Clean Up, Get Out...

Friday is a day for packing and a day for solemn goodbyes. Instead of work I was detailed to stay home and clean the house from top to bottom. Michael is having a couple move into my room the day after I leave. He didn’t waste any time replacing me. It is up to me to clean my room. This is never a fun job. I also didn’t exactly help myself over the past month in keeping it in tip top shape so it would be an easier job later. I don’t think I ever emptied my trash, I swept the floors once I think, what is dusting? My laziness even went as far as my laundry. Yes I did my laundry, but when it was dry I would throw it to the other side of the bed instead of putting it away. I just figured I was going to wear it soon anyway, why put it away. That bit me in the butt when clothes were everywhere and I needed to pack it up. Most everything got pretty clean after trash was gone and everything was vacuumed. The last thing I was dreading to do was the bathroom. I am not going to give details of what it looks like or what is involved in cleaning it. Just be happy yours smells and looks better than mine.

Tonight is my last meal with the family until I get back in a month. Silvia is cooking something special for me. Not sure what it is, but I am pretty sure I will like it. After this I will be back on TTD(The Travelers Diet) eating bread and drinking water. Back to looking at train schedules and “stressing” over where I will sleep next. I love living here, but I think it is time to take a little break. The traveling bug is hitting just in time…

Moral of the story, if you don’t go to the bathroom, you don’t have to clean it…

Language Of The World...

In movies when you see an American talking to a foreigner, what do you picture? I see someone speaking loudly, very slow, and with over dramatic pronunciation. I am always super embarrassed when I watch it happen. The people talk to foreigners similar to how they talk to babies. When traveling around South East Asia Carlyn had a tendency to take part in this. She would try to ask something about hotels or food on a menu and get American. When they didn’t understand, her frustration peaked and I was assigned to deal with it. Luckily I am fluent in the universal language of pointing to objects and getting what needs done. I am getting to a point that matters to my current trip, read on.

At home I don’t think I am considered an extremely fast talker. Sure I listen to that horrible rap music, but my thoughts do not form in my head until I have already started my sentence. I actually consider myself pretty slow when it comes to conversing with other humanoids. I have been accused though of being soft spoken. My words are light on the tongue but heavy on the soul(that is deep). Next paragraph brings it all full circle.

For the last few months since I have been in Bosa I have had a little annoying thing happen to me each day. It is like a gnat that plays around your ears. It doesn’t really matter, but it just kinda gets to you after 3 months of living with it each day for 5 hours of work a day. If you were not sure, the gnat is not a gnat, it is a person. I love Michael dearly, but I something he does, or doesn’t do, gets on me enough to write about it. Whenever I say something to Michael he says “ehh?” or “what?”. Both pretty common things said in the English language. I am not sure if Michael has to adjust his ears to the frequency of my voice so that when I repeat myself he can understand, but it is everything I say that he questions. It isn’t that English isn’t his 3^rd or 4^th language because Kurt can speak to him with no problem. So I wrote the above part to question what the heck is wrong with my speech that Michael needs an echo to comprehend it?

Moral of the story, just answer the last question please…

100!!!

This is my 100th post. It was said it couldnt be done, but I made it to 100. The pool that people had that said i would quit early, i am sorry you lost your money. I feel like this is one of the occasions for a little dream bubble appear and remember the good times that have been had so far... The food, the fever, the beach, the cliff diving, the London, The Germany... I have had many experiences here while on my travels that have now been documented for when i am older and the memory starts to slip. I have a couple posts that i can go ahead and put up, but i think i am going to take a couple days sabbatical from posting. I will be heading to Barcelona in only a couple days and then to france then to see the parents. So if you stay tuned I am sure I will have new material including new cast members. Good thing my parents have a sense of humor...

Moral of the story, take a breather, breathing is good, keeps ya alive...

Masticating, One Bite At A Time...

I have met my match. Prior to this trip i thought my metabolism was something of glory and praise. I could eat a whole pizza 7 nights in a row and still be able to get away without it affecting me in the slightest. Other factors might be involved in my ability to stay in relatively swell shape; playing tons of basketball, volleyball, lifting weights, tag, marco polo in the pool. My metabolism was in a constant state of digestion to appease the energy that was needed to be sacrificed to stay active.

Though I work a few hours a day outside, the amount of food that has been portioned to me the past few months has outnumbered my calorie burning. I am not saying I grew a bit of a belly, but I am not saying I didn’t. I am not sure what I am saying if those are the only two options available, but I can tell that my body has taken a different form. In one week from this day I will be stepping foot in Barcelona, Spain. I am not sure if I will be able to pull off a miracle but I have started with baby steps. Recently I have taken less on my plate and have not taken seconds, eating slower and not inhaling my food, and beverage of choice is some crispy cool water. This is going to be step one into getting back into shape for beach weather in Spain. Let’s hope that I can run around enough to get my metabolism unrusted and back to top level.

Moral of the story, it is easier to maintain then fight back…

Take A Walk On The Wild Side...

It’s been long overdue for me to write about one of the most fun days I have had since i have come to Bosa. A week ago we had a day off so sir Michael planned a day trip for his family and us to go to a special place. We got ready for a water day and found out Orlando didn’t tell his parents about a math and science test he had to study for. Needless to say, he stayed home and Silvia stayed as well to keep him on task. Facebook is a good distraction from work. I saw a fake news cast once by Onion News. It said something like “the internet went down nationwide today, productivity increased 500%.” That is probably pretty close to true.

Michael, Nahima, Kurt and I took off around noon for our special destination. After getting a few nice lunch sandwiches and a drive along the coast we arrived. We had to do a little 15 minute hike through a super over grown path. I have done some hikes in my life, mostly in Tucson. I was noticing some of the differences from the locations. In Tucson if you walk down a path and a branch or other form of vegetation is blocking the path than you have to either go around or go back. Chances are it has spines, poison, toxins, dangerous bugs, or all of the above. In Sardinia you could walk all the way through a bush and it will feel like the plant is kissing you with its leaves and saying thank you for stepping on it and breaking some of its branches.

After our 15 minute walk we arrived to a small beach. To the left was sheer rock walls and to the right were giant boulders that lead to who knows where. Excitement grew in my mind that we were going to get to go bouldering and just jump from right to rock with slight chance of danger. When we got to an open area around the bounders we got to look around. It was so beautiful. Going from lush green plants to nothing but stone and water pools was quite a site. These pools ranged from a size of a basketball to the size of a basketball court. As deep as a toe or as deep as my whole body. The water everywhere was clear as day. One time as I was passing by a pool I actually saw a squid swimming around. I kept my distance of course because I have seen that they can take down fierce predators like sharks. Sure this was the size of both of my fists, but who knows???

The entire time we were hiking around on the rocks I felt l like a little kid in a candy store. I would try to find jumps between rocks that would test my jumping abilities. When we got to where Nahima couldn’t jump anymore we stopped for lunch and a swim. The pools were cold but really fun to go into. The big fun was cliff jumping. Kurt did this more than I did. We would find jump that just got higher and higher. I lost my fear of jumping off of tall areas into water when I was in Switzerland a couple years ago. We just had to watch out that we don’t step on the sea urchins. Those are some nasty little animals with spikes heading in every direction possible.

After 5 hours in the sun we headed home and had some of Silvia’s wonderful dinner. Grrrrrreat day.

Moral of the story, adrenaline and jumping height have no correlation…

Lightning Bolt...

When I wrote this blog, I wrote a little thing under the title that said I was on a journey to find something missing. I really wrote it to be an intriguing question that would bring newcomers into the page and see what funny twist on life I could make. It might even keep people waiting and reading for a brilliant bolt of lightning to hit me. Honestly, I thought it was a pretty good advertising campaign.

A friend of mine kept asking me and pressing me for an answer. I didn’t really want to think about it nor admit that something was missing or wrong at all. Living in bliss was good enough for a while. Things got a little bit dull and I became a bit homesick again. After much analysis and some deep talks with some friends I think I came up with one epiphany that I think will serve me in the future in all ventures I attack.

When I was in Arizona I always had my mind on Europe. Now when I am in Europe, I had my mind on things going on in Arizona and what I was missing out on. Recently I saw myself with one foot in and one foot out. It occurred to me, “you’re in Italy stupid”, if I am going to be here I need to fully commit to what I am trying to do. This is my life and it is time that I lived it out while diving head first. It might sound weird that moving to Italy for however long isn’t considered diving head first, but I think you can get the gist. It doesn’t mean I don’t miss home, or care about the people any less that are there, but I guess it was a realization that if I am to live the next chapter of my life, then I should turn the page.

With this new found ideology, things look a bit shinier and taste a bit sweeter.

Moral of the story, just reread it…

Dont Mess With Texas...

In nature we see alpha males fight each other for a dominant position within a clan or pride. Rams might knock horns, lions will take part in epic battles, humans get defensive and stubborn in their ways. I got to witness such an occurrence between Michael and Kurt today. We are making a platform that will help take water away from the house and divert it to a more deserving place for rain water. A couple days ago the two of them did some measurements to prepare for the cement pouring. Meanwhile I did menial jobs that are not hugely important, but if not done will just be annoying if they weren’t done. For example they were going to put a ton of rocks inside the cement to take up a lot of space. So they needed me to get the rocks and pile them up near the site. Not extremely complicated or massively important, but if not done, it would have made the cement day a bigger hassle.

Cement day came with all our hopes and dreams of a fantastic pouring and laying of pretty stones. We each had our jobs that were not necessarily assigned but just worked themselves out. Michael was to make the cement in his machine. I was on wheel burrowing detail. Kurt was on cement distribution and stone placing. We had our bases covered and our tasks clear, now all that was to do was to start the job. Michael is very particular about his mixture of cement in his machine. He has to have the right amount of water, the right amount of sand, the right amount of cement mix or else it is way off. It usually came out soupy no matter what he did. My job was a lot of waiting. Michael took a good 20 to 30 minutes between each mix. Wheel burrowing was a 10 second job. Do the math… Kurt had the hardest job. When he got the cement he had to level it, put the rocks inside of the cement, stomp it down, and then place decorative stones evenly on a downward slope. Mr. Kurt was prepared for the job until Michael threw a wrench in the machine. Instead of creating a nice foundation that would dry so that a nice top layer could be made evenly, Michael wanted Kurt to put the finishing touches on a soupy and very moveable surface.

Kurt did what he could, and actually did a pretty good job, but there are problem spots that could be avoided if foundations were made first. So today was going to be finish it off day. Alpha male vs. alpha male. If you are wondering I am a beta male. I have no place in making decisions or contributions in these type of situations. Followers don’t get dirty glances and will be invited to dinner that night. Michael was telling Kurt how he wanted it done, Kurt told him the proper way to do it and then silence. After much brooding and a slew of comments like “do whatever you want to do” and “why don’t you do it, it’s your house”, Michael left for more cement and Kurt did it his way. I am not really sure who won the battle royal. After two long days of waiting with a wheel burrow the platform is complete and looking like slab of concrete. I do what I can…

Moral of story, when two alphas fight go in after when they are both weak and dominate…