Last night I dreamed that I was back in the states for some reason, and was leaving the next day. I was at the supermarket in order to buy all those things I missed, and the one thing I wanted the most, Torani. To my horror I ran through the store as announcements that they were closing rang out over the speaker, and couldnt find any. I went from isle to isle, and it was no where to be found.

Its scary the things we dream of.

I awoke this morning and quickly went to the kitchen and made myself some cafe. My friend Matteo went to England last week, and brought me back a bottle of hazelnut syrup. Mmmmm I cant wait until he visits and brings it. :) The vanilia I found here just isnt the same. But it works. It allows me my big cups of pick-me-up in the morning. There are some things I'm willing to give up ("when in Rome..."), like going and sitting in Starbucks with Kari, talking for hours over a frappacino and bagel from Noahs (of course I really have no choice in giving these things up). Giving up my morning cups of goodness is not something I'm willing to do. Italians tell me - you're in Italy, do it like we do it. True, I'm in Italy, but I'm not Italian... and until the day that I miracuously become Italian, I intend to keep my morning ritual in tack.

Yesterday I took a quick trip up to the Colico on Lake Como for a get-to-gether with some members from ExPats in Itay. My train was supposed to be getting in at 10.40, and Carole who was hosting the GTG was to be picking me up. Well, I'm sure the train got in on time, but I however was not on it.

I had a string of bad luck yeterday morning. On the way to the metro a lady stopped and asked me for directions. I hate it when people blow me off when I'm lost, and I have memories from last summer of wandering around this exact neighborhood lost trying to find the school for half an hour (which turned out to be on the other side of the station). So I couldnt say no. It would have gone a lot faster had she known where she wanted to go, but she had to stop and get the address out, we had to find the street on the map, then explain to her that yes, we're at lambrate metro, but there are two exits, and we're at the one not marked on the map. trust me. I live here. Anyways, this took about 10 min out of min travel time. When I finally got away and ran down into the subway, I got there just in time to see the metro leaving. Great, have to wait for another. There's a few more minutes. I got to the station with 10 minutes to spare. I ran up the stairs out of the metro, and to the self service machines to get my ticket. The longs where horrible! I waited for 5 min, but as always the people trying to buy tickets had no idea how to use the machine. The station was full - Saturday morning everyone trying to leave town. I remembered that there was a ticket office up by the platform that never seemed to have long lines. So taking a risk and ditching the last 5 minutes of waiting in line, I ran up the stairs to the ticket booth. There was no line, in fact, I wasnt sure if they were even open as the light was still off. But there was someone inside. So in I went. He said that he wouldnt be open for another 15 min. I told him my train left in 5 and that the lines down stairs were terribly long. He looked at me and said itd take about 5 min to get his machine up and working, but that he'd try. So we sat there. waiting. He looked up what track it left from, had the money all out and ready to go once that ticket was in my hand. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity in a little sweaty office with no air, and only extreme heat I had my ticket. I yelled thanks as I went running out of the room and to the track. Of course, on the other side of the platform. I decided to forgo validating my ticket, as I'd just write the date and time on instead. I can be a bit mean, and I always laugh secretly when I see people running through the station trying to catch their train. Well, I was now one of those people. Dodging people and jumping over bags I made my way to the platform, just in time to see the train pull away.

The next train didnt leave for almost 2 hours, and from a different train station. So back to the metro I went, over to Garabaldi station, where I got to hang out and wait. I eventually did make it to Colico at 1, where Carole picked me up from the station on the way to lunch.

Lunch itself was wanderful, cured meats and bread, pasta, more meat dishes, tiramisu, and cafe. Oh, and lots of wine. :D It was great to be able to meet people and put faces to names. And as an added bonus, Jackie and Antonello were able to come! No, they didnt make the drive just for lunch, but were going to be in the area that weekend for a caving convention anyways. Despite being in different parts of the country, Jackie and I have actually managed to see each other quite reguarly so far.

I only really saw the lake from the train ride, but it looked gorgeous, and I cant wait to get back up and explore a bit more! The whole area reminded me a bit of home with the types of trees, and the fact that fall was actually present. The air was unbelieveably fresh, and it was so nice to look out and see something other than grey buildings! Here's a view from the resutraunt.





After lunch we went to a chocolate factory where they sold fresh chocolate at incredibly low prices, I couldnt resist and had to buy some. yummy. Oh, and Jackie brought me my birthday present, and adorable scarf from a shop in Macerata that we had seen. I love it! And as Antonello was sure to point out, this way I wont get sick! (I always seem to be sick when I go to visit them!) Thanks so much for the scarf and for lunch too!



After the chocolate factory everyone said goodbye and went their seperate ways. Before going back to the train station, Carole took me up to see her house. She bought a ruin of a place, and had the entire thing remodelled. She did a wonderful job with it, and the view from her balcony is amazing. She has invited me to stay for a weekend, and I cant wait to take advantage of the offer!

Overall it was a fun relaxing day, and I rode the train home sleepy eyed with a full and happy belly from lunch.

A few days ago Stefano and I arrived home at the same time as one of our neighbors - and his toddler son, and several bags of groceries. Since we live on the top floor and would undoubtably have to pass by their apartment anyways, we offered to help carry bags for them. It turns out that they live in the apartment directly below us. The man was most greatful for the help, I had seen him before in passing, but never talked to him.

2 days later, bright and early on our way to class we were crossing the street outside our apartment. Someone walked by, and smiled saying "buongiorno!" I had been in a daze, nursing my coffee and not paying much attention. Afterall, who do I know that lives around here? I turned my head as he passed, he looked familar, but it didnt click from where. Stefano, who had also been caught off gaurd turned to me and said "its the man from our building with the groceries."

As we continued on walking I had a little smile on my face. It was the first time since coming here that I passed someone I knew in the street and had them great me. How nice I thought, as I sipped my coffee.

While I find myself in the land of wonderful chocolate, there is one for me that will always taste like home. Golden coins. For as long as I can remember my mom has given me golden coins every year for Christmas. I used to beg for them when I was a kid. I cant explain why, but they have always been my favorite. I'd recognize their taste anywhere.

This morning I decided to stop by the store on the way to class and pick up some chocolate to share with people, since it is the last day of school before Halloween. I thought there had been a section of Halloween candy at the store, but I was wrong. It was Christmas candy, and down on the bottom self, there they were. Golden coins, just like at home, except imprinted as euros.

I quickly bought some. As I made my way to class my mind kept drifting to them in my backpack. I was determined to wait until I got to school though. It turned out that my class was cancelled for the day, so I was only able to hand them out to the few others who didn't get the message and showed up like me, and friends who were there for other classes. Was I disappointed? A bit. I didn't get to share the spirit of Halloween candy with others... But that also means more for me. :)

I ended up waiting until I got home before I had any. I peeled off the golden wrapper, took a bite, and closed my eyes. The taste instantly transported me back to Christmas mornings as a child, going straight to my stalking where there would undoubtedly be coins waiting for me. Everything was exactly the same - the taste, the texture, the hardness, even the wrapper is made of the same foil as when I was a child.

It was unmistakably perfect.

Last night when I got home from class my head was spinning. A four hour lecture in Italian. A four hour lecture in English is hard to sit through... But in Italian. My brain was mush. I needed an outlet, something to do where I didn't have to think. So I started searching again for Civilization. After about 10 failed download attempts, I finally found a file that looked promising, only problem, it was BIG. So I left my computer on overnight, hopeing to wake up to good news. As luck would have it, it worked. I got a fully working version of CIV III. And I played it for two hours this morning, before having to tear myself away to get ready for class. It will be a good distraction tonight. :D

This morning was my first real class. Typography. It's a lecture/theory class, and we will do no projects in it. Just sit there and listen to the prof talk about typography. And of course, it's all in Italian. I actually understood though, I think it helped that I've studied typography so much before, cause everything we went over today was a review. For me at least. For a lot of the students its all new material. In fact, when the professor asked who had studied typography before, I was the only one other than the few students who had taken the visual design basic corse at SPD last year. At least I was the only one who understood the question and raised my hand. ^___^

I'm feeling much better today though, my head is a lot clearer so I think that helped a lot also in my comprehension. As a side note, there is a little victory for us english speakers in that the text book for the class is all in English! so at least I wont have any problems understanding it. I was also the only one who raised my hand when she asked who spoke good enough english to be able to easily understand the book. She laughed when I raised my hand, and then added "who isn't a mother tounge speaker."

Also, on the list of recommended but not required text books, is Stop Stealing Sheep, a book I read a few years ago at OSU. Needless to say I wont be buying that one again.

I'm interested in seeing how this class is gonna end up being. I have a feeling for at least the first month it is going to be mostly review for me... After that I am hoping to learn at least some new ideas, or new perspectives on typography. I know today was just an intro lecture, but the only tings I found myself taking notes on were Italian vocabulary. At least this will give me a chance to improve my Italian I suppose.

This afternoon I have another class, (4 hours long!) that is called "computer visual a." I think basically it is going to be a lab course introducing us to computer programs such as indesign, photoshop, illustrator, etc. Oh yeah! more review! haha. I must remember to look at the positive side. While everyone else is trying to learn these basic concepts, I can focus on improving my Italian. :)

Today was a presentation at my school of my course. We finally found out what our schedule will be for the first semester, got some information on living in Milan and the rules of the school, and saw our professors. It was quite the event. Scheduled to start at 4pm, it actually started at 5. I should have known, I'm in Italy, nothing starts on time. ;)

Flying high on dayquil, my brain didn't particuarly want to work in English, let alone in Italian. Yet I had no choice. At least I was better off than some students who speak no Italian at all. As the presentation started I still had doubts as to how it was going to work. would they speak in English? Italian? who knew. Well, we soon found out. Italian. And fast Italian at that. I sat in a daze as each professor got up, introduced themselves, said what they teach, and talked about the importance of it in design. While I understood the general ideas of what was being said, there was a lot that I missed. It was a harsh slap in the face of what the next year has to bring.

At one point they kept talking about the school's "macchine" and the students use of them. I was very confussed as "macchine" means "cars." After a couple minutes it finally dawned on me, as I remember that while "macchina" is commonly used for "car," it really means machine. And in this case they were talking about the computers, not cars. Once I realized this everything made sense. But boy was I lost for awhile there.

I hoping that it was a combination of being sick and medicines that slowed me down, and that once I get better I'll be able to think clearer again. In the mean time, I have classes at 9 am tomorrow, and I have a feeling my head is going to be spinning afterwards. I'll write more tomorrow of my impressions of the school and how things work. Perhaps my head will be a little clearer then...

Growing up I always saw the cartoons and such where the bread goes flying out of the toaster. As a kid I was always dissapointed that our toaster did not send bread flying into the air. Never have I had a toaster that actually did this. Until now.

I decided to make myself a tunafish sandwhich for dinner, on wheat none the less. Wheat bread is something that I had never seen in Italy before. When I lived here before sliced bread seemed to be a new concept. Now it's everywhere. The store across the street seems to sell three basic kinds- white, multigrain, and wheat. I've been a bit skeptical of it so far, but decided today to try it, and so I bought a loaf.

So anyways, I stuck the bread in the toaster, which I had yet to use before. Not knowing how long it was going to go for, and not wanting my bread to burn, I decided part way through to stop it. Normal method: pull the handle back up. So up the handle went, and out my bread went, flying into the air. It was quite the sight really, and gave me a good chuckle. Leave it to the Italians to do things like on tv...

I decided to take a quick trip down to macerata this past weekend. Although I'm not sure quick is a good word to describe the trip itself. In order to take advantage of Trenitalia's Viaggi Quanto Vuoi offer, I had to take an IR down from Milano. To make matters worse, I discovered that my MP3 player has decided to stop working. 7 hours of silence later I arrived in Macerata. As always, the last hour of the trip was spent in anticipation, watching out the window for the familar skyline.

When I arrived, both Jackie and Antonello were at work, and I had about an hour and a half to kill. So I made some phone calls, and before long was sitting at bar della sport with some old friends of mine, Billy, Maxi, and Paulo. While I had seen Maxi during my August trip, it had been over a year since I'd seen Billy and Paulo, so it was nice to catch up with them. The biggest news of the night, Maxi's wife gave birth to a healthy baby boy about two weeks ago. It was fun to watch Maxi's face light up as he talked about his first son.

Saturday night was spent with other friends, Matteo and Luca who came into town to see me. After an aperitivo and an unsuccessful attempt to grab dinner at The Palace, we ended up going to 4Porte. With just our luck, there was a birthday party going on that night, with a group of 20 yelling middle schoolers. After dinner we went to bar centrale and hung out for a bit, where the crowd was defiantly older, as most college students were at home for the weekend. Still, it was a fun night out with the boys.

Sunday morning I woke up bright and early to head into the mountains with Jackie and Antonello and a group of caving students who were practicing on the ropes. We headed to an area up above Frasassi caves, parking outside of Genga and hiking in. The hike was quite nice, although rather cold and foggy when we first arrived. As the day went on though the sky cleared up quite a bit, giving way to some very nice views. I always love spending time in the foothills of the Appenines, as the area reminds me a lot of Oregon. On the hike back, Italians kept pointing out to Jackie every red tree that they saw, as she has been missing the way fall looks back home. It's not quite the same here.


(A look back at Genga from our hike)

It was sad to leave Macerata yesterday, and head back to dreary Milano. This trip had been particuarly nice weather wise, making walks around Macerata and the smell of the air even more rememberable than normal. I'm a strange one, as I love the beginning of winter, when the air has that crisp feeling to it. And of course it is always sad to say bye to Jackie, who despite embarrising me by sending random english nursery rhymes to guys at the bar, is always fun to see. It's been odd living in Italy but not in the same town as her. Yet there is a chance she'll be making her way up north at the end of the month, just in time for halloween and some pumpkin carving.

As my brother is being extremely lazy lately about telling me anything that is going on (he recently moved cross country to virgina), I decided to check his website and see if there was any thing on it. Well, he posted a post saying that a lot had happened, but not giving any info. So I started poking around his site, and stumbled upon The Plug (http://www.mrsnazz.com/~jmc/shoebox/theplug/index.html), a type of underground newspaper that my brother and some friends started while in highschool, and then me and some friends did for a bit when I got into highschool. Some of the articles are rather crude, but it made me laugh as it brought back memories. Things I had completely forgotten about. When I was packing to move I came across an old three ring binder overflowing with past plug issues and articles... I didn't have time to look through it then, but passed it on to my brother. Now that I see it online, I'm almost afraid to look through it. :)

Anyways, feel free to browse through it and have a look into my past. A few of you probably remember The Plug... God that was a long time ago.

I feel as though I've been a bad little blogger lately. Things keep happening that I think "oh, I should blog about that" - but then I never do. In reality its been less than a week since I blogged. Which really isn't that bad. I've seen much longer abscenses from certain other people who will remain nameless. ;) Anyways, you should prepare yourself for a good read in this one, cause it's gonna be long.

In any case, as projected, once I started getting bussier the blogging became less. Which is both a good and bad thing. Stefano has also moved in, which meant having to share the internet, and being forced to be more social. No more sitting at home in my pajamas messing around online all day. Yesterday though, we went and bought another ethernet cable, 15 m! Although we only needed probably 6 to reach across the hall to my room, we got 15. The nice thing is that I can now take my laptop all the way to the kitchen and use the internet. Although I would much prefer it to be wireless. In any case, I can now ues the internet again whenever I want. ie, when I wake up in the morning, or late at night before going to sleep. My favorite times to use it, as that's when people from back home are online.

Buying the cord was a bit of an experience in and of its self. Stefano told me that he saw a Media World store not far from here. So yesterday we walked over to check it out. I was expecting to see some little shop, nothing to spectacular. Boy was I in for a surprise. It was HUGE! well, by Italian standards huge anyways, and from the outside it promised to be something like a Best Buy. As we entered though, i couldnt help but laugh, as of course they had to put a spin on it. Media World took an "electronics" store to the next level, as Electronics meant anything that used electricity of any kind. That's right. Toasters, Microwaves, blenders, they were all there in the isles next to the CD players and computers. This of course meant that the selection of computer related things, was much smaller than I was expecting from the outside. It also meant that the store only carried ethernet cables of 5m. Not quite long enough.

So a little dissapointed we left, and started the walk home. When we were almost back to the apartment, we walked by a little hole in the wall shop. It really didn't look like much, rather shuffled contents on the inside, and a sense of not even knowing if it was open, or a store room. However, they had one badly organized self in the window with a few items on display that caught my eyes. CDs, ink cartridges, etc. So we ventured in. I'm not sure exactly what it is, I think some kind of computer repair place, that also sells some random items, and to our good fortune they also happened to have 15m ethernet cables. YES! for the mer price of 18 euros (a rip off back home, but somehow here it seemed like a decent price), we were made, yes, that's right, made, our very own custom 15m cable. It took a good 10 min for him to pull the cable from the box, cut it to length, and ad the ends to it. But oh was it pretty when it was done, and works like a charm. Just goes to show you that sometimes the little stores are better...

As said before, I've also become a bit bussier in this past week. With the arrival of Stefano and being forced to be more social, I've actually been hanging out more with some people from my school. The nice thing about Milan, is that it loves its foreign students. I've never been happier to admit that I was a foreigner. Here, being one means free entrance to clubs and bars, and often times free drinks as well. Of course it depends on the night where you can go, but every night there is somewhere you can go and get a special deal. There are also the aperitivos which are wonderful. You go, buy a drink for a couple euro, and you get a platter full of food to eat. Plenty for a dinner. Of course it depends on where you go, how much they'll give you, and some places you have to pay extra for the food. But I've found that out in my little neck of the woods they are quite generous with what you get. So I've been spending some time out with these folks, getting to know them a bit. They're from all different countries, although the majority of them come from Spanish speaking countries. Then there are the people who come from Holland and Isreal and such, who know English. No one however, seems to know Italian other than Stefano and I. So most of the night I end up speaking a mix of English, with some Italian, directed towards the people who speak spanish but not english, as they can understand Italian a bit. Still, it seems everyone would prefer to speak in English/spanish. A bit dissapointing as I am trying to improve my Italian. At home I get to practice though, and our conversations are usually a strange mixture of Italian with some random English words thrown in.

I've also been spending more time studying lately. Really hunkering down with my language books from previous classes, and trying to master the present conditional and past conditional tenses. I figure if I am going to be critiquing peoples work in Italian, it might be a good idea for me to learn how to do so in a more polite way. :) In addition, I've started readiing "io non ho paura" which is both challenging and rewarding. I've discovered that I can read the book without the use of a dictionary, and understand most of what is going on. I may not know the meaning of a word, but by the context I can figure out the general idea. However, using the dictionary gives me a much deeper and richer understanding. I read much slower in Italian, as I generally read a paragraph twice, and really think about the sentences to make sure I am getting them correctly. but it's a great feeling when I look up a word and suddenly everything clicks into place and makes so much sense. It also makes the story a lot more interesting to read. :)

As for how I'm doing on the health front, it could be better. While last time everything blew over pretty easily, this time I dont think I'm going to be quite so lucky. I think it is a combination of alergies and a cold. alergies to what, I dont know.but when I walk outside my nose and eyes burn (which luckily is about all that ever happens to me with alergies). I can feel it in my throat though, and its becoming increasingly more difficult to breath through my nose as each day passes. In addition I've seemed to developed a cough today, and already this morning Stefano has said to me (in Italian of course) "dont go and get sick!" Trust me. If I could avoid it, I would. Part of me wants to take some dayquil, as I know their magic will make me feel better, at least for the day. But the other part of me says NO! as I've only a limited supply and should save it for when I really need it. --- which reminds me, if anyone back home is wondering what to do for my birthday, a couple boxes of the generic store brand dayquil would be greatly appreciated, as there isnt anything here quite the equivalent ---

So I think that more or less brings me up to date on what has been happening. hopefully I'll post a little more reguarly as to avoid these longer posts which can be a pain to read. :)

I admit it. I'm a Civilization addict.

My uncle started me playing this game many many years ago, and it's very addicting. The last 3 years the only thing I ever used my PC for was playing Civ, as I only had the PC version. I had to be careful with it though. I was only allowed to play on holliday breaks from school. This meant 3 times a year - christmas, summer, and spring break. If you dont know the game, this may seem a bit harsh. If you do know the game, you know why I did this. I've lost days of my life to this game. Literally. I would wake up, start playing, and play all day and well into the night. Sleep a few hours, and wake up and play again.

This summer I didn't play it at all, as I was too busy with the move. Now, I've got the time, but no game. I know I should be studying, but I keep feeling that urge to play. At this particular moment its very bad. My urges have started me looking online for a copy to buy. There are several on ebay, and amazon. The mac version isn't as popular as the PC version, thus costs more. But it's worth it.

I'm thinking I may get myself an early birthday present. But even then it will take a good week to get here if I order it. and between shipping costs it may be cheaper to buy it here. I need to do more investigating. In the mean time, as I can't play it right now, I figured I would do the next best thing. Blog about it.

I stole this picture from Kari, cause I wanted to post it. My original thought was to write something about our time at il Palio, but now a wave of lazyness has come over me, so I think I will just post the photo. :)

Yesterday Jordan and I took a brief trip out to Bergamo, a town about an hour away from Milano. We headed out with little knowledge of what the town had to offer, other than a vague memory of what I had read on the town last summer. Bergamo, is divided in two parts: the walled hilltop citta alta, and the lower modern town, citta bassa. As we made our way up the main street from the train station, headed to the funicular it was fun to watch Jordan's reaction to the town. So far on his trip in Italy he had been to Roma, Costiero Amalfitano, and Mailno. Quite a bit different than the smaller city of Bergamo. He commented on how clean and nice the town was, and how it reminded him of Corvallis. In a way, I suppose that is true, especially now that Corvallis has re-done its entire downtown river front.

As we stepped off the funicular at the top, it was obvious that Jordan hadn't seen anything like this before, as he imediately started taking photos of the street straight ahead of us. :) I had grabbed a small map of the town from the funicular, and off we walked towards Piazza Vecchia. While it was indeed a beautiful piazza, I was a little dissapointed in it after the reviews I had heard of it. There were some interesting features of it, yet nothing that made me gasp. Perhaps I've become spoiled with the architecture of Italy to where it takes something much more spectacular to impress me these days. Not to say that I didn't appreciate the piazza, it just didnt hit me with that sense of wonderment that others have. Jordan however seemed to enjoy it quite a bit, and I was glad that he was getting the chance to see something different. Although not quite the same as the hilltowns of central Italy, it was a good substitute :)

After Piazza Vecchia we headed over to Piazza del Duomo, where unfortunately the cathedral was underconstruction. However, the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore seemed to be the main draw to the piazza anyways. As I ventured closer to the basilica, I noticed something about the lions at the base of the columns, that I had not noticed elsewhere. The front half of the lions, that which stuck out past the overhang of the roof, was severly deteriorated in comparision to the back half. I imagine this is front a number of reasons, all to be expected. The difference between the two halfs however, was so strong. Surely I must have seen somewhere else before, but the fact that I couldn't remember having done so struck me as odd. In my memory, things are either deteriorated, or not deteriorated. But never half and half.

Moving on we wandered through the back streets of the town, making a loop past Piazza Macscheroni and back up to Piazza Vecchia. Along the way the designers in us broke out- as I was busy trying to get a shot of a water bottle laying on the ground a few inches away from its rain soaked label, someone came around the corner on their scooter and stopped just short of me, trying not to enter my shot. I quickly waived them on as i knew that it would take me another min to get the angle I wanted. It was quite nice of them to stop... I can only imagine how confussed they were as to what I was taking a photo of. :)

We stopped in Piazza Vecchia and grabbed a slice of pizza, before continueing on to La Rocca. As we approached, we noticed an extraordinary amount of cats hanging around the premises. I assume it must be some sort of cat sanctuary on the grounds. They were rather adorable, and I must have shot an entire roll of film just of them. The views from the park at La Rocca were undoubtably the most picturesque of the day. We were fortunate that the rain that has seemed to be here all week let up for our entire visit, and the sky even cleared some. Still, I would like to go back on a clear day as I imagine the views can only get better.

We only had a couple hours to spend in Bergamo, and she didn't have time to go inside anything, climb the tower, or explore the lower town. I'd like to return for another visit to do so. I'd also like to head up to the Orti Botanico Lorenzo Rota, which I've read has even more spectacular views (I recieved another box yesterday, this one containing my guidebook to Italy! too bad I hadn't a chance to re-read it before hand). Overall it made for a very nice quick trip. I shot all of my photos with film, but I'll try and steal some of Jordans digital shots and add them in later today.

I think I am getting sick.

Those who know me, know this isnt good. I dont get colds like a normal person. When I get a cold, I dont move for days. When I lived in Macerata I had strep throat for about 3 months. yes, 3 months. The doctor kept giving me antibiotics, but they were either never enough, or not strong enough, because just as I was getting better, I'd run out, and it'd come back. At one point I was under doctors orders not to get out of bed for 3 days. He even called my professor and told him that I wasn't allowed to go on the trip to assisi.

I've been fighting it off for awhile now, blamming it on other things. Stuffy nose? must be from pollution. Tired? Maybe my Iron's getting low again. Swollen throat? Well hell, my throat just likes to do that for fun. Chugging massive ammounts of water? ummm dehydrated?

This morning I woke up after 13 hours of a dead sleep. I've been sleeping a lot lately, I thought maybe because I just dont have much to do. Maybe I'm just catching up from the 3 months before I moved where my body littlerly wouldnt let me sleep more than 4 hours a night. Even if I went to bed early, and didnt have anything to do in the morning, I would still wake up, and not be able to get to sleep. it was all the stress I think. I've been fighting a swollen throat though the past couple of weeks. And today I just feel like crap. I'm groggy. my throat is swollen (although thankfully doesnt hurt), my neck is stiff and hates me when i want to move it, and if I bend over my head starts to spin.

Great. just in time for Jordan to come. I'll pull through though. I havent gotten to the 'i feel like shit and you aint getting me off this couch' stage yet. Shower and coffee are bound to help some. And I'm sure seeing Jordan will help snap me outta it a bit as well. And if nothing else, I brought a supply of my beloved dayquil with me.

Does dayquil have an equivalent in Italy?