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!