Ciao from Verona!

---

Ciao tutti! Sorry this blog took me so long to get started. I’ve been a little busy, but more than that, I’ve just been procrastinating. Here we go!

So when I took the flight over here, I didn’t realize that, as of late, Alitalia has been going through some reorganization problems. I’m not sure what the problem is, but all I can say is that I think the plane we flew here on was the same one that I flew over on 8 years ago. It had some pretty uncomfortable seats, but I couldn’t really complain. I didn’t sleep much the night before so my numb butt didn’t really bother me too much. As soon as I got on the flight I started establishing some goals. For instance, I couldn’t really understand anything that they were saying during the preflight orientation, for the flight on the way back, I’d like to be able to catch all of that. I’ve been noticing though that even though I speak Italian up to 7 hours a day, I still have a hard time understanding people when they speak, so we’ll see where this goes. Back to the story; when we got to Verona, I was already getting onto a long spree of lost items. For instance, I lost my bus pass within 5 minutes of getting it. Shortly after I found it; no harm done. But since then I have lost, left, or forgot to bring the following items, all of which I have fortunately located again: camera, belts, hiking boots, dress shirt, dress pants, dress shoes, palm pilot. I guess that Italy just relaxes me too much.

The first thing that we did while in town was, of course, eating an enormous Italian meal. I got risotto with wine in it, lamb, and finished it off with chocolate mousse and a café. It was the first of a lot of amazing meals to come, all of which good ol’ U of I has been paying for. Since then, I’ve been eating a lot of pasta, drinking a glass of wine with dinner, and losing a lot of body mass (I think its fat and muscle, because I’m feeling pretty small). Just a thought, mom and dad, please bring some protein power with you when you come to Verona. I’m wasting away here. Immediately when I got the city I noticed that I live pretty far away from class; a good 40 minutes on foot. Last time that I was in Italy, I got myself a bike so it wasn’t really an option this time. I’d hoped that my curse of having crappy bikes had left me in Pisa (I went through 3 bikes in 4 weeks there), but alas, within 2 days of starting to ride the bike, my pedal somehow sheared out of its fitting and pretty much fell off. That cost me 10 euro to fix. Not but a week later, the other pedal started acting up, the gear shifter came loose, and I learned that the breaks had been put on backwards. Right now, “The Barracuda” is being repaired at the super market, but with my luck it’ll be broken within a week.

As far as class goes, I’m liking it so far. I’m in a class with students from Japan, Morocco, Germany, and Holland. We only speak Italian, which is great, but if I thought zoning out in the states was easy, its about 5 times as easy here. But, I’ve been doing a good job of paying attention in class and I think I’m getting a good amount out of it. My teacher, Maurizio, is hilarious. Whenever he’s got a question for me, he says in a really low voice, “Richard…che cosa hai detto?”, or something to that effect. He’s got a whole bunch of mannerisms that I’m sure I’ll master by the time I finish the semester. Outside the classroom, I’ve been running a lot and I rigged up a pull-up bar on my balcony. I think it’s good that I can stay in shape, but I’m kinda afraid that my neighbors are going to think that I’m a tool. But I’ve decided that I kinda stand out no matter what, so as long as I’m not bothering anyone, they can deal with seeing me swing around on the rooftops.

In terms of places we’ve gone, we’ve gone on one excursion so far to Lake Garda and Soave. Lake Garda was incredible; except for the fact that I forgot my dress clothes for dinner. This led to me spending a good part of the day looking for shoes, pants, and a nice shirt. I picked up some really nice black European dress shoes marked down to 20 euro from 85, so I’m kinda glad that I forgot my clothes to begin with. Just check out the pictures as far as Garda goes. It reminds me a lot of the final episodes of Band of Brothers. It was absolutely breathtaking. We ran into some cows on top of the mountain…random. But the view was awesome and for once I wasn’t sweating through my shirt. That night we went to have another full dinner. The whole meal was seafood, and the girls didn’t really like the mussels, so I finished an entire bowl of muscles all by myself! Nonna would have been proud.

The next day we all went to Soave. At first I had my doubts about the day because after we all went the castle, we got lost on the way down the hill. But whenever something unfortunate happens in this country, I just remember “You’re in Italy, stop whining”. After two servings of gelato in town, I was up to snuff again, just in time for the wine festival. At the festival, there were about 70 different types of white wine, all of which you could try. I think I got through about 20 and I tried all 16 types of food. After this, we headed to a cooking class, kinda like you’d see on the food network. The guy made some of the most incredible food I’ve ever tasted. We sat there and watched for about 2 hours and then headed back home. We didn’t pay a cent for the entire night, so that was pretty cool. Overall, that entire weekend was pretty incredible.

This week was pretty fun. Wednesday the girls organized a pot luck dinner and I tried to make some biscotti. It was going pretty well until I tried to fit 2 biscotti cakes onto a tray that should have only held one. This led to me cooking them for about twice as long and the bottom of the biscotti being completely scorched. Considering that I made them from scratch, I was pretty pleased that I tried, and luckily, about half of the biscotti we in pretty good shape. Next time I make them I think that they’ll work out just fine, I’ll just have to make half as much. The evening was met with a lot of wine, followed by some light drinking games. We were just doing our part to share some American culture I guess.

Thursday night was another story completely. We get to the bar, called Campus. Apparently it’s the place to be on Thursday’s…a Firehaus if you will. We were just sitting at a booth with some of our Italian friends when all of a sudden this guy comes up, speaking English, and tells us he wants to buy us all drinks. Now I’m one guy with 5 girls, so I assume he more wants to buy them drinks and feels obligated to get me one because I’m with them. Next, two other guys walk over and it turns out that they are all Americans, and on top of that, they are all American Army Rangers. At first I just thought they might have been sons of senators or something because they were spending their time in the military in one of the most scenic parts of Italy, but it turns out that they had all done multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. And as for them just buying drinks for the girls, that wasn’t true, because they wouldn’t let me buy one for the rest of the night. The selflessness of these guys was just incredible. Of course, I offered my place for them to crash if they wanted, and I ended up carrying one of them back. He had a few too many shots of tequila and kinda needed to ralph. My Italian roommate was still up and had no idea what was going on. I explained that this guy was among the bravest guys in my country, but he seemed to think that he was sick…like with the flu or SARS. I don’t know. After he was done, I tried to get him to go to sleep on our couch, but he kept insisting that there was a girl in my room and he needed to go in there. So basically, I had to carry him all the way back to the bar where we put him to sleep in his car. The other two guys were alright and we had a good time just hanging out. Kora, one of the girls on the trip, claims that I was “hogging” one of the guys all night, but this dude was pretty much a hero, so I wanted to hear his stories. On top of that, I’m the only guy on the trip, which I appreciate, but I hadn’t really talked to any real heroes before, so Kora, just wait ‘til next time I guess. After the second bar closed…at 4, I offered my floor for these guys to sleep on. After 4 years in a fraternity, I was pretty well prepared to take care of drunk people. I offered the guy my bed and told him I’d sleep on the floor, but he told me that after sleeping on top of mountains in Afghanistan, a tile floor and a pillow was all that he needed. We all went to sleep, but I woke up to him yacking in my garbage can. I can honestly say that I’ve never been so honored to clean up someone’s puke before. Well anyways, shortly after I finished cleaning that up, their buddy who was sleeping in the car called and I had to go wait with him until their other sober buddies from the base came and picked them up. Following this, I kinda had to wake up the two guys sleeping on my floor, neither of whom would budge. Don’t tell Uncle Sam, but I basically had to smack both of them to wake them up. They got in the cars and I assumed that they were going back to the base. They then told me that they were going to the train station because they were on their way to Rome. Obviously, I felt terrible that I had kicked out two Rangers who could have stayed had I known that their bags were in the trunk of the car. They said they’d be fine, so I’m sure they will. Nonetheless, my roommate was royally pissed that I had brought these diseased hobos back to my house. I tried to explain that they were heroes and that I owed it to them to take care of them, seeing as how they’d all be shot at or shot for me and my country, but he didn’t really care…he doesn’t know it, but we’re not on very good terms now. Don’t mess with the USA I guess.

So next week I have my first exam; the equivalent already of a semester of Italian. In two weeks, we’ll be headed to Oktoberfest. Thanks to Sergei for finding us a place to stay. It should be a great time and I’ll try to make an entry once a week from now on. I’ll also try to take some more pictures! Email me if you want to at [e-mail]. I’d love to hear how the states are! Lots of love and take care of yourselves!
God Bless,
Rich

---

Comments

[RichP]

I'll be adding pics on monday. My internet connection kinda sucks here. Sweet. See ya! -Rich

[Silverman]

Bike Rentals
Rich, For some reason I didn't think you were 40 minutes away. Instead of dealing with the bike problems, though, I might offer a couple pf options: 1) There are actually bikes you can rent for something like 50 Euro cents. I'm not kidding - they're hilarious yellow cruisers probably from like 1960, but they're incredibly cheap and what's awesome is they're coin operated, so you can literally rent it and keep it your whole trip, and then just return it to get your money. Honor system I guess? They're on the Northwest side of Piazza Bra - just ask Claudio and I'll bet he'll know. Or, you can B) Buy a sweet Bianchi at the bike store that's on the way to "Campus". It's about half way between the bar and the bridge you would cross to get over to it on the same street. As far as the Soave festival goes, we never got to do that, but given that's my favorite White wine, I'm insanely jealous. Enjoy it as much as possible, and try to get to Garda after class as much as possible - it really is beautiful and so close! Cheers

[Silverman Again]

Gym
One other thing. As far as losing body mass - it's amazing how fast it comes off there isn't it? If you really are itching to be the standard American frat boy, there are three gym options there. 1) The free outdoor gymnasium where most people run (I think I mentioned it before) that's out between the edge of the city before the train station. 2) A gym where you get a small discount for being a student at the school 3) A gym closer to the University of Verona, where I think their students tend to work out when they aren't smoking cigarettes, drinking, and getting into their extremely tight pants.

[Luigi]

You are the luckiest man alive!!
Rich, I didn't see the pictures the last time I visited your blog. They are great. Not too many people still in school have had the travel schedule you have had in the past twelve months. I'll be there in two weeks so I will have a chance to enjoy Italy too. Wish I could see October Fest. I might over indulge if given the opportunity. Have fun and we'll see you soon....Love ...Dad