Joe's Blög

Jonnie Fox is closing for 2 months…no more healthy food for a couple months. I’m sort of sad…

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After work Friday Daniele and I drove to Bologna. Great city! I loved it.
Met some cool people. Had some great food and conversation, found an international bookstore with a great english selection. I’m in books for a few months…

Apparently there’s no such thing as bolognese sauce in Bologna…they just call it ragu. Brilliant!
Also the american bologna is called mortodella in Bologna. It’s just bologna

Here’s some pics…I’ll put up more on it’s own page.
http://www.joesquires.com/bologna-italy-sep-2010/

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Random road trip and weekend to Bologna.

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Ever come across ridiculous articles that rate things?
Then you look at the questions they ask to determine the ratings and decide it’s just stupid. A person can skew any survey to get the results they want.

Yesterday I went to Italian class again and it was just more being yelled at
I did have to stand in front of the class at the chalkboard and spell stuff (in Italian of course). Luckily I did well. I havn’t stood in front of a class at a chalkboard since I was about 8 years old. Kind of weird…especially for a lefty. We have to write kind of funky on chalkboards (as not to smear).

The teacher sort of takes turns singling out students and talking to them for about 2 minutes at a time…I’m learning that I can avoid this by pretending to be busy writing stuff down or looking at my dictionary…if I don’t make eye contact with her she’ll assume I’m learning…and stuff
Also sometimes good to just say “si…capisco”…it doesn’t have to be true.

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http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/08/ff_madmaxtown/

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Today I went to Italian class for the first time. It’s actually a free class put on by a local high school but is specifically for foreigners.

It was pretty good…or at least it could be. They go for 4 hours a day, but I can drop in and out whenever I want. I’ll try to go everyday for at least an hour until it starts raining which will be the end of me as I will usually get a ride home on those days. The teacher is fairly nice…doesn’t speak much english and is tiny yet loud…once I realized she wasn’t yelling AT me it was OK

I didn’t understand much, but I wrote down a lot of stuff that she put on the chalkboard…I suppose tonight I’ll try to translate everything…and then oh yeah…by tomorrow I’ll be speaking about the weather or some such useless topic

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So it’s a bit after 1 PM on Monday and I made it home. Took longer than expected due to waiting 2 hours in Pisa for a train home…but it eventually came. I think the last time I took the night train from Munich I had the same problem…

uhhhh….I really need a shower I’m going to start uploading pics now. I took 250 or so so this will take a while. I’m sure I should give details and memories, but not this second.

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I’m half packed for Munich…
I got exhausted and am now taking a break

I’m the worst packer in the world. I’ve already forgotten stuff I was probably supposed to bring. Ummm…yeah. What was that thing???
I.was.supposed….to……..get…

Must remember to buy books in Munich.
…and to finish a thought from a while ago….that Nick Hornby book was “Juliet Naked” which is the greatest book I’ve read since…June….
Don’t you hate it when you want to say something really grand and it turns out you can’t?
Well tonight was the most fun I’ve had since….last night.
No real weight to a statement like that. Always more fun when you can say…I haven’t had that much fun since 2004. However I guess a statement like that indicates you don’t have fun often or something….

Anyway…I really enjoyed the Nick Hornby book. I love most of the movies made from his books. He’s a great writer and it’s really not my fault that I read a really good book in June (maybe it was July…but it was a Murakami book).

Since my flight is at 7am on Friday morning (from Pisa) I’m staying overnight in Pisa tomorrow so I can get up appropriately early…appropriately early for an inappropriate flight…or something like that. I still think Pisa is a dead-ish town but hopefully I’ll find something to do…

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He’s priceless…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/13/italian-premier-silvio-be_n_714393.html

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The weather is great today so I went to Lerici. If my contract is extended I may look for a place there. It’s a pretty small town, but absolutely gorgeous! I love it there…I’d have to get a car if I lived there tho. No train service and further away from work. A small price to pay I s’pose…

pics of Lerici here…they are all tagged with Lerici

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