Today has been really boring. I’ve spent the whole day reading The Leopard. It’s long and dull. I’m probably not going to finish it today, as I had hoped. I will certainly finish it tomorrow, but I’ll have more reading to do for The Grand Tour once that’s done. And I’ll have some typing to do for Modern Italy. Ugh, this weekend bites.
Monthly Archive for May, 2004
Strange Things About Europe, Volume 4
1) I saw a women riding a bike and talking on a cell phone at the same time. Somehow that just seems stranger and worse than talking on a cell phone while driving.
So today was our excursion to Siena. You know, I really don’t have much to say about it. It was another beautiful city in a beautiful country. I think that just goes to show that I’m really spoiled by being hear. Siena is the kind of beauty that should be able to make me weak at the knees. Instead, it’s on the same level of beauty as most of the other cities I’ve been to. It wasn’t boring or anything; I’m glad I went. I just find it interesting that these trips are starting to become the norm in my mind.
Strange Things About Europe, Volume 3
1) The farther you get from a tourist center the better the food gets.
2) The purse thieves here are very good at what they do.
So the first week of classes has officially been completed. The scary thing is that each class only meets 11 times, and I’ve been twice so far. So that’s almost 20% of the courses completed after only a mere week. Pretty crazy if you ask me.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Thursday was the first day of my Art & Architecture class. I decided to take this class as pass/fail. I’m a little nervous about having to memorize all the various names of painters and sculptors and having to identify what period it’s from and such. I can tell you what the artist’s intent was until I’m blue in the face, but the technical stuff is a bit hard for me. That and I’m taking three courses so I can get my summer requirement done.
But yeah, the first trip we went to Santa Croce and looked a bunch of tombs and mosaics. It was pretty amazing, mostly because Mrs. Duckworth knows more about this stuff than anyone I’ve ever met.
Today was the first day of classes. Both of them are awesome. The Grand Tour lived up to its name. We went to look at the many marble sculptures for the second half of class. Our professor Mr. Duckworth is really good. He’s an old British man that’s soft spoken but you can tell he’s really intellectual. Right after class ended Jason, Brian and I kept talking about one of the sculptures we had been discussing in class. Mr. Duckworth came up to us and told us that that was the thing he loved to see more than anything else - his students talking about what they did in class after it ended.
The second class was also good, albeit a little long. All three of my classes are three hours long each, but the Grand Tour seemed shorter. Modern Italy had a lot of note taking. I mean it had a lot of note taking. I think I took 7 pages. You can be told a lot in the span of three hours. It was good though, because Dr. Carrabino is a great professor. Today we just heard about the basics of Italy.
Strange Things About Europe, Volume 2
1) The mannequins in Florence have extremely erect nipples.
2) I heard a little Italian girl in Pisa say, “Oh momma mia!” when she saw all the people in our program coming towards her.
3) I had two people in the Louvre think I was French. I know this because they asked me questions in French. I knew one of them (he asked me what time it was) but the other one was complicated. I’m not French!
4) I had three people just walking back to the hotel here in Florence Friday night ask me questions in Italian. I didn’t know any of what they said. I’m not Italian!
Hey friends, sorry it’s taken me so long to get an update your way. I’ve just been so busy and hadn’t had the time to get to an Internet cafe. But here I am at intotheweb The Cyber Cafe in Florence, Italy. Let me start with the events of last Wednesday.
Strange Things About Europe, Volume 1
1) I saw a couple making out inside Notre Dame. I know Paris is the city of romance, but Notre Dame is still a church.
2) I heard a young British boy who was probably about 10 years old singing There She Goes, most recently recorded by Sixpence None The Richer. I had no idea they were popular over here.
3) On the Eiffel Tower, a British professor with his class of elementary aged students were looking for the “lift” to the top level. He asked me where it was… in French. Perfect French as far as I could tell. Now I ask you, do I look the slightest bit French to you? I answered him in English, and he looked rather embarrassed. I think it was because he thought he had replicated the accent and everything, but through it all I (being French) still knew he was British and that French was his second language.
4) There is a car in France that is small enough to back into (perpendicular) a parking spot that you are supposed to parallel park into. I don’t know what it’s called, but it’s the wussiest thing I’ve ever seen.
Hey hey hey. Guess who’s in Paris? That’s right, one more dorky American tourist. 
But I’m getting ahead of myself. First I’ve got to tell you about moving out of Salley Hall. What a pain. I can’t believe that it took as long as it did. Andy and I did most of what we needed to do that morning. We filled up Andy’s car and JD’s van to the very brim. We put all of my junk into storage, which didn’t take too long at all since we had a cart that we could load up. After loading up, we went over to the Landon’s apartment for a quick graduation party. It was good to see Kyle, Joe, Theresa, Rachofel, and Suz one last time.
After a couple more trips Andy drove me to the airport. I got on the airplane without a hitch, but from then on was full of hitches. There was a computer virus going throughout Atlanta’s airport that was messing up everything. I sat on the ground in Tallahassee for an extra two hours. I missed my connection in Atlanta. I did manage to get on another flight that was leaving a couple hours later.
I’m gonna have to make this quick because I don’t have much time today. I’m moving out of Salley! At the end of today I will be in Paris with my family. I really just wanted to say that this year has been great. My friends are the best. And Jesus, you more than came through. You gave me more than I could have wanted this year. Thank you to everyone. I will see you in a few months.
