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Published: June 24th 2007
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I know it's been a while since I posted an entry. Sorry, it's taken so long. I'll try to catch you up.
Last Wednesday I went to the gym with Giovnana and then worked from my room in the afternoon. Nothing too exciting that I can remember..... other than being in Brescia Italy. Oh wait, it was exciting that the temperature hit 34 degrees celcisus and the air conditioner in my room was not working. On Tuesday night I decided to give up on having an authentic Italian experience and turned on the air. However, the unit never produced any cold air and I tried every concievable combination of dial and button positions. The hotel allowed me to leave my things in my initial room and gave me the key to another room to sleep in. They had a repairman in who fixed the air on Thursday. I haven't done the math to convert 34 celcius to farenheit, but I can tell you that it felt incredibly warm.
Thursday I had an early morning meeting with an education professor who is starting to use some of the economics models of stakeholders to analyze the education of medical professionals
and patients. She was very interesting to talk to and she and I have ended up doing similar research, but we approached it from different directions. I had a late morning meeting with another professor and the president of a publishing house in Brescia. It turned out that they did not want to hear my presentation, but planned to give me a tour of their facility. It was very interesting. The publishing comipany has been in business for 103 years and focuses on educational magazines and textbooks. I was allowed to see the documents telling the history of their company, printed archives and the store that sells their current titles. It was a very informative and educational morning.
Thursday afternoon I did not have any appointments scheduled for Friday, so I told Giovanna I would work from my room while she ran errands. Later Thrusday evening Giac called to ask if I could meet him in the office for a meeting at 10:00. I asked if he would just pick me up on his way in since Giovanna was running errands, but he was not going straight to the office and we weren't sure it would be unlocked, so
he agreed to send me information on the bus system Friday morning and I would take the bus to the WTC. Friday turned out to be the day that the bus and train drivers were all on strike, so I started working in my office and completely lost track of time. Giovanna came to pick me up for lunch and now I know I'm part of her family--she let me buy some bread at the bakery across from my hotel to bring. I also discovered a new Italian dessert--- gelato with warm Italian coffee poured over it. Yum!
Friday afternoon Giovanna went walking with me, and she took me in a different direction than I had been going. I thought the street ended, but if you walk through a short alley, you come out in an amazing shopping district. Wow! I purchased a card reader to finally be able to upload my digital pictures to the computer.
Friday night, I decided I had been in Italy a full week and had not had dinner at a street cafe yet, so it was high time I did. I found a place around the corner from my hotel with delicious
sounding items on the menu and picked table. It was wonderful! Although I strongly suggest you familiarize yourself with the metric system and the size of a typical portion before traveling much. They list sizes in grams, and cLs, but I was not aware of how much food I was ordering. That's OK, I managed to get a good meal out of it.
Late Friday night back in my hotel, I discovered the card reader was not quite right, so Saturday morning I went back to the camera shop to exchange it. I was all by myself, and managed to use my limited Italian to get the exchange made. I know it's not a big deal, but it was very liberating for me. And now I should have the right card reader to finally conquer the technology
Saturday I checked out of the hotel and moved to ISEO for the nobel prize summer school. It is in a hotel on lago d'Iseo (Lake Iseo.) It is a beautiful setting with economics and law students from around the world. Although, they are serving us buffett style, and I miss the courses of an Italian meal. I assumed everyone in Italy cooked as well as Giovanna.
I have eaten dinner at a table with Robert Solow, two nights in a row. (For my non-economists friends, he is a genius macro-economists who won the nobel prize in 1987.) As it turns out, he is also a delightful person with some wonderful stories to tell. I'm looking forward to the rest of the week.
Today we went to Venice. It was wonderful, but I am exhausted, so I'll have to tell you about Venice later.
Ciao,
Julie
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Pam
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Love the photos!
Wow, Julie, the photos are great! I look forward to seeing all of them!