Off to Italy tomorrow early. Just for a few days. Back Sunday arvo and Monday is a holiday. I have no idea what the occasion is Monday, but as usual it’s somehow related to easter or something…whatever…I’ll glady take the day off.
Happy weekend to all!
and if you’ve got 3 hours…
http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/nep_auto
Watching BBC documentary again…Jacques Cousteau’s grandson is incredibly annoying. I get the impression he doesn’t really know anything and is surviving on his family name only…but then what do I know…
It’s way too hot today. So I’ll be leaving a too hot Germany to go to a probably way too hot Italy…great!!! At least unlike Germany the Italians have a\c…
We went to the Senckenberg today. Tiefsee (deep sea). Saw lots of deep sea creatures in jars. fun!
I uploaded some more Köln pics (link on the right) stolen from Matt, and grabbed a couple more off Kat (below).
but then it’s not secured…it’s like they’re asking me to just take it….
Thursday night in Italy. Glad to be going home tomorrow. Flying back here in a week for a bit of a holiday…
It’s warm here.
I’m still waiting for the Italian authorities to accept me…wha!!!!!
I learned the Italian word for Lizard today….I’ve forgotten it.
I used eminently in a sentence the other day.
Those might have been the two highlights of my week…I love this country!!! I’m ready to move here as soon as they let me (what with their low birthrate I thought they’d be happy to have a ”skilled worker”)…they’re probably reading this…I LOVE YOUR COUNTRY!!!
I just remembered the third highlight…I attempted to cook the other night (normally I eat out on a business trip cuz who wants to cook). I bought taco fixins and after making the kitchen smell like gas I figured out that I would be using a gas stove for probably the first time in my life…anyway there was this lovely piece of glass that was covering the stove and it sort of moved up and down…well I was confused and called Julia but her phone was busy…I wasn’t quite sure if the glass should be on the stove or not (Mark Fordice you should have warned me about this 🙂 )…anyways lit the flame (after waiting a minute to let the kitchen air out) left the glass down…turned my back and it shattered…oops!!!
3 highlights in a week is really all one should ever ask for…
Normally when I’m away somewhere I try to travel a bit on the weekends, but not this time. I stayed close to home. We had a big company dinner on Friday night. Saturday I just moseyed down to the beach and had a really expensive gnocchi with cheese sauce lunch. The waiter seemed bothered that I was there.
That’s one funny thing about Italy…I’ve been in restaraunts that seem to have 4 waiters for 8 tables and are extremely happy to tell you everthing on the menu, everything that they recommend, everything that was fresh today, etc etc. and I’ve been to restaurants where the staff seems to ignore you and treat you with contempt. It does seem that if you know someone you do get much better service.
Today just drove up to the castle and then up into the mountains a bit to see a famous marble quarry (when they’re selling Italian marble it probably came from this area). It was impressive, but I didn’t go inside the mine. Still a nice drive.
Stayed in and watched some movies on my laptop.
Nice relaxing weekend…
An Italian colleague dazzled me with his English knowledge by knowing that a period is “female stuff” (while shaking his hand as if it was something to be avoided).
When I first went to Deutschland it took me a while to figure out if colleagues were arguing or just having a conversation – it always sounded like they were arguing. It turns out they weren’t and I’m having the same problem now that I’m in Italy. I think people are arguing but they aren’t. I guess that’s an intricacy that takes a while to grasp.
I also mentioned this before, but Italians often start a sentence (when speaking to me in english) with “Listen…”. I always feel like I’m about to get in trouble when someone starts a sentence like that…but they do it in English because they do it in Italian (senti!).
R is my favourite letter today becuase I can’t pronounce the Deutsch version or the Italian version of it…
Ate Chinese last night, and then sat by the sea a bit…it’s a bit of a boring coastline along the tourist strip. The sea is so calm. No big rocks to make waves and noise etc. Just a flat blue Mediterranean.
got an email from Julia with the word hortative in it…I had to look it up then figured out it must be a form of exhort.
Also in an email got “the infinitive/ non conjugated verb-form of sono is ESSERE”. American learn about the different types of verbs, test on it and forget it (unless you’re learning another language I s’pose). The germans seem to have this drilled into them. I often get a strange look on my face when a german is attempting to either ask me a question about english or explain something to me while happily and confidently dropping in whatever technical term is relevant to the part of speech in question. It only confuses me.
Kind of like that sentence confuses me…
Landed in Italy. I know you’ve heard it before, but RyanAir sucks!!! My carry on bag was about 1kilo to heavy the lady next to the scale forced me out of the line…
Me: what can I do?
Ryanair lady: You can throw something away, wear something or check your bag. But that would be expensive for you.
I move outside the line and put about 6 things in my pocket, and hold a book in my hand. Weigh the bag again. It’s about .2kg heavy, but she lets me through. I put pocket stuff back in bag and move along.
Which allowed me to come up with the genius idea of charging by weight. If Ryan air is so concerned about weight above all else then how about weighing the passengers with thier bag? Set a weight limit per passenger and their bags combined. I guess the result is that fat people can take less luggage than thin people (if you had say a 150 kilo weight limit passenger/bag combined). Just think Ryanair…eventually fat people will stop flying your airline and you can then put 8 tiny seats per row instead of 6 on your 737’s. Then you’ll really be making money. And please do start charging to use the toilets. That is the best idea you’ve ever come up with!!!
J and I will be flying RyanAir again the end of May…yippee!!!
My favorite quote of the week:
Eric: Stephanie likes makeup. And I like it too. Cuz when she’s putting it on she shuts up!!!
Sorry I can’t make it to your wedding. I’ll get to the next one…j/k stephanie 😉
Probably no personal email the next two weeks.
Does designing a desk count as architecture? If not is it a size issue or does it have to be something people live in? If not does a doll house count? A dog house? A tree house? a tent?
This is really just an entry so my mom knows I haven’t died from swine flu…Not yet. Wait til the winter 😉
I had dinner at Louisiana (a restaurant here). I had a burger but it had that really bad beef that you get at a minor league football game (Dullich hamlet). It does not matter how fresh and tasty the rest of the ingredients are…If the beef is that really nasty fake beef lookin stuff it’s nasty!!!
This just in…nasty does not rhyme with tasty…
I have to get up at 6am Sunday to leave for Italy.
Off to Italy on Sunday for 2 weeks (work), then right back again the following Thursday after I get back (holiday).
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