Clothes are clean

ciao,

so, the clothes are clean and i'm in london. its kind of strange. i left sardegna, an island in the Mediterranean and it was freezing cold, pouring rain, and not one bit of sunlight. to arrive in london with sunshine and blue sky. yeah, its still pretty dang cold, but in the sun it feels good enough.

i'm not exactly sure what kind of soap i used for my clothes (i found a box of something in the bathroom in the hostel), but there were bubbles in the machine so i think thats a good sign. i figure soap is soap and hopefully i won't get a rash.

my brother comes in a few hours!! i think he's going to be all messed up with the time changes and flying all day. he arrives pretty late at night so hopefully he'll be tired and can get hooked up with england time quickly.

tomorrow we fly to iceland. i was happy to see the sunrises here sometime around 7:30-8ish. thats good news because hopefully there will be some amount of sunlight in iceland. the good thing is that with each day, the daylight will get longer...and thats better. (weather permitting)

its always a shock to go from a not-so-commercialized place to an over-commercialized place (like fiji to sydney). you can always tell by how many signs there are on the road--and on everything that has enough space for an advertisement. there were about 4 huge signs on each side of the road in the space of about 50 meters saying there was a camera that would catch speeders...and thats when a car flew by our bus to get its picture taken. i think there's just so many signs that people don't pay attention to anything. i think i'm more of a fan of the less sign-age lifestyle.

one of the good things about london is that i can get 24 hours of internet for less than the price of one hour in sardegna. i would give that up though if everyone spoke italian here. i miss it (and i can't stop saying si' for yes).

have a good day
your friend

chad

My sideburns are dark

Hello,

I hope all of my east coast friends have stayed indoors with some hot chocolate and made it through the blizzard. they show it on the tvs here and it really is crazy how much snow is there.

i can't believe i've spent a month in sardegna. it's been a good month with a different kind of travel. staying with the family and then at the farm has been interesting. i think i've been spoiled with amazing food (il pandoro will not be forgotten) and a family atmosphere. i've been lucky though and i think it may continue for another month. two weeks with the brother should be really cool and its going to be good to see him. oh, and i've passed my six month mark on the 19th of Jan. I'm more than halfway over with my trip now, with five months and some number of weeks and days left. its one of those weird time is going so slow but then so fast at the same time.

my italian is better, i think. today i picked up a Topolino (mickey mouse) book and understood most of it. the pictures help but i'm most happy about seeing all the different verb tenses and understanding them now. also interactions with shop people, post offices, and other places are going much better. still it helps when i wear my beanie because they can't see my hair. luckily my sideburns are dark and they don't assume i'm american, english, or german.

honestly, right now, i'm the most smelly on the trip as of yet. the last time my clothes were washed (thank you italian family in Sini) was on the 6th. thats not so bad, the bad part is that i've been farming in my clothes for 10 days. they look dirty, feel dirty, and when i move in certain ways they smell dirty--well, they smell dirty all the time, but i can only smell them at certain times. job for tomorrow before my flight: wash clothes. (or job for england as soon as i get there...although washing them with the euro would make me much happier than a wash with the pound...crappy dollar...)

have a good day
your friend

chad

Frustrating but cool

Ciao,

I hope everyone is doing well. the farm in sardegna has been great! after a few days of total body hurt from actually using my muscles, i'm feeling good. the farm i'm at is a bioagroturismo in sardegna. that means its kind of like a bed and breakfast but on a farm. and since its in the winter and there are no guests, i get a really nice (really really nice) room with an amazing view.

The work i've been doing has been simple but hard. i've cleared two fields so Franco, one of the owners, can plow it with a tractor. also, i've been working with compost piles. i feel really bad though because yesterday when i was moving (not the right verb, but the closest i can think of) a compost pile, i wrecked a mouse's home. he survived but i still felt like the farmer in the secret of nymh that was destroying the nice rat's home.

My italian is at the frustrating but cool stage. you wouldn't think it but to have a normal conversation your vocabulary has to be way bigger than it needs to be because you never know where the conversation is going to go. at least now, i don't skip out on things to say because i don't know the right words. i just start talking and figure out how to explain random things. its a good thing Franco and Maddelena are patient.

Also, i had my first dream in italian!! way cool, and the dream the night before was my first flying dream! i've always wanted one of those.

In a few days i'll be meeting my brother in london to go to iceland for two weeks. then i'll visit pauline (who i met in new zealand and fiji) in manchester for a week or so before flying back to italy for a good month of italian language...that and its cold up north.

If you've emailed me lately (meaning all of january), i'm not ignoring you. internet is slightly difficult in sardegna, and i've been trying to stay away from english as much as i can. it really does set me back.

Well, its my free day, so i'm checking out Palau and areas near there. i hear theres a rock that looks like a bear.

Have a good day
your friend

chad

il pandoro

Hello,

First of all big thanks to the mom for helping me post pictures. i've got to do some editing on some of the captions (and explain that last photo with the flower) but that will have to come later when there is cheaper internet.

My one day in rome, on my way to sardegna, turned out to be my coolest day in rome yet. i spent most of the day with Claire, a cool girl who is studying in paris for the year. we spent hours on the spanish steps and at the trevi fountain just talking about random things. it was definitely what i needed after the solo days in florence. the coolest part was her showing me the birds in front of the train station at sunset...thousands and thousands of small birds flying in different formations.

and then sardegna... the all night ferry to sardegna was interesting because i was sleeping in the if-this-ship-sinks-i'm-going-to-die part of the boat. you couldn't get any lower on the boat than where my room was--even the cars were higher than me. it arrived in cagliari in the morning where Dani met me. then a dream i have had for the last three years (to live with an italian family) came to be.

Dani's family was way cool. there was his parents and his two sisters at the home but in the village of 500 people it seemed like it was mostly his extended family. not really, but there were a lot of them and they were all really friendly.

For new years we went to alghero, which is like the las vegas of sardegna (for new years celebrating, not for casinos and things). it was me and 10 italian friends who spoke lightning fast italian. i didn't understand much, but it was exactly what i wished for. when i got back to dani's family's house i really understood their slowed down italian that they spoke for me. thats when Dani got deathly ill for a few days, which left me without a translator...which was even cooler (although it would have been better if he didn't get sick...its not good to be happy when friends don't feel well).

some of the crazy italians in alghero, sardegna. the day after new years.

They fed me so much good food and sardegnian specialties, i think i've gained back a kilo or two. i love the holiday season in sardegna, its like none other. i'm not sure if they sell it all over (they probably do), but il pandoro...you must try.

I've left dani's and now i'm in a small town called fertilia. yesterday i had a really cool moment. the chain of buses to get to fertilia had me at the alghero airport for an hour and while i was there i had a five minute debate on do i go to london, or a small town in sardegna? it was a really fun debate because both options were 100% possible. Sardegna won out because in a few days i'm going to work on a farm in the northeast part of sardegna. so, there'll be another gap in posts.

For all the people that emailed me, i'm really sorry but it is going to take me awhile to respond. internet is sparce and expensive here, so it may have to wait until february. but thank you very much for thinking about me, i greatly appreciate it.

Have a good day
your friend

chad