Life Lesson #3

Any furniture “designed” by television celebrities (such as Ty Pennington, Cindy Crawford) should usually be avoided at all costs. You don’t want that crap.

Break dance

A group of about 10 or so people started a break-dancing session in the lobby right outside my classroom tonight. I would have much preferred watching them dance to slightly boring dance music over a 3 hour lecture on socialist contemporary architectural theory.
I still want an iPhone. It would have been extremely handy today. I could have left my laptop at home and still been able to check my email, listen to music, check my class schedule and even browsed the internet. Oh, and make phone calls too. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love my new laptop, but I am always fearful that the one day I don’t take it with me to school I will desperately need to check email or a class website and not have access to a computer.

Life Lesson #2

You should reconsider the amount of cologne or perfume you dip yourself in when you are getting ready for the day. If I can smell you from 10 feet away (on a sidewalk, no less), you are wearing too much. Conversely, one should shower frequently as to avoid offending the people who have to sit next to you for extended periods of time, such as in a classroom setting. Heavy dosages of cologne or perfume are also not appropriate solutions in this case, though there is much debate over which is more offensive, excessively applied cologne/perfume or extreme body odor.

Life Lesson #1

Just for the record, the sayings “for all intensive purposes” and “for all intense purposes” are incorrect. It actually goes something like this: “for all intents and purposes.”

I’m Back

We just got back home from the airport.  I have a lot to do in the next few days, considering school starts on Wednesday.  But right now, I’m going to play with my shiny new laptop. More later.

1 Euro = Ouch. 1 British Pound = More Ouch.

I so didn’t keep my word about writing a post everyday while on this trip.  It’s hard when 1) you don’t have a computer with you ALL the time and 2) whenever you do have access to the internet, they want to charge you about $12 an hour. Ludicrous I say!  Things have been going well, I have already taken about 600 or so pictures. We first went to London.  It’s pretty much New York City, but more expensive and generally bad food.  Memo to American economy: fix the value of the dollar, these exchange rates are killing me.  Paris was very different than London.  I like Paris.  It’s cosmopolitan and classy.  Milan was pretty neat too, though we were only there for a full day and night (Monday). We then went to Venice for about 5 hours, though I was over it after about 3 hours. I would be okay with never going back to Venice again.  We got into Florence last night and leave tomorrow evening for Rome. Florence is cute.  The Italians kind of suck at museums though.  One museum really pissed me off today. The name escapes me at the moment.  They have an extraordinary collection, and the most out of date, rundown building with a rude and ignorant staff.  Oh, and this obnoxious Italian lady pushed passed me twice while I was there, once in the ticket line and once at the end in the gift shop, nearly knocking me over BOTH times.  I wish I knew Italian because I would have educated her how to function in society.  It’s very frustrating not understanding the native language.  I often feel like a jackass because of it.

 I have much more to tell, but it is about 12:40 AM here right now.  That’s right, I am writing to you from the future.  I’ll leave you to ponder that. Ciào!

 P.S. Italian keyboards are way cool.  There are so many funky keys, such as à and £ and € and § just to showcase a few. Every country has a slightly different keyboard.  Sometimes they switch the letters on you.  Let’s just say it can get frustrating.  Oh and I never realized how prevalent and influential American pop culture is in Europe.  So many TV shows, movies, plays, musicals are dubbed here it blows the mind.  They play all the current American music here too.  It’s a bit surreal. 

Crossing the pond

Getting ready to head out to the airport. Flight to London at 5:30pm.  Check back here often, I plan to post at least every other day.  Maybe Twitter will work better for me in Europe…