hilly side

ciao a tutti,

i'm not going to lie. its been tough to post this past month. the first reason is that the travels with the mom were to some pretty remote places in italy. when there was internet it was usually a bit on the expensive side, and i didn't really want to drag my mom into an internet cafe while i typed away. but the last week its been different. i don't really want to post because somehow it makes it seem like the end of the trip is already here. with my four days of europe left i don't want to be using the time to describe things i've already done instead of doing new things. so, there it is.


every once in a while i have moments where i freak out inside about leaving this place. it almost feels like i'm more nervous about going home than when i left (and i was about a smidge away from throwing up nervous level on the day i left), but really i think its just been that i haven't had those feelings in so long. i'm not used to it.


to sum up the weeks with the mom: really great actually. it was good to have a break from travel mode, where you have to think about where are you going to sleep, how are you going to get there, and (most importantly) what are you going to eat. my mom was like a squirrel and always packed away some kind of food, which meant not even being hungry on trains. i think everything worked out really well and we had a lot of those unique travel moments that i definitely would not have been able to have had i been by myself. i didn't get to practice learning stick-shift because the villa we stayed at was a bit on the hilly side. i did move it around the parking lot some without stalling it, so a vast improvement since the last time driving a manual car (not counting tractors).

me with the mom in lake como, italy.



my last week in europe (and italy) has been amazing. i thought about going to another country but i think its best to end on a relaxing note. so, i'm on the amalfi coast now in a cliff town, positano. before that was sorrento and capri. the mosquitos met up with me again in sorrento but these ones are on the strange side. everybody in my room wasn't sure if it was from spiders or mosquitos (my vote is on mosquitos, they're bastards). the reason is that the first day it would appear to be a normal bite. the second day it would start to swell and get larger and redder than it should. the third day the redness would go down my veins for about an inch or so. that was the worst day because after that it would kind of go in reverse order back to a normal red dot. the problem is that they didn't all bite me on the same day so i have a nice rotation of all of the above.

minus the bites this has been a great place, but again its mainly because of the people. i joined a family of solo travellers in sorrento where there was a lot of laughing and pasta cooking. they all left and were replaced by cool canadians. then in positano i joined a rad group of university students that are studying in rome for some of the summer. i'm hoping to meet up with them again for my one day in rome before going to london. they invited me into their group (somewhere right above 10 people)and made me feel really welcome.


I like christmas lights.




in a few days i'll be in new york. i've got a short stop in london at alex's--best friend from when i was growing up. its been a long time since we've been able to hang out so it will be cool to do it in london. its just so unbelievable that the new york portion of the trip is a couple of days away.

have a good day
your friend
chad

festival of the republic

so, more craziness with friends and now family. it was a lot of fun hanging out with katja in mannheim. i still can't believe that she hand built a massive giant sized home for her three guinnie (how in the world do you spell that) pigs. they make the coolest squeeky sounds. i couldn't stay too long because she had to roadtrip it down to lago di como for a holiday, so i moved over to heidelberg to stay with tyson and becky.

little people and dogs pay the same for a tram ride in germany.

it felt a lot like being back at pepperdine (my university) with good people all over the place. there was a group of students from the university that is also there doing a project and they were completely into games (cards, dice, or whatever else they could find). it made it great fun all of the time--but they really were a crazy bunch. being there with them definitely made me want to stop moving and saying goodbye to so many awesome people. thats probably good timing since there is less than two months left in the trip. my mind has been thinking much more about what i would like to do when i get home now, and a lot of it has to do with speding so much time with friends that i have met on this trip. i would like to have local friends again that i can see on a regular basis--the downside is that i know i am going to miss all of my european friends the moment i get back....guess that means i might be up for a move...


breakfast at tyson's and becky's. i had problems sitting in becky's chair; the ceiling was oddly angled.

i had problems gettting over to cologne so i had to skip out on that one for now. it was alright though because it just meant more time at tyson and becky's. everything works out for the best. for the last few nights i stayed with hayley in seregno which is about a 20 minute trian ride from milan. she is teaching english in italy and has a great apartment (huge balcony!!), roommates, and students. i guess that goes on the list of possible things to do (if only i could be an EU citizen, going to have to work on that...). i met hayley way back at the centre of new zealand (nelson) so it was cool to see how her path in life has gone.

this morning i met my mom in milan and now i'm staying at a hotel where i haven't seen that many stars on a sign this entire year. we've got about 20 days together for a sweet tour of northern italy. next week we rent a car so i hope to start working on my goal of learning to drive manual this year. i figure if i could do those tractors, i could do a car now. we'll see.

have a good day and happy festival of the republic! i have no idea what thats for, but its today.

your friend
chad