JUVE!!

Last night, My roommate and I made our first trip to the mother ship of European sports (actually, probably the world's mother ship of sports but we Americans chose to refuse this and do things our own way)- the Soccer game. Having only been to professional Baseball and Basketball games, and knowing that Europeans are fairly well known for getting into full blown brawls during soccer matches, I figured it would be quantified as a good experience if i kept all my limbs and came out without a black eye...

Egyptian Museum

This weekends journey took me to the worlds second largest Egyptian museum, second only to the one in Cairo, Egypt (which seems fair). I got a ton of pictures so this will have more pictures than words for the most part.

Il Lingotto

 In Italy, Torino is the auto manufacturing capital of the country and has been since around 1910. Fiat (Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino) is headquartered here. For a long time, they, like Ford, had an American acronym synonymous with their name. Ford had Fix Or Repair Daily and has actually become a more quality car in the last two or three years. Fiat, or Fix It Again Tony, has also had a similar shift in their quality from the days of constant disrepair to one of the better cars available in Europe (supposedly FIAT is making the jump across the pond in the next few years to try to get some of the American market place and capitalize on its demand for fuel efficient cars).

Luigi!

Asti

Once known as the town of a thousand towers during the 12^th and 13^th centuries, Asti (Ahs-tee, not ASS-tee) is now known best for its wines, including a dark red Barbera, a white Moscato (one of my favorites) and the sparkling Asti Spumante (which, by Italians is called just Asti to avoid being lumped in with the poor quality spumante from around the world). Asti first became a Roman colony in 124 BC (when it was a fortified camp) and rose to being one of the trading powers in Italy during the middle ages. By 1200, Asti was one of the richest cities in Italy. Their reign of self rule, like all of Italy, was short lived, with the power and banking issues dividing the city and making it weaker. By 1314, the Solaro family gave the city to Robert of Naples. It subsequently went through the hands of the Visconti, the Sforza, John II of Montferrat, the French and finally the Savoy family (It was actually a part of Beatrice of Portugal’s dowry so when Charles III of Savoy married her, it got included into their growing kingdom). The Savoy family held the city for a good while, with it becoming one of their more important strong holds during wars. The city was lost to the Spanish following the plague, which ravished the city and killed off large numbers of civilians (in about 1630). The Savoy family regained control fairly quickly and maintained control until 1703 then the French took Asti during the war of Spanish succession. It was reconquered in 1705 by Victor Amadeus II and was lost yet again in 1745 to the French, only to be freed yet again. In 1797 the Astigiani, enraged by the continuous military campaigns and by poor economic situation, revolted against the Savoy government. On July 28 the Repubblica Astese was declared. However, it was suppressed only two days later with the leaders of the revolution quickly being arrested and executed. The Savoy family was quickly kicked out of Asti, however, and the French retained control. Napoleon himself made a visit to the city in 1805 but was received so poorly by the citizens that he demoted the city. When the French empire fell, Asti returned to Piedmont (the same region as Torino, which, as you may remember, was run by the Savoy) in 1814 and became a part of Italy in 1861.

Getting Settled

Since we have finally moved in, gotten past most the awkward stage for roommates (I’m sure that more moments will come), and begun to try to figure out Torino, I can say that this has been an interesting experience thus far at the very least. The first night for dinner, we walked around Torino for a half hour starting at 7pm and everything was closed! Thinking we had missed dinner, we began to head back to the apartment thinking we weren’t going to get to eat that night when we saw a Ristorante and Pizzeria that was open. We headed on over and saw the door was open so we walked in. We were seated quickly and were the only people in the restaurant. We got handwritten menus because they are getting new ones printed (I came to find this out later) and it had some of their specialties and most popular items on it.

the Wine Room in Eataly

Move In Day

Move in day is always an interesting day. There is always this awkward shuffle type thing that happens when you meet a roommate for the first time and you are moving in to the housing. It its like an attempted show of power to see who will get what room, who gets what shelf in the fridge, where the heat will be set at... all of this is very important and seems quite highly correlated with your enjoyment (or saddness) in the living place. All of this is intense and stressful even before you add in small factors like foreign countries and things of that nature. When today started, I simply wanted to move in, meet my roommate and see how the next four months was going to play out.

Arrival!

Ciao Tutti!

I have officially arrived in Italy! It feels a little strange, walking off the plane, seeing a ton of signs in italian and kind of understanding most of them. Me and my roommate (still working on names, ill get there) dropped our stuff off and went for a walk around our hotel to try to fight off jet lag. its strange knowing that at 4.30 yesterday morning, I was waking up in reno and now its 18.25 the next day and I'm in a foreign country, thousands of miles away from home, listening to tons of other languages being spoken and very few of them being anything remotely like English (Ive heard Turkish, Giapponese, Italian (of course, Romanian...), all very interesting and very different. But before i delve too deeply into Torino, ill talk more about the journey across the ocean.

It all started at about 4.00 or 4.30 when I woke up to get ready for the airport. Molly and I met my parents at the airport at about 5.00 and we sat around chatting for a while. it was kinda strange knowing that i wouldnt see anybody familiars face for about a month (when molly makes the voyage to Scotland). Though it was sad to say good by to my family for six months, I know its going to be pretty awesome to see them again.

Departure

I have been working on this post for a few days and was waiting until I had a ton of time in SF to finish it... and it didnt really happen.

So the trip to Torino has officially begun in Reno. Molly and I met my parents at the airport around 5am this morning, got to talk one last good time for about 6 months (for the family that is, luckily, i get to see molly in a little over a month) and i boarded my plane bound for SF. I had, in my mind, the plan of getting to SF early, finishing this post, having lunch, meeting people but from the get go things took a detour. We taxi out of the gate and then proceed to just sit there for about 15 minutes because of mechanical issues. so the pilot has to call the maintenance people out to fix whatever issue there was, only to come back on and say something along the lines of 'we're gonna see if this thing just shakes itself out as we get going'- not exactly what you want to hear but oh well.

So i get to SF about a half hour later than i had planned only to see that the Lufthansa check in counter isnt open. Nobody seems to know when it opens so i just sit there and hang out, thinking it will open soon- nope. after an extra hour and a half, i began to see what Douglas Adams meant when he said that its no coincidence that the phrase 'as pretty as an airport' doesn't appear in any culture. Dont get me wrong, the SF airport isnt ugly but, after a short while of staring at the same few walls, its certainly nothing to brag about.

So with about 45 minutes to go before the line opens, I go stand in line. holy smokes was that a good decision. shortly after I got in line (I was about 10-15th in line) the line suddenly grows like crazy to well over sixty people. I have pictures and ill upload them in a little bit (the SF internet is a little slow and ive got about 9 minutes of free internet left so ill save it for another day).

Luckily, Security was a breeze (but i didnt get the whole body scanner thing, which would have been an interesting experience) and have yet to see any USAC kids like i had hoped. Im going to get some grub and run around as much as i can before i get to sit down for 11 hours and get to eat wonderful airplane food.

Leaving has been quite an experience in-and-of-itself. From a wonderful going away party, to seeing a ton of people that truly care about me and having to say good bye, to having to say good bye to Molly for a while has been a whole lot harder than i thought it would be. Flying alone for the first time has been an adventure, from wandering through airports that i dont know to seeing people trip over their luggage at top speed to the family with the matterhorn hats, its been funny but im coming to a quick realization that this is something that is much more fun to share.

My plane just pulled up and its huge. I have never been on planes that are all that large so this is going to be cool to be on a Double Decker plane. I hope that I dont get stuck next to someone who stinks! that would make for a long 11 hours to Frankfurt!

As i get down to the last 3 min of internet before im forced to sign off, i want to thank everybody who has supported me in this venture, from setting up and putting on an excellent going away party to family to helping me pack and get my life into a suitcase and so on, I wouldn't be here without you and Lets go to Italy!!!!!

Torino

I'll be living in Torino while studying abroad. Torino, as you can see to the left, is located in the northern part of Italy. Torino sits along the banks of the Po River. Historians place the "founding of Torino" at around 28 BCE, as a military camp for the Roman Army. As the Roman Empire did in many of its cities, they laid out a grid pattern which still exists today. Torino quickly grew and hit a peak of 5000 people within its walls. However, being in northern Italy wasn't as awesome as it is today. When the Holy Roman Empire collapsed, Torino quickly fell into the hands of the Lombards (hence the name Lombardy for the nearby region) then the Franks.

Italy 101

So in 8 days, I will board a plane to bound for the journey of a lifetime. Ill be headed to Italy for about 6 months but I wanted to giver everybody a background on Italy. I planned on starting this a while ago and having cool factoids and whatnot on the lead up to my departure, as well as play with this whole blogging thing so i can get used to it but, as Douglas Adams once said, "I love Deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they go by." But on with the short background...