I'm still here!

Sorry for taking so long to update my blog.  I’ve been sort of busy, but I also always just forget that I should write these updates in Microsoft word and then post them online when I have Internet.  Instead I usually think about writing something when I’m sitting at an Internet Train paying to use their Internet.

Speaking of which, I’ve had quite a grueling time with the internet.  I’m so very, very close to having a connection in my apartment.  In fact, after I write this it may even be uploaded from my room!  But we’ll just have to see.  As the Italians say, “Non c’è fretta” or “there is no hurry.” So, how am I so close to having Internet?  Allow me to chronicle the tale to you, and teach you all a bit about the Italian system!

So, I’ve been calling my landlord every week for about a month about the Internet situation at my apartment.  He kept telling me that he had given Vodafone (telephone and Internet provider) his number and that they would call him when they were available and then he would call me.  Now, this seems very useless to me. Why not just have them call me?  Though I guess my Italian is a bit limited, but most of them speak English well enough.  So this went on for a while until it became, “I’ve signed the contract.  They should be there this week.  Ten days at the max!”  Well, of course they tried to schedule at 6 p.m. on a day when I have class until 5:45 p.m.  I my landlord, whom we shall now refer to as Nello as that is his name, that it was possible but I might be a few minutes late because I had a class.  He decided we should just put it off until Saturday.  I said, “No, I’ll be there.   We can’t keep putting this off.”  He said fine, then changed his mind to 8:30 A.M. Friday morning.  Ugh.  Well, of course I arrived home Thursday evening right at 6 p.m. and Nello and his wife were there and we talked for a bit and he dropped off the router with me.  Yay!  Il rooter!

So, next morning I wake up early, have some espresso, save a bit for my guest, and then get the place ready for company as best I can.  The young man that showed up may not have slept for a week, but it had not phased him one bit.  He was wired super tight.  All I said was, “Buongiorno!” and “Va bene,” in response to him and all of a sudden it was understood that I spoke Italian, and then some other stuff was said…idk.

Now I know I’ve been complaining and dying to speak more Italian, and I was happy to speak with him, but I have quite honestly never heard anyone speak Italian that fast (even faster than the Don Pasquale duet I believe) and he thought I understood it all!  And this was 8:30 in the morning!  On a FRIDAY!  But it was still funny as I woke up more and more and we talked a bit and as I understood every third or thirtieth word.  There was a lull at one point and I asked if he would like a cup of espresso and his response was, “no, grazie,” followed by an explanation of why he didn’t want any and some gitters like a Thriller Zombie that gave me the impression that if he drank any caffeine his head might explode.  That would have been bad and left me with no DSL.  Or ADSL as it seems to be referred to here.

Okay, so, everything was installed in the walls, lines checked, very little cell phone service in my dungeon, but the router was hooked up.  Now, this makes no sense to me, but the router is plugged into the wall by a data cable (resembling telephone wire), but it also needs a jumpdrive that holds a SIM card to be plugged in as well.  I’ve never seen something like this before, and it sort of makes sense for paying on your cell phone bill, but it was very annoying and useless to me.  Why?  Because the jump drive and SIM card weren’t in the box!  The codes for the network access and SIM card were in the box, but no such luck otherwise.  So, I mentioned that maybe Nello had them.  I guess he didn’t get this because he just kept telling me that I needed to go to the Vodafone store and talk to them and I could get it taken care of.  I said okay, we chatted a bit, laughed, and he left.  Very nice, very crazy guy.

So, it’s about 9:30 a.m. at this point and I get ready to make the long walk across town to the Vodafone store.  I thought several times, “Just call Nello; he probably has it,” but it seemed early and I was ready for a bit of a walk and maybe some store browsing.  I arrived at the store and explained that my landlord had purchased the router, the guy and I set it up, the line was good, but we didn’t have the “Internet Key.”  He told me I would have to get a new router because whoever had it before probably kept the key and I needed a new one.  Then proceeded to sale me on a new plan and such, though I was pretty sure Nello had all that taken care of beforehand.  So I stepped outside to call him and of course he had the key and he and his son were coming by on Saturday to set it up.  He had already mentioned this to me the day before, I remembered, it just didn’t click.  So, now I had a whole day with a brand new router sitting at my house and no Internet.

Okay, so I anxiously wait all day long for Nello and his son, Luca, to arrive and set everything up.  Got some reading done and listened to Joyce DiDonato’s “Pasion” CD, very soothing.  They arrived and began working.  So, I needed to install a program using a CD/DVD and we tried this and it just wouldn’t work and we couldn’t figure it out.  Then I remembered, haha, I’m in ITALY!  My computer è Americano.  Stupid region codings.  This was pretty hard to explain (neither of them speak English), but Luca agreed with me and then explained it to Nello.  Luckily they had brought another laptop and it worked.  Now, at some point while the ball was rolling I didn’t notice that Luca went through an online setup and established the password encryption as WEP instead of WPA, which it had been originally and I had actually connected my computer and iPod to it regardless of the lack of Internet.  It’s still a network, after all.  The problem with this is, other than the fact that WEP is less secure, is that my computer only recognizes WPA encryptions, so I couldn’t connect to the network anymore.  It took a while but I finally figured out what he had changed, but I didn’t know HOW he had changed it.  I explained a few times what I believed the problem to be, and I think he got it and sort of agreed, but kept trying other things.  This went on for a very long time and at one point Nello asked if we were done with the other computer.  I was thinking, “NO NO NO!” but didn’t say anything fast enough so it went away.  In all our waiting and deliberating though Nello did bring us a couple of espressos, which was very nice and a good little break as we sat and sipped on them and discussed what was going on with the Internet.

Luca decided at one point that maybe it was because Vodafone had not yet activated the DSL line and thus we couldn’t connect to the Internet.  It took a bit but I explained that I had already connected my computer to the network and that there was wireless in the room, but just no Internet.  I explained that it shouldn’t matter if there is or isn’t Internet, there is still a network.  After a while more of staring and clicking I finally got out my iPod with my handy dandy UltraLingua app (thanks Carnegie Mellon) and figured out a few new vocabulary words and used a few stronger words such as “I believe” instead of “I think.”  This worked a little better, and then I thought to connect my iPod to the network.  I did this and it did work (because though you may all think this is a win for Mac it just proves that they care less about their quality of wireless security as compared to PC users who won’t even acknowledge WEP :-P) and I was able to go to the webpage and change the encryption back to WPA.  I did this, the iPod disconnected, a few seconds of anxiety passed, and all of a sudden my laptop connected to the network!  Tutto bene!

We were fairly celebratory.  But still, no Internet; just a network connection.  My hopes had been that I would leave for a while and some server off in the distance would switch on my Internet.  No such luck.  It apparently must be a person somewhere.  So, I wait.  I watch all the little flashy lights and wait for one more to pop up.  In fact, only 3 out of the 5 are on now.  There were 4….must investigate.  Oh yeah, there is a LAN connection light.  I’m not wired in anymore so it’s off.  No worries.  So yeah, still no Internet.  Maybe one day.  It’s almost my one month anniversary in Florence.  Maybe that will be my present.

Okay, that was a really long post, but that’s only one of the crazy things that have happened since I last wrote!  I have a few more good stories that will hopefully be sorter.  A few more quick words about Nello and Luca.  Before they left Nello sort of showed Luca around and he was using regular vocabulary and I have recently learned new vocabulary for such tiny living conditions and I was sure to point that out.  Also, Luca had seen my goggles sitting on my desk and asked if I was a swimmer.  I said I try, but I’m more into biking and only do the swimming because I was interested in doing triathlon.  I also pointed out that I had noticed his RoadID bracelet, which is a little bracelet to wear with all your medical information on it so that if you’re in an accident on a ride or run it helps the doctors work faster with you.  He then pointed out that he was wearing a Florence Half-Ironman shirt and that he will be going to the world championships in Florida next year!  How cool!  I mentioned an upcoming 5K here in Florence and found out that Nello is the organizer!  So I kind of have to run.  It’s actually next Sunday and the furthest I’ve run without stopping is 2 miles; 5K is 3.1.  I told him I didn’t know about church obligations yet (bum, bum, bum!  What’s this?!  A preview of a future post?!), but I would find out and try to be in it.  So I’m free and will try to enter tomorrow to run in it and spend a couple days this week trying to build up my mileage.

So, that’s it for now.  Sorry it was so long and drawn out, but that’s what it’s like in Italy!

Update:  Internet has worked at my apartment long enough so far the I could update my Facebook status once.  I had to get a Vodafone SIM card to call the service line, which doesn't work in my phone so I have to pay for it with my Wind SIM card anyway.  And the service in my house isn't really good enough to stay connected and understand the Italian anyway, so I'm kinda stuck for now.  I spent all day today working on it and by the time I get out of class I'm betting that they won't be open anymore.  Another update very soon.

Don't second guess the milk!

So, you know how in the US we see the expiration date on that milk in the fridge and if it’s like, day of or a couple days after we’ll smell it and say, “Oh, it’s fine, just drink it!”  Don’t do that in Italy.  I made my regular cup of espresso yesterday morning, and normally I use a regular size mug, put in one sugar cube (that delicious cane sugar of course), fill it about halfway with espresso, and the rest is milk, and it tastes AMAZING.  I did just as that yesterday morning and as I poured my milk it seemed to me that I was pouring cottage cheese into my coffee…which is not what I had intended.  I smelled the milk and it smelt like it always does, and then observed that the bottle said “1 Sept” so I just assumed that, it being September 1^st, it should still be good!  So, like an idiot, I poured a bit more, thinking that maybe the milk had frozen a bit, but once again it was like cottage cheese, or maybe mozzarella because that’s more popular here and also sits in more liquid than cottage cheese does.  Rather perplexed (all this was shortly after I woke up, mind you) I grabbed a small glass and poured the milk in there.  It didn’t smell bad, but did appear to be expired, or have been sitting in the sun for some period of time.  I resolved that it had indeed gone bad as the clock struck midnight on September 1^st and poured out my coffee and threw the milk away.  Luckily, it was mostly gone anyway.  But, moral to the story is that milk here goes bad when it says it does.  So don’t push it!

So all the students for LdM arrived yesterday and are in orientations for the next few days.  My orientation is Friday.  I’m pretty excited to actually be meeting some people here!  So far I’ve found about five people attending LdM who are from Arkansas or attend school in Arkansas and there is another Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar in the same district as me here who is from Oxford University in England.  I’ve sent e-mails to a few of these people to try and find out more about them.  Haven’t heard much back, but it’d be nice to find some people to go to the museums and such with, or get coffee or a bite to eat.

I’ve sent, or at least written and I’m just missing the addresses to, all of my postcards.  Well, just the first 12.  I’m going to buy some more, it’s just that they are annoying expensive to send.  They cost a total of $1.25-1.55 per card.  So you who are receiving them know you’re special!  I’m actually getting very into it and it’s fun to write them now, I think just because I have an Italian address and also because I remember how exciting it is to get postcards from friends abroad.  Which for me is now all of you!  Send me letters the good old snail mail way!  And don't forget to send me your addresses so I can continue to send postcards.

Scott Beasley

Via San Niccolò 80

50125-Firenze

Italy

I got some contacts ordered today!  Actually, I ordered them yesterday, but when asked for my phone number I couldn’t remember the last four digits and so I had to go back today and give them my number again.  But there were very nice!  After a while at least because when I showed them my handy-dandy prescription card they said that “Oaysis” contacts didn’t exist, but they’re really just a category of Acuvu, which I told them, and they said, “No, non è vero, aspetta,” and then he looked it up online and of course, j’ai eu raison.  So he happily ordered them for me after I told him I live here.  So, good stuff!

Today has not been a good day for saving money, sadly.  I try really hard and it just doesn’t always work. I went to a café today to get some lunch and went there SPECIFICALLY because they have free wifi.  I tried to sit outside because it was so nice today and I was in the shade of the Duomo (awesome).  Well, it wasn’t working and the waitress (who so far speaks Italian, Spanish, English, and German) and I decided that maybe it just didn’t work outside, so I ordered and then went inside.  Well, it still didn’t work and I was stuck there.  Then I got my glorified coffee, which was a substitute for a soda that I didn’t want but was supposed to come with my meal, so don’t freak out, Mom, and it was gorgeous, but just okay.  My homemade coffee with rotten milk would be tastier I think.  And then my chicken sandwich came and it was terrible.  I had eaten there before and used the Internet with success for a couple hours and had a delicious hamburger, but I attempted to cut my sandwich and the bottom bun was so hard I couldn’t cut through it!  I ended up picking it up and could barely bite through, and even at that I eventually got rid of the bottom bun and sort of nibbled on the rest of it.  And the fries were less than good.  Sadly, I have not had good French fries since I’ve been in Italy, but (of course) they were pretty amazing in France!  I should have a running tally on French and Italian food wins and losses….

So anyway, no Internet and a crappy lunch.  Sad day.  What was funny was seeing a group of teenage American girls come in and the first thing they asked was how big their margaritas were.  I’m assuming they had escaped their parents for the day and wanted to have a little fun.  This was at 12:30.  Ah, la vita bella….

I have now mended my Internet ways and returned, once again, to Internet Train.  This place is fantastic and reasonably priced.  And the guy who works here (and isn’t here today for the first time!) is super nice to me and has always spoken to me in Italian, even though I’ve heard him speak English to other people.  And this place does everything: faxes, copies, telephone, wifi, desktops (I’ve paid for both services because it’s nice to not always have to carry my computer and bag), postcards, bathroom, printing, routers and phones for sale, drinks, and snacks.  Of course, this also led to my other extra expense today.  I had to make copies of every page of my passport, which was only €2.25, but I had a €10 or a card, and the new guy didn’t have any change other than €.50 coins and my card didn’t work.  So I just bought a Fanta and said whatever.  I still got a handful of change and he felt bad, but I’m all about customer loyalty and this is one of the few places that’s been really kind, reliable, and spoken to me all in Italian!  So, it’s all good.  And I’ve been craving Fanta for about a week.

On a final note, as I was sitting here writing this a rather large couple, pretty sure they were Americans, walked in to use the Internet.  They just read the signs but never approached the counter.  They sat down and began to put a credit card into the card reader on the computer and I quickly explained that you had to purchase a card with time on it and that was what you used to access the computer.  They just sort of said, “Oh,” talked quietly to each other, helped each other out of the chairs (rather large), and then left.  They never even attempted to ask for help.  I see people come in here all the time who don’t bother to try and speak any Italian, not even a “ciao” or “buongiorno!” but they’ll still go up and ask for help.  It was just truly shocking to me that these two were either so independent or so scared of talking to anyone that they wouldn’t even approach the counter to try and get Internet access.  There are so many signs here you could easily point your way through the whole process if neither person spoke the same language!  So today’s tip:  just try; don’t let little things like a language get in your way.  I survived in France because my wonderful language teachers would always make me describe things I wanted to know about, as best I could, in the language until I could get an answer for the word I was looking for.  So in France I was always making up my own words or phrases and then asking what the real word was and half the time I was already right or really close!  Now, if only I could convince these dang Italians that I can speak Italian if they’ll let me practice and get back into the flow of things….

p.s. I was very humbled yesterday when after writing to my old Spanish teacher and telling him I didn’t really remember any Spanish anymore, I left Internet Train and immediately encountered a Spanish couple trying to use an ATM that didn’t have a Spanish translation.  I did my best but the only things I could really say were, “You speak Spanish” and “Ummm…if you go…” and the such, trying to tell them where there was an ATM with Spanish on it.  Alas, they were in a hurry and didn’t have time for my blundering and ran in the other direction.  I reflected on it a couple hours later and thought of plenty of things I could have said, but my Spanish just isn’t there anymore what with French and Italian floating around in my head.  Maybe I’ll pick it up again eventually.  Also, to my credit, I think they were speaking in Catalan, or at least they had very think Barcelona accents…

One week down, several more to go!

So, it's a gorgeous day in Florence and the heat is actually not terrible for once!  I'm once again sitting at Lion's Fountain Irish Pub because I get free Internet here and there's hardly ever anyone here, so I don't feel bad about sitting here for hours if need be.  In fact, yesterday there was a soccer match and I just slipped in and sat down and waited for someone to take my drink order for about 2 hours, but no one did, so I had like 2 hours free Internet.  Alas...

As I've been writing this I've been catching up with a friend that lives here and friend from Belle Ile and now it actually is getting hot out.  Not terrible though.  I don't think I've talked about my frustration with how this is such a touristy city.  When I was in Lucca, I don't know what it was, but I apparently looked the part of an Italian and people would speak to me in Italian, but I guess since there are so many tourists here that I just look like another American and everyone just speaks to me in English.  Even if I speak in Italian they speak to me in English.  And thus my Italian is becoming slower and slower and harder to use.  So, I think I'll steal a trick from someone at the music festival I just left.  One day someone was speaking to him in English instead of French, so he said he was Spanish and didn't understand English.  So I think I'll start saying that I'm French and don't understand English.  I may get busted, but I think I speak enough French now that I'll slip by.  And if nothing else I'll get to keep my French up.

I guess there's really not much more happening.  It's their vacation time here, so there really aren't that many Florentines around.  I haven't seen my host since my first day here.  I've only talked to him once since then just to let him know I found a place to live.  The first Rotary meeting here will be September 7th at 8 p.m., so I'll be going to that.  I'm hoping I have all my supplies I need by then, but who knows.  I don't even really know my address here yet.  I don't think I even have a mailbox at my apartment.  I feel like it will be the kind of thing where stuff is just slipped under my door or just left outside of it.  The biggest thing I want is my bike. It would make it so much easier getting around I think, plus I've been seeing lots of cyclists out in the mornings.  I also found this site http://www.ibikeitaly.com/ that seems really cool.  I may try it this week or next weekend just to get on a bike again.  I really hope I meet some Rotarians who are into cycling and maybe I can go on some rides with them.

Well, I thought I had more to write about, but I guess I don't yet!  Hopefully I'll start meeting more people this week as I think most people should start arriving for school.  A presto!

Starting to settle into Florence

So, I'm in Florence and have a little apartment!  A very little apartment.  Pictures to come.  I think I'll have Internet in the apartment, it's just that there is a key for the wireless and I don't know what it is and my landlord hasn't called me yet.  I'm betting he's still on vacation, so I may not have Internet until September.  But, I have figured out how to work the washer, which was quite a feat and now my clothes are hanging to dry very very slowly.

The first few days here were horrible because I was just sort of left on my own and didn't know what to do and didn't have a place to stay or even leave my bags, so I was constantly lugging my bags around with me in 90 degree heat.  But, since I finally got a place to call my own and a phone things have been becoming much nicer.  My Italian is improving, but kind of slowly.  Since this is such a big tourist town a lot of people speak English anyway.  So, seeing as I have mostly American t-shirts, I get spotted pretty quickly and people just speak English to me.  Some of them though will speak Italian if I just keep going with it.  I do miss speaking French though.  I've been writing to friends from Belle-Ile in French, but that's a whole different challenge.

My house is across a bridge just outside of the center city here.  I found out today that it's about a 25 minute walk to school.  But I'm in the middle of a lot of museums and up above me are big gardens of historic names.  I tried to go up to them one night but apparently they're gated and you can only get in at certain times.

Anyway, I was about to start uploading pictures, but since I'll have to upload one file at a time and I have probably 100 from Belle Ile, Paris, and here, I'll just have to wait until later or something.  So, until another time!

In Florence!

Just a quick update that I'm in Florence.  Not exactly the warm reception I expected, other than it's really freakin' hot.  And I've been hauling 100+ lbs of luggage everywhere with me.  Got a hostel last night that was nice, today is the search for an apartment.  May have a hostel for the next few days as well while I search.  Wish me luck everyone!

A la fin!

I've come to the end of the festival.  And I'm actually leaving a day early!  We finally got all that sorted out.  We weren't supposed to sing in the last concert anyway, but the festival wanted us to stick around for some reason.  Finally they just gave us our tickets and told us that if we wanted to leave early we'd have to change them ourselves.  No skin off my back!

Tonight will be my first time singing the bass solo in Mozart's Sparrow Mass.  I don't feel like trying to spell it out in German right now.  There was an older singer singing it for the first three concerts, but he's French and so he left early and I'm left to sing it.  It'll be okay I guess, it's just that I've never had any rehearsal for it and that can be a bit scary.  Last night was also our second and last cocktail concert.  I opened the concert with Questo Amor, vergogna mia from Edgar by Puccini.  Then halfway through Ryan and I sang the duet from La Boheme.  I've performed both better before, mais c'est la vie.  I had a coaching earlier in the day with a principal artist here whom I've become great friends with and it was fantastic.  He and I have pretty similar voices (I think) and so I've wanted to work with him a lot.  It's just hard to get instruction in a coaching and then be able to perform it 7 hours later in the same day.  However, everything is a work in process.

After the concert we all piled into a car and went to see the sunset, or couche' de soleil (the sun going to bed).  It was the second time I've been to see the sunset here, and both in the same week!  Since we live on the East side of the island we never get to see it set, so one of the drivers very kindly took us to see it twice.  And at two different places!  Yes, pictures to come, but the Internet here is so bad it just takes too long.  Maybe I'll open a Flicker account and put things there....though I do have a Google account and could use Picassa....hmmm...

So, not much longer here.  I think I maaaaay have housing worked out for Florence.  It still seems weird.  But alas, all will work out in the end!  Until next time!

A blog is a joke!

Woops!  I mean a blague is a joke...heehee... :)

That is, in French the word for joke is 'blague', but it sounds like 'blog' when people say it.  So yes, I had to look it up on Google translator to make sure I spelled it right, but I thought it was funny that this phenomenon of blogging around the world was actually, quite literally, a joke to French speakers!

Not much more progress since yesterday.  My host sent me a website that I'm trying to translate because it's something about student apartments.  Every day the French and Italian switch in my head is becoming easier, but it's still difficult.  Especially when people won't speak whatever language it is back to me!  arg...

Yesterday was a blast though.  Sang in a masterclass with Ryan.  The instructors were great.  Sadly we had to use music, but we talked to them before hand and they were perfectly fine with it.  It limited us some but we still worked for 45 minutes.  After that we got a little bite to eat with them; them being most of the cast of Cosi.  And then after that we went to a party for the festival at which some of the festival sponsors spoke and then gave us presents!

Body wash, hand cream, and a couple wrinkle reducers.  One for the day, one for the night.  All pomegranate  scented.

Also, I had a lot of pics I had forgotten to upload, so here are some beach pics!

Walking down to the beach

The beach

Ryan on the beach

Ryan playing on the beach

My feet getting hit by water that was really, really cold

Rocks!

Feet in the water.  Cold!

Ryan burying my feet in the sad under the water.  Jerk.

Underwater shot!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Little side beach past the rocks

Ryan perched on rocks reading.  I was perched on my own rock.

Good times at the beach!  Yay!  Off to another day of trying to find something to do on the island.