10/30

Ok. So an overview since the last post-

On the 28^th I got up early to see the first group (Sam, David, Ellen and Carly) leave. They were on their way to Venice (yes, tears were shed as good-byes were shared). Josh, Anderson, Lauren and I left OGC at nine to catch two separate trains. Josh and Anderson were headed to Milan via Ancona and Lauren and I were headed to Rome. We got on the train only to notice that we hadn't validated our tickets (it is required). Luckily the conductor had seen us get on and had pity on us so he let it go. Three and a half hours later we were in Rome. Lauren was just passing through but needed to drop some things off at Anderson's friend's apartment. Her stuff was heavy and hard to lug around so I ran to drop my stuff at the YWCA (where I am staying) and ran back to help her out. We hopped onto the number 40 bus and were on our way. We passed the celebration of a church's saint day, which at the time we thought was really cool. We arrived at the friend's apartment and realized that we had no way to get in. The last few times that some of us have gone to visit there were people in and out all the time so we figured that we could just wait. We had plenty of time before Lauren's train was supposed to leave so we waited. Five minutes went by- nothing. Fifteen minutes- nothing. Twenty minutes- nothing. At this point Lauren is starting to freak out a little. He train was leaving in an hour and we had no idea what we were going to do with her things. There were some Italians standing nearby who spoke very good english and tried to help us but to no avail. We were down to 40 minutes before her train left and we were about to give up when the door opened. The look of relief that passed over Lauren's face was great. We left her things on the right floor and ran out to catch the next bus. We thought we were set but as we past by the spot where the celebration had been we noticed that it was over and there were at least 40 people waiting at the bus stop to get on our already full bus. People packed on and it took twice as much time at every stop to get anyone off let alone trying to get anyone new on and still be able to close the doors. She missed her train by almost 15 minutes. However, there was another, more expensive, train that was leaving in 20 minutes that she was able to get on so not all was lost.

This was the first of many bad luck experiences.

I left the train station in search of last minute souvenirs. I was almost done and about to head back when I got a call. I knew what it was about. My dad was calling to say that they had canceled my flight. A swear word or two may have escaped my lips. He told me that Hurricane Sandy was causing thousands of cancelations but he was going to try to figure something out. I headed back to my room and waited for the call that would tell me what to do. It came. I was to fly out in 36 hours at 6:30am today (the 30^th). I was going to spend the night at the airport (there is no public transportation going there that early) and then head to Zurich and then to Chicago. Too bad we didn't see the fine print that said there was going to be a stop over in Philly. I spent the 29^th just walking around Rome and ended up going back to the YWCA early to see if I could just wait there. As I was waiting there in the lobby, I got another call. It was my mom and this time I had no idea what was coming. My new flight was canceled. I broke down. I was sobbing while kids were leaving dance class with their moms. Yeah, I got some weird looks. My new flight was now going to be on Saturday, November 3^rd. It is the same itinerary just on a different day. I was a mess. I was so ready to go home and being told that I had to wait five more days was not what I wanted to here. I tried to pull it together and went up to the desk to find out if I could stay there until the 3^rd. The were so nice and helpful. One even gave me some of her bread. I could tell that they were truly worried and cared about me (my sobbing may have scared them a little too). I am able to stay here until I leave for home and they introduced me to a woman who is in the same situation. She had gone to the airport only to find out that her flight was canceled. Her new flight leaves on Friday. She is very nice and we talked for a while and tried to find out what was going on with the storm. I ended up going to bed early. The last 36 hours had been draining. I may have cried myself to sleep last night.... maybe. In the morning I woke up and was ready to buy a completely new ticket with my own money even if it was going to cost me and arm and a leg. I looked up some options. Either I could be traveling for 40 hours (and fly through Beijing) or I could pay 2000 dollar or more on a ticket. I don't have that kind of money and it was not worth $1000 dollars plus 40 hours of traveling. At that point I knew that I was going to be here for a while so I needed to go to the store to get some food so I wouldn't have to go out to eat all of the time. I went to the store and got some sandwich things and that was when everything sunk in and I accepted that fact that I was going to be here for another few days.

Neto, who came on the train a day after me, saw that I was still in Rome so he called me up and we went out and just walked for hours. Both of us have already seen what there is to see in Rome (I had even gone on one of those sightseeing bus tours on the 29^th) so we were content with just walking around. I have realized that if you want to find the truly cool parts of a city, you must just walk around with no destination in mind. Just walk and when you get tired take out your map, figure out where you are and walk back. I still want to go home like crazy, but I am more ok with staying here a little longer.

P.S.- It didn't hurt that we met some cute Canadians on our way back either :)

10/31

It is raining today so I hung out in the lobby and my room (not that I would have done anything else even if it wasn't raining). In the morning I finished my second book and worked on my knitting. I realized that this is going to be a long few days. I got another book, the new J.K. Rowling book, so I can read some tomorrow but this afternoon I watched movies. As of right now I have watched Despicable Me and Hercules and the Incredibles will probably be next (I kinda need the happy, funny ones right now). I am sure that I do not have enough movies for two more days but I can always watch some more than once. Neto went to the airport to catch his flight but when he got there they told him that it was canceled and they moved him to a flight on Tuesday. My plan for leaving has altered slightly but this time it was my doing so it is a good change. I was going to sleep in the airport on Friday night but instead I am going to arrange to have a taxi come and pick me up at around 4am and take me to the airport. This is probably the safer of the options. It will take about a half hour to get to the airport so that would leave 2 hours to check in and all of that jazz. During the day it would cost 48 euro to get me to the airport but the ladies, here, are not sure if it would be different in the middle of the night. They are going to help me figure it out so that I have enough money but I will book it on Friday. For now, though, I will just hang out, watch movies, knit, and do puzzles on my computer and maybe write some more even though nothing will get posted until I get home (no wifi here).

Ciao for now.

Once home-

The trip home went well. I woke up at 3am to catch a cab to the airport. The driver showed up on time and took me to the airport. I was 2 and a half hours early so the check-in desk had not even opened yet so I was second in line. I met some nice people from Green Bay and a family from England. The flight was great and I met a guy from California who had traveled all around Europe and was now heading to New York to bike around America. I felt the need to remind him that snow was on its way but he said that was the best part. We ended up walking through the Zurich airport together and it was nice not to be alone. Our gates were next to each other so we walked all the way there together. My flight was already boarding as was his so we split ways wishing each other safe travels. I sat in between two Swiss business men on my way to Philly. They worked together so at times they were talking over me (kind of annoying). After lots of reading and some knitting, I made it to the long awaited Philly airport. There I met a guy who had been living in Switzerland for 3 years. We talked quite a bit while waiting in line at immigration and I headed to my flight to Chicago. My face on the almost empty flight to Chicago must have been ridiculous. I had the goofiest smile on my face the whole time. We landed and I practically ran to the baggage claim. I saw my parents and tears of joy began running down my face. If I had not had a heavy backpack I would have ran but instead I walked the fastest I ever had. It was great. I had a great semester and am so glad that I went to Italy these last few months.

Well this is probably my last post from Italy. There will most likely be another post about getting home but this is the last from abroad. Yesterday we had our last dinner in the village. It was nice. We had a pizza party and we always have a good time just sitting around the pizza oven talking. It was nice and the pizza was good as usual. We realized pretty early, though, that there was going to be lots of wine drunk that night. We went through the most wine ever, fitting for our last dinner here. I did realize, however, that when our group gets drunk fights tend to happen and the fights generally centralize around politics-specifically feminism. I don't even remember what last night was about (probably because I tried to stay out of it). I know that part of it was about providing birth control for free but that was about the time I joined a different conversation.
Today we are spending our time cleaning and packing. Tonight we head to a restaurant for a good bye dinner. I am sure tears will be shed and then there is a birthday party for Max so there will be a bunch of 16/17 year old, drunk/high, italian kids running around. We will show up for the party for a little while but none of us are really all that excited to hang out there. Who knows what we may do. I heard rumors of beer pong but we have no ping-pongs or plastic cups.
For now, I will just lay here on my bed with Peepee (the cat) and take a nap. I have no idea what we are going to do to make the time go faster.
-Dinner was great but no tears were shed. Maybe tomorrow morning. For tonight, though, it is daylight savings (the good one) and we are just hanging out listening to music and laughing.

Ciao from Italy, I am sure I will be back again some day soon

(10/23) OLIVE PICKING DAY!!!!! Yeah, so in case you couldn't tell by that, this morning we picked olives. It was great. We went out and laid nets out underneath a few trees and descended on them like locusts. The first tree was pretty small so it was hard for all of us to work on it so some moved onto the next tree. We used little hand rakes and hand rakes on sticks to get most of the olives down and the rest we picked by hand. I soon moved to the larger tree and scaled it like a monkey. It was so much fun. I don't know if you have ever seen an olive tree but they have really thick foliage, at least these did. It felt like I was trying to bushwhack through the forest, only in a tree. It was amazingly hard to see where the branch that you were standing on was which made getting down kinda hard. I got every single olive that I could reach. In other words, I reached every single one on about a quarter of the tree. It felt really good to see my entire area clear of olives. As the morning progressed people got tired or bored and left. By the end Phil noticed that, even though most of our group is Minnesotan (or Wisconsinite), there were only Iowans and Illinoisans (with a person from Washington and one from East Timor). We got a good laugh about that because we knew that if any of them heard that the defensive words would have been flying. Tomorrow we go to press the olives and probably pick more because we only got about 100 kilos today and we probably need more in order to make it worth it.

Next day (10/24):

Pressed some olives today. It was really cool. When we got to the “factory” for lack of a better word, a truck had just pulled in and was unloading its olives. They unload them into shallow boxes so the olives do not bruise each other. We dumped our little boxes into one of the larger ones which was then dumped, along with some other olives (we didn't have quite enough) into a hopper that carried our olives through a sifter, which got rid of the leaves, and through a wash cycle. The olives then shot down into a grinder. Everything was ground up into a paste and the paste went into a centrifuge. The water/ juice and the oil separated and went their different ways. The oil continued on its way to another, smaller centrifuge which got out the rest of the water and pits. The pure oil poured out a spout. It was a beautiful green and smelled amazing (it smelled green if you know what I mean). We bottled it into our 5 liter bottles (to be distributed later) and were surprised to find that we had more oil than the 30 liters worth of containers could hold. I think we ended up with about 35 or so liters. At dinner tonight we had some of it with our bread and it is strong stuff, spicy even.

Next day (10/25):

We finished our project!!!!!!!! A full day of revising, asking the professor to look at it, and revising some more is all it took (it was really not fun). Tonight, however, we are having wild boar. Another odd food to add to my list. I will be home in four days and I can't wait. I love it here and will miss people, don't get me wrong, but I am so ready to see my parents. I don't care that travel plans were changed. I will be just as happy or even more happy to be going home rather than to Sicily. I am ready to go home.

11/17-
So today we started doing actual work on our project (going to buy the waters doesn't really count). We pretty much looked at the mineral contents of the water and looked at any patterns that we could immediately see. The first thing that we noticed was that the conductivity is directly linked to the amount of total dissolved solids. As one goes up the other goes up by pretty much the same amount. I guess I knew that they were linked but it was cool to see it actually in the data. I began to look up locations of the springs where the waters came from and came across a website with all of the information that we needed. It also had a rating system of the waters. Yes, there are people out there who rate the taste and other qualities of bottled mineral water. I think my favorite comment came from ItalianFoodTV.com. And I quote "The people that are comparing Panna to Evien are extremely uneducated in mineral waters as to the taste to the point that they are simple ignorant. Panna and Fiuggi are in totally different classes especially taste, not to mention the obvious mineral content; they have nothing in common except that they are water. Its like someone comparing a Sassicaia wine with a Chianti. I suggest they drink filtered water." Yeah, they are talking about water. Water, I say!! Crazy. For lunch dessert I made myself a "baked apple". I sliced an apple very thin and cooked the pieces in a pan with some cinnamon, nutmeg, and sugar. It smelled like fall in a bowl. It was great. In the afternoon I quickly made some marshmallows for our campfire that night. They were actually very easy to make. Dinner consisted of chili and it was amazing; not quite hot enough to clear out my nose but it put in a solid effort. After dinner we started up the campfire and hung out just watching the flames, talking, and laughing. Oh, and of course, s'mores were made. They were not as good without hershey's but they did their best. The marshmallows were great though, much better than store bought.

11/18-
Another day of analysis. We learned that there will be more dissolved solids if the water is exposed to the bedrock for a longer time. We also looked at the nitrate levels in the water and compared them to the amount of farming done around the source. Turns out there is a pretty significant relationship. This also makes sense because nitrate is not really naturally found in bedrock.
The fly infestation continues but we now have fly paper. It is working. It is really kinda gross but amazing how well it works. While working on making maps for our project I listened to the presidential debate. It was very interesting but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I would have been actually watching it. Too bad I don't really have an hour and a half to burn.
I decided that I wanted to do random workouts during the day so while I was waiting for pages to load on the internet (it was crazy slow today) I decided that I had to do some kind of workout. I did planks, wall-sits, push ups, sit ups, all that jazz. I had to do as many as I could during the time it took for the page to load. Sometimes it took longer than I really wanted it to.
We went out for pizza today since we are down 5 people (they went out to do research) It has actually been really kinda nice to have fewer people. For lunches, if some people are out in the field, we all fit at one table. It has been much quieter and generally happier. Now, what this says about the people who aren't here I am not sure. Ok, well I have an idea but I am going to leave that for you, the reader, to decide for yourself.

11/19
Well we are pretty much done analyzing data. Almost all of our figures based on data are done so the next few days will be about putting everything together into a poster. This afternoon I hung out with Nile and Luca (ages 6 and 9) and we shot "arrows". Apparently, according to Luca, I still need to work on my form. We hung another fly tape today and caught probably 30 flies on it so far. We also hung a bag filled with water and some pennies above our door. In theory, it is supposed to keep them away. I think it worked. There were fewer flies flying around as the day went on.
Tonight we had wings for dinner and I had to do clean up. I think that is the closest I have come to throwing up on this trip. It was so gross. On a completely different note, I think there is something wrong with the battery on my computer. It works but is not actually charging fully. It says fully charged but I end up with only a few hours of battery life, sometimes even only an hour. I think it is the voltage that is messing with things. I looked at the battery info and it says that it needs service so I think I may end up bringing the battery in when I get home. Who knows. What I do know, though, is that it is time to hit the hay as they say. Night!

Such a good day. We washed our soil samples and did some analysis, very calm and easy since we have done it once already. We planned out who is going to do each part of the poster. Two of us, Josh and I, are the "project managers" which means that we basically go around to all of the groups and make sure that everyone knows what needs to get done and that everything is formatted the same. We also kinda jump between the groups depending on who needs the extra help. This morning we basically looked for images and read some papers to see if there was any extra information (like for an intro type thing) that we needed. In the afternoon, when our samples were dry, we weighed them, looked at them under a microscope, and did a few other things to find out what the composition of the soil was. For example, one of our samples was 92% clay and silt which helped explain why the amount of carbonate in the soil was so low. By looking under the microscope we were able to see the small metal grains that we had no idea were there, It was very interesting.
Tonight we had risotto (that I made, Rolf did the "recipe" part but I cooked it and did the final touches. Josh, who is also in my work crew, roasted some walnuts for the salad. This, of course, lead to many a joke about nuts. Tomorrow we put everything together into a poster and turn in our last project of these two classes. We are now down to our last "class", our independent/more like pair projects. In two weeks I will be done with the semester. This has gone amazingly fast.

Today was art show day. Yesterday was a complete work day. At the beginning of the day we gathered together to make sure everyone knew what they were going to do and then we split off. I had a quick project but I had done a bunch of work on it before the actual work day. The title of the show was before and after so we had to do something that connected to that as well as connecting to something that we had learned so far. As I was sitting on a train, thinking about different projects, I looked around and saw graffiti. That was when I thought about combining the cave paintings that we had learned about with the "cave" paintings of today. I did a bunch of drawings and research to figure out what I should do. I got my spray paint and found some rocks in the field to do a test run on (I had never spray painted on rock before). That turned out well so I found an even bigger rock (about 3ft x 2.5ft and about 200 pounds). One of the guys helped me get it out of the field and onto a wheelbarrow. We were not able to make it in one trip which was too bad but it was crazy heavy and we were walking through freshly plowed soil so there was pretty much no solid ground. After setting it down three or four times we finally made it. Wheels are a great thing (ps this was all done in rain). I was able to wheel it to one of the garages where I cleaned off the mud and dried it off so that the paint would actually stick. I did my spray-painting and was done by 10:30am. I came back to it throughout the day to make some edits and such but while everyone else was doing very detailed pieces I was done. It kinda made me uneasy but cave paintings were relatively simple and graffiti is meant to be quick (unless you want to get caught).
Everything turned out great and so it was time to bring everything together. We put everything into place in the gallery (only a little arguing with the teacher was needed... I won by the way). We had all afternoon free so we pretty much just hung out and did a gelato run (again, in the rain). Soon enough, we had to dress up and go down to the openning. Everything went well and the few people who came liked what they saw. It was indian night for dinner so we had turkey with a curry cream sauce along with coconut rice and dal. It was really good and even the picky eaters seemed to like it. It is that time of night again, where the eye lids droop and the bed is warm and inviting. Good night!

Our last fieldtrip is officially over. We got into port at 7:15 this morning after a wavey and therefore restless sleep. At this point I knew that I didn't feel as well as I should have. I believe I have caught the monster. However, I still had time to change some plans to do whatever I could to help my body fight this thing off. I decided that going to a concert and then staying up all night after very little sleep the night before was probably not the best idea. It would have been fun to hang out with everyone but I think that fun may wear off when it is 3am and I am surrounded by 8 very drunk people. I am sure the concert will be great but since I am not actually a huge fan (I was going to go just to hang out and have fun) of his music I am not to devistated or even really upset about missing it. A few other people who were planning on going to Rome decided to hang back as well. One (Rachel) is dying... ok not really but it sounds like she is coughing up organs or something. Another (Phil) didn't want to stay up all night (I think he didn't want to get drunk) and didn't think it was worth it to get a hostel. If there had been a train that left at midnight (which wouldn't get us back until 3) I may have gone but the last train out leaves a half-hour into the concert. In the end I think I chose the right thing. I had a great dinner-pesto caprese- I will get some reading in and I get to go to bed early!

-Next day-

I can not tell you how glad I am that I didn't go to Rome. I got 12 solid hours of sleep last night. I got up and had a great breakfast, uploaded photos without having internet problems (it has crashed since then). While I was adding captions to my photos Laura came by and I learned that the Rome group was still in Rome. At this point they should have been just about to get off the train. Apparently there were “group problems” and they missed the train. They won't be back until 2:45pm now. If they sleep it will be in the nasty Rome train station. We think that the “group problems” were more like drunk yelling/fighting. I am sure we will hear about it after they come back and get some sleep. We may even get some exhausted ranting out of the deal. Like I said, I am so glad to be here having gotten 12 hours of peaceful sleep.

Probably more to come later today. We will see.

Well our Croatia vaca... I mean field trip is almost over. We head out tomorrow afternoon so we still have some time wander around. Today we took some samples in the morning (as usual) and then headed to a "beach". It was an overlook with a little concrete dock area where we could jump off and into the water. It also had sheer drop offs everywhere except where they had built the pier. We jumped in off the pier to survey the water and see how deep it was. The shallowest place was probably 20 meters deep and there were areas where that number jumped to 50 meters. It was crazy deep. So, what did we decide to do with sheer cliffs and deep water? Well, we jumped off the cliffs of course! The shorter of the two was probably 20-25 feet high while the taller was about 10 feet higher. It was actually less scary to jump off this cliff than the waterfall. I think it was mainly because as long as you pushed off the edge just a little bit (aka you didn't just slide down) you were not going to come anywhere near hitting something. The worst it did was clear out your sinuses and that was a welcomed thing for most of us. I got some really great photos of everyone but I forgot my cord to upload photos to my computer so you will have to wait a few days to get photos.
So, tomorrow afternoon we head back to Split and then catch the overnight ferry to Ancona. From there we are going to head back to OGC to rest up a little before most of us head to Rome for a Tallest Man on Earth concert. I haven't really heard much of his music but it will be fun to go to a concert with everyone. The plan is to then stay up all night and catch the 5:45am (the earliest train we could get) train back. I am not sure how the staying up all night after almost no sleep the night before is going to turn out but we will be active for most of it. The plan is to go to the "American" bar (where all of the American foreign exchange go) and stay there until it closes (4am we think) and then we have no idea what we are going to do for the next almost 2 hours. It could get interesting. Plus, half the group is coughing like crazy. Luckily, I am still sickness free.

Today was boat day. In theory, we were going to a smaller island to collect samples. So, in the morning, we headed down to the docks to meet up with Sandro's cousin who owns a boat big enough for all of us. It took about an hour to get to the island where we spent our day. We put the anchor down and headed into the forested island. To get an idea of the size of this island, there are seven permanent residents and we were able to walk across (the short way) the island in about 15 minutes. It was a really neat island. There were cacti, trees, wild arugula, wild asparagus (that was ready for another harvest), wild garlic, and a bunch of wild herbs and chard growing everywhere. There, also, were grapes and olives just like any good mediterranean farm. We dropped our stuff off at the restaurant (the only one on the island) and went off to take our samples (3 of them to be exact). We walked through the grape fields and found 2 different areas that were far apart and where the soil seemed to change. Magic of all magic,  the two soils were different one had more clay while the other had more sand. Our hike took us to a beach where we sampled the sand and dug through a bunch of Roman pottery shards along with some mosaic tiles. There were some really awesome things found including an old tile that a dog had stepped on before the clay was completely dry. That was by far the coolest thing we found. Then it was lunch time (very delicious) and then we were told that we had 2.5 hours to go swimming and snorkeling. We took full advantage of the opportunity. We saw three octopi, one starfish and an amazing number of sea cucumbers and sea urchins. I forgot how much I like snorkeling. It is awesome (being able to blow all of the water out of the tube after going under helps too). Many a shell were picked up. We headed off the island and traveled to an even smaller island with a fresh water pit which is weird because it was probably 20 m from the sea. We tried to collect some of the water but it was just not in the cards (tension knots are stupid when the thing that the knot is holding is  going to float...). At about 4:30 we headed home and an hour and 15 minutes later I was in the shower getting nice and clean. I think I should go to bed now since I have re-typed almost every word that I have written in the last five minutes.

So, I am pretty sure that we are in Croatia as a side vacation and they just added in a little project to make it seem legit. Now, don't think that I am complaining because I am most definitely not. It has been a pretty sweet field trip. This morning we actually did some work. We followed this thrust fault across the island. It is an interesting fault because, although the island has almost all limestone as its bedrock (that combined with the tiny amount of rainfall results in a very thin layer of soil throughout most of the island), there is marl (clay, basically) on the other side of this fault. That means that on the marly side the soil is way thicker and is also much more fertile. It was very interesting. After we collected 3 samples we headed to lunch. A picnic lunch. On the beach. It was great. We made sandwiches and headed out into the water. What made it even better was the fact that we had brought some snorkels and masks. We spent the entire afternoon in the water looking at fish and jumping off boulders. Who said being a scientist was hard work? :D We did do a little bit of geology along the beach, however. there was one area where there are red/pink rocks (the only place on the whole island) and there were some crazy awesome fossils. We did a short lecture there and headed back home.
Once home the girls decided to go out into town and hang out. We bought some pastries (doughnuts with awesome chocolate in the middle) and walked around. I bought some lavender oil from an old lady (they are known for their lavender) and we watched the kids play around in the piazza. Dinner was stuffed peppers and mashed potatoes. There happened to be a small festival going on downtown so we headed back there after dinner to see what was happening. There was a showing of the small old boats and there was a concert in the opera house. I felt like such a techie when I was looking at the lights and realizing how many robotic lights, LED lights, and normal lights they had along with the way that the man was lighting the people singing (green light on faces that are not supposed to look sick???  Really?)
Tomorrow is boat day! I am hoping we get back early enough to get some photos up on the internet/ uploaded onto my computer.

Day 1-1.5

This has been one crazy trip to Croatia. We left OGC at 5:30pm to go to Ancona. We had three cars, two vans of students and one punto filled with one of the families from town. We were about 20 minutes out when we got a call. One of the kids had puked. The family ended up turning back to wait for the next boat to see if he felt better (from what I understand, the mother puked the next day so they will not be coming). We continued to head to the port of Ancona.

Once there, we received our bording passes and boarded the ferry for a 9 hour, over-night, boat ride. The plan was to, basically, find a spot to put our sleeping bags down and sleep where ever that happened to be. It ended up working pretty well. We found the one place on the deck that didn't have a bunch of lights and all crashed in the same place. This was nice because it would be a whole lot harder to mess with one of us without waking other people up as well. I slept pretty well but not as well as I would have if I had been in a bed.

We arrived in Split, Croatia at around 8am and went through customs. Then, we headed into town where we met up with an archologist tour guide. The first place we stopped was right on the coast. It was the spot where there is an upwelling of “smelly” sulfuric water. The fish were going crazy around it trying to get at whatever food that was living in the water. The next stop was the old palace area, which was basically the old town. There were crazy amounts of tourists but once we got out to the side streets it was nice. The whole place was gorgeous, by the way. After a coffee and snack break, we headed to the archeology museum. There were some really nice mosaics and they had a rediculous number of old coins. They were pretty awesome.

Once the tour was done we were give 100 kuna (about $20) and were let loose on the town to find lunch. Most of us stopped at a sea food place that was really pretty cheap and was right on the water. I got seafood risotto which had fish (not sure what kind) and mussels. It was surprisingly good. We headed back to the port to grab our ferry to Hvar (pronounce ho-ar, basically). Luckly this was only a two hour ferry. Half of us still ended up sleeping but at least some of us were able to watch what was going by and do some reading.

It was about 10 minutes from the port in Hvar to our bed and breakfast that Sandro's cousin owns. It is a really nice place. There is a hammock and hammock chair by where we have breakfast, all of the rooms have balconies with incredable views and there is even a cat. The beds are some of the most comfortable and they have comforters so they are warm as well. Hard to beat that.

After getting settled in quickly, we threw on our swimsuits and walked down to the beach (about 5 minutes away). I hope you are realizing that it is October and we were swimming for over an hour. The water was warm and the air was warm. It only got better because we ended up watching the sunset over the water while in the water (Oh and there were sea urchins in the water! How cool is that?). On our way back up to the hotel to clean up for dinner we passed by a group of kids that told us that it was too cold to swim and they actually threw something at us as we passed by. It was really bizarre.

We cleaned up and headed to dinner which was beef that tasted like saurbratten and there were mashed potatoes. It was almost like I was back home (not quite as good as home's though).

Day 2 in Croatia

Today we had a different archeologist show us around the island of Hvar. We saw a museum and some excavation sites. We knew that it was a pretty relaxed day when we didn't get lunch until 3 and did'nt leave the restaurant until after 4. We headed back to our hotel and just hung around for a little while before we decided to head out and into the main part of town. We did some shopping but mostly we just walked around at soaked evertything in. There was a play going on and it was in an amazing looking theater, I was kinda jealous. Dinner consisted of pretty much all fish except for the bread and the mashed potatoes.

Well, since that is basically the end of our day today and since I am falling alseep at the computer I think I should probably go to bed. Good night!

Wine, tie-dye and playing battle-bots? Yeah, sometimes school is rough. Ok, so, not really. At least not today. We started the day off finishing our mini soils project and then presented them. It was only 11:30 when we finished but there wasn't a whole lot to do that could be done before lunch so we turned in our top three choices for our independent projects and headed out into the sunshine. After lunch we were told to meet back up at 3 because it would take some time for them to put everyone in groups. At 2ish Laura (professor) came around and told us to wait until 4. Now we were suppose to write a proposal up once we found out what we were doing. Finding things out at 4 would have given us a half hour to write something up so they decided to cut that from our to-do list. Pretty sweet, right? At four we met down in our classroom area. We were just sitting there waiting for Laura and Sandro when one of the other residents of the town came in and told us that his family has a tradition of giving gifts to every group of students that come in when they are there. It was awesome. We went outside and saw tie-dye shirts everywhere. It was crazy. They told us where each size was and to go ahead and pick one. It was so much fun. Mine is a lime green shirt with a radiating swirl that kinda looks like daisy petals or like *, kinda. We took some pictures and then decided to put a shirt on the dog. You really can't beat a black dog with a rainbow tie-dye on. We sat in the piazza for a little while to find out what we were going to be doing for our "independent" projects and really are not so independent. Lauren and I are doing a project to see if there is a correlation between the ionic chemistry of bottled spring water and the rock formations that the water is flowing through before it gets bottled. I think it could be a very interesting project.
The next exciting part of our day was wine tasting but that wasn't going to start until six. So, what do a bunch of college kids do in their spare time? We play Battle-bots. Basically you have groups of two. One person is blindfolded and is in the center while the other person is on the outside being the eyes. There are balls and pool noodles (in our case balled up t-shirts and rolled up sleeping pads) in the center. The idea is for the blindfolded person to grab one of the objects and either throw it at someone or swing and hit someone (ball and sleeping pad, respectively) and the eyes have to lead them while doing this. If you get hit you are out, simple as that. It was so much fun. In some cases the match ended in a tie. In those cases we had a face off. Blindfolded, three steps away from each other, turn and throw. This was one of those games where it was just as much fun to watch as it was to actually be active. At half past six we headed to the classroom/ dining room/ multipurpose area for wine tasting to taste the difference that the soils make in the taste of the wines. Of course, we forgot that in this case we were on Italian time rather than American time so at seven the guy that was going to talk to us about tasting wine showed up at the door. An hour and 8 kinds of local wine later, we had learned all we could for the day. The wine tasting was very interesting. As most of you know, I really don't drink so I had to make a decision. I didn't have to do the tasting, it wasn't going towards our grade, but I thought it would be interesting to actually taste what we had been talking about. Luckily, I was able to follow the lead of our wine master. I took a small sip (enough to get the flavor on all parts of my tongue) and then was able to dump the extra wine or give it to my neighbors. I knew there was a secondary reason for sitting next to me. It was interesting because I was actually able to tell the difference. I think one of my favorites was a oak matured Verdicchio from the Castelli di Jesi region. It actually had a woody background/after-taste. It was really cool.
Tomorrow is another day off but it is a shortened one because we are headed to Croatia in the evening. As of right now my plan is to pack a lunch and just start walking. When lunch hits I will stop and eat and then turn around and head back for home. That way I will be tired for the boat ride that promises to provide an uncomfortable sleep at best.
My next post will probably be from Croatia! (Assuming the internet works.....)

P.S. The internet stopped working last night so this is from Tuesday

I am so proud of myself. Today I went for a run (even though it was rainy, foggy and getting dark) and I made it all the way down and up the switchbacks. From OGC to the switchbacks is about 3 minutes then I ran down three switchbacks only to run up about five (12 minutes worth- they are pretty long and steep) and I did it without walking or stopping. This may not sound like a huge thing, I mean basically I ran 15 minutes without stopping, but it was with a crazy incline. That was my running goal for here so I think I will do it for the rest of the week and then I will move to a new goal. Maybe it will be run 20 minutes straight with the switchbacks. That will have to happen after Croatia though.
I can't believe we are already going to Croatia next week. This program is going by so quickly. We have the rest of this week, Croatia, two art days, two analysis days, and independent projects. Then we clean up and head out. I mean there are still four more weeks left but tomorrow is already October. Crazy stuff, crazy stuff.
During class today we went out and gathered soil samples from two different areas, about 30 minutes apart. The areas both grow the same kind of grapes but the wine coming out of the different areas tastes very different. The theory is that the soils (one is more siliceous while the other has more carbonate) are what changes the taste. However, another theory is that the micro-climate change is what makes the difference (one area is surrounded by mountains and tends to be slightly colder while the other one has more access to the sea so it is warmer and wetter). I finally have a different partner and he has taken the Luther soils class and I know some about soils so I think this should be a good time. Tomorrow we are putting our samples in the washing machine (not really sure how that is going to work out but that is not really my problem) to wash out all of the clay. Just in looking at our samples as we took them I have a feeling there is going to be lots of clay water exiting the machine tomorrow. It should be fun.
Time to go check on how the Packers are doing on this lovely evening and then go the bed. I am so tired. Good night!

Oh life. You are a hoot. Yesterday was art day and is was pretty awesome. We drew landscapes. Some people chose to get their landscape from a photo but I chose to go outside and use the landscape in front of me. It was pretty great and everyone had a good picture by the end of the day. We also shared our ideas for our final projects. I am going to do a cave painting on a piece or limestone that I found in the field (no, I am not going to try to take it home. The rock is probably 100 pounds) but I am going to do it with spray paint, in a graffiti style to show art, then and now. It should turn out pretty cool, if I can get the graffiti part to look right.
Today we did an introduction to soils and we went to an archeology museum. The museum was cool except that Sandro had brought in one of his friends to show us around but the friend only spoke Italian so half the time we were bored out of our minds because we had no idea what was happening. It also didn't help that, even though the artifacts were interesting, most (if not all) of us have almost no deep interest in the things that we were seeing. An in depth history and explanation was not really what we needed. Eventually, Sandro kinda figured this out (after half of us had wandered ahead) and let us look at things and then we came back for a quick run through of things. For lunch we went up to Monte Conero where there is a map carved into a rock face and had a picnic. The map is probably 10x20 and was really interesting. It was there that we also had our introductory lecture on soils. We headed back early because it is St. Michael's day (patron saint of OGC) and the priest was coming and we had mass. The priest was from Nigeria and spoke some English as well as Italian so he tried to do a little bit of both so that we could follow along. Afterwards it was snack time! Some of the home owners who came in yesterday had brought velveta and salsa so they made queso. The had also brought candy (it was gone in a matter of minutes), peanut butter and half and half nutella (half white half chocolate. weird but good). The night ended with some bocce shenanigans and girl talk. Which, of course, are the ways every good day should end.

It is the weekend!! Ok, well we have one day off but one day was all I needed to go see Assisi. Assisi is a medieval town (very touristy) of about 20,000. It is the birth place of St. Francis and has a bunch of churches. Once David, Neto and I got to Assisi (after about an hour and a half on the train) we took the bus all the way to the top of the town (it is up on a good sized hill). W could see the entire region. It was amazing. We sent the entire day just walking down the hill and around the town. It was a nice and relaxing day and is was great to get out and do a bunch of walking. The first church that we stopped at was really cool. The frescos and stained glass were beautiful. When we were looking to stop for lunch we found this cute little place that sold sandwiches made of all organic (or as they say, biological) ingredients. The sandwiches were amazing. During the afternoon we visited the church of St Francis (it was HUGE), got gelato and went into some stores. While we were at St Francis's church we went into the church gift shop (such a weird concept) just to check it out. The gift shop was twice the size of a normal sized gas station. It was ginormous. They sold everything from rosaries to chocolate, honey and tea. It was pretty crazy. We got over the hugeness pretty quick and went on our way to do more exploring. The day went very quickly but it was a very tiring day so I am sorry if this post is kinda all over the place or not as good as others because, well, I am about to fall asleep on my computer. I think It was a good idea to go to Assisi today rather than just sitting around like everyone else did today.

Today was not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. We spent the morning identifying and analyzing our samples. We looked at things like roundness, sphericity and rock type. I got through my half of the samples pretty quickly so I ended up doing a quarter of my partner's samples as well. That was my first indication that the afternoon may not go quite as smoothly as the morning had. We entered our data into the spreadsheet and headed to lunch. We started our presentation after lunch but we could only do about half of it because there was still data that needed to be entered into the spreadsheet. We were working on our separate computers (because, otherwise, we wouldn't finish on time and one of us would just be sitting there watching the other work on the computer) and my partner said something to the effect of hey can you stop working on other parts of the project because I feel like you are doing work and not letting me see it. I basically said that if we both didn't work on different things there is no way we were going to finish on time but she was welcome to look at things and edit whatever she felt needed work (I kinda felt like she didn't trust my work and wanted to basically hold my hand through the whole process. Just because I am not a geology major doesn't mean that I do not know what I am talking about). Then she got flustered and told me that she works better if only one thing is being worked on at once. I work better if I can actually do work rather than sit there. Great. So we work best in two completely different ways. We ended up deciding to split the work but take some time for me to explain things after I finished parts. I am fine with that. It cuts down on the amount of time that this project will take.
Tonight was pizza and wine sampling night. Basically, it was pizza night for me. The pizza was good but the way everything was happening I kinda felt left out but I guess that happens. Tonight was my first night where I actually felt slightly homesick.
Tomorrow is another day but if it anything like any of the other paper writing days it is going to suck. I would be very surprised if everything went smoothly and the words "I just don't get it" or "I'm confused" never get mentioned. I think that would make it a good day. Another good run may not hurt either.

Oh man, today was a long day. At first it was going well and quickly. Then when we were putting our data together we realized that some of our measurements from our map were off. As we looked more into it we realized that the number length that we were originally looking at was off. That was the first frustrating thing today. The number that I was basing my measurements off of (the one that our professor gave us) was off by quite a few meters which threw everything else off. Luckily, at this point, I was good and quick with my measurements so it went quickly. The next step was to sort the sample by rock size. This was the easy part. We just put our samples in a stack of sieves where the mesh got smaller and smaller. Everything went great until we put the sample in the oven to dry. We had labeled everything in Sharpie figuring that was the best thing. Yeah, not so much. The Sharpie burned off. It took us probably two hours to figure out what went where. It sucked. Partly, also, because there were only four of us actually working while everyone else just sat and watched youtube videos. Really not fun or fair but the work had to get done and they weren't going to do it.
After all of that it was the end of our day which was a darn good thing. Next step? Something fun. A movie- The Borne Supremacy. A way to make the night any better? Burger night! A not so hot day and   a good night? Could be worse. Tomorrow will probably be worse but I guess you never know.

On to a new project! Today we actually started our next project. We started at the beginning of a river and took samples of the sediment. We worked our way down river, taking samples along the way, all the way to the Adriatic. Of course, we can't go to the sea without jumping in. So, with all of the Italians looking at us like we were crazy (we probably are but that is not the point), we jumped in and played in the waves. It was amazing to follow a river from its origins all the way to where it dumps into the sea. We could see how much things changed. It went from a dry river bed to a stream easily jumped over to a river that is 20-25 feet across. I will understand more about the river tomorrow after looking at the samples but it was cool just to observe the natural habitat. When we got back Sandro told us to go play peach-ball (baseball with peaches). There were probably a hundred or more peaches that had fallen from the trees before they could be picked and Sandro didn't want them rotting all over the place. So, being the good students we are, we grabbed all of the peaches we could and began to throw them at someone who was in the field ready to smack them with a large rolling pin. When I say large I am talking like the length of a baseball bat, at least. Everyone who wanted to took some swings. Of course, the baseball players had a WAY better hitting average but they have had way more practice. People went off to clean up for dinner and as I was waiting for the dinner bell Nils came through, after saying goodnight to his dad, and said that he wanted a big hug from me. Who am I to deny something like that to a two year old? It was a great hug :D Dinner was great, as usual. I just wish I still had more chocolate to end the day with..... Then it would be a great day rather than just a pretty darn good day.

Another day, another post. Yesterday was wine making day! For most of the day we just hung out but at four things started to get crazy. We were handed sheers and told collect all of the grapes we could find. There were people on each other's shoulders, climbing up poles, and falling grapes everywhere. We ended up with ten to fifteen gallons of red grapes and the same of white. It was time to step in. We took turns and began squishing the grapes with our feet. It was so much fun to watch people's faces as they stepped in. Once everything was well pressed the mush went through a series of filters and were squeezed through each one. The juice was put into a container and set aside for later. Then we moved on to the ~400 peaches that covered our kitchen table. They had to be peeled sliced and canned. At first  Joe, Rachel, two of the women from the town and I peeled and sliced. It would have been easier to do if the peaches hadn't been cling peaches (the kind where the flesh sticks to the pit). Two hours later, the jars that we had were full and we still had 100 or so peaches left. What do you do with that many peaches? Well you take half and make a huge cobbler for 30 people. It was pretty darn amazing.
Today, we were back to work. However, in the morning we ended up learning how to make arrow heads and other stone tools. Yeah, it is a rough life here but what can you do? This afternoon we are heading out to the river to look at its deposites. Finally, no more hard geology. We are turning more to the environment rather than just how something was deposited.

It is Fall Break! I just got back from a trip to Belgium- Brussels and Brugge. It was pretty darn awesome and much chocolate was consumed. The first day our flight came in 55 minutes early... Nice try RyanAir. I am pretty sure they add time onto how long the flight it supposed to take so that they can say that 98% of their flights are on time (our flight today came in 30 minutes early). We then headed toward our hostel. The location was awesome. It was right in the center of town. We passed it once because the place looked condemned because there was a bunch of construction (it looked like there had been a fire).  However, the inside was great. Everything was new and comfortable. I can't complain  too much about it. After settling in we decided to walk around and check things out. Apparently there was a festival going on because in the square there was a stage set up and a Mexican band was playing and there were a bunch of tents set up all around. The others got some mexican food but I was not feeling it so I went and looked around for some cheap eats. I ended up getting a waffle which was pretty darn good, a little sweet though. We walked around and stumbled across the peeing boy. He is life sized which means that he is actually pretty small. Of course, we had to stop and get some chocolate to end our day so we stopped at the place that supplies the King and Queen. The woman there was so nice. She gave me free chocolate :). We headed back to our hostel to plan our day in Brugges. It was only 9:30 but the lights in our room were already off and people were sleeping so we went down to the kitchen to plan our lives for the next 24 hours.
The beds at the hostel were amazing! They were so comfortable and warm. It was great. We got up and  had breakfast at a cafe (chocolate croissant) and headed to the train station. We played a mean game of cribbage on the train and showed up in Brugge just as the game finished. The town is so beautiful. It is the classic old european town. We walked around during the morning, bought chocolate and other such goodies and had a health-filled lunch of french fries (they were super good- more potato than fried-ness). We then went up the Belfry which was pretty amazing. You could see all of the bells and the entire city. We spent the rest of the afternoon just walking around. I bought some loose leaf green tea which made me super happy. I also took money out from the ATM for the first time. I guess it was good timing since the semester is half over (wait really? CRAZY!). The trip back was nice and quick. We grabbed a nighttime chocolate and headed back to the room. The lights were on! It was great.
We decided to sleep in a little for our day in Brussels. Mainly because nothing opened until nine or ten, but that's beside the point. We made the pilgrimage of two blocks to the Chocolate museum. Best 4 euro spent ever! We learned about how chocolate is made and the history of chocolate. Oh, and there was free chocolate at the end. It is hard to beat free chocolate. From there we traveled on foot to some churches and the palace. It was pretty sweet. We stopped for lunch and got some fresh, good, healthy food and walked around the city some more. As we circled back we decided to visit the city museum. It was very interesting. They had the costumes that the peeing boy has worn through the years and they had the history of the city. Both were very interesting. It was fun to see all of the random things that the boy has worn. This statue has over 800 costumes. Everything from an Elvis costume to a Japanese warrior to an astronaut costume and just about everything in between. The history portion of the museum was cool too because we were able to see and learn about the areas where we had been earlier that day. After a quick nap and chat with some of the people in our room at the hostel we headed back out to see the Atomium. It is basically a big atom that they built for the world's fair. We were too late to walk up and in it but the light was nice so we took some pictures and found dinner (three bites of a nasty "gyro" and fries). There was a very nice park nearby so we ate there and headed back to the Atom because we heard that it lights up at night. it was pretty darn cool. I think the lights were supposed to be the electrons. The way they lit up was not correct according to what we know now but the thing was built in the 50s so they probably didn't know how, exactly, the electrons moved. We headed back to the hostel and talked with some of our roommates and headed to bed.
 When we went to bed there were only four of the eight people back so we left the light on. Two came back not too long after we went to sleep. I woke up at three and looked over and the boys were still not back. At five am there was some very persistent knocking on the door. I was just about to get up when the Australian girl that I had been talking to got up to get it. In walks the two boys. They were quiet and quickly changed and got into bed but then one of them began to snore. It was ridiculous how loud he was. I was wearing ear plugs and it still sounded like a loud snore sounds without earplugs. I am pretty sure one of the girls threw something at him and told him to turn over. I'm not really 100% sure what happened but he quieted down for a while. We got up about an hour later to catch our bus to the airport. I think we woke up snoring man with the light from the bathroom but I didn't really feel to bad. Other than that today has been pretty calm. our flight went well and when we got back, around 1:30, we grabbed some of the ripe peaches from the trees growing behind our apartment and didn't leave our room until we had to re-heat some left-overs. We were going to walk into town to get fresh food but it was raining so left-overs were very acceptable to us. Tomorrow we will probably go to the store and go through our many photos.

The internet has now been out for 3 days. On to other news, though. Today a group of us decided to go on a hike down into a gorge. It was amazing and incredibly beautiful. We parked up by a monastery and walked down into it. There was a perfectly clear river/creek running through. As we walked up-stream we crossed parts of the creek. Unfortunately, while crossing one I lost my balance, fell in and got some nice gashes in my legs (they are cleaned up now and I had bandaids so I didn't bleed out or anything). That would not have been that bad if I hadn't been taking pictures just before crossing. Yeah, I had my camera around my neck and it got nice and wet. I just about cried and I still might. It was off and the sun shield took the most of the impact so that should help. We took as much of it apart as we could right away and dried off what we could but the lens still has two small drops of water in it and I haven't tried to turn it on yet. Right now, it is sitting on the table downstairs in a container of rice which should dry things out but even if it does dry out it is hard to know if it will work. At this point all I can do is wait and hope. I will probably check on it tomorrow evening and if it still wet (I'm probably screwed) I will be taking the camera and the rice in a bag to the dolomites with us. God, please let it be ok.

Later, when I picked up my computer and I heard something moving around in my computer my heart just dropped. The computer still worked but odd noise is not usually good. So, I took off the back and moved the computer back and forth to see what was moving. That was when I saw a 5 cent South African coin in the CD drive. It ended up coming right out and now I can play DVDs again! I guess this means I'm batting a .500 with electronics today. Not a great number but could be worse...I guess. I will keep you updated as much as possible on the camera front. Hopefully there will be no break downs tomorrow....

Sept. 8- I tried my camera and I think it is done for. Today a group of people are going into town to get internet so hopefully I can get a ride and go get a relatively cheap camera. That way if my camera really just needs more time to dry then it can have as much time as it wants and I won't be out a huge chunk of change. If it is completely dead then I will at least have something to take photos with, even if they won't be quite as good. -later- Well, I am down 140 euros but I have something to take photos with and I guess that is worth it. It is your basic point and shoot. I could have bought a AA powered camera for less but those are a pain in the butt and there was a different rechargeable for 30 less but I could tell that the quality of the photo was not as good and if I am going to buy a camera in Italy there is no way I am buying a bright pink camera. In case you want to know exactly what I bought it is a panasonic lumix dmc-fs28. I have no idea how good it is but since I have had no internet I will have no idea until I mess around with it. My knee really hurts from the fall, a mix of bruises and cuts/scrapes. In fact it is kinda throbing just as I am laying here. It has been cleaned and treated so it should be ok.

On to a happier subject, we went to a concert tonight that was put on by the kids who practice here. The quote of the night was “Do you realize that we are in Italy, listening to a Green Day cover band (who was amazingly good considering that they were 15), hanging out with the guy who discovered how the dinos died, drinking free beer, and are doing all of this while wearing handlebar mustaches?” (did I mention that the guys are all growing or trying to grow handlebars like our main leader Sandro?) It was pretty darn cool. After about an hour, the first band finished and I was getting really cold but we thought we should stay to support the other band to after a few of there songs about half of us left. I left mainly because I was cold but also because we leave for the dolomites tomorrow (there should be internet) and my roommate and I need to pack. On these big trips we try to pack together so that there are few bags in the back of the vans. She decided to stay at the concert which works out because then I can pack and she can pack her stuff on top. Last time we put three people's worth of clothing but since we are camping this time we need more things, like sleeping bags, so we probably could not fit three sleeping bags plus clothes in my bag.

PS- The first packer game is tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!

Sept. 9- Today was a crazy long car ride. We left OGC at 9am and arrived at the campground around 5:30. We spent probably about an hour outside of the car during the whole ride and that was bathroom breaks and a lunch break. It was a pretty uneventful ride except for a huge backup on the autostrada due to a car crash. Once we got of the highway I felt like we had been transported to the german side of Switzerland. It is truly amazing. There are mountains all around us and all of the buildings have flowers spilling over the balconies and they all are in the same “german” style. On our way up to the campground we passed by a bunch of apple orchards (we did stop and get some). The apple trees were really bizarre looking. The trees looked more like vines because there was more fruit than tree. They were just super skinny and were growing like the grape vines (so growing more 2D than 3D). They were also only 4ft tall. Dinner was awesome and it was served restaurant style rather than family style which was great for portion control because they were actual human sized servings. We are sleeping in tents this week so hopefully it doesn't get too cold.

Sept. 10- I slept maybe 2 hours last night. It was terrible. Luckily, I was able to sleep in the car for a little while on the way to our hike. The hike was really nice and there was an awesome St. Bernard at the place where we stopped for lunch. I realized how high we were during our hike too. The only part that sucked was that I felt really horrible for most of the hike. Do you realize how hard it is to find a place to go to the bathroom above the tree line? Yeah, really hard. We walked through town after class and had another great dinner. Well I am super tired so hopefully I will sleep well tonight. We are going to go see a glacier tomorrow!

Sept. 11- I can not believe that 11 years have gone by since that fateful day. Today we went to the glacier and it was awesome. We took a “gondola” up. The cars were basically a two person metal basket and were slightly sketchy but it was great. When we got to the top (about 2400m) we climbed up a little higher and had class. We talked about the mountain and its glacier. We then were let go to explore and go up to the glacier. It was incredibly fun because as I was going up I could see all of the fossils that were left from back when the mountain was a coral reef. Once we all gathered back up we had another learning session where we talked about global temperature fluctuations, how they impact the ice and what we can tell about the ice that is no longer there. This was probably the most fun days of class so far. When we got back to camp we had our yoga session and dinner. I am hoping to post this when we get back to OGC because I don't really want to pay for more internet.

Sept. 12- Okay, I feel as though I should explain our camping situation. This campground is nothing like the campgrounds in the states. Yes, we are sleeping in tents and yes they are on the ground but that is about where the similarities end. There is a very clean heated bathroom with, wait for it, bidets and a salon style area to dry your hair. Not only that but this place has a spa and an indoor pool. Apparently this is pretty normal for Italian campgrounds. I feel like if an Italian decided that they wanted to go camping in the states they would get there and be like “What the hell is this?”. Yeah, this is barely camping. Today we went out into the field to look at the stratigraphy (layers of rocks in a certain area) in a creek bed. As we were just finishing up it started to rain and rain hard. So we ran back up to a restaurant and had lunch and some hot chocolate. That was when it really started to pour and, of course, that was when we had to head out because the restaurant was filling up. So, we ran back to the cars, getting soaked along the way. We headed back to the campsite where we pretty much grabbed things to entertain ourselves and sat in the internet room and tried to dry off and warm up. We then had a little more class and did all of our usual nightly activities (eating, basically).

Sept. 13- It snowed last night! Luckily a group of us were able to sleep on the floor in our professor's hotel room so we stayed nice and warm. It was so beautiful when we woke up, though, because the surrounding mountains were covered in snow. The snow is even below the tree line in many places. Today was our drive back with a stop at a dam on the way. We had a 3 hour tour there. It was the site of a horrific landslide event that killed over 1500 people. They built this dam that was huge and the reservoir behind it held 168 million cubic meters of water. When they started to refill the reservoir they noticed that there was some movement in the mountain on the one side. They kept an eye on it but continued to fill it. There was then a “small” landslide where 750 thousand cubic meters of material fell. It wasn't too big of a deal so they kept an eye on the rest of the mountain. They then realized that as the water level was getting higher the side of the mountain was moving faster. Now, at this point I'm thinking “why the hell wouldn't you stop filling the reservoir?” but of course they were thinking otherwise. Supposedly the idea was to make a controlled landslide happen. It always happens this way doesn't it? Just as the reservoir was filled and they were thinking that they were out of the woods 280 MILLION cubic meters of material fell off the side of this mountain in a solid block at 80-90 km an hour. The resulting wave went 170 meters over the dam and down into the surrounding valley. Apparently, even though the rock walls surrounding the reservoir were weak this was still a perfect spot for a dam. If the walls were stable I would agree because there are three lakes at high altitudes that feed into the dam so the water pressure is incredible. However, because this place had such sucky geology for building a dam the dam should never have gotten past the first inspection of the area. If you can't tell, I feel pretty strongly about this. On the way back, when we were about an hour away from home, the windshield wipers shorted out. It was raining pretty good so we stopped at a mechanic (who was technically closed). The only person who was still there was the front desk person. He knew about cars but when he looked at the problem he had no idea how to fix it. Luckily, Anderson has some ¼ inch rope in his bag because we ended up tying the rope to the wipers. We basically pulled those wipers across the windshield for an hour and a half. It work amazingly well and I got my shoulder work out in (How's your canoe workout dad? :) ). We got back and unpacked everything so that things could dry. 

PS. MY CAMERA WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sept. 14- I woke up to torrents of rain outside my window. Everything that we were trying to dry is inside so it is still “dry” (meaning drier than it would be). Our roof is leaking slightly so I put some bowls under the leaks so, hopefully, things won't get too wet. The leak is just between our beds so nothing but the floor and the top of the night stand are getting wet but I don't really want a stream of water in our room. So I am trying to write my paper and the internet people are working on the internet and what happens? The internet starts working again!

Karaoke night- def: let's get super drunk so we will have to courage to sing in front of each other and then not actually do any singing. Yeah, it was “karaoke” night here. I was the sober one to make sure everyone was ok and such. I was also the sober one because we need someone who is not hung over tomorrow to make breakfast. As much fun as it was to laugh with and at everyone in their different states of drunkenness by the end of the night when there was wine all over the floor and the music was still blasting (some new people just came in today so we tried to keep the door closed so it would be quieter but there is only so much that you can do) and people were getting sick I was just kinda done. Luckily some of the others were starting to sober up a little so that I could go to bed early enough (it is quarter to 2) to get up tomorrow. I kinda hope this “let's get super drunk all the time” passes soon (yeah I know it probably won't but I can hope) because I like hanging out with people both when they are sober and drunk but in the end if people are at least relatively sober then I don't have to worry about if they are going to be ok when they go to bed.

Today was a work day so we just wrote our papers and did our cross sections. A boring but necessary day.

-Next day-

American breakfast went well except that four of the people who said that they would be there ended up going to siena without telling any of us so we had bought food for them that they didn't eat. Oh well, they are missing out. Today is going to be a sit around and watch movies kind of day (it is raining off and on) and tomorrow we are thinking about hiking up a gorge which would be crazy fun. Well, it is movie time!

Ok, so it has been a long time since I last posted but I have a lot to say now. :) About a week ago we had a two day break and a group of us decided to go to Rome. It was a whirlwind but totally worth it. On the first day we stopped outside of the Vatican just to check it out. We didn't go inside, though, mostly because it just was not something that we were willing to wait in line for when there were other things that we wanted to see and do. We then headed to our hostel to drop off bags and have lunch. The hostel was a campground that had platform tents with bunks in them. It was really nice for the price except that it was pretty out of the way, which meant that we had to take the bus to go back and forth. Luckily, we really only had to take it twice so it didn't get too expensive (not that the bus is that expensive). Once we had dropped our stuff off we headed into town where we walked to an apartment of one of our friend's friend, Lucy. We didn't know which apartment number she was so we just yelled up the building. We did that for about five minutes before we gave up and just as we were heading across the bridge we turned around to look back and there she was just heading back to her apartment. It was perfect timing. So, her and her roommate came with us to the Trevi and the Pantheon before they had to head out to meet some other people. We said our goodbyes and headed to the spanish steps where we bought some roses (mine was 40 cents) for good luck and just sat for a little while. Once that got old and we started to get hungry we set out on a search for food. Conveniently, there are a bunch of restaurants in that neighborhood so we grabbed some great food (I had pesto pasta) and continued on our journey. Our next stop was the four rivers fountain which was where we did our big photo shoot. The rest of the group was wanting to head to a bar so we looked around and found one not too far from where we were and while they went and drank one of the other girls and I went back to the square by the fountain. As we were sitting there an old man came and sat at our bench and asked if we minded if he smoked, we said no and continued our conversation. Every so often the man (whose sister lives in Cali so he knew english) would talk to us and by the end of the night we had some great wisdom passed onto us and we were told that we were distinguished young people. We then went back to our friends because we wanted to head back. Three of them wanted to stay but one of the guys was ready to go so we headed back. It was really nice to go back with a guy and he wasn't very drunk so it made us feel much safer and we were able to leave the other guy with the girls so everyone would be safe. It turned out to be a great night. The next morning we headed to the Colosseum for the morning and did the tour witch was nice and then we headed to the forum to eat our lunch before we had to head back to the train station and go home. The next day we left for Tuscany.....

Day 1-

Lots and lots of driving but we stopped at the “fossil” forest. I say “fossil” because the tree stumps are not actually fossilized. They were buried in clay so they did not get a chance to rot or fossilize. It was pretty awesome. We stopped mid-way to stay the night and the place where we stayed had some kittens so everyone was happy.

Day 2-

I woke up early so I went for a walk and met a new kitten who was orange and purred the moment I picked her up. It was hard to let that one go. In the morning we stopped at a thermal hot-spring and our rainy days started. We then headed to the oldest geothermal plant and learned some stuff. Then we drove some more. At one of our bathroom stops we were about to see the leaning tower from afar which was pretty cool. Then we drove some more, got lost, kept driving and eventually we made it to the place where we stayed. We are pretty sure it used to be a monastery or something similar but it was nice and that was really all that mattered. At dinner they served us a ridiculous amount of food including soup which we were all excited about.

Day 3-

9am breakfast!!! Yes, we got to “sleep in” all week. We saw the general geology of the are and at night we had a girl talk time. It was great.

Day 4-

Hot chocolate at breakfast!!! Then we went out into the field and looked at sheering vs. folding and I understood what was happening first. It was pretty great. Lunch time came up and we stopped in an old medieval town where I climbed up to the highest point, that I could get to in the time allowed, and just sat there all alone, which was exactly what I needed at the time. Then we headed to the marble quarry which was amazing and HUGE. It was pretty crazy. I think we were all just dazed and amazed (like my rhyme?). In the afternoon we played ultimate frisbee and I learned the flick, which is a type of throw. I am still working on it but it is way better than the first time I tried. For dinner some of the food that was served was lasagna (so amazing) and fries (which actually tasted like potatoes, who knew?)

Day 5-

On our last day in Tuscany we saw some oceanic crust which was pretty cool because, well, usually it is under water. Around lunch time we hiked down a sketchy wet trail down to a river where we looked at more rocks but these rocks were much more mysterious because no one really knows exactly where they came from. We went back up the hill to have lunch next to an old steam engine train. In the afternoon we went on a hike up to the top of a mountain where we looked at the entire region. It was incredible. On our way back we had a race between the two vans which was great. We were safe about it don't worry. Then we had our final Italian class which was our test. It was super easy and most of the questions said something like put what you remember. After the test we went to the top of the hill and had champagne in celebration. That night I think the group went through 10L of wine and some people even went to the bar afterward. I think our group may have a slight drinking problem......... (don't worry grandma and grandpa I am not included in that generalization)  

The wasp death count is up to 35. There were probably 50-60 bees in our room and some escaped with their lives. Others? Well let's just say they over stayed their welcome. The carnage was great but it is all cleaned up now and our lives have returned to normal. Yesterday was an art day. We basically learned about different ways to map which was kinda bad because we had been mapping constantly for the last week so we were pretty much done with mapping. At lunch we drove to the waterfall where the water is like 50 degrees and it was amazing. For the last few days the temperature has not gone below 80...ever. It was awesome to be able to say that we were cold. The best part was the jumping off the falls. Mom, don't worry it was only like 8 feet and no one got hurt. Today is supposed to be just as hot and it is mainly a lecture day so today may be very hard to stay awake all day.

Well, Assisi was a bust. We got off at the wrong stop and the next train heading the right way didn't leave early enough for us to have time there. So, we hung out in Fabriano for a while and came back early. Luckily, since it is hot we are going to go to the reservoir which will make for a nice afternoon. On a different note, when we came back our room had about 50 wasps in it. We are hoping that they will leave on their own when it cools off so we don't have to spray inside but you never know. Time to go cool off!

It is a beautiful morning. Although today is Wednesday it is basically my Sunday. Yesterday a few of us went to the local water park- El Dorado- and went down the longest water slide in Europe. It was awesome. The slide went down the side of one of the hills and the view was awesome. You could see all of the surrounding towns in the foreground with the mountains as the background. If I could have I would have taken a picture but cameras and water generally don't mix. This morning I woke up early and was wide awake so I decided to get up and watch the sun rise over the mountains that surround us. The sky has been beautiful shades of pinks oranges and purples. Today some of us are taking a day trip to Assisi which is a medieval town about a 2 hour train ride away. It is basically a walk around town. From what I can tell, there isn't a whole lot to do there but it is very beautiful and worth the trip. I am so glad I decided to do this trip. It has been hard work but so much fun. I hope everyone reading this is doing well and I will write again later :D Have an awesome day!!

Ok so I wrote this yesterday but the internet sucks sometimes so here is another post. Hope you enjoy it!
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So I realized last night that I have been posting about what I am doing and not about our lives here. This post will change that.

We live in a little village called Coldigioco. It is basically a bunch of houses owned by a group of geologists. It has beautiful views any way you look because it is positioned in the mountainous region of Italy. There is a nice piazza where we meet every morning before we head out for our 8 hours in the field. A “pub” lies between the piazza and the apartments where the males are sleeping. I say “pub” because there is a physical bar (serving whatever cheap wine we buy) but it is mainly a hang out spot with lots of cribbage and foosball happening.

Now on to the people. Sandro is our commander/ main teacher and his wife, Paula is our art teacher. Their son hangs out with us sometimes but he is much more of an artist than a geologist and enjoys putting scorpions in containers and then blowing pot smoke into the container and seeing what happens. Then we have Laura, our other teacher who teaches at Luther, and her husband Rolf, who is doing the cooking oh so well, and their son Nils who is 2. We also have a TA named Kate but, unfortunately she has been really sick ever since we got here. At first it was just a fever but yesterday she started throwing up so they took her to the ER to get some fluids and shot antibiotics because she was so dehydrated and her other antibiotics were not working.

My peers/friends ( a quick intro)! ---Rachel is a Jewish Colombian from Macalaster who has a cough that she thinks she got from her brother who has whooping cough so that could be an interesting story. Anderson and Josh are the boys from Carleton. They both play football and baseball. We joke about how they are in a relationship because they basically have a bromance happening even if they won't admit it. Lauren is the girl from Carleton and is the youngest of all of us. She is a sophomore but seems to know enough. Carly is probably the one with the most experience. She is from Lawrence and was here doing a very similar program last summer but it was only the first two weeks of what we are doing. Then we have Ellen who is my roommate and the other female from Luther. She is the only bio major here but is picking up everything very quickly. Now on to the Luther boys. We have two cross-country runners, David and Sam (aka Moxy and Frenzy). Jordan is the only ex- RA in our group but is super chill. Phil is our hunter who is wishing to be back for the start of the seasons. He also has some great stories. Joe is our frisbee guy (along with Jordan) and Neto is our local East Timor-ian.

Our days start with breakfast and packing lunch, usually at 7 or 8, and we leave for the field an hour later. Then we do some hiking, looking at rocks and lunch eating. Usually by 3:30-4:00 we are back in the vans ready for our naps on the trip back. When we get back we have some free time before an hour of Italian, which is at 6, and then dinner is at 8. After dinner we usually head to the pub or if it has been a long day (like today) we pretty much head to our rooms around 9-9:30.

Well that is my life in general now. Today (Friday) we did some more mapping and came back and worked on a cross section of the mapping area. Tomorrow we are staying in Coldigioco to finish rough drafts of our maps and cross sections. Basically we are doing our homework during class time. Although I have no idea when we would have time if we actually had real homework.....

Until next time....... Love ya!

Good morning!!! Yesterday was just another awesome day in Italy. We started out the day doing some mapping. Basically we looked at rocks and determined the direction and angle that the bed was laying at and we had to figure out what kind of rock it was. We are doing this all week for an area that we have a map for and then at the end we will have a colorful map and we will be able to draw a cross section of the area. Exciting to you? Prob not. Is it going to look awesome? Hells yeah!
On to another subject. The local town has been having an international folk dance festival and last night was the finale so all of the groups did short routines. We decided that,  even though we had to get up early this morning, we should go and check it out. It was pretty darn awesome. It didn't hurt that we grabbed gelato before hand either.
Well, I guess I will have to post about my weekend adventure later because it is time for breakfast!!

Another day, another adventure. Today we went to Ancona which is right on the coast of the Adriatic sea. In the morning we did our usual looking at rocks but in the afternoon we went to the beach!! In order to get to the beach you have to take a path that goes basically down a cliff (30-40 degree incline, yes I did measure). Going down was fun. We easily passed a bunch of german high school kids who were swearing the whole way down and at the bottom we stopped for lunch at the little beach side restaurant. There, we had pasta with mussels and mussels and snails on their own. I tried one of everything (when will I ever get a chance to have seafood that fresh again?). Some were good, others not so much but the worst part was just pulling the meat out of the shells (not too bad but still kinda nasty when the who thing kinda spirals out). Then we headed toward the end of the beach to check out some more rock formations before we jumped in the sea. It was awesome. There were huge waves and the sea was amazingly salty, like way saltier than the ocean. This made it nice for floating on but really sucky when it ended up in your nose or mouth. The guys decided that they wanted to skinny dip so while they were in the water (it wasn't very clear water) they all took off their trunks. It was hilarious to see how excited some of them were. The day ended with a trip through the local art gallery to see what we would be doing in art class.

Hey, 

Uno. One. I haven't been able to get a phone card yet. Rolf (professor's husband) said that he would pick one up for me but I have't gotten it yet. We are always going here. Class goes from 9 to 7 and then by the time dinner and a shower are done I get on the computer for, maybe, 30 min. I am only on now because I woke up 30 min early so I could write here. Actually, though I kinda like getting up early so I may do this more often.

Due. Two. The food has been great. However, the bread here is really hard. It is like they baked it one day and then left it out to dry for another day before we eat it. Yesterday was great, though, because Rolf made bread in the wood-fired pizza oven and it was nice and soft and the flavor was great. Luckily, he made 4 loaves which left 2 for this morning. 

Tre. Three. Yesterday we went to Gubbio and look and learned about the K/T boundary which is the moment in history, seen in a rock layer, when the astroid hit the earth and ended up killing the dinos and practically everything else. Sandro's (our main professor and the one who lives here) lecture ended up being 3 hours long so we got back almost two hours late which meant that we were 55 minutes late for an Italian class that lasts usually slightly less than an hour. We still had the class but dinner was pushed back.

Cuarto. Four. It is beautiful here and I am really glad I decided to do this.

Hope all is well. 

Hannah

Well, I am here. The flight to Philly was a little rough but over all went well. However, the flight from Philly was just about to take off when it started pouring. We ended up sitting on the tarmac for 2 hours before we took off. Luckily, I had the entire row of four seats to myself to sleep on. In the end we missed the train that we were planning on taking but ended up on the next. It was really awesome to have 6 other people to travel with, though. It made it much more relaxing and fun. Today was the first day of class and other than almost falling asleep during lecture it was pretty awesome. We spent the morning listening to a lecture and then after lunch we were able to take some time for a much needed nap and then went out into the field where we got to see the boundary between the age of the dinos and just after them. Basically we got to see the exact time (in the rocks) of the impact that killed the dinos. We came back to an Italian lesson and an awesome dinner. Tomorrow is another day and another adventure but for now it is late and time to fall asleep to the band that is doing some recording in a studio below us. CIAO!

Well, today is the day when I start my adventure. Am I terrified? Yeah. Am I excited? Hell, yeah. The next 24 hours are going to be long and it will be hot but I know I have friends traveling with me. I am trusting in myself. I know that I know how to travel. I know my way around a train station. I am ready for this. I am excited. Here is to a great semester and I will write again when I am in ITALY!!