taxi bus donkey

OK so i am going to owe a lot of favors for this trip, and the karma meter i have been talking about is now so far in the red that i understand a small committee has been formed some place to try and find the most efficient way that my debt can be repayed and the just order of the universe restored. (more…)

Tonight several of us dined at the local osteria la cuco, this is a tiny place big enough to fit bench tables along 2 side walls allowing just enough space for the waitress to serve the tables without bumping into you too often. (more…)

Every monday night the school organises a film screening, last week it was the elephant man which i watched just to listen to the dubbing … this week was the film inseperable with jeremy irons… this is a painful film made even more so by the painful and hard to follow dialogue (italiano of course), not really interested in talking about the film. (more…)

In rome, watched an impromptu latin jazz ensemble perform at a piazza along side the tiber in trastevere, they played for an hour on the steps of a fountain, there were at least 15 of them, just the old classics but each had their go at a solo which was special… and no hat being passed around either… they were probably famous.

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In class in the morning Chris heard Jan, one half of the elderly dutch couple say”Ieri pomeriggio sono andata a peglio a piedi”, which I translated as ”yesterday afternoon i went to Peglio on foot” well by the end of this story you too will know how important those little filler words are and that Jan did not say to peglio but he said in Peglio as the journey to peglio from urbania on foot is only done by the insane… lock me up sister. (more…)

Getting into the morning equals school - afternoon equals rest routine. God bless these crazy Europeans and the afternoon siesta, why the heck should people do anything between 12:30 and 3:00 anyway? What could you do during that time that cant wait until 3:30 or the next day, may it live forever I say. (more…)

This afternoon around 18 of us piled into a little bus, the kind of bus you usually see at the bottom of a steep ravine on the 6 o clock news and headed off for a few hours in Urbino with a few stops along the way. The first such stop being .. you guessed it… a ravine. (more…)

Im not getting paid for this plug, but as it so happens, all the teachers in the school are absolute dolls. We were greeted with their beaming smiles and rounds of Buongiorno when we first entered the doors and it was just impossible to not be lifted by their youthful enthusiasm and breathtakingly tight pants…. a la italiano. (more…)

My mum didn’t pack me a lunch and I didn’t cry when i was standing at the front door of the school waiting for the first day to begin, but the place has a bell that rings between classes,.. so i guess it’s flash back time. (more…)

The apartment I find myself in is a fairly typical Greek or Italian family apartment block.

Its development cycle normally goes something like this: The parents have a largish block located near the town centre, knock down the shack and build a two storey concrete slab structure which houses them and their children and has other seperate apartments which, if all goes ccording to the master plan… their children will move into when they are old enough to marry. (more…)