23 July 2005
Just taking advantage of the 1 euro per hour internet to write another
blog entry from Rome. I'm headed off to Lisbon this afternoon, although I
think I'll just head out to Termini now to avoid the scorching noontime
heat. Silly to schlep bags when it's really hot. Anyway, so you people
haven't been writing me e-mail like you should. Fortunately, I've met a
lot of people at the hostel who speak English, so I'm not walking around
Rome talking to myself, which tends to happen when I have no one to talk
to for a few days in Europe. Well, I hope Iberia Air doesn't lose my
bags.
Posted at 946 in whatever the
heck time zone this is.
22 July 2005
So here I am in Italy, blogging it up because the YWCA has only a 1 euro
per hour internet charge and, right now, that seems really really cheap to
me. I have a meeting with the woman I came here to meet at 11am and am a
bit nervous. But Rome has been fun so far, in spite of the fact that
British Air lost one of my bags, which I didn't get until yesterday
afternoon. Fortunately, all the stores are having their mid-summer
saldi, so buying new undies, a dress, and three shirts was not too
hard on my wallet. The highlights have been when
people mistake me for a real Italian and ask me directions. Not that I
can actually respond to them most of the time, but I can understand their
questions. The Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museums were probably not worth
the 12 euro I paid to get in, but the Markets of Trajan were totally worth
the 3.10 euro, in spite of the fact that part of them were closed. I've
realized that since I don't really like pizza or ice cream that my food
options are limited sometimes. And there was this really annoying guy at
the Roman Forum yesterday practicing his bird calls. I wanted to throttle
him. Anyway, I discovered a new use for bidets: foot washes for the end
of the day, when you've walked around Rome for hours and your feet are
disgustingly black.
Posted at 1013 in whatever the
heck time zone this is.
OK, well, good news! I met with the Italian woman, and she still wants to
give me as many skeletons as I want. She asked me how many I wanted (in
Italian), and I replied (in English), "200 to 300." And she said, in
Italian, "Aaaah, due mila!" And I had to say, "No, no, no! Due
cento." At any rate, sounds like I gotst me a dissertation!
Posted at 2100 in whatever the
heck time zone this is.
17 July 2005
So I'm flying to Rome tomorrow morning. Through a bizarre airline pricing
quirk, I'm actually flying through Lisbon, where I will buy a SIM card if
I have any time in the airport. Hopefully, I will be successful in
meeting up with this Roman bioarchaeologist at the Palazzo Altemps and get
in a bunch of sightseeing - somehow the last time I was in Rome, I missed
the mausoleum of Augustus, the Ara Pacis, the Sistine Chapel, the Vatican
Museum, and that ginormous statue of Constantine in the Capitoline Museum.
You'd think it would be hard to miss those, but you'd be wrong.
Then, on Saturday, I fly back to Lisbon, where I will be participating in
an
osteology
workshop for four weeks at the
Museu Nacional de
Arqueologia. If you want, you can drop me an e-mail or even send a
letter to me at:
Urb. Varandas de Monsanto
Lote 1, 1 Dto.
2720 Alfragide Sul, Amadora
Portugal
If you do send me an actual letter, I might be persuaded
to bring something fun back for you... weird candy, strange potato chips,
a hot Portuguese man, some salted cod...
Posted at 1943.
16 July 2005
Well, due to the low ceiling this
morning, we didn't get to go
hot
air ballooning up in Charlottesville. :( Instead, my mom and I went to
the mall and bought... matching mother-daughter dresses! We haven't done
that in, oh, 20-odd years. It's ridiculous what a MILF my mom is.
Posted at 2243.
14 July 2005
Today's lunch has been brought to you by:
Indian Fear
Factor
Juline,
Patrick,
and I decided to go out to Sitar's lunch buffet this afternoon. It was
all quite tasty, particularly the mattar paneer. At the end of lunch, I
got a couple scoops of rice pudding and started eating it. After one
spoonful, in which there was a tasty white raisin, I noticed that there
was a dark raisin on the other side of the pudding cup. Hmmmm. A bunch of poking and prodding
later, we had all determined that my ersatz raisin indeed had antennae
and feet. Alas, the beetle was no more. It had ceased to be.
Its metabolic processes now history. I didn't eat any more pudding.
And now for a
terrible
re-enactment...
Posted at 1425.
Dude! I just got $1,125 from the Graduate Student Opportunity Fund to
help pay for my trip to Portugal! The
GSOF
is a pretty cool
thing. The purpose of the fund is to help grad students defray "unusual
or
unexpected expenses" of research and travel. If you've been turned down
by other granting
agencies (like I was by Sigma Xi) or ineligible for funding from your own
department (like mine that has no money for students' summer travel), your
application looks even better. The application
process is painless: a one-page statement and a form signed by your
advisor. The drawbacks are that you can only ask for money every three
years and that you have to apply before your travel or conference or
workshop
begins. But woo hoo! Now I can buy myself a pair of
Campers!
Posted at 1615.
All kinds of shit is happening today! I went to the gym with Patrick, who
was meeting his friends to play basketball. After I finished on the
ellipse machine and got on the upright bike, I noticed through the archway
that
Sean
Dockery was running some drills. Then I saw
DeMarcus
Nelson as
well. I watched them for a few minutes, and lo and behold, who joined
them but
J.J.
Redick! Ahhhh. Of course, I quickly
finished up on the
bike and decided to jog around the track that circles the basketball court
so I could watch them playing pick-up ball. It definitely surprised me
how small J.J. is in real life. I mean, he's a reasonably tall, thin
20-something, but unremarkable until he effortlessly leaps two feet in the
air to sink a jump shot. Dockery had a lot of muscle, Nelson was pretty big, but
J.J. was just so skinny. All in all, though, an exciting day.
Posted at 2234.
12 July 2005
I went shopping at
A Southern
Season (which really does not have a good acronym) today because
their June sale has
been held over and because they were having a great deal on 100% fruit
leather: 5 cents a piece! So I grabbed 40 bars ($2 - woo!), some smoked
gouda, pepper-basil crackers, and chocolate non-pareils and headed to the
main check-out. The cashier was mostly ringing up the sale items by hand,
but she scanned the crackers because they had a sale UPC sticker on them.
They rang up as... $1238453.38. No joke. I knew that Southern Season
could be pricey, but... $1.2 million dollar crackers? Anyway, I guess the
doubling up of the UPC codes freaked out the scanning-majigger, and the
cashier voided it and rang it up by hand. Wouldn't it be cool if SS had
one of those grocery cards like Kroger or the Teeter? It'd be awesome if
they circled the "You saved $1,238,453.38 today" part of the receipt.
Posted at 1514.
6 July 2005
I got a bike! And a dorky-ass helmet, obviously. It's not a very nice or
expensive bike, but keep in mind that the last time I seriously rode a
bike, it was blue with clouds on it, had streamers in the handlebars, and
had a nice comfy banana seat. Pushing the pedals backward stopped you,
and there were no gears. Occasionally, I would ride my mom's 3-speed with
my brother strapped in the kiddie seat or, if I was feeling particularly
adventurous, my dad's 5-speed that had leaky tires.
So I took the bike out today mostly to make sure I remember how to
ride a bike, but also to figure out shifting. My neighborhood is a
terrible place to bike, so I went half a mile up the road to Croasdaile
Farm. Few cars, and lots of $1.5 million houses
going up in the new subdivision. I think
this
one was my favorite: 5,000 square feet, four fireplaces,
gi-freaking-normous kitchen... $1,360,000. Ahhhh, how... excessive.
Although really fairly reasonably priced.
Posted at 1147.
2 July 2005
Apparently I am the Queen of the Produce Section of Kroger. I was
shopping for groceries today, the majority of which are fresh fruits and
vegetables, and a random older woman asked me how much corn cost today.
I looked at the sign and said, "8 for $2." (Aside: Doesn't Kroger know
how to reduce fractions? I suppose labeling the corn 8 for $2 might help
Kroger sell more corn than 4 for $1.) Then I was poking through the sad
display that was their "fresh" fennel, and a woman buying green beans
turned to me and said, "Does that really taste like licorice?" I said,
"Yeah, it kind of does, although it's not really related." She said,
"What do you use fennel for?" I replied that I used it sliced in salads
paired with oranges and walnuts, or on top of foccacia, or in omelets with
a tangy cheese like parmesan. She smiled and said, "My mom never cooked
with fennel, so I had no idea how to use it," and went back to her beans.
Then I noticed this Indian guy, pushing his wife in a wheelchair, watching
us. And he looked at me and asked, "Do you know where the shredded
cabbage is?" Uhhmmm, no, not really. Do I
look like a produce
clerk?
At any rate, my hatred for my local Kroger grows by the minute.
Today they didn't have red onions. Red onions! But they did have
horribly wilted and mouldy fennel. They didn't have phyllo dough, but
they did have frozen pierogies. And they are perpetually understaffed by
people who don't know garlic from red leaf lettuce or how to ring up milk
in glass bottles. Grrrr.
Posted at 1544.
1 July 2005 - KK+Piki=5
I just wanted to take this space
today to wish myself a
Happy Fifth Anniversary!
We went out to dinner at the Magnolia Grill on 9th Street in
Durham. It wasn't as veggie-friendly as I'd hoped, but the dessert sure
made up for it: sweet and tangy bleu cheese turnover with strawberries,
hazelnuts, and a sweet balsamic vinaigrette!
Posted at 2023.
