ciao for now

ciao a tutti,

well, its been a good year. it hasn't been too weird being home because i've been able to keep myself busy. the night before i left on this trip i moved out everything from my room to a storage unit. at the time i thought i got rid of a lot of things, but now that i'm getting everything out of storage i realize i don't need any of it. so its been a really good removal of material things.

on the flip side, i acquired a new cell phone. i guess i'm reconnected with regular society now. the folks at t-mobile have been really helpful and gave me a good deal.

i've been trying to put more pictures on the site, and blogger has made it a lot easier; the only problem is a really slow dial-up speed at the house. it takes about 15 min. a photo, which adds up. i'll swing over to my brothers and put a bunch on all at one time.

a lot of people have been asking me what i want to do now that i'm back home. my answer to that is i have no idea. my goals (still) are: learn how to drive stick shift; be home for christmas. for the first one, my brother courageously handed over his keys to me for a spin around a high school parking lot. due to the tractor practice in italy (at least i think) i am much better at manual now. i would rate myself a b- (one stall and two of those jerky start things). thats alright for a first go at it. the second goal, will be done, really i'm just waiting on christmas. so, am i "doing" anything yet. no, not yet, but i am doing the things that are important to me.

a thing that has been on my mind lately is what to do with this site. its weird, the little things that can influence people. for me, a cool person that i met in positano told me about how she had a web log once, experienced a loss, and realized she was spending more time writing about her life than actually living it. i don't regret this website at all. its going to be sweet to look back on it one day and relive the crazy times, and it really was the best way to have updates available with being too annoying. but i am going to have to agree with her (for at least this portion of my life). its time for me to live...and not continually send the updates. i'm still going to post as many pictures as i can from the trip because right now it feels unfinished. what i will post after today is any big moves (so people can know where i am, visitors are always welcome, there's a lot of karma to return) or if i depart on another adventure. given my current double digit funds (thankfully i have more than 10 dollars left) i don't know if the second one will happen too quickly, but in no way am i ruling that option out.

some final photos:

me one week after the beginning of the trip (new zealand)



me one week before the end of the trip (new york). thats cool, two "new" places. i'm a nerd. i'm the one on the left.

i wish i could post pictures of every person i met. they were the coolest part by far.

thanks for reading if you did. i hope it was somewhat enjoyable.

have a good day
your friend
chad

full black costumes

ciao,

i'm running out of days now. i've already had my last wednesday and thursday, and today will be my last friday. on tuesday i'll be eating spaghetti at my home, seeing the mom's new dog, and going to sleep in my old room. kind of strange.




times square at night time. we just got out of the show Producers, which ranks pretty high on my list of musicals. odd, but good.







the east coast part of the trip has been a lot of fun. meeting my friends at the airport (after i got through customs by being surprisingly honest) was a good feeling. on a promise made long ago, ryan and amy f. came from las vegas with the only purpose of seeing me at the airport (and having a wicked cool roadtrip). good people.

the roadtrip to rhode island and boston was perfect--one of the best parts was getting a mini-van! i was slightly bummed that i couldn't drive due to my having no insurance. but i think i make a mighty fine navigator, so at least i had control over the music. it was cool seeing lauren and amy and where they are right now with work and school. seeing americas longest running parade was sweet, but i felt bad for the bands that had the poor judgement of wearing full black costumes in the hot hot temperatures. boston was more rain than not, but thats ok, the rain does not have any effect on the taste of a boston cream pie (which is actually more like a cake with some cream on it)






brett, adrianna and i finishing our night-time empire state building visit.





i'll be in chicago tomorrow to stay at kate's parents house. she is going to ghana, africa on the day i arrive so i won't be able to hang out with her.

i'll be putting up a bunch of pictures over the next week. i haven't really seen many of them, since i've been burning cds, sending them home, and forgetting about them. maybe that will make the sight slightly more entertaining.

have a good day and thanks for checking the site every once in awhile. its been a good year.

your friend
chad