Homework: get skype

alright readers, here's today's assignment. go download skype! if you have dial up you may want to think about not doing it, but for all those who have a faster connection, get it! i can call you for free, FREE, if you have it. so get it.

that is all.

As if I needed another reason

So, the main reason I started that last post was because I wanted to share with you something my host in Napoli shared with me, but only because his dentist-student friend felt that i bore a striking resemblance to a local pop icon named Jovanotti. I met the Dentist on my second last day in Napoli and for the entire night he kept prompting me to get up on stage, or start singing or shouting "you dance. you must. you jovanotti." Well, judge for yourselves.



Really, what this means is that I have added to my list of reasons to keep my beard. Let's review:
1. I look like Jovanotti
2. I don't have to shave
3. Missing my mouth when drinking no longer matters

Tomorrow: the cons of a beard (if I can find any)

[the song's title is Fango, which means mud]

Il 141 Aprire

In Napoli my host was a Med student, in his fifth year of how ever many he needs to do. In september he's going to Istanbul to study and learn Turkish; not because he needs to know how to be a doctor that speaks Turkish, in fact the classes are all in english anyways, but simply because he wants to speak Turkish. I've met a fair few people who have similar goals.

Like my host in Roma and how he was a tour guide simply because he wanted a job that had him speaking english. And his roommate, an american guy, who went to Italy nine months ago to visit and found a job teaching english; he stayed because he wanted to learn italian.

"I've already learned french, this was the next logical step" he said to me as we sat one night watching The Matrix in Italian.

There's my two roomates in Cork who came simply to learn english, that french guy who asked me one night why I would work and live in Ireland. "you speak english though" he said to which i had no reply.

After I've thought about it a bit I suppose my reasons for Ireland are simply because I wanted my animal house life to never end. Ireland is notorious for having a drunken environment and I wanted to have a taste of that fun.

Don't get me wrong. If I did it all again it would have been the same, but I know now that experiencing a countries culture is much more rewarding than the animal house life.

Because really, am I ever going to see a hilarious screen play come across my desk with an offer to star as my self in the motion picture?

... well Dan, will I?

patronizing

st. francis of assissi is the patron saint of tourist shops, or so it would seem. never before had i seen more shops with more of the same junk than i did the day i went to assissi; however, as luck would have it, that is not all that happened.

the morning i woke up, the morning that i was going to go to assissi, where francis is from, was a sunday, which, at the homefarm would have meant a morning of rushing and toast, missing shoes and car horns, and an afternoon at grandma and grandpa's house with eggs, bacon and more toast, however here, in Cortona, it meant a short train ride and a baptist mass in italian.

***

an hour and half later i am on a train heading towards the city of assissi, where francis was from. he was a modest man, lived simply and before he passes away he left his last testament saying that "all [his] possessions are to be preserved behind glass and shown to the public and small trinkets are to be made and sold in every shop of the town that i lived modestly in". we know this because his last testament is also modestly kept behind glass.

getting off the train in assissi had me waiting a short time for a bus. getting on the bus had me sitting next to a woman from kentucky of about 65 and has spent the last ten years in italy. she offered me a seat next to her.

she liked italy because they used to use wheel barrows, now she likes italy because it isn't america. we chated about farming and globalization and italian culture and learning languages. we chated about all sorts of things until we, the bus and i, arrived at the stop that was to be mine. i knew this because my new friend told me so after i asked her which was my stop. she told me to look past the tourist shops and to behave myself. i told her i would try for the first part but the second part was no problem because I had been to church that morning.

juggling juggling

we hitchhiked again two days after our trip from Trento to Lago Di Garda but after two hours of waiting, a lunch in a park-like area and another our of juggling at the bus stop while a young girl did all she could to ignore us we were hardly much closer to Cortona, where the farm was, than when we had started that morning.

but we did have the train ride to entertain us. we had a lot of fun making grayson seem like he was many people, experimenting with lights and watch the scenery go by.

we arrived to cortona, juggled some more and took a bus up the hill and around the corner where we juggled some more and waited for Margarite to find us.

and then when she did she thought my name was chuck, which was not out of the ordinary as we would soon discover.

time spent

so ... instead of spending time writing a post i spent it updating different online profiles, writing on walls and generally exhausting my eyes by viewing a back lite monitor until the wee hours othe morning. those wee hours might be a little be less astonishing as they may have been a year ago at this time, meaning that days no longer worked on the 24 hr clock, but instead on a newer, more contemporary system that involved 120 minute hours, thirty two "hour" days successfully converting the standard week (72, 7 by 24 is 28 plus 140 is 861 ... 168hrs ...) into a period that existed over two and a half days.

when abouts did i lose you?

i have arrived safely to a farm in the province of Calabria near the city of Costenza. the couple living here are in their mid fifties (born in '54), they have two daughters (neither are here) who are married or studying depending on their amount (or lack) of children.

in conclusion it is now half past one on the morning of the 27th and i hope that i haven't missed
anyones birthday. i am now going to bed.

ciao,

pane

randomly random

I don't have time for a full post, but i had access to my host's computer and felt like typing a bit. I wanted to share with you first a video I found when I searched the web for the spam I got a few days ago. It was posted to Type For You by pedro. You can watch the video on your own, it's at the end of this post.

Rome has been great. I had a very random moment that'll I'll share later, and a few other not so random moments that I may share later, and I may not. If I don't share them it is likely that in being unrandom they aren't entertaining. I once knew a guy who told me he hated it when people used the word "random" because most of the time when they used it, it was at the wrong time.

"we went to the mall and a like bought a new purse and then we found another store that had the same purse and it was like so random"

no he would say that was not random and don't you ever say that again.

i agree with him, but i use it in a very appropriate way, i assure you. but you'll have to wait for me to explain it with a story.

enjoy the video.

hitch'n another ride

part one

"This will happen from time to time where you're forced to keep hitching and hope for the best"

So we hoped and we hoped and were given a german couple about half an hour later. They liked us so much they dropped us 15km past the spot they were going to stop at; not just their turn off, but thier bed and breakfast. He gave us his email and offered a couch for the both of us for Oktoberfest!

"just make sure to tell all your Canadian friends that Germans aren't all that bad"

we waited awhile at Lago De Garda and had a beer and discussed life and other things.

We got another ride from another guy, but I mostly stared out the window. We would be arriving in Garda shortly and from there it was just a short walk to our host for the evening. My first day hitching had been exciting and fantastic and addicting. I didn't want to stop, I wanted to put my thumb out again and again and meet more and more people. The sorts of people who stop and pick you up are the sorts of people I want to meet. They have stories to tell and are genuine and kind and considerate and understand what it's like to hitch. But even though it was exciting and wonderful it was also exhausting. The ware that came from a day spent on my feet, waiting patiently, thinking everytime I said goodbye and thank-you to a ride that it will be the last ride we saw that day was showing. we also needed to eat.

a polite good-bye, a thank-you and a short walk later we arrived on Guiseppe's doorstep and juggled until he got home from work. His parents watched from what they thought was an unseen window, offered us water and cookies and did what they do in the garden and kitchen.

hitch'n a ride

on what was our last morning in Trento we didn't set out as early as we would have liked. Grayson was somewhat anxious about finding rides, but if worse came to worse we wouldn't in too bad a position if no one picked us up: we were only a stones throw from the train station and it only cost five euros.

"you want to do this eh? i've never hitched with just another guy before, i don't know how this is going to go"

"damn right i do! you're leaving in two weeks and i won't have the caurage to learn to do this on my own."

so we hauled our rucksacks to a spot that felt right and made them look small. we held out our thumbs, smiled large and watched the people pass by. 

this is it. i thought this is what i've been craving. i'll be just like Sal Paradise and Gray will be Dean ... and we will be on the road.

Cars passed by, as they do most often, and we waved politely and smiled so they could see we were pleasant travelers. It must have worked because after only ten minutes a small red pinto pulled to the side. Luca was 27, worked with troubled teans and was an ex junkie. He talked and talked and told stories of traveling and bad people in Amsterdam and his bad ex-habbits. He liked that we were hitching and spoke decent english. He dropped us off in a small town next to anther trainstation, wished us luck and sped away.

Our next ride came an hour later, cinqua minuto before we were going to give up. A man was driving his mamma who had "just had a few McBiers and wanted someone to talk to" he joked about wanting someone to talk to her that wasn't him. They both laughed and then turned to us for a response that we couldn't give because they had been speaking italiano. We didn't get to have our laugh until nearly a half an hour later when we had decoded their italian and come to the end of our ride. The dropped us in a small town with no sign of a train station anywhere.

"This will happen from time to time where you're forced to keep hitching and hope for the best"

part two

fame ill ear words

today i have the day and the house to myself. my host family left for Milan and will be gone for the night, the following morning, afternoon and early evening. I hope they're back by then because by that time I'll be very hungry.

"you can do as much, or as little, work today. it all depends on what you feel like. there's food in the fridge and beer in the cellar. don't kill the goats but if you just hope on a train and don't write. any questions?"

"nope" says I "see you in 36 hrs.

So I settled down into a long afternoon filled with coffee's and photo accounts and writing and eating. For a while there I lost their dog and I was a little worried.  Turns out I needed to either look farther than the front stoop or wait a little bit longer; I chose the latter and had him in the house long enough for his smell to linger for an entire hour after kicking him out again. He's safely outside somewhere likely making fun of the goats (I assume that because that's what I'd be doing).

Uploading photo's got me itching for some random writing. So I created some. It started out rather hoe-hum and mundane, but then I started having fun. Enjoy!

Things that interest me: 

photography, writing, languages, cycling. violins, guitars, and digital cameras. 35mm picture drawers. starting up forgotten computers and finding lost treasure. a freshly printed essay. rucksackers, the beatnik life and hitchhiking. pianos, wallet sized photo's kept in wallet sized wallets. mailbags made of old pants. using a new word correctly, ewe sing fame ill ear word sin weigh snot ewe sid beef four. self made postcards, waiting for pictures to develope, seeing pictures develope instantly, not being sarcastic, contradicting myself, and writing a novel.

 ... but that's just a start.

Signor Pane

Here's a few things about Italian pronounciation, or at least as far as I've learned. It's fairly staright forward because the language is fawnetick (unlyk inglish) and once you know how the letters opporate you'll be well on your way. mostly this is to help you along with reading my future posts about Italy because I'll be throwing in some Italian words that I learn along the way.

Oh, and you remember that theory I said I had? It turned out to be true. There is no word in Italian for spelling because they don't have that problem. A word is written exactly as it sounds and therefore there's no need to communitcate a misspelling. Neat, eh!

 The Vowels:

 a - short a

 e - long a

 i - long e

 o - short o

 u - oo

 and that's that. come si scrivre is then read like com-eh see scree-v-ray. to help you out I'll be putting Italian words in bold like I did above.

 Some Other Things:

 ci - makes a ch sound

 ch - makes a k sound

 r - rrrroll up the rrrrim to win

 j - there is no j

 g - for the most part doesn't get pronounced, except in cases where it does

 all others - pronounce them as you would but with an italian accent.

 Young Elliott has been having trouble remembering/pronouncing my name. It's not Italian so the sounds are foriegn to his ears. However, he has, like others before him, discovered the similarities between the name Brad and the word bread. He has, along with the rest of the family, taken to calling me Pane (sound it out in Italian). There was a discussion at dinner tonight to perhaps name me a specific kind of bread (such as Bagel or Bagget or whole wheat ... that was my suggestion) but in the end Elliott had the last word and would still call me Pane.

 There is a saying in italian that says buono come pane which means good like bread. I couldn't agree more.

11 am; venician park

 the farm is great. we've had a blast being here, grayson and i. before i get too much into that, however, the how of how i, and we, got here needs some explaining.

 for this story you can picture me seated on a bench in venice. it is a small park and behind me, out of view, is the bus station i just came from. beside me is my rucksack and i've my arm around it. around my waist is the uncomfortable jab of a traveler's "thingthatkeepsthemoneyandpassportsafe" (that's not so much as important for the story as it is a reassurance for dad to know that i am wearing it this time around*). in front of me is the city of venice with all it's boats and canals and sinking buildings and tourists, and here is me on a park bench wondering what it is i am supposed to do.

 beside me is also a map of the city with a circle on it telling me what park i am in; the lady who sold it to me spoke enough english to draw a circle. you might also notice that i wrote bought a map which to those who have travelled or have been a tourist in any city might be thinking what the hell are you doing buying a map, let alone paying tre euro for it (i hadn't told you the price yet although i am sure most of you could have improvised a bit and carried on as if i had). this is an odd thing, buying a map in a tourist city, because the people in the city like you to be there spending your foreign money and make it as easy as possible to get the information you need to spend the money you're carrying in the stupid thingthatkeepsthemoneyandpassportsafe.

 grayson and i had exchanged a few txt's earlier that morning, the latest informing me he was en route. i had nothing to do but sit and watch the boats go by, the tourists spend money and the old lady crawl onto the park bench across from me. she didn't bother me, and i didn't want to bother her. after all, it was her city, and for all i knew it was her park too; who was i to make any suggestions.

 a month ago i was looking into flight costs to istanbul and athens when i had found a flight for 0.01 euro, so i booked it. turns out venice was in italy and grayson was too. little did i know i had arranged for us to meet up after having been simultaniously exploring the continent for the past six months. you see, we were supposed to be in ireland last spring at the same time and would have been had it not been for my dragging of the feet and the need for some money and a certian wedding i wanted to go to.

 so there i am: on a park bench in italy, waiting on a friend whom i was supposed to meet up with a year ago and still not really knowing what i was supposed to do. do i get a boat, or a glass of wine or take out my camera? i felt like asking the old woman, but she looked so peaceful sleeping there that i just couldn't bring myself to wake her. so i did what i hadn't been able to do for a long time; i read.

 however just as soon as i fished out my book from the bottom of my rucksack another rucksack was dropped nexted to it and the top hatted dude who had done the dropping was standing there waiting for a hello. so after a hug and some stories we set off to explore the city, which is what i was supposed to be doing after all.

 

*when i was in auz i had my wallet stolen just a few days into the trip. i'll try and tell that story another time

chow mama

so, here we go. at this moment i am sat at the table with an esspresso, the house is settling after sending thomas, 7, to school and grayson is still snug in his cocoon below. little elliott, 5, has grown tired of convincing me that mom put the video game on the top shelf in the kitchen because she wanted [him] to play with it and has resorted to helping me scrivre home.

(i have now poured myself a tea because the esspresso lasted no longer than it took to write the word down)

mom, margaret, having spent the morning running her hand through her short hair in unconditionally frustrated love, is now out feeding her kashmire goats and chasing the chickens out of her garden. echo's of this morning's chaos slowly fade as the chores wear on.

where's your homework, thomas? she asks the bedroom.

it responds in italian.

no, it isn't. i packed your bag. what did you do with it.

elliott smirks at me and i smirk at him. 

"come si dicie hi mom, elloitt?" 

"chow mama." 

"gracia. come si scrivre?" 

"c-i-a-o  m-a-m-m-a"

(the word for write and for spell are the same. i don't know why, but i have a theory. i'll ask around and find out more before i share this theory lest i sound like a babbling idiot)

lost

i've missplaced the update that i was going to write out. i wrote it out this morning, kept it in my back pocket the whole day and promptly lost it before sitting down just now.

i trust that it will turn up, but until then i will have to work on more.

i am doing well. grayson leaves tomorrow. i am at a farm in tuscany and will be for another week.

i miss you all,

--b