Halloween!!!

Today is Halloween! And we went to the zoo! I only got as far as the monkeys and flamingos before I started feeling sick. We went to the aquarium there, and I stared at some piranhas. And then I took a taxi home. EPIC ride. I left Marge and her friends at the zoo, and headed back to Marge's room. It was terrible and amazing at the same time, but I do regret leaving the zoo so early. The ticket to get in was 17.70E, and the taxi ride was 12.60E...so financially it was a hit, but mentally I needed to rest. I woke up with a pounding head, but Marge & Co. came back with PIZZA!

And the bathroom of the aquarium was AMAZING. The stall doors were holograms of sea creatures. It looked so real. When we left the bathroom, someone said, "Let's go to the aquarium" and my response was "what...we weren't already there?"

We ended up watching HP3, and have just been loafing around. We're starting to get into our costumes now, and heading to a Halloween party. It's been a long day...and it's nowhere near over yet.

day 1: 7; 9h
day 2: 2; ice, yi
day 3: 3
day 4: 6, northern lights, k
day 5: 2, space cake
day 6: 4, trash
day 7: 3, k

Space Cake is a HUGE No No

We woke up Thursday and I went to class with Marge. I just read my book at her university (of Amsterdam) while she was in class, and then we went shopping. We finished our Halloween shopping, and then went to the Damkring coffee shop. It was really cool; we sat at the third level and looked out the window. That was when Marge decided to skip class, and we bought two pieces of space cake, and went home for a nap.

AND....so the space cake was a terrible idea. Brownies, High Tide Georgia, similar to that, except I was able to keep myself from completely losing control. Same symptoms though. I knew I wasn't feeling well, so I decided not to go to the Halloween Party. Marge went, and started feeling pretty terribly while there. So I just passed out and hoped that I wouldn't get sick.

Today I didn't do anything....just got back from getting a falafel, and it's 1:30am. We're gunna go to the zoo tomorrow!!!

day 1: 7; 9h
day 2: 2; ice, yi
day 3: 3
day 4: 6, northern lights, k
day 5: 2, space cake
day 6: 4, trash

:(

i hate space cakes.

Amsterdam and the Living's Easy

So Monday Marge and I went shopping! We also figured out what we wanted to be for Halloween! But I won't say that until day of. We shopped until we were tired, and until it started raining. Then we hit up another coffee shop, Abraxas, which was really chill. We met some guys from San Francisco who had tripped on shrooms that day. They had gone to a museum, and bought audio guides to it. On the radio guides, they were talking about the different colors used in the paintings, but one of the guys said, "Why aren't they talking about the most obvious aspect of the paintings, like how the colors are pulsating?!" Sounds like they had a good time.

Tuesday was an epic day. We had egg sandwiches in the morning, and then kicked off our day. Marge wanted to go out and play with all her energy, but I was feeling kind of nauseous. I finally got over it, and then we giggled and walked our way to AlbertHeinz, the supermarket. We got back to the dock and hung out with Feiyang.

We ended up going to a concert at the Paradiso, Fuck Buttons. Lots of noise, literally. It was a lot of noise that sounded awesome. It was intense. We then biked to a coffee shop, Popeye's, and got some hot chocolates. It was freezing outside!

day 1: 7; 9h
day 2: 2; ice, yi
day 3: 3
day 4: 6, k

Rainy Amsterdam

All it does is rain in Amsterdam, it kind of sucks. It gives us an excuse to lounge around, which isn't terrible, but if i do this all week i would hate myself. So Saturday night we went to the Amsterdam Dance Event again, at the same club. Each club has about four or five dj's featured for the night, and Marge's friend Nick wanted to go to the Sugar Factory again. The music was definitely better, but it got to a point that it didn't really matter because we were just so out of it. Marge was definitely the best intense dancer, and Kevin kept on saying how he was all melty. It was pretty hilarious, but I was ridiculously tired by 3:45am, and felt nauseous, so Marge and I left. I pretty much immediately passed out.

Yesterday it as raining all day, so we decided to rest up so that we could go to the last night of the dance event. Marge and I made an omelet and then took naps, and woke up later to shower and watch Family Guy. We made rice and vegetables for dinner...and then I took another nap. Except I didn't wake up from it until 8am today. So none of us actually went to the dance event, but it's all good; personally i believe two nights was enough. I think I'm coming down with a sickness as well...


day 1: 7; 9h
day 2: 2; ice, yi
day 3: 2

Hi Amsterdam!

So I arrived yesterday in Amsterdam at 9:20am. I had slept over the Malpensa airport 11pm the night before my flight. There was actually no sleeping because I was on the floor the entire time. All the benches were already claimed. So I finished my book, The Emperor's Children, which I must say I didn't love...but at least it kept me preoccupied until 3am. I then started on a study guide for my International Business Management class to stay awake, but soon gave up. I was half asleep, half awake the rest of the night until my flight at 7:25am, it was terrible.

I took the train to Amsterdam Central, which was about 20 minutes away from the airport. Marge met me there (YAY!!!), and it was pouring. We went to Big Mike's to rent me a bike, and biked through the downpour to her dorm, 15 minutes away. When we got there, we got out of our wet clothing, and I napped until 5pm.

We end up going to the supermarket, and cooked dinner. And that's where our night began...

There's an electronic festival in Amsterdam right now, so all the big clubs are featuring djs. It's actually a lot of fun. I went out with Marge and her friends, and had some beers there and danced. We got back around 5am, and slept until 1pm.

Today we biked to downtown Amsterdam, and it was incredible. The ride itself was so cool. You feel like the city is so much more alive when you're on a bike rather than in a car. We biked to a "Smartshop," which sold paiote and mushrooms and all types of trippy stuff. Marge's friend Kevin picked some things up...I just gawked like a little child. I love that there are so few restrictions in Amsterdam, it's such a different culture to be able to legally smoke here.

We chained up our bikes and walked through the Red Light District. It was interesting...there were prostitutes in shop windows, and sex shops everywhere. There were also peep shows and sex theaters! (So much more than what we had seen on our drive back from Ohio Natties.) There was also a street that featured only African American women.

We went shopping, and walked along the canals. Apparently, there are more canals in Amsterdam than there are in Venice. In Venice though, there were no cars whatsoever. There are sooooo many bikes in Amsterdam. The streets are made with bikers in mind, with signals and paths for them. It's so cool, I love how supportive they are of bicycling around instead of driving.

We ended up in a coffee shop with an Indian theme. I had some hot chocolate, but they had such a large assortment of tea! It was a lot of fun. Now we're resting up to go out for the electronic festival again tonight.

And if you want to know more about Amsterdam, ask me. There are some more significant events, but I'd rather not write them.

day 1: 7; 9h
day 2: 1; ice

Last Week

Thursday, October 16, 2008
I had promised the Milan team that I would bring peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to practice since most of them had never had them. I was so excited that they'd be willing to try them, so I brought four to practice, and most people tried it. Sylvia thought that it tasted like meat....which is just plain weird. But Alina loved it! She told me at first that she would hate it and refused to try it, but she finally caved in. I'm so glad she of everyone liked it since she was so adamantly against it. It wasn't a hit with everyone (there were about 13 people that tried it), but I tried. At least some of them liked it.

Friday, October 17, 2008
I went clubbing with Oana and her friends at Old Fashion. It was a really fun night and I kind of got groped at the end of the night...but it's all in the past. One guy tried speaking Chinese to me, but thank god Oana saved me. We stayed til about 5am. I got home and immediately made a pb&j, and Oana made me tea! (Sweet girl.) I wasn't hungover at all the next day, which was awesome...but I literally slept from 5am to 12pm, woke up for breakfast and read up on rsd, and than went back to bed until 6pm.... that is definitely the lastest that I have slept while studying in Milan. And then I also fell asleep at 12am that night...

Bologna Tournament

This is my attempt at getting caught up in my posting...hence the double post today...

I met Alina for a ride to Cernusco at the Loreto station at 8pm, Friday October 10th. We had an ultimate tournament for the weekend in Bologna, which was about a two hour drive from Milan. We all met at Cernusco, and from there left on our journey. And of course... I just slept in the car.

We arrived to Bologna pretty late since we left late, and found spots in the gym to sleep in. Apparently, it is common for the host team to rent out a gym to hold the tournament at, so as to provide sleeping accommodations to the traveling teams. We slept on the floor of a gym with sleeping bags, and many people had blow up mattresses, or foam to lay on. One guy had a hammock! Man was I jealous...Chiara so graciously brought sleeping amenities for me since I don't have anything. The Italians call this "camping," and were really surprised when I told them that camping in the United States meant sleeping on the ground out in the woods with only sleeping bags. We went outside to hang out with the other ultimate teams for about half an hour, but we were really tired and slept around 12/1am. We had a big day tomorrow!

We had five 45-minute games on Saturday, with two byes...which is really short compared to the games we play in the States. They thought that 4 90-minute games were way too long... All in all I was still pretty tired, being out of shape and everything...and we only had three subs that day. We were seeded 5th out of 6th, and on the first day we actually beat the 2nd seeded team! It was a lot of fun, and pretty exhilarating. It reminded me of how much I missed ultimate. We went 2-3 the first day.

I'm not sure if I talked about this before, but there's always a post-session after each game. In Europe, it is common for open/women/coed teams that just played against each other, to gather together in a circle alternating team members. Then one person from each team says a little blurb about the game, how fun it was, what the other team did well, and so on. And everyone claps and gives each other high fives. (Hand shakes were given before the formation of the circle...lol) It's interesting how close these teams are. At least for the women's teams, they were all Italian, so everyone knew each other, but they do this all across Europe as well.

And I also learned that the Callahan rule just got introduced here in Europe!

After the games on Saturday, I experienced my first team shower...or shall I say division shower. It was pretty much all of the women's teams showering in a common shower. When I commented on the showers, Vale said : "In Italy, we share everything, even boyfriends." I'm sure she was kidding, but it was a pretty funny comment. I can't say that I'm used to these showers yet, or that I plan to be, but it was necessary...I had to overcome my self-consciousness or sleep dirty...and there was no way in hell I was sleeping dirty.

Saturday night the host team, Bologna, offered us a very fulfilling dinner with pasta and sausages. Of course there was beer, and entertainment as well! 8 teams competed in the "Beer Race" which consisted of four team mates taking turns chugging a beer on an exercise bike, and lots of spinning and running and jumping over things like an obstacle course, and lots more beer. It was hilarious because people would fly into the beers and fall all over the place.

On Sunday we went 1-1. I had an attempted Greatest lol, and in the same game I got this nasty layout scab that won't stop bleeding. It looks horrible... I think I laid out in the one spot where there was no grass...simply dirt.

We got home probably around 10pm, but I really loved it. It was so much fun to hang out with the Milan team, and I felt like I got so much closer to them. While at the tournament, all of Italian women's ultimate had a meeting to discuss the future of ultimate in their country. A lot of the women expressed desires to further the sport; to make it more competitive. I'm really rooting for them; it'll take a lot of time and commitment, but I believe that it's well worth it in the end.

This is the wonderful Milan team that I've been playing with, Extra Yawp!

Florence & Pisa!!!

Alright...I'm still like, 2 weeks behind on my posting....ugh...

So on October 4th, Binoy and I headed to the Questura (police station) to get our permit of stay papers approved and finalized. We arrived around 8am, and left around 11am if I remember correctly. It was a pretty funny experience, even though the entire process was irritating. They had to get copies of our fingerprints onto the police database, so they would scan your each fingerprint separately onto the computer. If the scanning was of a good quality, there is a computer icon that turns yellow or green. If it is of a bad quality, it remains red. Apparently...my fingers didn't like being scanned because the policeman had to scan each of them ten times. On my left hand, my ring and pinkie wouldn't scan at all...he tried about thirty times with an abundance of swears (thank god Vale taught those to me!), and even threatened to cut my fingers off. I thought that it was so funny that I was crying.

We then left for Florence! There were four of us traveling together: Binoy, Analise, and Anthony. The hostel that we had booked was pretty sweet, we had our own room, where Binoy and Anthony shared the Full and Analise and I each took a twin. We dropped our things off, and headed to the Uffizi Museum to buy tickets for tomorrow. (There are ridiculously long lines to buy tickets to visit museums day of... like 2 hours wait...) And than we headed to the San Marco Plaza, which was breathtaking. We simply sat there and stared into the city of Florence. We probably spent 3 hours sitting around and just taking it in.

We walked around Florence a lot, saw a soccer game, and headed to apperativo (of course). We were just so hungry... I don't think I really tasted the food. But we found some live entertainment at a plaza near our hostel while walking on our way back. There were performers that would take turns performing: singers, guitarists, and flutists took the stage, singing/playing American songs. This one couple sang the Beatles, and the flutist actually played a song from the Little Mermaid!

We headed in early since we were planning to go to the Accademia early in the morning to beat lines. The main attraction there was the David, and it was gorgeous! We marveled at it for a good hour. The rest of the works were not so impressive, but David was worth it.

We then headed to the Uffizi, and saw about 50 rooms full of artwork. It was all really nice, but again, I can't really remember what I did and didn't see at this museum. There were some famous ones I do remember/recognize, like "The Birth of Venus," by Botticelli. It's the famous painting of a naked woman in a shell. There were lots of paintings centered around Chirst and Madonna as well.

At this point Anthony and I were supposed to head home, but we somehow got convinced by Binoy and Analise to go to Pisa with them, which was also well worth it (it's an hour train ride from Florence). It's not worth going to Pisa alone because there's nothing to do there but to see the tower, it's only worth going in passing. So of course we took pictures of ourselves holding up the tower, and pictures of about 40 strangers all doing the same pose. The train ride back was about three hours, and we played various games the entire time. One of which was Contact! (Which of course makes me miss Wildwood, the car ride down, and ultimate in general.) We got back to Milan around 12am. It was a long trip, but all in all I'm glad we ended up going to Pisa as well.

Romantic Venice

So...I'm still behind on my blogging...but I have found out that I did well on my Italian test. (Score, 3 credits!) I really have to start blogging in a more timely fashion...

Nancy, Michelle, and I caught the 10am train to Venice on Sept 27, I think we got in around 1pm, and just walked around. There were absolutely no cars, only boats. There was a ferry that served as public transport, like the tram in Milan, and there were gondolas everywhere! I guess the price is set at about 90 euros for an hour ride, so we didn't end up going on one even though I would have loved to. I caught a picture of a family on a gondola, I'll go back one day and ride one. :)

When we first got there, we ate lunch at a quaint pizza/pasta place. The food there was pretty good, and the decorations were very Venetian. We then walked around all the little souvenir shops and pastry stores. Venice is known for its glass, so we kind of splurged and bought lots of souvenirs....Michelle bought about 15 pairs of earrings, hopefully they aren't all just for her...

We had to take the ferry to get to our hostel. The ferry ride was beautiful, it was like taking a boat tour of Venice. It took us down the Grand Canal and pretty much to the front step of our hostel. Our hostel was right across the canal from San Marco. That red building in the photograph is our hostel. The sun is setting because we got to our hostel about an hour late. We dropped our things off, made our beds, and took the ferry to San Marco to have dinner.

We roamed around and got lost looking for an ATM and a restaurant to eat at. We finally found one, and of course the waiters were asking if we were japonese. I know people don't mean to be racist here, but they sure come off as ignorant. This is us eating! Poor Michelle and Nancy thought that they were ordering scallops....they got pork instead. Moral of the story...never assume.

We wandered around and found a gelato shop (of course) and than settled down to watch some live performances. There were three different stages set up at shops in San Marco. Each had musicians: violinists, celloists, pianists, etc. We probably watched them for over an hour, they were so good. Basically....it was really romantic for us three girls in Venice.

We got back to the hostel Saturday night, and found someone sleeping in my bed. Apparently, the beds are numbered incorrectly inside the dorm, but correctly on the door...so I made my bed for another woman to sleep on. Ironically...Michelle and I had been joking around about this, saying how it would be pretty funny if that did happen...and it did.

The next morning we got up at 8am to start touring San Marco and the rest of Venice. We went to the Museo di Piazza San Marco. Pictures weren't allowed, so I don't really have any, but it was pretty cool. We saw lots of rooms with paintings, and went into rooms where judges used to preside over. Honestly...I don't remember it that well. Having visited so many museums...they all kind of blur together.

Here are a couple more pictures of Venince, it's beautiful, but awfully touristy at the same time. There were SO many people there, it was so crowded. It was somewhat what I had imagined, but at the same time not really. The Canal's polluted, which hurts the image of a romantic Venice, but overall it was a pretty city. :)

We returned to Milan around 8:30, it took about three hours to get back.

Viareggio - Beach Ultimate

Saturday, 09/20/08, I had my two hour Italian test. It wraps up my 60 hours of Italian class, and if I pass I get a certificate, and more importantly 3 credits! I rushed through it so that I could catch the 12:45 train to Torre di Lago Puccini/Viareggio.

Mo and I met after our test at 12, and upon arriving to the train station, we realized that the train was leaving in 5 minutes: the train was leaving 20 minutes early. We ran around and somehow managed to get on the train, it was about six hours in total of travel time, with the train and walking to the beach. (Viareggio is near Cinque Terra, just a little bit further.) When we got to the beach, we were so disheartened because we didn't see any frisbee players! After 15 minutes of picking a direction and walking, we finally saw frisbees in the air. Mo went and stayed the night with her team, and I headed back to the camping grounds with the Milan women's team, who I was going to play with the next morning. We had arrived too late for any of the games on Saturday.

Our Milanese Women's team (in red) met up with the Lago Como (Lake Como) Men's and Women's teams for dinner Saturday night. It was pretty cool, there were about 5 long tables put together, and 40 people eating spaghetti and drinking sambuca. For the most part they spoke Italian all night and I tried to listen, but I gave up soon after. They just spoke English to me.

The tournament is called the Burla Beach Cup, and every year there is a theme. This year's was zombies. The party Saturday night was kind of lame...but the costumes were really cool and scary. Everyone walking down this one strip by the beach looked like they had been murdered horrendously. I was also told that the street we were walking down was notorious for its gay clubs. Viareggio houses a large community of gays, and it was very obvious after they told me. I didn't think that the Italians were so open at first, but after three weeks, my views had been changed.

Sunday morning we only had two games, but it was beautiful. We played lodged between a set of mountains, and the Ligurian Sea. In Italy, there aren't that many women's teams, so our team had played most games against lower open teams thursday and friday. They only won one game those two days. Sunday we won the first game against a Denmark Women's team, 11 - 4, but lost the second to the Bologna Women's team that we had beat yesterday when I wasn't there. But we ended up getting the spirit award! :) This is a picture of me and Vale (Valentina); she's really friendly, chain smokes like everyone else in Italy, and she teaches me swears.

The Denmark team was really nice, they had brought pins and candy to share from their country. I like how ultimate tournaments in Europe are so worldly, I mean it makes sense since all the countries are so close. I just wish that there were a bigger ultimate scene in Italy.

I was able to catch a ride back with Ale Sunday after the finals (Bologna won against seXXXpensive, but seXXXpensive wins when it comes to better jerseys). It took over three hours, and I slept most of the way.

Below, Mauricio from the Milan team is playing with the Bologna (red and blue) team for the tournament. One of the few ultimate people I remember the name of.... then there's the jersey of seXXXpensive, and some sick grabs.