While We're Here, Let's See What Happens...

Oh hi there.

It's me, starting my blog, almost a month after i got here. if you follow me on facebook, twitter, or in life you know the technological fire and brimstone ive been through since my arrival in italy. and yes, i did everything you're supposed to do: brought backups, carried in proper luggage, etc. still yet the technological gods had it out for me: within three days i went from everything running smoothly to a dead camera, two days worth of corrupted cards (of rome pictures nontheless) and a completely corrupted braindead macbook. i couldn't believe my misfortune! and true to form, in italy time moves much slower than the US. most of my problems still are not fixed. thanks to lanny the wellbabambabam wizard i do have a semi functioning computer so i can finally start writing on this thing!

normally, i might give you a play by play of all the traveling we did with pictures of everything. but with all of the issues i've had thus far, i am just now seeing for the first time pictures i took over three weeks ago and i honestly am forgetting a lot of what we've done. long story short: we did a lot of shit in the first week we were here.

i flew into rome and was initially very concerned about making the journey over three different trains to get to naples, but fortunately i had three professors on my flight. i stuck with them and we made an entire day-long journey throughout the southern italy train system to get there. i was extremely glad that i had adopted the "pack light" mantra, my backpack served me well. i am finding it much easier to get around in italian versus german-speaking countries. i learned in the train station how to order a sandwich in italy (order at the register, pay, take your ticket to the cook, tell him you want it to go otherwise he'll assume you'll eat it standing at the counter.) of course it was delish! seven hours after we landed we finally arrived at vico equense, a beautiful coastal town near naples. what a beautiful place to begin the trip! we were in vico for three nights then we headed to rome. where we stayed at a hotel that happens to be the recommended hotel of the vatican. there was incidentally a calling by the pope for priests all over the world so the whole hotel/city was covered over with priests and nuns. out of respect i didn't take any photos, but it was a sight to see for sure haha. rome was really cool and i enjoyed the fast-paced chic and modern city atmosphere. and then there was cortona: bella cortona! it really does look like it does in the movie (under the tuscan sun), we have a beautiful view out our bedroom window of the italian countryside and the city of camucia below. it's still surreal to look outside and see that scenery, and i still find it hard to believe i'm actually here and that i'm living here for real! we got a few days off to unpack and get acclimated which was a nice change of pace since we had been constantly moving for the past week and a half. initially it was very cold here: in the fifties for several days and it was miserable! of course i didnt pack any warm clothes so i ended up going to a bennetton in camucia and ordering some sweatshirts off of amazon uk to get by. one thing ive learned for sure about being here is that you really do give up a lot of control living in a foreign country, particularly under the guise of a program like this where your time is not necessarily your own. it's been an exercise in patience for sure! since then i have been starting my classes: signs and symbols (graphic design), renaissance art history and book making. i'm loving them all so far, but i have to say nine hours in the summer is tough stuff! perhaps this in conjunction with the technological problems explains the extreme lack of blogging lol.

so, there you go, an extremely brief rundown of the last three weeks of my life which have been absolutely packed with stuff but appear to be not busy at all based on this summary.

but really, you've all read these study abroad blogs, they get super boring because you won't know the places i'm talking about nor will you care to hear every detail about my life in italy. frankly when i'm looking back on this blog after i come home i probably won't care about these things either. so this blog's going to be a bit different. there will be pictures of course (cameras and other technology permitting) as well as my thoughts about my experiences in italy and even more stuff about the work im doing while here in italy. i hope that you can enjoy living vicariously through me and with your good karma i can avoid anymore technical difficulties and spend less time fiddling in the lab and more time what doing what i came to do: making work and exploring! thanks for stopping by!