17 Sept, Day 36, Shopping and Calcio

I woke after a good rest around 11, ate a few croissants, a kiwi, grapefruit, and a cup of espresso for breakfast. I think they may put crack in the coffee here. Although I am trying to resist, I find myself drinking more and more of the stuff. I wouldn’t call it an addiction or dependence at this point, but I can see how it becomes habit forming.

Since the weather was marginal, and I got a late start, I decided to take care of some shopping instead of exploring. First stop was the bookstore. After much browsing and internal debate I purchased Harry Potter #5 (in Italian.) The book cost 3x the other ones I was considering, but at 800 pages I guess I could get my money’s worth if it’s a decent story. Next I went looking for a shower curtain and appropriate hanging materials. I found the curtain and one spring-loaded tension rod. So now I can suspend the shower-head above the tub instead of holding it. This is a marked improvement towards taking a proper shower. In fact I’m considering changing my original plans to build a small frame for the curtain, and instead opting towards a more minimal approach with a couple of suction cups. Next I went looking for lights. I hoped to find one for the mirror in the bathroom so I could do a better job shaving, and one to place near my bead for reading without an overhead light. After stopping in several stores, I ended up waiting for the lighting depot to reopen after their lunch break. Here I found several lighting fixtures costing upwards of 200 Euros. They had an appropriate bedside lamp for 24 Euros, decreased to 20 after a discount. Now I just have to wait 15 days for it to be delivered. I did not find an appropriate bathroom lamp with a non-destructive-mounting, so I’ll experiment with moving the bedlamp back and forth for shaving and reading. After all, I’ll never need to do both at the same time…

Seeing now apartment improvements are adding up, and forseeing the possible desire to buy a blanket in the future, I’m beginning to explore scenarios to approach my proprietaria in an attempt to get her to pay for half of the improvements if I don’t take them with me when I move out. Really, this is better for everyone. I don’t have to deal with shipping or selling things, and she can have a better apartment for less than the cost it would take to restore on her own…

At 6:00 Antonio, one of my coworkers stopped by to pick me up to go to a soccer game. We drove to the metro stop, and then took the train to the stadium. I was surprised by the size of the stadium. Not that it was larger than most I’ve seen in the states, but I was expecting this to be undersized.

I enjoyed watching the game despite not having a vested interest in either team winning. I enjoyed this approach as I felt I was able to appreciate the sport on a higher level as I could admire the talent and skills of both teams. I guess its like watching Jeremy Shocky in the NFL. I wouldn’t cheer for the team he plays for, but since he was a Cane, I can still admire the skills of the player and enjoy when he makes a play even though I would prefer that his team lose.

However, the fans were also quite interesting to watch. I wouldn’t say they had more vim than the student section of any major university of Florida, but the fans are mostly adults, and I am not as used to seeing older people get as vivacious about a sport. I guess with age comes experience, because this group brought a few new tricks to the stadium. I was most impressed by the use of fire. The core section of the Inter-fanbase lit magnesium flares on a number of occasions. For those who don’t know, magnesium burns at close to 3000 Fahrenheit, and is certainly the type of fire to exercise caution about. Aside from the antics of the fans, I was also impressed by the speed at which the game moved. Critics and naysayers of soccer often cite that the game moves too slowly with some games ending after only 1 goal. However they neglect the fact that the sport is free of the TV timeouts disrupt the continuity of nearly all States-based professional sports.


Here's a picture of Monza at night:

16 Sept, Week 5, Fee-fie-foe-fum. I smell the piss of a homeless man.

I’m debating the proper spelling of Foe. I believe one could make and argument for fough, phoe, fowe, or possibly foue if you use a French spelling. Have you ever wondered why homeless people seem to universally smell like piss? Perhaps sleeping on the ground causes incontinence.

I don’t have a whole lot to write about. I finished the second week of work. Things are going OK, although my language development has slowed below acceptable levels, and I am planning steps to correct this. I will buy a book for me to read on the bus instead of wasting time with the newspapers, and will increase my efforts to find an evening practice activity.

Fall/winter fashions are now in full effect. All the new manikins standing defiantly in the store windows are now dressed in shades of charcoal. I’d like to go to the Alps once before they get snow. Maybe tomorrow if the weather clears…

As I'm on the topic of piss, here's a picture of an Italian public toilet:

Bergamo, 10 Sept, Day 29,

I had hoped to meet up with Vicente, Leonardo, Fernanda, and Tetsuo today, but the plans never came together and I found myself looking for something to do. After consulting lonely planet, I packed a lunch, and strode my way out to the train to see where it would take me. It was another hot and hazy day, so I put off going to Bellagio at the heart of lake Como, and decided to go to Bergamo, an anachronistic city roosted on top of a hill.

Bergamo is really a cool old city. I skipped the funicular and walked a winding stone path to a white marble arch bearing the lion of Venice guarding the entrance to the settlement.

Formula 1, 9Sept, Day 28,

I wanted to sleep in on Saturday because I was feeling a bit drained toward the end of the week, and I woke around 11, and could hear the buzz of the F1 racecars doing practice laps a couple miles away. I spent some time tidying things around the house, scrubbing white film off dishes, and some experimenting with some more laundry. You never quite know what you’re clothes are going to come out looking like…

Around 3 I put on my sneakers, and hit the road in search of a shower curtain at a shop recommended to me -which was on the way to the race track. The shop was closed for the weekend, but from the looks of things, they wouldn’t have a shower curtain anyway.

The autodromo (racetrack) is in the middle of the park of Monza. I would describe the park as a patchwork of hardwood groves and grassy fields segmented by winding white pebble paths. There’s a river dividing the park from east-west, and a number of villas scattered about; with the most notable being the former home of someone important.

I walked north towards the race track against a rather continuous flow of people garbed in bright red, with some carrying large flags bearing the Ferrari insignia of a stallion rearing up on it’s hind legs inside of a golden shield. Formula 1 races are much shorter than Nascar, and people were already leaving after the race.

When I reached the track, I met with a dozen scalpers trying to hawk tickets to tomorrow’s race. I would’ve liked to see it, but was not prepared to pay 55 euros for thw worst seats in the house, or more for a better seat, or take my chances with a bogus ticket from a scalper. Upon trying to enter complex, I was told I’d have to wait until 5 before entering. By 4:45 I was on my way in. After getting rejected by several sets of guards and then being ignored by others, I found myself standing on the asphalt where the cars race. I looked out though the fence, and saw a number of other spectators lined up on the outside looking as though they would’ve liked to be in my shoes. I continued on to the pit area where one of the teams was revving an engine in their garage. It was loud enough that it hurt my ears, but luckily they stopped after a minute. In one of the other bays there was a model shoot with a handful girls posing around the Torro Rosso car. I managed to take a quick movie before my camera battery died. What timing! A number of the guys in orange suits who work at the track were also gathered around with the professional photographers also snapping pictures. None of them said anything to me, but I felt strangely out of place without an orange suit. I cruised along the pits where the other pit crews were practicing changing the tires, or making some small tweaks to their cars. When I reached the BMW pit I felt inclined to say something encouraging to the team, but I was at a loss for words and decided not to disturb them. There were a number of other track workers clustered around the Ferrari garages, but I didn’t see much activity here, so continued on to the end of pit-row and made my way back. Now on the racetrack there were 40 or so models lined up 2x2 across the center of the roadway. I leaned against the guardrail with some of the vested workers for about a half hour before getting tired of watching the girls standing around waiting for the shoot to begin. To be honest I was more interested in the cars than the girls. I’ve probably seen hundreds of model-caliper girls over the years, but this was the first time I was able to behold some of the fastest land vehicles in existence today. I wished I’d forked over the cash to buy a ticket to the race, but I think I got closer to the cars and saw more than all the people that bought tickets and had to watch the race from behind the fence.

My Job and Communism, 8Sept, Day 27

Re-reading this title, I think it’s strange that these two topics were serendipitously paired together. Anyway, first my job.

I’m working on the 5th floor of the Palazio Larice where people sit in small silent clusters of 4 with shoulder-high dividers separating the computers. I would like to know who invented the cubicle paradigm because I think it must be one of the 10 worst ideas of the century. OK: surely there’s a certain context where isolation from the other coworkers is necessary, but not in design engineering house! My only other complaint is that they keep the lights off. Our building has enough windows that one can see with natural lighting, but I think it makes things a bit gloomy.

My coworkers seem to be a nice crew. They seem pretty accepting of the new, foreign guy, and only mechanical engineer on the floor. We don’t have a cafeteria, but there’s a lot of restaurants nearby where we go out for lunch. I still find it hard to keep up with the chatting (in Italian) unless I’m involved enough in the conversation that I can predict what’s being said. I think being handicapped by limited knowledge of the language places me in a more challenging position, and I hope to prevail over this hurdle by mid-October. I have a 3 step plan: practice, read, and study in that order. So now I need to find a conversation partner(s).

At lunch on Friday, I was invited to go to (if I understood correctly), a communist festival. I didn’t know there was still communism here, but I guess there’s still a small pack of them. If nothing else, I thought this sounded like it was sure to be an interesting experience. So I left the office with Giovanna and her husband Marco Nero, a funny antipode to Marco Bianco. We picked up a friend, and the 4 of us sat in traffic for probably an hour to reach our destination in Milan.

The festival was something like a fair with lots of tents serving as makeshift restaurants. We went to the mushroom house where I had porcini and pasta. The food was good, but the host was a much more memorable character. I’m not sure if this guy was drunk, on speed, or just a very theatrical leprechaun.

After the mushrooms we met another Marco and went to a bar near the fair. The bar’s here are different from home. A typical visit to an Italian bar seems to consist of sitting at a table spaced slightly too far to hear comfortably over the music what anyone is saying, ordering some sort of drink from a long list of varietals that all look about the same, and well that seems to be it. Maybe I’m just used to a more dynamic night on the town. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the company of the group despite feeling pretty tired.

The tiredness is a strange thing. I’m sleeping more than in college, but feeling more tired now. I think there’s a strange inverse correlation to my activity-level. In other words, I’m doing less, but feeling like I have less energy, not more. I’m not really sure how this works. I guess I’d better go to bed…

Contact Information

Well I'm making great strides towards being settled in and now have a cell phone, and address.

I think I only pay 15 cents to receive calls (regardless of duration), so feel free to give me a ring
+39 346 613 1479

I should also be able to get mail at:
Mark Bianco
Via San Gottardo 60
20052 Monza (MI)
Italy

Lake Como, 3Sept, Day 21

I started the day off with a couple eggs in my new 10 non-stick frying pan, but for one reason or another; they stuck, and required a spatula to release them before they could be flipped. But then I chickened out on the flip, and only got them half flipped, and ended up breaking the yoke. Oh well. Then I jogged to the train station to meet Vicente on his way from Milan on the 8:25 train passing though Como on the way to Switzerland. I saw Vicente, jumped on the train, and in a half hour we arrived at Como.

It’s a short walk from the Como station to the lake, but first we explored the city a bit, -wandering the streets around the cathedral and center. At 9:00 on a Sunday morning, it appeared the city was still mostly asleep. A few church-goers passed, an we saw an occasional café patron sipping their morning cappuccino, but there were few tourists or traffic. Eventually we reached the eastern flank of the city, and began climbing a hill towards the villas perched high above the lake. After a short bit we abandoned the notion, and headed back towards the center for our own pastry and cappuccinos before continuing on to the lake. The cappuccino was good. –Neither too hot, nor too bitter, and the croissant with a golden cream filling was much better than I had hopped. I think this is my first time trying an Italian pastry. No, I take that back. I had pastries for breakfast once when I ran out of food. Those were also good, but I think the chocolate croissants they sell in France, and the waffles in Belgium are better. However, this sugary sustenance would do well to augment my eggs-and-cereal breakfast as we had a lot of walking ahead of us.

A short trot took us to the shores of the lake. We paused to behold the dark shimmery waters against the backdrop of forested hills and distant mountains speckled with extravagant villas. I was dismayed that the morning haze and scattered clouds were lingering past brunch, and we were unable to see with the crispness the occasion deserved. Although Como receives a lot of hype for being beautiful, I believe that some of the lakes in the American-West have far more dramatic mountains crowding the shores.

We began to walk the cirque around the docks towards an old man with no shirt fishing with a cane pole. We didn’t see him catch anything and continued our jaunt along the shore until discovering a finicula ascending the nearby massif. 4,10 bought us a round trip ticket and we jammed on to the tram with a number of people that smelled like a particularly unpleasant blend of body-odor.

The trees at the top blocked most of our view, but after a half hour we had crossed through the charming little town perched on the precipice to an outcropping offering panoramic views of the lake, the city of Como, and mount Rosa and the Alps smudged out in the haze.

We returned to the village, and had lunch in a little café overlooking the lake though the pine trees. Today they were serving lasagna or vegetable risotto. I had the lasagna, Vicente had the risotto, and we split a flagon of perfumey red wine. After resting our feet for a bit in the shade, it was time to go back down to Como, and eventually take the train back.

Once home, I tided some things up around the apartment, read the manual of the washing machine before dinner. It has 17 modes, 4 soap trays, 3 buttons, an analogue temperature dial, and I bet my clothes are going to come out of it worse than they would if I washed them back home.

Moving in, 2Sept, Day 20

The move went surprisingly smoothly. I lugged my luggage down to the curb and waited for a taxi that Rosella had called for me. 30 later, I was outside my apartment in Monza, met the proprietaria, and lugged my baggage upstairs. I think there is a reason the airlines do not like you to take more than 100 pounds of luggage. –BECAUSE IT IS 50 POUNDS TOO MUCH! We packed for this trip as though I was going to the moon, and as a result I have a sore back. With 18 dress shirts, 16 T-shirts, 14 long-sleeve shirts, 5 dress-pants, 4 sweaters… I don’t think I’ve worn a sweater 4 times in the last two years. If I wear each dress shirt twice, I should be able to hold out until mid-late October before going to the dry cleaners.
After starting unpacking, I walked across town in search of a few household items. My biggest concern is that this apartment has a tub with no shower curtain. I’m already drafting a simple structure to build with my pocket knife that will support the curtain without damaging the apartment walls.
Here are some pictures of my apartment:

Alps, 31Aug, Day 18

Today was a particularly clear day, and I decided it would be worth climbing the Duomo again in hope get a better view of the city before moving. I packed a lunch, and began the climb. It was indeed worth the exertion, and I was rewarded with a splendid view panoramic view of the city and Alps in the distance while I ate my ham sandwich.