#@$*!

Boy, am I in a foul mood. The foulest of foul moods. It's been a long time since I felt this rotten. And I'm not talking about my "lie in bed and listen to Hayden" funks, I'm talking, like, "put on the angriest, loudest, hardest music I own in the hopes that it might act as a catharsis" bad mood.

I screwed up. I put one dark thing in with my whites, thinking it wouldn't be a problem and now all of my white laundry is grey. Now, normally, I'd just brush this sort of thing off as nothing, exept this time it's different for 2 reasons:
1. I did this once before, and promised myself I'd never do it again. I am angry that I didn't learn from my mistake.
2. This particular load contained every light-coloured bra I own. This is, as I think any woman would agree, a really big deal. Because we're not talking, like, a light grey tinge: we're talking charcoal grey for some of them. And bras are expensive, especially here, from what I've seen. And I can't afford shit like this. Man, I am so angry at myself. Ich schaeme mich.

Origins

Okay, I think I've figured out the origin of a saying. Hear me out on this one:

A guy goes on a vacation of Italy and ends up in Rome. He's making his way through the city just fine, but is having real problems crossing the street. Many of the intersections don't have walk lights and the cars won't stop for him like they do in North America. Furthermore, even at the ones with walk lights, the motorcycles often don't follow the signals. The guy was having a really hard time until he saw that some people would just cross when it was (more or less) safe to do so - regardless of what the lights indicated. After closer inspection he realized that these people were not tourists, and that they must live here and do this all the time.

The man goes home and is telling his friends about the different lessons he learned: the pizza will disappoint you, but the pasta makes up for it. You will be charged cover to get into restaurants. Gelato is possibly the best thing in the world, even if it is too expensive and, oh yeah! In Rome, find someone who looks like the live there and just do what they do. So his friends go on a trip to Italy several years later and are trying to remember what their friend said. They order the pizza and are, indeed, disappointed, but the pasta and gelato are so good that their faith in Italian food is restored. But they get to Rome and encounter the same problems while trying to cross the street because they had forgotten the last piece of advice. Then, as they are trying to figure out how they are going to cross a particularly main street, they see someone who looks very Italian start crossing the street, even though the sign says "DON'T WALK". They both shout "When in Rome, do as the Romans do!!"

And there you have it; the origin of a saying.

I am fully convinced that the saying is specifically in reference to the proper way to cross the street in Rome and no one will ever convince me otherwise. But seriously, Rome is nuts. There is so much nice stuff to see here, but the weather is being really difficult. The other day as I was writing that post and saying it couldn't make up it's mind, it decided to be very difficult and start hailing. It had been gorgeously sunny in the morning and so Katie and I hadn't brought our umbrellas with us. Oh, and I was wearing sandals. We stood in the foyer of the internet cafè for probably 15 minutes without the rain letting up at all, but finally decided that it was only 2 blocks to our hotel and we should just run and deal with our wet clothes when we get there. Meh, whatchoo gonna do, right?

Okay, Katie is running a marathon today while I'm sitting here, and I want to go wave at her at about the 32km mark. Also, it's her birthday. How many of you ran marathons on your last birthday? Yeah, that's what I thought. Slackers.

Easily 12 years in the making

I have always had a weird name. Well, it depends who you ask, but let's face it: the name's kind of weird. I've grown over time to quite like it, but was always jealous of my sister for having such a normal name. Why was I jealous? Because, quite simply, she could buy stuff with her name on it. No, really, that's why. I always wanted a toothbrush that said "Bari" or a pad of paper that said "From the desk of Bari." I never had a little card that said what my name meant or what it's origin was because, again, quite simply, my name is made up.

So when I was in the latter part of elementary school and found out that there was a brand of cheese called "Bari", I was very impressed. This lead to a little bit of research and the discovery that there is actually a town in the south of Italy called Bari. It also lead to the decision that I would visit there someday, even if I were old and grey by the time I could.

I'm not old and grey, but I can now say that I have visited my town. I feel awesome about it. To have had a goal for so long and to say that I have accomplished what I set out so long ago to do... it's great. I took many, many pictures of random things that said "Bari" on them, I walked along the waterfront with a smug smile on my face that no one except Katie could understand. I visited the Bari Castle and found out that Santa Claus' remains are buried there; well, St. Nicolas' remains at least. And I bought Bari merchandise. That's right, they had merchandise. Not a whole ton like one would find in New York, Paris, or Berlin, but some. I have a few postcards with my name on them, a couple of sweaters and a few other things that I shall keep secret as some of them are gifts. Actually, I was saved by the fact that Bari has a soccer team, because everything I bought (with the exception of the postcards) are from the team.

So, now I guess I have to come up with a new long-term goal, eh?

Katie and I left Bari yesterday and took the train to Rome. And that is where I sit. We stay here for about another week, leaving on Wednesday the 29 to go back to Munich. I don't have much to say in the way of Rome. It's nice from what we've seen so far. Our hotel is well situated. The weather is really having a hard time making up it's mind; rain, sun, rain, clouds, bleh. Okay, I should see if I can access Beartracks now. I doubt I can because the UofA doesn't put a lot of thought into things, and I think I can't access it from a browser at an internet cafè. We'll see, I guess. Ciao!!

Finally!!

Okay, this is going to seem like such an inadequate post, considering it’s been so long since I posted, but it has to be short since I’m sitting in a hotel room in the Netherlands about to try and find out as much about Amsterdam on a Sunday as I possibly can. Ironically, the TV is on in the background, on MTV, playing the episode of Viva la Bam! where they go to the Netherlands, and they are about to head to Amsterdam. Irony is fun!

My folks came last Friday and we spend the first few days touring around Munich. We did my pathetic walking tour of the stuff I know in Munich (read = not very much), as well as going to the Olympic Tower for dinner, having lunch at the Hofbräuhaus, and making a day trip to Neuschwanstein. For anyone who doesn’t know (and in case I didn’t write about it the last time), Neuschwanstein is the castle that was the inspiration for Disney’s Cinderella’s castle.

Then we traveled to Berlin. The actual drive to Berlin was quite the adventure because we ended up in a big snowstorm and missed a turnoff. The problem was that it was such an easy route from Munich to Berlin (get on Autobahn 9 and stay there till we see Berlin) that I wasn’t following along on the map and didn’t notice the error until we had been driving for an hour or an hour and a half at about 150 km/h! That was the detour from hell! Actually, though, we saw parts of Germany that Germans didn’t even know existed! We got to Berlin and spent 2 days touring around there. We saw all the main sights: the Brandenberg Gate, Potsdamer Platz, the Reichstag and the Siegesäule (Victory Column). We had dinner in the TV Tower and had a generally good time. My family is so impressed with the transit system here! I think they were skeptical when I said that we would be parking the rental car from the time we got to Berlin until the time we left, but that’s exactly what we did and it worked out great! If Edmonton had a transit system like some of the cities here have…

Then we drove to Bad Hersfeld where my family met the family I stayed with on my exchange. We were all really excited to see Hanna again, and I was happy to see everyone else, as well as to have my two families meet. It was especially good to see my little brother, Felix, again. He was 4 the last time I saw him and now he’s 10. TEN!! Wow.

Now we have driven to the Netherlands are had dinner with my dad’s cousin, Rob, and his wife, Suzanne, and their two daughters Mareike and Jesse. We had the most amazing Japanese restaurant. They cooked the food right in front of us, which I’ve seen on TV, but never actually experienced. The funniest part was when he shot fried eggs at us and we had to try and catch them in our mouths. Trust me, it was awesome!

Now we will be in the Netherlands for a few days and then down to France, then to Italy and then back up to Munich. Yikes!! Okay, gotta do some research now, have a great week or two!