failing hard in italy

I've been meaning to write down what I did for the second part of my trip to Italy but I was sidetracked by my laziness. Going to school for one day a week for only 4 hours leaves you with a lot of free time. When you then have a week off from school due to Easter it becomes a challenge to even get out of bed. Going from having little responsibilities to absolutely none is tough to bounce back from. Tomorrow I have to go to class again and at some point I have to start writing my final papers. There is a good chance that I won't start for another month.

So back to my awesome journey of self-discovery while I backpacked through Italia (you see this is how the locals call it so I'm better than you for using it). After Missy and I left Bologna we decided to take a day trip through Florence. Normally this would be awesome because Florence is a not that big of a place so we can see all the awesome shit in one day. Except on Mondays, because the Uffize is closed that day and the botanical garden is also closed on the first Monday of every month. Guess which day we went?

While the two places we most wanted to go were closed, there were still a lot of other cool things to check out. The Basilica di Santa Croce was pretty rad and the weather was nice for the first half of the day. After awhile though the weather took a turn for the worse and walking around became much less enjoyable.

Towards the end of our stay there we sat outside the Basilica on the steps listening to music, waiting for the time to come to leave for the train station, when all the sudden a police van came out of nowhere. Off in the distance we heard shouting and chanting and decided to take a look. It turns out it was a protest (non-violent and therefore lame) about foreign workers rights. Not as cool as I would have hoped for and unfortunately nowhere close to being a riot. My dream to partake in a riot will have to wait for another day.

Once that settled down we decided to book it to Siena. We took an earlier train and hoped that we would be able to find Missy's friend without having her number or an address. While we were on the train one of the people sitting not too far from us received a ticket for something, probably not having a ticket. I couldn't understand what she was saying but she was pretty pissed about it and the meter maid had to get backup. Sadly for the second time in the day the riot I wished for was not meant to be.

Eventually we were able to meet up with Missy's friend and settle down. The next 2 1/2 days were spent mostly relaxing. Who knew that going on vacation could be so tiring? Thankfully Siena is not that big of a city if you stay inside the walls so I was able to do some exploring while Missy stayed in bed trying to overcome her cold.

That night, sadly, did not end well for me. I came to Denmark with the goal of not making an red shirted ass of myself. That lasted maybe a week at best. In Italy? Day 6. We decided to go to a club that night and before hand had a small pre-party at the apartment. This led to drinking games in which I re-learned a valuable lesson: do not play drinking games with half a bottle of Jamison.

I should have known it was a bad sign for me when my reflexes were so slow that a car slowly ran over my heel as we waited outside the entrance but I persevered for some odd, idiotic reason. Within what seemed like 5 minutes I had ruined someone's jacket with my weak stomach and left. Covered in my own filth and unable to locate anyone that I came with, I decided to leave and find my way back to the apartment. I had no idea where I was, no idea how I was going to get inside, and no way of knowing when anyone would come and let me in. I drunkenly stumbled until I found the Piazza del Campo and used that as my navigational point to orientate myself. Due to some sort of miracle I also was able to run into Theresa's roommate who was also heading home from the club.

I threw my clothes in the washing machine, cleaned up and passed out on the couch. So much for dignity and self-respect.

The rest of the trip in Siena was less eventful and less embarrassing save for my poor navigational abilities. I can find an apartment that I've only been to twice in the dark while drunk yet I can't find a giant park with a map and directions. Siena is a city that exists only to pinpoint all my failings as a person.

Rome was much better. At first I was worried because everything on the way to our hostel was dirty and covered in shitty graffiti but once we settled in and got out of the bad parts of the city it was great. The Colosseum was quite the spectacle. The best part might have been the guys standing around outside dressed up in crappy Halloween costumes to look like Roman soldiers. They stood around chain smoking and asking, nay, yelling at all the tourists to take a picture with them for money. I declined.


Once again my terrible luck came into play when the weather decided to piss all over my travels by raining. We made it back to the hostel and took it somewhat easy because we wanted to get up early and go to the Vatican before there was a super long line to get in.

Except for the part where I was molested and the Pope covered it up, everything about Vatican City was amazing. Also I lied, the molestation wasn't too bad either (low hanging fruit is my favorite). St. Peter's Basilica was easily the most impressive of the churches we went to. I have no idea how something like that could have been built without today's technology. I'm going to assume slave labor and human rights abuses made it a lot easier.

The Vatican Museum was overwhelming with regards to how much impressive art work is jammed in there. I could have spent an hour just looking at the ceilings of the first hallway and walked away awestruck. However since I'm not an art history major or a sentimental loser, that situation did not occur. Out of everything that we saw in there my favorite was easily the School of Athens. That painting has been in so many different textbooks that I've had to read that seeing it in person was kind of cool.


The Sistine Chapel on the other hand was a tad disappointing. It isn't a lot of fun craning your neck to look at the ceiling while the guards yell 'No photo!' 5 times a minute. Since I am the original bad ass though I went ahead and took really crappy photos all stealth like. They turned out horrible but that's besides the point.

To continue a familiar theme, it began to rain again. At this point Missy and I went our separate ways because she was getting sick of me. I can't say I blame her either. While she went off exploring one part of the city I did my own thing. We eventually met back up at the hostel, ate dinner and went around exploring some more with some people we met.

The next day the weather was perfect, the sun was shining, and I was on an airplane back to Copenhagen to meet up with my friend from back home. If you believe the saying that people make there own luck then I am the worst luck maker in the world. I couldn't fabricate a good time to save my life.

adventures in italy (milan and bologna)

Italy is awesome. EasyJet is not. What's the point of buying a six pack of beer at the airport that says you are not allowed to drink the beer until in the air, but as soon as you get in the air and start celebrating, a flight attendant tells you that you're not allowed to? There is no point. I'm just glad I was able to drink 2 before being scolded.

Milan is not that great of a city to visit. About a week before I left for Italy I was warned by multiple people that it really isn't a tourist destination. I disregarded their advice mostly because I didn't do any of the planning for the itinerary of the trip and also because EasyJet, even with their draconian alcohol policy, is the cheapest way to fly to Italy from Copenhagen and they only fly into Milan.

Within the confines of the city there is not much to do except get drunk and shop in expensive stores. Since I am poor, and poorly dressed, I did more of the former than the latter. The first night in Milan we went to a discotheque. Since at least once a month I have to attempt to go outside in inclement weather without wearing my jacket I chose to do so in Milan. I thought it would be okay since it was 8 degrees outside and I have slowly adjusted to the negative temperatures of Copenhagen. Since I have shitty luck due to my fondness for doing dumb things it of course started to rain once we were too far enough from the apartment to turn around.

The next day just involved doing the few touristy things possible in Milan while watching my compatriots shop. While we were outside the Milan Cathedral a grifter proceeded to put bird seed in my hand and start clapping so that pigeons would eat out of my hand. This was slightly amusing at first but my naivety led me to believe that this guy was just being friendly. After I told him no more he told me it would be 20 euros. I've done many dumb things in my life and bought many things I instantly regretted but I was not going to give him that much money. I offered him the change I had in my pocket which was 2.50 euro. I am still an idiot for giving him anything at all but at least I saved 17.50. Please don't correct any fallacies with the previous statement.

The next day we set forth to Bologna to meet up with Missy's friend Elena. Once we were there I finally was able to eat a slice of pizza (therefore allowing me to wax poetic about the pizza I ate in Italy for the rest of my life) and we settled in. Missy and her friend left for another city to go to a Bloody Beatroots concert leaving me behind. My original plan was to just walk around aimlessly and see what happened. Likely nothing would have. However one of Elena's roommates, Jerry, spotted my bottle of Jamison and after we shared a drink and a cigarette he offered to take me to the Irish pub where their other roommate worked.

The bar was interesting. I watched a football game (another thing to add to my get-back-from-Europe-and-be-a-douche list) while drinking beer and trying to communicate with people who didn't speak English very well. At one point I was under the impression that a guy from Uruguay wanted to fight me because I didn't speak Spanish. I later found out that he was just really drunk. After a few hours at the bar we stopped by another place and grabbed a drink of whiskey (for free which made it even better) and I was dropped off at a new establishment while Jerry went off to find an ATM that would accept his card.

On the wall of this place they were using a projector to show clips of what I believe were 1920s cartoons. Had I been on drugs my head might have exploded Scanners style. I was way too drunk at this point and was just waiting for Jerry to get back so I could leave. Instead I ended up joining tables with a group of Italians and answering all of their questions about America. Someone finally asked me if I owned a gun. One of them, whose English was limited to just saying California, gave me a lighter. If you press a button on the side of the lighter the bottom lights up and projects a picture of a nude lady. I will treasure it forever. As the night came to a close I hung out with them outside and was treated with more gifts. Both being CDs, one of an American band called Good Riddance and the other being an Italian singer named Vasco Rossi.

The next day I woke up to find Missy and Elena had returned. I also found out that her window shutters do an amazing job at keeping out sunlight because we didn't wake up until close to 3 pm. We went on a long walk (3.5 km) uphill to see the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca. I wish I could say that I wasn't short of breath the entire time but that would be a lie. Since we arrived right at closing time we were also treated with being locked inside the church and having to take some weird back way outside.

The rest of the day was mostly uneventful. We were all still tired from the day before (a reoccurring trend) so we took it easy with dinner and relaxing. Bologna ended up being my favorite city of the trip. It wasn't too large and I was able to explore the city by myself at points. 1 1/2 days was the perfect amount of time.

classes

I thought that I would have trouble adjusting to college again after taking last quarter off. Nope this is still easy. And while I would like to say it's because I'm incredibly intelligent it is mainly because I have class for 4 hours on Tuesday in two 2-hour blocks. I have a six day weekend every week. To celebrate, I am going to Italy on Thursday. Why? Because why not.

The one problem with my schedule is my choice of classes. I like both of them but one of them, my English class, is about African-American Urban Literature. And as the only American in my class, and possibly the only non-whitey, I have become to go-to guy for all things American. Who was Booker T. Washington? Ask the American. Plessy versus Ferguson? Ask the American.

The worst question was when I was asked to explain the difference between the ghetto and the hood. My terrible answer was met with the follow up question "do you ever go into the ghetto?" I may have given the worst answer possible short of saying something with the n-word in it. My respond: "Well, uh, no because I live far away from the bad parts and I don't really have a reason to go there and uh...there is the stereotype that you're more likely to get into trouble in those areas." Text cannot properly account for my bumbling and mid-sentence realization that I sounded incredibly elitist and racist. It's a good thing that my class is mostly white because I'm afraid at this point I would combine my pseudo-racism, painful awkwardness, and my inability to learn anyone's name and refer to a black student as "that one."