∆ΩN’T TPY θI∑ AT HΩME

So the people upstairs are having a party…right now, Wednesday night. It’s about midnight, which is normal time for a party…but I want to go to sleep and, well, they’re loud and shoes resonate through stone floors much more so than carpet. Not to mention they keep playing really crappy music. So, iTunes armed, unloading a nice song I like to call Black Betty by a solid little band by the name of Ram Jam, I’ve got my headphones kickin and actually have time to write since sleeping isn’t an option.
This past weekend was Greek to me…literally. Haha, woah man that was a lame joke. Anyhoo, I Went to Athens, Greece and rocked it out. Athens was actually not as cool as I thought it would be. Everyone keeps saying “Oh man, Greece is so beautiful, you have to go” and “If you don’t go to Greece, you’ve made a mistake.” I think the mistake was made when they neglected to inform me that they were refereeing to the ISLANDS of Greece…not Athens.
Now, don’t get me wrong, Athens was just fine and dandy; got to see the Parthenon, Zeus’s Monument, The Acropolis, and various other ruins. However, I think I had my ruins fix for about the next 2 years after being in Roma for 2 months and having an art history class that’s on site every week at various ruins throughout this city. More ruins weren’t exactly what I signed up for when I decided to wander over the Aegean to birthplace of the Olympics.
With all my bitching and bickering aside, I am glad I went. I mean, I went to freaking Greece and that’s cool. Everything there was in Greek, which, provided it was in upper case, I could actually read…you can thank the Greek system at Michigan and Belmont for that one; though under the greek, everything was translated into English, so that was nice when you figured out that, yes, you could read it, but once you figured out what triangle, squiggly, e, a, squiggly, circle w/a dash said, you had no idea what that translated to in English.
There was also some nice shopping to be had in Grecia, which I can’t complain about. Got some ‘deals’ on a few items in the market section and actually got lost in the blue light district the first night we were there trying to find our hostel, which was nice…”Hey, can we just stop in here and then find our place? Awesome, thanks.”
I took some pictures while I was there, too, which should be up w/a link at the bottom of this page incase you want to check them out.
Tuesday, with the previously mentioned on-site art history class, we went to the Castelo di Saint Angelo…the castle in the higher numbered pages of the book Angels & Demons (sorry if I ruined it for anyone, but you should have read it by now anyways). That was pretty darn cool, I also took some pictures of that. The view on the top of the place is quite stunning; you can see most of Rome and the major monuments along with a great view of The Vatican.
Other than that, the past week or so has been filled with a great deal of paper writing, presentation preparation, and homeworking. Not exactly the most fun stuff, but it’s ok because the weekends have and will make up for it. The upcoming weekend I shall be venturing out eastward to Bilbao, Spain to see Dralion, a euro-only Cirque Du Soliel show with a friend of mine. There, we will also go see the Guggenheim Museum of Modern Art and various other northern coastal Spain type things…you know, the usual. Should be a good time, you can’t ever go wrong with Cirque Du Soliel, so I’m quite excited about that and I doubt you can go wrong with the Guggenheim either, so boo ya.
Lastly, for those of you who don’t know yet, I’m officially going to be in L.A. next semester instead of returning do the southern section of the country known as Nashvegas. So, plan accordingly. If anyone wants to come visit out in L.A. you’re more than welcome, visitors always rock…and apparently the only darts bar in L.A. is right by my apt, so we can go have some beer and throw around sharp metal tipped darts at what we hope is a corked circular board. Good times had by all. Frank, you’ll have to teach me how to properly throw ‘cause I’m clueless.
Anyhoo, that’s enough rambling for now. I’ll catch you guys on the flipside and hopefully will be able to post something at the regularly scheduled time of Monday instead of the unexpectedly, but fashionably late post of this Thursday.
Ciao Belli,
Jon Boy

P.S. ∆ΩN’T TPY θI∑ AT HΩME is simply "DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME" in greek charactors, in case you were wondering