples of Virginia Tech. I look more closely and realize it is a fraternity brother of mine, Jeff Katz. Small world! I went up and pushed him playfully, giving him a scare until it clicked in his mind who I was. So we chatted, and we all went and got some delicious gelato (I had the 3 gusti--flavor--cone, with pistacchio, mascarpone, and nutella). We parted ways there, as they had just been to the sites we were planning on hitting. He is studying industrial design in Europe and has been going from city to city for the past three weeks.

After a few more piazzas, we found our way to the day's second big score - the Fontana di Trevi, or the Trevi Fountain. This was absolutely gorgeous. It is built to look like a natural stone out-cropping with sculptures adorning it. The one problem was the crowd. It was almost impossible to get near the fountain because there were literally thousands of people milling about. But it was well worth the struggle to push through.

After this, we made our way down to the Piazza del Quirinale. We had no idea of the magnitude of this spot, though we felt something special about it. There were guards dressed in pretty peculiar outfits, comparable to the royal guard at the Scotland Yard. As it turns out, this is the current Presidential manor. The buildings surrounding the square were pretty elegant, though none of my pictures came out very well of them. I did get a few good shots of the statue in the middle, though.

We strayed from the blue-line after this, but shortly discovered the folly of our adventuring. The guide took us to the bottom of the Spanish stairs, but our path took us to the top. So, in order to see them in their full glory, we had to descend the stairs, then ascend them to continue on our journey. At the bottom of the stairs, we were approached by the second person inviting us to a big pub crawl (these are all the rage out here). The first girl was organizing a Coliseum pub crawl--she was Canadian and spoke perfect English; the second girl was part of a Spanish pub crawl--she was Bulgarian and was quick to assume we had never heard of her country, though she did point out that they were the first to join the European Union. We cordially congratulated her for her country's good fortune and humored her attempts to get us to join her on their crawl.

From there, we ventured further north to Pincio ("pinch-EE-oh"), passing the Villa Medici on our way. The Pincio was very pretty, and it offered a spectacular view of central Rome. It also overlooked the Piazza Popolo (spell check), which was impressive but not photogenic. Johnny almost bought a grilled ear of corn from a guy pushing a street cart, but decided against it.

At this point, we admitted exhaustion and decided to cut our walking tour two stops short of completion. The decision was very wise, though, because our final two stops were very near to Vatican City, where we will head in the morning. The final stop on our journey was the Piazza Navona, which was the most impressive of all the piazzas in my opinion. On the way, we passed the Augusta Mausoleum, which was no longer accessible.

P.zza Navona had a large art festival going on. There were two large fountains, and we met a Persian art vendor that was very friendly. She was chatting with Johnny, but things went south when, upon hearing that she was Persian, he asked what country she was from. She cocked her head slightly to the side and said, "Iran?" He acknowledged her answer as interesting news. Then she said "It's famous."

Indeed.

Our abridged journey brought us to a surprised halt as we reached the Campo di Fiori again. We had taken a taxi there the night before and did not realize where exactly it was, so it was a surprise to be standing in the square again and recognizing our surroundings. From there, we again crossed the Tiber. The sun was beginning to go down, and we got what we both considered a very Roman view.

Finally, we were on the home stretch. Our feet and legs were tired, our backs sore. Johnny made the amateur mistake of not charging his camera ahead of time, so it died somewhere around the Pantheon. Bitterness ensued.

But in the end, it was a spectacular walking tour of an even more spectacular city. One day, we will own a house here with a garden terrace on the roof, even if we only visit once every so rarely.

When we got home, we were the only ones here. We rested up a bit, then Sara and Paule arrived (separately) shortly after. We all showered (separately) and then Johnny, Paule and I went to dinner at a small pizzeria in Testaccio. The waiter was very terse, but the food was good. We had fritti as an appetizer, a very Roman treat - fried salted cod, fried rice balls (suppli), and fried zucchini flowers (with anchovies and cheese, which we were unaware of until we tasted them, unfortunately). We had a beer by Moretti called Boffo D'Oro, or the Golden Mustache, which was very good. We also ordered a calzone with egg, cheese, and prosciutto - excellent - and two very thin crusted pizzas. One was broccollini and sausage (don't remember the Italian word), the other prosciutto and mushrooms (funghi). I reluctantly declined dessert.

After dinner, we wandered around Testaccio looking for a place to buy wine. Finally, we found a very shady character sitting outside of a small gelato and baked goods shop with whom Paule struck up conversation. He did not have wine, but knew of a place that did. He said he had to take us there, but someone had to watch his shop. So Johnny stood guard at the gelato stand (unfortunately, he did not have the gumption to acquire any gelato) while the three of us - weird guy, Paule, and myslef - walked half a block to what equates to a DC hot dog stand on the side of the road. He paid Euro 2.50 for a bottle of white, the name of which I now can't remember. We took it back to the apartment and enjoyed it on the terrace.

Now, it is bed time. We have an early morning on Monday. Plans include a trip to Vatican City and a long train ride to Florence to move into our transient home in the Santo Spirito District.

Until then, ciao.

Wandering Through Rome

2009-06-07T03:39:00.005-07:00

Our first day was an exhausted success. We started on a walking tour with Paule as our guide. She took us through some narrow streets in Testaccio on our way to a market. The streets are cluttered beyond belief. Cars here are all tiny, and people park them anywhere they can. There is no rhyme or reason - no direction - if you can fit your car in a spot facing any direction, you do it. Drivers fly through intersections, but seem to be good at stopping for pedestrians. Driving here is sort of an organized chaos. We found the market and were immediately intimidated. Thankfully, Paule was with us to speak on our behalf. We got sandwiches - fresh mozzarella and prosciutto on a flat bread very similar to foccaccia - and a beer each - 3 Horses Lager (which turned out, to our dismay, to be from Holland) - and a handful of fresh cherries and began walking up one of Rome's seven hills. I can't remember which one. But at the top, there was what appeared to be an old fortress with a huge door that people lining up in front of. A peephole sat squarely in the center.

We finally got our turn after some locals had looked through and scoffed at the sight, as if it was no big deal. Expectations were low, but the mystery kept us intrigued. I got my turn and looked in. I wish I could have taken a picture. Through this peephole, they had built up a huge garden with a sort of tunnel that gives you a direct sight-line to St. Peter's Basilica. Pretty neat.

Behind us was the Egyptian embassy, and armed guards were everywhere. We walked around the first wall and into a garden where about six couples were having wedding photos taken. The garden had a view of a large portion of the city, including the Basilica.

We ate our sandwiches, which were delicious, if not a little salty, and chatted for a bit. After a relaxing picnic lunch, we pressed on towards the day's grand objective: the Coliseum.

We first passed the Circus Maximus, where the Romans held chariot races a long time ago. It is mostly in ruins, and the field has grown over and is used by children to play futbol, and bums to light bonfires. Sort of sad to see history so ignored.

Further on, after walking underneath the ruins of an old Aqueduct, we reached the Augustine Arch, which was built to welcome the returning soldiers for their victory parades.

This sits right in front of the Coliseum. In front of the stadium used to be a large statue of Colossus, which is where the Coliseum got its name. The statute no longer stands; his pedestal is now a garden with trees. The Coliseum was not as large as I had expected it to be at first, but once we walked around some, I began to absorb just how impressive of a structure it was. Much of it has collapsed over time, and during earthquakes, but its basic structure is still clearly in tact. We learned that the word 'arena' means sand, and since the floor of the Coliseum where the gladiators would fight was made of sand, it came to be called an arena. Many nuggets of valuable knowledge here. It was incredible to walk through the concourse of a building where so many people had fought and died. But I didn't get a sense of spirituality or sanctity, as one might on a battlefield, because it was all for entertainment. There was no war fought there. Instead, people were either forced to fight to the death (criminals, usually), or later soldiers would be paid to fight (not necessarily to the death, but death sometimes was the result).

We wandered around inside for awhile. My one complaint up to this point is that we are touring on a Saturday, along with thousands upon thousands of other tourists. This would have been more fun on a weekday without all the crowds.

Johnny and I both hit a wall (not literally) in the arena and decided it was about time to head home for a nap. We walked past one of the old Roman Forums, taking a different route home. As it turns out, much of the history of Rome remained buried and ignored until Mussolini came into power. He was a huge advocate of the greatness that was Rome, and he went to great efforts to excavate as many areas as he could. This Forum was one of those areas.

We then passed by City Hall and stopped to rest for a minute before deciding a bus would be a good idea.

We hopped on a bus, and Paule warned us to look out for "men in blue shirts" as she did not have a bus pass for us. It only matters if the authorities come on and check. So we rode for free to a spot much closer to her apartment. From there, the walk was another 5-10 minutes.

We made it home, and Johnny and I instantly fell asleep on our respective couches.

Four hours later...

Author's Note: No pictures taken during the evening on the town, for some reason. I'll try not to do that again.

We groggily awoke to Paule knocking on the door of our 'guest quarters' (their living room). We got showered up and got in a taxi to go to dinner. It was about 9 or 9:30 when we left. We met a friend of hers at the Campo de Fiori ("Field of Flowers"). It is entirely 'paved' with stone, but during the day hosts a large flower market. Surrounding the edge of the 'field' are small restaurants packed with people. In the center was a large statue with stairs all around it that were littered with what appeared to be 15-year-olds drinking. We sat outside and got a few drinks, which seems to be the tradition, before heading to another spot for dinner.

I got a Mojito, Johnny and Paule got beers, and David (Paule's Australian friend from work) got some sort of red cocktail that he was a bit embarrassed, though secure, to order. We walked around the corner to a place called Da Sergio to eat. It was down what I would call an alleyway, though I guess it is just a normal city street. We got house wines, red and white, and some prosciutto and melon as an appetizer. The melon was perfectly ripe. Prosciutto was very good, too (basically a raw, aged ham, to those who don't know what it is). Then we got pastas (primis, meaning the first course). Johnny and I ordered carbonara, Paule got amatriciana, and David got arrabiatta, which he said was way too spicy. Pardon me if my spellings aren't perfect. It was delicious, but I have no idea how anyone in this city, or country for that matter, stays in shape. It tasted like a heart attack waiting to happen.

I introduced Johnny to limoncello, which he had never heard of, as an after dinner drink. Limoncello is generally made with grain alcohol infused with lemon rind shavings. You then mix it with water and sugar after it has had time to absorb the lemon flavor. You can use any fruit you want, though.

We then met up with Paule's roommate, Sara, and her friends who turned out to be very nice. Everyone spoke English very well (once again, we are painfully aware of the stupidity of Americans for not knowing any language but our own). We decided to take the 20 minute walk home, and we stopped at a bar called "On the Rox" for a night cap. The streets on the walk home were absolutely filled with young people out partying. Everywhere we looked, people were there. On the Rox was trying its hardest to be an American bar. Their first mistake was having the WNBA playing inside. All of the salads were named after American presidents (Roosevelt was spelled wrong). The sandwiches were named after rock songs and other American things. Our server claimed to be from New Jersey, and her attitude fit the script (sorry to any NJ people reading this). She was pretty terrible. We were about to walk out when she finally brought our drinks. We got Mojitos again. As it turns out, the Italians don't really have cocktails, so they just use American cocktails at all their bars.

Then we finally made our way home around 4am or so. Which only felt like 10pm or so to us. But we were tired. After a little emailing, I fell asleep very quickly.

Today, more sightseeing is on the agenda.

Ciao.

Roma!

2009-06-06T02:58:00.004-07:00

We're here. To make things easier on me (although more boring for many of you), I'm going to copy and paste the e-mail I just sent to people about arriving. Sorry to the people who received the e-mail that will have nothing new to read in this post...until after the e-mail.

To everyone,

We arrived in Rome a little earlier than scheduled. The flight was about eight hours. After several different requests to get our seats moved next to each other were denied, it turned out that the seat next to me was empty all along, so Johnny moved to it. We talked it up with the flight attendants and ended up getting a celebratory cocktail and two extra dinners, each. The flight had a TV on demand screen in each seat, so we watched some TV and movies while we tried napping. Johnny slept like a baby, I might have gotten a solid 30-45 minutes in. Probably the most uncomfortable plane I've ever been on. But it was very chilly, so that was good for me.

The trek from the plane to baggage claim and then to the train was a bit long, especially while carrying all our luggage. But after some confusion, we found the correct train and hopped on for a 25 minute ride to Stazione Trastevere. Then we found a cab and were ripped off for the first time when he charged us double for a short ride to Testaccio, the neighborhood where we are staying in Rome. Lesson learned: don't look so American.

We found Paule's apartment after some trial and error. She's on the fifth floor of her building with an open air rooftop patio. We sat out there and chatted a bit, discussed plans. Now, we are getting ready to head into Rome--with Paule guiding us--to get lunch (it's about 11:30am here) and then do some sight seeing in the Coliseum area.

More thoughts on the trip...

My first real view of the Italian country side was from the window of our A330 jet. I was in the middle section, so an aisle and two seats separated me from the window. I could only see land when we were turning. What glimpses I could manage offered me a wide expanse of farmland and forest. I did enjoy a pretty nice view of the coastline as we made our final descent - I could see waves crashing on the sandy shores of whatever beaches we flew in over (with a little more research I could probably figure this out).

My first impression of the airport and the train station was not extremely good. Everything was pretty rundown and dirty, and there is graffiti everywhere. The train ride provided some nice open vistas and some historic buildings, but I didn't know what I was looking at so I couldn't really tell you much more than that everything here looks very old.

The Stazione Trastavere was no different, nor is Testaccio. I imagine I won't see much of anything newly built the entire time I am here.

So far, we have not experienced much of a language barrier. I did have to restate the street we were heading to for the cabbie several times, but I attribute that to my poor pronunciation more than his Italian proficiency.

And we're off to see Rome! Ciao.

Driving Across America: The End

2009-05-26T18:47:00.005-07:00

Saturday, May 23rd

The final stretch. We had eight hours to drive. It's Saturday. It's Memorial Day Weekend.

This was the most uneventful leg, but unfortunately it is a necessary part of all trips. Because I had been catching grief all trip that Melissa was spending more time driving than I was, I volunteered to drive the entire final day. This won brownie points, but it stunk. Driving on a holiday weekend to complete a fun, 3,200 mile trip, is not fun. On the bright side, we had a lot to look forward to, getting home and seeing our families and friends in the MD.

The purpose of this post is to do nothing more than officially announce that we made it, safe and sound. We drove 3,222 miles in about 7 and a half days (left Tempe on Saturday morning at 10am, arrived in Severna Park on the following Saturday night at 6pm).

Top 10 Most Memorable: Good, Bad, and Ugly
10. Potter's Nuts
9. The Vail Gas Fiasco
8. Dining at the St. Clair Winery and Bistro
7. Driving through the night to catch an Austin sunrise (the good) and the subsequent search for a diner (the bad), resulting in a breakfast at IHOP (the ugly)
6. The Great Savannah Sandal Malfunction
5. "Dat Ozaka!"
4. When Swamp Rats Attack
3. San Antonio: Bohanan's, River Walk, and of course we remember the Alamo
2. The great company and great hospitality of all of our hosts (Brittany and Ross, the Reids, and Amanda, and sort of the Holiday Inn Express in San Antonio, but not so much the New Orleans HIX)
1. Conquering one of my dreams - driving across America - and sharing it with all of you

So...thank you all again for reading. I hope you enjoyed sharing our adventures as much as we enjoyed experiencing them (and I enjoyed writing about them).

Stay tuned for my exclusive Italy Travelogumentary, coming soon. Trip starts June 5th.

More Pictures from the Trip

Driving Across America: Leg 6

2009-05-22T20:00:00.005-07:00

Friday, May 22nd
The final day of fun on our trip.

We decided to stay one extra day in Myrtle Beach. So we slept in, got up and slowly got ourselves together before heading towards the beach to get lunch. We didn't really have a specific destination, so we just found N. Ocean Blvd. and started driving up and down until we found a place that looked like it might have a decent lunch with tables overlooking the beach. It is "black biker week" according to the locals, so the town is busier than usual. We finally settled on a place, the name of which I cannot remember, at the 2nd Avenue Pier. We got a burger and some chicken tenders. They were about as decently average as cheap boardwalk food can be. With more research, I'm sure we could have found something more impressive. But they served beer in a can and they had free parking, so we were content. After that, we headed up to 48th St. to hit the beach where Amanda could find us when she got off work.

We ended up on 47th - no big deal - and set up camp. The people in our immediate vicinity were annoying, but at this point we thought we were only going to lay out for an hour at the most before heading back to Maryland. Once we found out Amanda's friend Garrett (I hope I spelled that right) was bringing cornhole (bean bag toss, for those of you who have never spent time in the south), we decided to stay and hang out.

So, we stayed on the beach long enough for all of us to catch a decent amount of sun. Turns out some people are not naturally good at bean bag toss. But we had fun. Eventually, we called it quits to go get dinner at Sugami's, Amanda's favorite local sushi place. She claims to be an expert on local sushi and that this place was the best Myrtle Beach had to offer. We ordered several rolls (I hardly even looked at the menu, letting the girls pick everything, so I don't know what we got) and they were all delicious. We wolfed everything down, hung out for a bit, then headed home. We were treated to dinner here as well, which was incredibly nice.

Once we got home, we quickly made our way to the super hot tub that had a TV with cable and a DVD player as well as surround sound. It also had variable jets, lights that gradually change colors, and if I failed to mention it before, a built-in TV with cable, a DVD player, and surround sound. Pretty awesome - something to aspire to.

Now, I'm sitting once again in the most luxurious bed I have ever experienced. It is time for an early bed so that we are well rested for the final, eight hour leg of our cross-country tour.

I will be back in Annapolis (or at least Severna Park) tomorrow evening. See everyone very soon!

Driving Across America: Leg 5

2009-05-21T21:50:00.005-07:00

Thursday, May 21st
I will upload pictures tomorrow, as I just don't feel like doing it right now. But today was full of all sorts of things worth mentioning.

Breakfast in Roswell
Our plan was to hit the road by 7am so that we could get to Savannah for lunch with some time to explore, then leave for Charleston for dinner with some time to explore, before reaching our final destination at Myrtle Beach with some time to hang out. All of that changed, however, when the harsh reality of east coast weather came storming back. Being in Tempe, there was never a reason to check weather reports, so it was the furthest thing from our minds. More on that after this quick note on breakfast.

We woke up at 6am (I had a lot of trouble sleeping, so I was operating on about 3 hours of sleep when we got up). The Reids had a quality spread laid out for us with lots of fresh fruit (papaya, watermelon, canteloupe, strawberries), bagels, a maple walnut coffee cake, a Honey Nut O's. Melissa had coffee. I had water. It was a great start to a long day. We ended up leaving around 8am, and it only took us 45 minutes to get through Atlanta, which was a great surprise. We expected hours of traffic during morning rush hour on the Thursday before Memorial Day.

Savannah, GA
Back to the failure to check the weather... It began raining as soon as we got south of Atlanta. It didn't stop until we were three-quarters of the way between Savannah and Charleston. This had a detrimental effect on our visit to one of the south's oldest cities. For a quick history lesson (which I only recently learned myself), General Sherman--in his famous march--destroyed the city of Atlanta, so as far as American cities go, it is relatively new in its construction. In fact, Sherman razed a great deal of the cities in his path. For some reason, however, he spared Savannah. This place was, despite the rain, beautiful. It is very European at its heart. There are no yards, instead the city offers squares that are common area yards for everyone. These squares pop up every few blocks. They are all small parks with benches, grass, and trees, with the equivalent of a roundabout (traffic circle) around them and some street parking. The houses themselves were all very historic; elegant architecture everywhere you turned. The rain was a big damper on our fun, though. We originally meant to eat at Mrs. Wilkes, an old fashioned boarding-style diner, but the line wrapped around the corner in the rain and we didn't have rain coats or umbrellas. So we pressed on. We opted out of Paula Dean's restaurant because it was too expensive. We ended up parking near the river and walking down in a mild drizzle to find a lunch spot. When the deluge of rain began, we sought shelter in the nearest decent looking restaurant - the Cotton Exchange Tavern.

We got crab chowder to split, which was very good. I got a crab cake sandwich with sweet potato fries (pretty good, but no Maryland crab cake) and Melissa got seafood quesadillas (shrimp, crab, cheeses with salsa and sour cream). They were pretty decent as well, but not amazing. I ordered my first southern style sweet tea in years and made Melissa try it, as she had never enjoyed one before. We finished up and headed outside, only to be greeted by even more rain. We tried to see a couple sights along the river but were forced to retire to the car to avoid the weather.

I had a serious recurring wardrobe malfunction as we walked back. My flip flops kept sliding off my feet as we trudged through the wet roads and sidewalks. It was annoying, but Melissa found it to be hysterical. So I jumped in a puddle and splashed her. We finally made it back to the car so that we could dry off and get to Charleston, all the while hoping for the rain to subside.

The bridge out of Savannah was pretty but frightening. It was pouring, the winds were raging, and all the support cables were bucking wildly against the gusts. We made it across unscathed and were on our way to SC.

Charleston, SC

This city was beautiful as well. It had all the elements of a beach town, mixed with all the character of a historic site. We visited the battery where Colonel Moultrie (I'll check his name later when I upload the pictures, but I think that's how it is spelled) fended off a British attack against all odds. Fort Sumter was visible across the way. The houses in Charleston were absolutely incredible. Huge, plantation-style mansions on every block. The rain had stopped, but it was very windy and cold on the water, so we didn't stay at the battery long. We headed into town, parked just off Market St., and walked around for a little while. I was beyond tired, so despite Melissa's desire to hang out and enjoy the town, we decided to cut our visit short and head to Myrtle Beach. We did walk around for about half an hour, though. We learned that southern restaurants serve crab dip chilled, which is strange.

Myrtle Beach, SC
The drives are getting harder and harder as we get more and more traveling under our belt. I think our bodies are wearing down. We are getting more irritable about hunger and fatigue, and napping is becoming more and more common while riding shotgun. But we are keeping our morale as high as possible.

We made arrangements earlier in the week to stay with a family friend of Melissa's in MB--Amanda--who is house sitting a golf course starter mansion for 6 months by herself. For the third time on this trip, we managed to find a place to stay that did not require paying for a hotel (as opposed to two nights in hotels). Not a bad ratio.

We made it to the house a little after 8, and it is gorgeous. The room we are staying in has a bathroom larger than our bedroom was in Cityscape. The house is ridiculous. It backs up to a lake, has a hot tub with a TV outside, has touch lamps, overhead fans with remotes, heavy duty high efficiency laundry (this is our first time doing laundry on the trip, and it is sad that it is exciting to me), and one of the most comfortable beds I have ever laid in. I am actually laying in it right now as I type. I'm not expert, but I believe it is a memory foam, pillow-top, king size bed. I may never leave.

Amanda had plans to see a band play at a place called Spuds, so we waited for her friend to show up so that we could go get food and see the band. Spuds is in Murrells Inlet. We got there around 9:45, only to find out that they were no longer serving food. We walked up the "marsh walk" to Dead Dog Saloon for food, which was decent. Melissa and I shared a crab dip (served hot) and a chicken Caesar salad. Then we walked back to Spuds to listen to the band and we met a few of Amanda's other friends. She had to work early, so we called it an early night.

Now, I am laying in bed unable to sleep, with Futurama on in the background. It is one of my guilty pleasures.

On the bright side, once I get all the rest of the pictures uploaded, my blog is officially caught up. Thanks, everyone, for reading. I may have one more entry for everyone about this trip to sum things up once we are home. If we end up staying another day here, I'll probably post an extra leg describing our beach experience, then wrap things up on Saturday from Annapolis.

Either way, this has been a magical journey. I enjoyed sharing everything thus far. And this was great practice for my Italy travelogumentary, which promises to be even more interesting! See everyone soon!

Driving Across America: Leg 4.5

2009-05-21T03:12:00.007-07:00

Author's Note: I wrote more than one entry last night and this morning, and I added more pictures to Leg 2. Be sure to check those out and read in order.

The 8 hour drive from New Orleans to Roswell could not have been less noteworthy. We passed through some pretty cool areas - crossed Lake Pontchartrain; saw the water tower in Biloxi, MS; drove by Mobile, Auburn, and Montgomery, AL; all of a sudden had Georgia on our minds.

But nothing really happened. I drove for a few hours, Melissa slept. Then she drove a few hours and I slept. We realized we had made a stupid mistake, however. Thinking we would get to the Reid's house by dinner time, we made plans to have dinner with them. However, Cafe du Monde took a little longer than expected, and we stupidly forgot to account for our final time change of the trip, so we didn't end up arriving in Roswell until about 8:30pm. We kept them apprised of our situation and they rightfully decided to eat without us. We pulled up at their house at 8:45pm. I'm pretty sure they thought our 'delay' was due to a late night of drinking in New Orleans, which was not the case. We were back at our hotel before midnight, but just took too long getting around town in the morning after waking up around 8am.

Anyhow, dinner was waiting for us on the table when we arrived. The Reids were, as usual, extremely hospitable. They heated up a marinated chicken, a cheesy hash brown casserole, salad, and some roasted vegetables. It was delicious.

Melissa's Note: This was my first true 'southern cooking' and it was amazing!

I didn't ruin it and tell her that while this was absolutely delicious, it was not exactly soul food. We stayed up chatting and catching up for awhile. We were also treated to a custom made carrot cake from Gail's surprise birthday party from the week before. Apparently, Larry pulled out all the stops for this one. The cake was custom made to look like a movie reel (they are big movie buffs), very similar to the one that decorates the front of the Orson Wells Theatre in Boston where they took many a dates when they first got together. It had the names of many of her favorite movies on it. And the party was hosted by their friends who had a theatre in their basement. Sounded like a blast to us!

The last thing I will mention about Roswell is going to meet a great deal of resistance if Jay reads this, but it has to be said. We unearthed his infamous Bar Mitzvah tennis picture. If any VT AEPi guys read this, you know what I'm talking about. It is just as funny this time! Jay, if you read this, who is this "Mazel Tov" guy that keeps writing all over everything?

Around 11pm we got our luggage out of the car and called it a night. I caught up on my blog - losing valuable sleep in the fear that we might not have internet again until we are back in Maryland, not wanting to turn off my readership with a lack of consistent travelogumenting - and then went to bed. We both had a little trouble falling asleep, so today is going to be an exhausting one.

First stop: lunch in Savannah, GA. We plan to see as much of Savannah as we can in a couple hours before getting on our way to Charleston, SC. Dinner there and some wandering, assuming the weather is good. Then, our ultimate destination is Myrtle Beach, SC, where a friend of Melissa's is house-sitting a mansion for the summer. That will be our home for tonight and, if the weather is good, maybe tomorrow night too. Pending that decision, we will be back in Maryland Friday or Saturday evening/night. Can't wait!

Driving Across America: Leg 4

2009-05-20T21:21:00.009-07:00

New Orleans!
We didn't really have anything exciting happen on the way in. We passed a baby gator petting zoo and almost stopped. Unfortunately, I was being lame and wanted to press on to New Orleans. The city calls to me. We didn't have a great map in to the city so we stopped at the visitor's information center on the way in. This was the first of many experiences in the Big Easy.

The Cajun security guard was not...um...intelligent. We were looking for a brochure that might have hotel recommendations. She called the owner of the visitor's center, who also happens to own three hotels in the city. Rather than just giving us the brochure and letting us be on our way. So we had to wait about 10 minutes while he came downstairs to talk to us. Clearly not in his job description. I don't know why he came down at all. But he recommended a place in the heart of the French Quarter off Bourbon St on Conti (pronounced Konn-tie). Needless to say, we didn't go there. We got a little mixed up as I oriented myself with the city again. We had a rudimentary map, but it is tough to navigate a city full of one-way streets.

If you ask Melissa, she'll say I couldn't read the map. If you ask me, I'd say she wouldn't listen. I imagine it was somewhere in between, though once I got my bearings I was fine with the map, and she still wouldn't listen. But this is neither here nor there.

After checking a few different places out, we settled on another Holiday Inn Express. We figure you can't go wrong with a name brand like that. More on that later. As it turns out, you can go wrong with a name brand. It was cheap, though, and we parked in the garage around the corner. This was another experience. We had to go up to the sixth floor. The ramps were about 45 degree angles if not steeper, and almost exactly the width of the car plus maybe 6 inches. Once again, my driving ability saved the day. We made it to the 6th floor in about 10 minutes and parked successfully. We then had to ride the elevator down, go outside, walk around the corner, then go inside and ride the elevator up to our room to get ready for dinner. The room was small, and our towels had something pink and sticky on them. Smelled like tooth paste. We avoided it.

Now for the positives.

We went to Acme Oyster Bar for dinner. This place is a local favorite and a must go restaurant if you're in N'Awlins. We got raw oysters on the half shell, which were amazing. I didn't realize how much I missed good seafood. Melissa, who had never had jambalaya, got that. I got the Peace Maker Po' Boy, which consisted of fried shrimp and oysters with a Tabasco infused mayo, lettuce, and tomato. We shared everything. It was amazing. Melissa tabbed it as one of the best meals she had ever had. I didn't argue.

Our next stop was the famous Pat O's on St. Peters - the home of the Hurricane. Expensive, but another must see place if you're in the city for the first time. You have to either get a Hurricane or a Hand Grenade at some point. It being Melissa's first trip, we went with the Hurricane. It was very sweet. Our server was nice and pushy and typical of the city's hospitality staff. They dupe people into getting souvenir glasses by bringing them and charging for them without you asking for them, forcing you to return them at the bar if you want your money back. It was annoying for everyone, especially because the bar is always busy. But no big deal. I felt like I made money when we left.

Then, we walked up and down Bourbon St. No real goal in minds. I just wanted Melissa to experience it. It wasn't too crazy, since it was a Tuesday night. But there were enough people for her to get a feel for it. We had crazy people throwing beads at us from the balconies. There were religious nuts carrying huge crosses with electronic scrolling marquee messages warning of the coming apocalypse. The usual. We stopped at literal hole in the wall to get cheap beers. Never again. We actually dumped them out because they tasted so bad. Undrinkable. I don't know what was wrong with them.

Then we went to a little club with a live band performing that was actually really good. The white girl singing did a Lauryn Hill song and sounded exactly like her. We tipped her and left. Then we went and listened to some live music at the Bourbon Cowboy while watching drunk idiots try to ride the mechanical bull. Probably a highlite of the night.

Nothing else really happened. We slowly made our way back to the hotel so that we could get up early and head to Atlanta.

The following morning, we awoke to another experience. We were not alone in the bed. I felt something crawling on my arm, but I thought it was Melissa's hair tickling it. It turns out it was a really gross looking spider. It also turns out he took two bites out of my hand at some point during the night, which still itch like crazy. Fortunately, it doesn't appear that he was all that poisonous.

Melissa's Note: If there was ever a way to catch cancer, New Orleans would be it.

So, we got up and Melissa really wanted to go to Cafe du Monde to get her first beignet. This is the New Orleans equivalent to funnel cake. But it was amazing. Another local staple. We walked down the Mississippi River to get there so that Melissa could see something remotely pretty in the city. I also rediscovered the spot where we watched the Blackrobats the first time we came to NOLA (Sugar Bowl, my senior year). Fond memories.

They were fantastic. We got cafe au lait (mine frozen, hers hot). Then we walked back to the car. On the road again.

Next stop: Roswell, GA, 8 hours later.

Author's Note: For some reason, we didn't take many pictures in New Orleans. Which we both regret. There are a few more from the following morning on Melissa's camera, but I don't know if they will ever make it on to here.

Driving Across America: Leg 3

2009-05-20T20:37:00.008-07:00

Monday, May 18th

After leaving the Alamo, we walked back to the hotel (Holiday Inn Express) to retrieve our car. We got out of town around 3ish. First on the agenda was picking up a case of water for the car. I tell you what - if there is one thing I have learned on this trip, it's that the little, mundane things might end up being the most eventful happenings.

So Melissa chooses an exit off of the 10 East where there is a market. There also happened to be bail bonds in the very same market. We should have taken it as our first sign to keep driving when the road we exited on was Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd. Anyone who knows much about cities knows that MLK is almost always a low income street. So we pull up to this "market" and there are literally crack heads loitering on the stoop. What I can only assume was the market owner was standing with his hands on his hips, just staring at them. We were the furthest thing from locals in sight. As we parked, a beat up old sedan came flying in to the spot next to us. A man got out looking very...poor...with his pants hanging so far down and his boxers bunched up so much that we could see the skin of his thigh between the hem of his underwear and the waist of his jeans. He was clearly heavily medicated. Anyhow, we walked in confidently avoiding eye contact. The place was a dump. I really wish we had pictures of this place (which would have included huge ads for bail bonds, among other things). I thought someone might steal my camera and trade it for crack right in front of me.

I navigated over to the refrigerated/drink area looking for a case of water. A delivery man was there stocking shelves.

Delivery Man: "Need sum'n?"
Me: "Just a case of water?"
DM: "Dat Ozaka?"
Me: "Uh...what?"
DM: (leading us up the aisle) "Heah." (points to a pile of unsorted cases of drink)
Me: (still trying to figure out what Ozaka is) "Thanks."
DM: "Mmhm."

Turns out...'Ozarka' is a brand of water, of which they had one case buried beneath several cases of purple stuff and Shasta. It is the local Texas bottling plant. Who knew?

So we got a 24-pack of water and paid $10 for it. We're used to paying $3 for good quality, name brand cases. And it stunk like nobody's business. So we did not drink any of it.

We got back on the road to Houston. We were meeting Brittany (my first friend from VT, met at orientation) for dinner. The drive from San Antonio to Houston was about 3-4 hours. And other than the Ozaka Ordeal, it was mostly uneventful.

Melissa had a sudden craving for Texas pecans (by sudden, I mean it was the sixth time she had mentioned wanting pecans before we left the state). So when we saw a huge highway billboard advertising Potter's Nuts, of course we had to stop. And it was well worth it. We went in and they had samples of a sweet and spicy chili pecan, a toasted cinnamon sugar pecan (still warm) and some kettle popcorn with something sweet coating it. They were all amazing.

Houston!
Someone (Brittany) gave us bad directions in to town and we got a little mixed up driving into Houston. We eventually found the apartment building and were able to get a parking spot right out front. I wish we had taken pictures of the apartment, because it was gorgeous. We were both pretty envious. Brittany's boyfriend was not off work (doctor) yet so we chatted for a bit and then headed out to a local Italian place (her favorite restaurant). For some reason, on a Monday night, it was closed. So we pressed on. Brittany mentioned that the original Carrabba's is in Houston, and since Melissa talks about going there all the time and I had never been, we chose that.

We were seated right away. We ordered calamari (really good) while we waited for Ross. Also got a round of drinks. Service was not great at first, but the guy finally came around. When Ross got there, we ordered dinner. I got the chicken "Bryan Texas" - delicious - and Melissa got a pizza that was pretty decent. We had a really good time chatting. And then Brittany bought us dinner, which was too nice, especially considering they were putting us up for the night already. But she insisted, so we didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth. After that, we opted for a night cap. Unfortunately, there was a slight miscommunication, and Brittany, Melissa, and I ended up in one place and Ross ended up at home. We went to a wine bar called The Tasting Room Lounge. Melissa ordered a bottle of Acacia "A," which is a red blend. The Acacia Pinot Noir is my favorite wine, but they didn't have it. This was pretty good, too, and I paid for it in exchange for dinner. Ross fell asleep and didn't make it out. We hung out. Very nice catching up and Brittany and Melissa seemed to hit it off pretty well.

We went home and promptly fell asleep. The next day, they had to work, but Brittany pointed us to Co Co's Crepes for breakfast/lunch. It was delicious, even though they fudged Melissa's order twice and they didn't have the mushrooms for my order. Still tasted great. I got a chicken and roasted vegetable whole wheat crepe with a wild mushroom sauce. She got a spinach, tomato, ricotta, and chicken whole wheat crepe with roasted red pepper sauce. They forgot her chicken, though, so she had to go back and get it. She offered to let them just throw the chicken on top, rather than remaking the whole dish. They gladly obliged, but they neglected to mention that that the chicken was practically frozen. So a return trip to have it reheated finally resulted in a delicious lunch.

We walked back to the car and decided to hit the road. We picked up some ice at the CVS around the corner. It was off to New Orleans - a 5 hour drive. This time, we did not get lost on the way out!

Driving Across America: Leg 2

2009-05-20T06:40:00.005-07:00

Author's Note: A thousand apologies for the delay in writing. We have not had solid internet access for much of the trip. Tonight, I should be able to catch up completely.

Sunday, May 17th - 4:00pm
We woke up from our "good night's sleep," ready to seize the day. Sunday night was a celebration. We were doing a nice steak dinner, courtesy of my mom, as a gift for completing my 1L year relatively unscathed. As we were driving in, Melissa was researching San Antonio steakhouses (somehow, a copy of Southwest Spirit had materialized in our car - the complimentary magazine on Southwest Airlines flights). We decided on Bohanan's, which was conveniently walking distance from our Holiday Inn Express. We made reservations for 6:30 from the hotel, showered, and got dressed.

Melissa's Note: "Make sure to mention just how dapper we both looked."

We were both looking very dapper, as you can see. When we got there, we were one of the first tables to arrive. The place was elegant, but the floor plan was a little too wide open for our tastes. Lewnes in Annapolis is the standard for us, and aesthetically, this place did not compare. We were seated in what I can best describe as an Arizona room, which is almost like an extra porch-like room (they are usually outdoor patios converted to indoor rooms) overlooking Houston St. Our waiter, Jose, was very friendly and knowledgeable. He refused to let us order until he had shown us all of the day's cuts of steak, despite our solid confirmation that we already knew what we wanted. I ordered a Live Oak Heffeweizen (local micro-brew), Melissa got a Pilsner Urquell (craving Stella Artois, this was the closest substitution). Despite our original plan of getting wine, we opted out because the least expensive bottle was in the high 30's. They served complimentary crostini bread slices with cream cheese and pepper jelly with slices of jalapenos (a childhood favorite of mine from the day's of my dad's cocktail parties, which Melissa had never tried) that were phenomenal. We ordered a spinach salad with goat cheese, toasted almonds, purple onions, hickory smoked bacon, and mushrooms with a tangy vinaigrette. Delicious. For our entrees, we both got 6 oz. filet mignons--mid-rare--that were served with roasted peppers and goat cheese mashed potatoes. The executive chef has a secret recipe for his steak marinade that we thought was incredible. I found myself again thinking about IP law, and the wonderful world of trade secrets. Only the chef knows the recipe, not a single member of the staff has any knowledge. All in all, I would rate the meal a 10 out of 10. Top notch.

We wanted to get dessert on the river, so we reluctantly paid our check and headed off to the River Walk.

We stopped in at Rita's on the River for the biggest frozen margarita we had ever seen. It was pretty delicious. We shared it while we watched the Celtics blow game 7 (sorry, Barb). Then, we continued walking, checking dessert menus at every decent looking restaurant we passed.

Finally, we landed at Saltgrass, one of the other steak houses we had considered, because they had a huge brownie sundae on display. We got dessert and a split of Korbel Brut (they had very little range in champagne, offering a $7 split of Korbel or a $50 bottle of something else). Our waiter was a military brat that said he grew up around DC, went to Woodson in Fairfax, but did not seem to have ever heard of Annapolis.

At this point, it was getting a bit late to be out on a Sunday night, so we headed to the hotel bar. We got there five minutes before last call and made sure we got our money's worth. I say this because as it turns out, through some horribly convenient glitch in billing, the bar tab never made it to our room charge. We took a bottle of wine back to the room and enjoyed the finest balcony bar San Antonio had to offer.

We went to sleep with plans to see the Alamo in the morning before heading to Houston.

Monday, May 18th

Author's Note: Pictures to come later. I ran out of time while writing this entry.

As we were getting ready, I got a voice mail from Brittany suggested Boudro's for lunch and margaritas. It was on the River Walk, so we headed that way for some food. We were driving to Houston so we drank waters. But we ordered what turned out to be the best guacamole either of us had ever had. They made it tableside with roasted tomatoes and red peppers, lime and orange juice, avocado, onions, and a little cilantro. We added salt and pepper. Then Melissa had a seafood tostada, which was great, and I got chicken enchilades verdes, which were good, but not the best. We sat outside with a nice view of the river, finished up, then started walking to the Alamo.

There's not much to say about the old fort. We learned a little about its history. I will put a bunch of pictures of it up as well. Most of what is there as part of the monument was not actually part of the fort in its heyday. The main building is a church-like shrine where you have to remove your hat, remain quiet, not touch any walls or display cases, and refrain from photography. There was very little worth doing there, but it was an important historic landmark, so I'm glad we went. Directly across the street, the sanctity of Texas's great shrine of independence was tainted by several cheesy tourist traps: a Ripley's haunted house, a Guinness World Records museum, and others.

We got our fill of the Alamo and walked back to the hotel to retrieve our car and hit the road.

We were meeting Brittany and her boyfriend, Ross, in Houston for dinner. Estimated driving time: 3 hours.

Notes on San Antonio:
There were more beggars and homeless people in this city than I have ever seen anywhere else. It was very off-putting, as it would be one of the greatest cities I had visited were it not for the quality of its residents. That being said, we were only approached for money twice, and no one was threatening. The food was amazing. Everything on the River Walk was beautiful, and within walking distance from the hotel. We were both envious of that, though Melissa is more born for the city life than I am.

My journal of notes is in the car, which is four floors down, one building over, and then six floors up from where I sit right now, so I will supplement this entry when I upload pictures (tonight, hopefully).

For now, I have to get showered up so we can hit the road. Today boasts an 8 hour stretch of driving.

Driving Across America: Leg 1.5

2009-05-18T08:25:00.005-07:00

I feel like the grandfather in The Princess Bride as I sit down to continue our adventure. I ended the first "chapter" with the swamp rat, and now I'm picking up again with a long, dark journey through central Texas. This stretch of road was pitch black. No street lights. No stars. Never saw the moon. The only light, other than my headlights, was from the oncoming traffic across the wide stretch of median. This meant I had to keep switching from high beams to low beams and back every time I crossed paths with anyone. However, I only saw one other car heading in my direction for the entire stretch between Juan Carrasco's and our ultimate destination.

Melissa remained asleep for another hour or two, occasionally waking up long enough to make sure I was still okay to drive. Unfortunately, this means that there was no note-taking and therefore not as much for the base of our story. So I'll skip ahead to...

Rural route 290. Fog: heavy enough to require windshield wipers on medium intermittancy. We experimented with 290 because we decided sort of last minute to go straight to Austin instead of to San Antonio first. Our master plan was to catch Austin in the early morning hours, find a decent hike, and catch our first Texas-sized sunrise. I woke Melissa up for this part because I didn't know just how rural it was going to be.

Author's Note: On our last non-packing day in Tempe, my friend, Scorza, had an end of the year pool party, where we discovered that some people--intelligent people, at that (no sarcasm)--think the word 'rural' is pronounced 'rule,' neglecting that middle R. I couldn't help but play that conversation over in my head as I wove my way through Texas.

There was an abundance of deer. This was straight out of a horror movie. Nothing but trees, heavy fog, bright deer eyes everywhere, and probably a chainsaw killer stalking us ominously through the woods.

Again, sort of a boring, uneventful leg, so I'll skip ahead. One last note on this stretch, however, is that 5 Hour Energy actually works. And when I say works, I mean that stuff is brilliant. It adjusted for the change in time zone, so that it actually only lasted 4 hours, but the clock read 5 hours later than when I had chugged the entire little bottle. Just an FYI to people out there who need a quick pick-me-up. There was no miserable crash at the end.

Austin!

I see why people love this city so much, though I didn't figure it out right away. We spent a fair amount of time driving around, looking for a place to hike. Fail upon fail. We found a gas station instead, with a guy that looked like he could have played a central role in Men in Black III. Somehow, through sheer luck, we happened to find the one guy that really knows the best spots to watch a sunrise in Austin. He pointed us in the direction of Mansfield Dam on Lake Travis, and let us know (off the top of his head) that sunrise would be in one hour. We thanked him, Melissa got some coffee, and we were on our way to the Dam.

The Dam was a little confusing, and it took us some time to locate an actual spot to watch the phenomenon. We parked at the top of the Dam, thinking how ugly the view was. Then we thought this couldn't be it and we started to explore our surroundings. A small gate that looked like it was closed off at first glance turned out to be exactly what we wanted. It was not closed at all, and we ended up at a ranger's station with no one on duty. Free park entrance! We parked, grabbed a blanket, put on some warmer clothes, and found a nice park bench to perch on. As we sat and waited, shivering in the surprising morning chill, about 20 people came tearing down the road way to the boat ramp and headed off to fish. Once that stopped happening, it was probably one of the most serene, naturally peaceful things either of us had done since coming out here. The only sounds were birds chirping and preening, the water gently crashing on the rocky sands, and the wind whistling quietly through the trees. No artificial noise at all. It was a perfect way to enjoy the sunrise. I highly recommend that everyone do this at some point in the near future.

We didn't get a great sunrise, but it didn't matter. Once we decided it was up, we snuck out of the park without paying the ranger again (still no one on duty) and headed into town to find a diner. This would turn out to be the day's biggest challenge.

Sunday morning in Austin, TX provided absolutely nothing in the way of breakfast foods. At this point, it was almost 9am. The only place we could find was an IHOP. It had to do. We were both exhausted, starving, and grumpy. I ordered the International Crepe Passport - two scrambled eggs, two strips of bacon, two sausage links, and two crepes with Nutella, strawberry, and banana slices. Melissa got a spinach and mushroom omelette with a fruit bowl and some hash browns. It was average, as all IHOPs are. But it filled our bellies and we were ready to find the UT campus.

This was much more daunting than we had imagined as well. Our maps were all atlases and road maps, and none of them had the campus specifically marked, so we had to do a lot of guess-and-checking. You would think a campus of that size and caliber would have signs pointing to it from every possible direction. That was just not the case, however. We spent 30 minutes driving around looking for it before all of a sudden we came upon it without realizing it. Along the way, we saw some of the most beautiful neighborhoods. There is really no uniformity to the Austin suburbs, but the houses are huge and historic looking. The smallest house we saw was bigger than just about anything Tempe has to offer. The campus, however, is a different story. It is gorgeous, with uUniform architecture for the most part. Everything was built with a light, almost yellowish hue of what I can only guess was sandstone because I assume everything is sandstone unless proven otherwise.

I really wanted to find the football stadium. We had planned to park and walk around for awhile taking pictures. But we were too tired. We made a beeline for the stadium, which is monstrous. I have seen quite a few stadiums in my day, but maybe none so impressive as Darrel K. Royal Texas Memorial Stadium. It's not the biggest one I've been to (I've been to the Big House in Ann Arbor), but it was the most imposing from the outside. We weren't able to get in. We walked around a bit, decided we needed a bathroom and were too tired to continue, so we got back in the car before the traditional "pay for the garage after the first half hour" timer had run.

We found a 24-hour cafe that served breakfast that looked much better than IHOPs and used the bathroom there. Annoying...

So we were on our way to San Antonio and a comfortable bed. We had about an hour of driving ahead of us. Melissa got behind the wheel. I started digging through old CDs for something we both knew the words to to help us stay awake. This was actually really easy. Believe it or not, Melissa (and her cool factor shot up about 30 points) has a store-bought CD that is one-half MC Hammer's greatest hits, and one-half Vanilla Ice's greatest hits. Jackpot!

We somehow grew tired of this pretty quickly and put in Weezer's blue album for the rest of the drive.

San Antonio!

Very cool city from the get go. We hit the heart of downtown as far as I can tell. We drove around longer than we felt like it trying to get a good hotel close to the famous Riverwalk. We finally landed at a Holiday Inn and got a room on the 18th floor. Tension at this point was a bit high. It was 11:30am or so when we checked in. We parked the car in the hotel garage, grabbed our necessities, and went straight upstairs to sleep.

The hotel is pretty nice. There is an outdoor roof-pool on the 7th floor that we can see from our room's balcony. We have not gone down there. Somehow, I managed to dig up my Priority Club membership from my road trip days in college that I had forgotten about. This got us a 2-hour extended check out (to 2pm) and 10% off in the hotel restaurant ("Windows on the Riverwalk").

The room itself has a big flat screen TV with no HD. We hardly turned it on. We have a tiny balcony with a decent view of the city. And we have a king size bed. We both fell instantly asleep at about noon. Neither one of us budged until about 4pm.

This officially ends the first leg of our journey. Miles driven: over 1,000. Stay tuned later tonight (hopefully) for a second entry detailing our exploits in San Antonio.

Author's Note: For those of you reading this who took IP with me last semester, look what we found in Austin!