Monday, November 22, 1999

Nightmares on the Night Train

Just got back from a wonderful trip to Switzerland. Went to the Pray 4 Snow event in Thun with Sessions....

So I took a night train from Zurich to Florence. Last time I took a sleeper train, I was 12, almost 13. I am a much bigger person now than I was back in the day. I am a bit to tall for those beds inside the train. I'm only 5'9"...my dad is 6'3"...dad, i don't know how you did it, that had to be one of the most uncomfortable nights of your life, on our way from the south of france to venice. But that was such an awesome trip, arriving into venice looking out the window, picking up wine and cheese from a little shop and eating on the train together....buying as much 1.5L waters as we could b/c it was the hot hot days of summer :)

Back to 2009. So, I never really fell asleep. I sort of dozed off, forcing my eyes to stay shut. And every single time I closed my eyes, I had a horrible nightmare about this trip. In one I got off the train at one of the stations to stretch my legs, and I thought the train left without me, with all my stuff. Then I saw all my stuff on a pile at the station and didn't know how I would get back to Florence, I couldn't afford to get another ticket! And, the conductor takes your passport when you get on the train, so I was without my passport too! Then it turned out my train was still there, and I got back on.

Another one: I thought we had arrived in Florence so I got off the train with only one of my bags, planning to go back to get my purse. But then the train left! Again, I was without my passport...and we weren't in Florence, I was at some random stop in Italy and I was completely alone except for this guy with missing teeth who started to chase me....that was a bad one.

But then, the conductor came in and brought me coffee and some bread and told me that Florence was coming up in 30 minutes. He gave me my passport back, got off the train with all my bags, and didn't have any problems :)

Weird times on night trains.

I'll post later about Pray 4 Snow.

Saturday, November 13, 1999

I don't think you can honestly call this stealing...

So, kaitlin, ashley, kaitlin's friend and i got gelato and were eating it at piazza del duomo this evening. We witnessed a man go from standing straight up and down to horizontal on the cobble stone....honestly, it was like watching a tree fall down. A bunch of change fell out of his pockets, when we realized he was drunk out of his mind and homeless.

We proceeded to watch him nearly fall while walking away from the scene and around the piazza, somewhat afraid he would wander in our direction. We kind of took that as our cue to see if anything good had fallen out of his pockets, indeed...about 4.50 euro was on the ground. Being college students, we took it.

Friday, November 12, 1999

Birthdays and languages



I was just in Belgium for Adeline's Birthday! My family hosted her in Californa for a year of study abroad. It was so great to see her, i couldn't believe it had been 5 years since the last time we saw each other, it felt like 5 days...her family was so amazing and welcoming...they made the most delicious lunch: meatballs and fries and salad, and they made a beautiful and yummy birthday cake for Adeline :)

I was so nervous to speak french....I didn't until the end really...it had been so long since I studied, I had trouble understanding it when Adeline's friends were talking, but when i was speaking 1 on 1 with someone, they were really great about speaking slowly and helping me understand. It was frustrating though because there was a time when I was nearly fluent. I had always been told that if you don't practice a language, you will lose it. Guess what? It's true. =) Adeline's sister and I got along really well...she was nervous to speak english at first, but when she did, she sounded fluent. I am definitely going back to Belgium to see everyone...


Now I'm back in Italy. I have got to study Italian more avidly. I just need to push myself, and memorize all those irregular verbs! And learn nouns and adjectives and all of it! But my problem is that I try to learn everything at once, and end up not learning anything....gotta take it slow. Maybe one vocab list, a page long every few days. We'll see, I'll keep you posted. I'm headed to Bormio soon to see Angelo...check out where we're spending a day:

http://www.bagnidibormio.it/gallery/gallery.htm


By the way, I ALREADY HAVE THE DART SKILL...a bunch of Adeline's friends went to a bar on her birthday and i started playing darts with a few of them...and i was awesome. I don't wanna brag or anything, but i was the first one to close out the numbers, i just really suck at the whole bull's eye business. I've got to work on that, it's all about the follow through :)

Ciao for now.

Florence, Italy.

Saturday, November 6, 1999

A day.

Today was a lovely day, slept a ton and woke up late to run to Musee dell'Academia, where the famous David is on display.

My friend Sayam turned to me in the middle of class, I swear he has ants in his pants during class and said,

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift....that's why they call it the PRESENT".

In the new sacristy in San Lorenzo, we saw two tombs, one depicted the deceased as contemplative, and the other was depicted as active. Our teacher said that this represented two different ways to live your life: live an active life or live a pensive life. Got me thinking at how I live mine. It doesn't much matter, I think most people live theirs as a combination of both...these two lives are more of how others perceive someone's life.


.........

I need a skill.

I'm not exactly sure what type of skill, just some sort of talent, that is out of the ordinary of my every day life.

I have decided that i want to learn the cello. I don't know when, but it's something I want to do. And someday I'll play the harp again....

But a real hardcore skill would be nice, like "olympic-luge-ist" (thanks ashley), or a pool shark or a darts champion (thanks kaitlin) that'd be a pretty sweet skill to have at a bar. But I need something a little more epic...like climbing up walls.

Ashley just made plums smell so good.....she's magic.

Heading to Belgium in a few hours.....I'll let you know if I find a skill there.

Band we saw in Dublin: