Was just about to leave school...

When I realized that this will be my last chance to blog. I guess I can do it again, but it's going to cost me money if I want to, so there's really no point.

So goodbye Rome. It's been fun. It's been more than fun, it's been insane, a wild ride through education, culture, and personal growth. I don't have much of a big to-do to leave with, tonight I'm having our second farewell dinner and then going out to a beach club.

Tomorrow is the Vatican. Saturday morning I get on a plane and come home. I can't wait to see my little monsters, I'm going to cuddle Beep until he goes batshit trying to squirm away. I might if even shed a tear or two. I can't wait to see my nuzzbuzz, either, and go see Dark Knight. Excited about that, after hearing all of my friends go on about how great it is.

Blog will stay up, because when I get home I'm going to retroactively upload pictures from the weekends that I couldn't get the school wifi to let me upload, in case people want to see some of the wildness from love parade, or something. The video of the visual show at the end of the night is definitely worth a watch, maybe not for the full ten minutes, but it's fucking cool.

Sunday I'm going out to Dallas to check out Barcadia in the late afternoon, maybe do dinner somewhere out there (Freebirds!!!), and go to the Church for some sexy female DJ's playing electro stuff. Everyone's invited to come out and along, I know some of the burner troupe are planning on meeting me up there already.

I'm back for ten days, so if you want to hang out let me know so I can pencil you in, my time will be pretty squeezed up between working and making ready for the next leg of the venture. Then it's off to New York. Yes, there will be a seansparksnewyork blog as well. I probably should have just been conservative with blogspot names and made one that was call seansparkstraveling, but... eh.

So that's it, in and out of five weeks overseas with a whimper.

-Sean

Means so much more knowing the words...

What's going on
Could this be my understanding
It's not your fault I was being too demanding
I must admit it's my pride that made me distant
All because I hoped that you'd be someone different
There's not much I know about you
Fear will always make you blind
But the answer is in clear view
It's amazing what you'll find face to face

I turned away because I thought you were the problem
Tried to forget until I hit the bottom
But when I faced you in my blank confusion
I realized you weren't wrong, it was a mere illusion

It really didn't make sense
Just to leave this unresolved
It's not hard to go the distance
when you finally get involved face to face

21 guns for an awesome jacket

Last year I bought a G-Star jacket in Seattle that was ever-so-sexy, tight, and gray. Like what's happened lately with many things associated with Seattle, though, it is now lost from me in the chaos of space-time. Some German-British girls are now the proud owners of my sexy jacket, because I left it hanging to dry on their bathroom door when they were kind enough to let me wash my face and change. So it goes.

My inner-Zen-capitalist is rationalizing the loss by saying I have equaled the balance for the kickass leather jacket I got in Florence. Too bad I couldn't have Temple-of-Doomed it with a bag of sand instead. At least I didn't have to run from any boulders.

Today is the second-to-last day of school. I'm happy about that. Sadly, I didn't learn that much Italian in school. Most of what I can speak I taught myself here, with flashcards, recitation, going out on my own and meeting people, trying. The three and a half hours we spent every day in the classroom only hurt my head and made me tired, and now I'm definitely ready for it to be over. I don't even care what I get for a grade.

Tonight is the first of two farewell dinners, this one sponsored by API (the company who I went through to come here), and the second by LDM (my university). I love free meals. I'm going on a gelato frenzy now, two a day for the rest of my time here, because I know I'm not going to have it this good again for a long while, and I want to try every flavor and dress-up combination I haven't tried yet.

Last night Allison, Sam, Jaquelin, and I went to the Cork (Irish pub) after getting gelato. Jaquelin has a little boy-thing person here, a guy named Giovani, and when Allison and I were calling it an early night from fatigue, we talked about her situation on the walk back. Jaquelin was tempted ever so slightly to move here and give love a chance, and honestly I couldn't blame her for wanting to. Why not take the plunge and see what unfolds? Every great thing I've enjoyed remembering in my life has been the result of folly or madness, from doing a 8 city tour by myself on spring break one year to driving to Austin at the crack of dawn because someone convinced me it would be fun. Those are the adventures worth having, and even if her relationship with this guy who speaks almost no English fell apart, she could still say she lived a more amazing fantasy than most people dare to dream.

Fuck logistics, fuck your house of cards, fuck the friends who want you to stay, seize something amazing and leap. Don't half-ass it, either, just jump and pray that you live to talk about it. If not, you won't care anyway. Falling off a cliff and surviving taught me that, though I wouldn't say that was a decision. More so gravity being insistent about its sentiment towards matter.

But hey, it makes a great story. When we're old, ugly, feeble and useless, what more do we have left? I want to live a life that wows the few brave youngsters who chance to listen to an old guy talk. I think more people should do the same.

So Jaquelin, if you ever read this blog, do the wrong thing, the crazy thing, the inspired thing. Jump off a cliff, and land on some hot Italian boy cock.

-Sean

Whew!

Today I had to redo my oral presentation. Yesterday I tried to do it in front of the other girls in my class, locked up in brain dead post-"two days of no sleep" mode, and stammered my way through a sweaty retarded string of broken sentences and incorrectly conjugated words.

I still feel like shit today, a not-so-subtle nudge from the universe that I'm actually starting to age, but my teacher let me do it over with just her in the room. I rewrote the whole thing yesterday and made it simpler, then recited it over and over again last night until I couldn't stand anymore. Literally. I forced myself not to nap yesterday, because napping has done nothing good for me at all here. Just makes me tired when I wake up, then not able to sleep when I want to go to bed. Last night I was stumbling around the apartment with a sheet of chicken scratched sentences in my hand, mumbling them over and over. Sometimes my eyes would cross involuntarily, or the floaters from when I had my nose broken would become apparent. I felt like a malfunctioning robot, like Johnny five in the second movie after he got his ass kicked by the bank robbers. Crazy, pissed off, committed, and falling apart.

Eventually I fell onto the bed with the paper in my hand, and I woke up like that this morning. Apparently I tried to set my alarm when sleep was covering me with its leaden blanket, but I didn't set the switch all the way back to the "on" position. I slept in two hours, but since I've been making myself get up at 6 every morning, it wasn't a big deal.

Tomorrow is the review for my final, and then Thursday is our last day. I've started pitching to everyone that we go to one of the mega-clubs in Ostia, just so we can say we did a beach club in Italy. Plus, I want to get completely shitty and discard every bit of Italian language I've absorbed in the past five weeks.

Friday I'm doing the Vatican in a very special way. I'm going with my uncle S. to check out the many artifacts in the museums, etc, and staying up all night in Roma afterwards. Have to pack everything first, and figure out what the fuck to do with the bottle of wine I bought. Shipping is expensive, but I know it won't survive being checked in my bag. I considered hollowing out the memory foam travel pillow my mom gave me for the trip, but it's not long enough to ensconce the neck of the bottle.

This way, though, I get to have one more madcap adventure in the city, rife with history, culture, and Hunter S. Thompson's preferred method of experiential interpretation. Then I can load my shit into a cab, get on a plane, and turn my brain off with sedatives for 9 hours. When I get to Newark airport it will be 11 AM the same day I left, and I can have breakfast in some shitty airport restaurant and pretend I don't have jetlag. It will probably still hit me, but at least I'll have started my circadian rhythm on the proper morning hour.

"Proper." American. Cheeseburgers. Football. MTV. Constantly going. Work. Bush. Texans.

Fuck. I don't want to go home. Just ship me BBQ, texmex, and my cats. You can all come visit me. I don't need the rest of the shit that comes with America. Maybe burning culture, but I can just as easily find that or create it here.

-Sean

Dancing

In this moment
Dancing as free as the air
Screaming, smiling
I don't even speak your language
But now all of you are my friends
And there's nothing you can do about it

Love Parade

This fucking baby wants me to throw it out the front bay doors of this plane. I can hear it in the screams, the complete dissatisfaction with existence as a whole, it's saying "Help me! Please... someone turn this whole thing off! I don't want sentience, just give me sweet oblivion! I want to hit the ground like an overripe watermelon! It'll be fun!"

It would be for me, at least. The plane's about to land, so I can't mask this tiny banshee with some soothing trip hop anymore. Must turn off all electronics, or risk the wrath of a stern and grandmotherly flight attendant. I wish I'd given myself more time in Germany, toe-dipping into an entire country was such a tease, especially when I realized I could actually get laid there if had a few days to work at it. And I need to get laid in a terrible way, I've caught myself making my usual instinctive utterances that I usually think in my head at the site of a nicely curved ass or plump pair of lips out loud.

At the point where it's happening because I'm incredibly sexually frustrated, it could be construed (slightly accurately) as rather creepy. I'm even creeped out by it. I don't want to be the creepy shameless grunting guy, so I need to sort this out.

Probably it will end up having to wait until I get home. Five days isn't a lot of time, and I need to be soaking up the last bits of Rome and studying for my final, instead of throwing my libido at the brick wall that is the seduction of Italian women.

I actually thought about writing this blog entry last night when I was dancing my ass off, and had the problem of where to place the punchline. As I posted in my last entry, Love Parade was this weekend. My mind is reeling at the monumental task of summarizing my adventure. And adventure it was, for this was not some idyllic light touch feel-good journey of touristy exoticas, this was a venture into the very face of madness, which bears a remarkable resemblance to Jim Carrey on a cocaine binge.

You'll have to forgive my overly verbose prose, dear fans di Italia, I'm ever-so-slightly delirious. Remember that hotel room I was going on about, the one I was going to put my bag in and use to hide from the craziness of the parade? Yeah, I got scammed. The accor hotel chain website linked me to a hotel profile in Dortmund, then changed the city my hotel was in on the confirmation page before I clicked to transact. My stupid for not reviewing it more closely beforehand, but I was excited. The hotel was in Hagan, 20 km from Dortmund in the opposite direction of the airport I would be returning to in Dusseldorf. So, they got my money, but I could honestly care less. I survived the weekend budget intact, and had an amazing and unforgettable time.

I arrived in Dusseldorf an hour and a half late, resulting from a mass exodus clusterfuck of the first wave of Roman residents leaving for the month of August. I took the airtram to the main terminal and caught a 2:00 train to Dortmund. I was literally bouncing in my seat in anticipation, but a small part of me was doubting there would even be anything there when I arrived. Stop by stop my worry grew, until I began trying to think of ways I could make the most of the trip otherwise.

Then we Essen. Hundreds of glammed up people drinking beer and howling soccer chants rushed the train. Happily I kept my seat, because everyone else was sardined in, and it only got worse as we went. Soon we were all laughing as the doors opened on teeming throngs who were confronted with an already firmly entrenched teeming throng on the train. There were arguments, standoffs, and bribes. Oh, how they would have taken a different tack, had they known what would happen next.

An hour into the ride the train began to slow awkwardly, halting to a crawl, then chugging forward again, the braking, until at last we came to a full stop in between platforms. Nobody thought much of it, this was Europe after all, public transit is as solid as a horiscope on a fortune cookie.

Time passed, it got hot. People stopped laughing and smiling. More time passed, and people started to get weak and lean on each other, sweaty and pale. Everyone started yelling and banging on the sides of the cars, and suddenly the doors opened and let in a rush of cool wind, eliciting orgasmic moans and sighs of relief. Outside it was gray and raining, and people hopped out of the car to get some air or smoke. Ten minutes later the conductor came on the intercom and said he could not go any further because the rails were blocked up ahead. I didn't find out until much later that night that the reason the rails were blocked was due to a suicidal teenager jumping in front of the train in ahead of us.

With my holistic senses cranked up to 11, I jumped onto the tracks and followed the crowd. We marched approximately 4 kilometers in the rain, jackets over our heads, stumbling on the rocks covering the tracks. The sky started shitting water on us with a spicy curry's late night vengeance, and we started running to a bridge over the tracks about a half mile away. Under the bridge a group was already gathering, singing more soccer chants.

After the rain let up the mass of people split their paths. Some walked on to the next train station down the tracks, others opted to climb the bridge and find a bus to Dortmund in the city, knowing no trains would be going to the next station anyway. I went into the city, and started the English poll ("Do you speak English?"). Combining broken English contributions from five different people, I was able to ascertain that was a way to bus to Dortmund from the main terminal in the city, so we all stood at a bus stop. After milling about for another hour, people began to get restless and creative, and several guys carried police blockades they found down one of the streets onto the road we were on and started dancing around them.

Wiser party hopefuls started walking away, and having already seen a lot of news reports that started out with drunk people doing similar stupid things, I followed. I hadn't even gone 200 yards when four police vans full of cops hauled ass down the street toward the mob. I walked faster.

Ahead a new group was forming at a tram, and here I finally met some people who spoke decent enough English. After finding out I was from Texas, they vowed to get me to Love Parade no matter what, and so we went by Tram to the main station, then by bus to Dortmund, then through four kilometers of hundreds of thousands of wet and disgruntled people, uphill and through the mud. Having to tote my bag everywhere didn't make it easier, since we had to push through crowds to make any real progress. I missed the parade, but wasn't too upset about it since everyone got rained on while it happened. The rain kept returning in sporadic torrents, and everyone would scramble from the streets like cockroaches, hiding massed against the building walls, then return when there was a pause.

We arrived at the main sound system at around 6:30, and the show was just starting. The area was a huge parking lot filled with a sea of people and vendors, with guys climbing and perching atop 50 foot portable construction halogen lights and waving German flags. We pushed our way to about the middle of the area, still nearly a football field away from the stage, and tried to clear ourselves some space while DJ Rush played. Moby went on next, followed by Richie Hawtin, Arman Van Burin, Paul Van Dyke, and a few popular German heavy hitters who's names I couldn't remember. They cycled the acts so each DJ only played for 20 minutes, playing their best peak mixes, then going on to the next.

Now for the punchline. Underworld.

Underworld closed out the night. To some this may not be as significant, but for me hearing the group who made the very first electronic music song I ever listened to (during my first psychadelic experience) was fairly epic, especially when they performed Born Slippy. The Germans who had adopted me were overwhelmed by my enthusiasm, since none of them were familiar with Underworld.

After Underworld was done, someone named Paul Pope did a "Sea of Lights" show with a ridiculously huge array of lights, spot lights stacked 8 high and 12 across, with fireworks, lasers, and color filters. It was a visual jamboree, and put me in mind of the burn at Flipside this year.

The city shut down the sound at midnight, and the crowd started to break apart back toward the train station. My hosts wanted to go home, so I resolved to follow them to the train station so I would know how to get there, then find myself an afterparty. With a piece of paper I etch-e-sketched myself a little map of the town, noting all of the afterparties I passed along the way. Parting with my new friends after exchanging email addresses, I had a huge dinner of sausages and beer, mellowed out for a bit and tended to the toe I ripped open that morning on a door.

Revived and refreshed, I hit the best looking afterparty (largest line, smallest venue, second story balcony overlooking one of the city squares), where happily I coat checked my bag. After trucking it around all day, I felt like I could jump over the moon, and proceeded to drink red bulls and dance my ass off, only stopping to switch rooms, for seven straight hours. The bar had three large rooms, with the Ministry of Sound playing in the one I spent the entire night in. My devotion on the dance floor was rewarded with comped drinks, CD samplers, and difficult conversations with cute girls.

At 7:30 they shut down that afterparty, and I left to find more trouble. As I walked out of the club, I heard a guy on the sidewalk say, "I'm from Australia," then someone he was talking to say, "Cool, I'm from London," so I walked up and said, "Awesome, I'm from America!" That was how I met Fletch (the Australian), who was probably the nearest person to Tucker Max I've ever met. Him and his traveling buddy Brendon invited me along with two girls they had just met, and together we went to an afterparty at a pool. It was great in theory, but when we got there we discovered it was 30 euro to get in. Fletch tried for a while to find a way to sneak in, but eventually we resolved to get wasted and go to a playground instead. Drinking beers, the girls gave us a tour of the city, and eventually we went back to their apartment where they let me clean up and change out of my mud covered clothes. By this point it was 1 in the afternoon, and I bid adieu to the party and headed to the station. Brendon went along, since he was tired as well, and we road back South together, talking with a German teenager about Hitler (he brought it up).

Germans are very sensitive about the way the world perceives them, at least the majority of those I spoke with. Many of them mentioned that Germany was not the way it used to be, and that Nazi sentiments were not popular there, except in some radical political parties who never actually got seated in offices. I never volunteered the subject to them, but they usually brought it up somehow when they realized I was American. I felt bad, especially since the country I was from had more to answer for currently than there's did.

After a long train ride I got to the airport and flew back to Rome. I brought my roomates back two six packs of German beer, since the poor bastards always buy 4 euro Heinekens in Rome. All in all, it was an awesome 30 hours in Germany, but I definitely want to return. If anything, it helped affirm for me the plans I've been laying in my head over the last week, I want to return to Italy next year and live somewhere more rural for much longer, through some program that can set me up with some little shit job to get by. Then I can work here, save money up, and travel to a lot of different countries, all while firming up my Italian even more.

Damn, that was a long post. Sorry. Shiny nickels to everyone who actually read all of that.

-Sean

Special Request

This is a specially requested update, because Ashley is leaving to go camping in a few hours and needs to know what's going on. Lucky for Ashley, even though I didn't go to school today, I stopped in to see if my bank account had been supplied with more widgets.

It hasn't.

I just got back from the beach, I'm all tan and relaxed. I swam out to this rock barrier that the town built there hundreds of years ago so that armadas of ships couldn't attack directly, and would have to approach one ship at a time. I cut my foot. Happily, it was a small cut, since I'm GOING TO LOVE PARADE TOMORROW MORNING!!!!

I didn't take any pictures at the beach, but everyone else did, so I'll just get the pictures of me posing in my silver booty shorts from one of them. I'm about to go to this Irish pub Allison and crew introduced me to last night and play cards whilst drinking cider. Happy about cider. Happy happy happy.

Happy about tomorrow. Fucking ecstatic. Don't even know how to control myself, really. I spent the last hour in my room utilizing space in my backpack for every absolutely necessary item. Got my first aid, toiletries, jeans and second pair of dancing shoes, t-shirt, jacket (it's 60 degrees there right now), and various protein bars and a sack of almonds. Adderal and Ambien are a must. Can't bring my italian books, so I'm making flash cards tonight to do on the plane on my way there.

Downside to this weekend. Monday I have to do an oral presentation on a picture, the theme: A moment out of time. Five minutes I have to spend talking about this picture, five minutes! She even said five to eight! How do you spend eight minutes talking about a picture in a language you barely comprehend without notes? And with maybe three brain cells clicking together, on top of that?

So I've got to bone up tonight, big time. Hardcore. Bone.

With cider.

Can'twaitcan'twaitcan'twaitcan'twait!

-Sean

€276 left, awesome night last night

Man, this is really going to be a photo finish. Yesterday a group of students that were part of a program called "Rails for peace" stayed at our school for a day. Serbians, Kosovonians, Bosnians, Germans, Italians, and Belgians to balance things out. We had no real concept of how tense some of their workshops were, until I spoke with many of them much later on, and had them recount the Serbia-Bosnia-Kosovo connections to me from their own sides.

That aside, a lot of them were hot. And smart. And funny. I made friends with a girl who insisted on being called Swan, because her name was very difficult to say for us, and meant Swan in Kosovo. She spoke five languages, was 19, and had the most amazing stories about being forced to excommunicate Kosovo and live in Germany for two years while NATO bombed Serbia and rebuilt their infrastructure.

Allison and I stayed the whole day with them while everyone else went home for lunch and whatnot. We got to see comedic dramatic performances of what they had learned in their workshops so far, which were chalked full of self-referential humor to terms like "perception" and "input" and mocking a lot of the coordinators for being so stiff-necked.

After that we went out to the Tyver river and hung out at a bar, where we all drank and talked about our native countries. I apologized a lot for Bush, every time someone asked me where I was from and I said Texas, they'd give me this steel-eyed gaze and I'd say, "I'm sorry! We don't like him either, I'm voting for Obama!"

All of the people in the group were amazing, and it overwhelmed me how much they had to get past to just sit in those rooms together. It put me in mind of a similar program in which US students might have to do the same thing with students from all of the nations of the middle east, Palestine, and Israel. Maybe North Korea too.

Today my head hurts, my pocketbook is even lighter, and I've got 9 days left on under 300 euro. Happily, I discovered a chinese food place down the street from my house where I can get 2.50 euro bowls of fried rice and chicken, and can budget the rest of my time here carefully (aside from this weekend. Rules go out the window then).

Now, I must prepare an oral presentation that I have to give on Monday, right after I get back from Love Parade. Imagine how happy I am about that. Just imagine it.

-Sean

Aida!

I went to the opera last night with my school and API to see Aida. Three hours of beautiful costuming, dancing, and people singing in old Italian I couldn't understand if I was twice as good at Italian as I am now. It was beautiful, but it lacked the good stabbing now and again that I had grown accustomed to in American dramatic musical theater.

People did die, though, in the end. It was your quintessential star-crossed lovers tale, set in Egypt during a Roman war campaign against Ethiopia.

I was a little annoyed at all of my fellow students shifting constantly, falling asleep, or giggling at stupid things constantly, but it didn't take away from how amazing it was when a shooting star fell right behind the outdoor stage, which was built into some of the ruins of Rome.

I made the mistake of letting slip to the API coordinator Audra that I was going to Love Parade, forgetting that she was 23 and probably knew what it was, since she does live in Europe. Sure enough, she got the mom voice with me and even went so far as to say, "You DO know what goes on at these things, right? And you're going by yourself? I don't know if that's such a good idea."

I pulled rank on her, though, and reminded her that I'd been a DJ for ten years, then started dropping names of DJ's and such so that she wouldn't worry that I was just going to rave and kill braincells on things that will make me appreciate the texture of a pillow with an intensity no man should ever focus upon an article of bedding.

Now I'm off to do self-imposed homework. That's right, I asked my teacher to give me extra homework. Don't say it, I know. I know.

Fucking dork.

-Sean

Make that 11 days to go on 330 euro!

I booked a hotel room in Dortmund. City center, double bed with balconey, at 70 euro. I figure 100 bucks American is worth a good view of the madness, a place to hide if I'm overwhelmed, a bag drop, and a costume change hideaway.

Save your economic travel tips for someone who cares, I'm raving in style!

-Sean

11 days to go, 400 euro left

CAN HE MAKE IT?!!

DUN DUN DUN.

DUN.

Last night was awesome. Awesome awesome awesome. I made a friend here in our school, this girl Allison from Chicago. She's a fellow polynaut, though didn't really know there were terms to describe the practice. Over the last few weeks we've bonded over talk about relationship styles, partner issues, etc, and last night her, myself, and her two roomates Sam and Jaquelin went to a festival behind Circus Maximus (where the chariots used to race, now a public park).

We were sent there by Davide, one of the teachers here, to see some indie rock band. I never found out who they were, but they sounded very similar to Bjork or Mazzy Star. We didn't actually go inside the area where the stage was, because it was five euro, and we discovered the most amazing candy stand run by a family from Firenze (Florence). I bought a bunch of sugar-dried apricots, and the girls got sacks full of a variety of gummies and jellies.

We traded candies and walked around the festa, stopping in at little shops and occasionally making purchases, talking to shopkeepers and checking out the Italian indie/emo scene. The styles of clothing and makeup are amazingly similar, even down to the lightly scarred undersides of their pale forearms where they used to cut themselves during their "dark" period (middle school).

Candies in tow, we trucked over to Maximus and sat in the park drinking beers and redbull, bullshitting about the incredible nature of the very park itself. Once thousands of Romans would gather there, women never to be allowed where there are now jogging paths, and great steeds would rush around the elliptical track, spurred on by screaming fans and the cracking whips, pouring sweat onto the dusted road, dragging their champion's chariot to the finish. The park is still the same shape as the circus, a bowl surrounding an elliptical track, and in the center were a group of teenagers drinking beer with candles set in a circle around them, probably talking about who-likes-who in their school. Shady gents in hoodies lounged about the center as well, sometimes being approached by nervous looking tourists. Hands would move, items hidden away in pockets, and they would separate.

Allison and I broke away from her roomates, who called it a night early, and returned to the festa with an invigorated lust for the items we wanted but hadn't purchased yet in Italy. I finally bought a second ring for my left hand, successfully replacing some unwanted jewelry with some Italian silver, and a pair of capri pants that it took Allison a good 10 minutes and two visits to the same store front to convince me would look good on me. They're brown and orange stripes, a boldly European pair of pantelocini if I ever saw one. We found her some nice shirt/skirt things, and giggled as the guy behind the table flirted with Allison, commenting on her bust being too big for the shirt, etc.

We resolved to memorize Italian phrases as well as the regular vocab and conjugations we've been studying, so we can at least appear to be good at Italian to anyone we only have to speak to for less than 30 seconds. I still have to stand there and stare at someone when they ask me something to think about how to answer them in the right tense, and move all of the direct objects in front of the verbs, and remember what words mean what, etc. The whole process is exhausting, and not nearly as fun as saying "Basta!" When someone won't leave me alone.

Just found out it's going to be 66 degrees and probably raining in Dortmund for Love Parade, but that's not really getting me down at all. I'm just having a hard time figuring out what to bring with me. I don't want to bring my backpack because I won't have anywhere to deposit it, since I have no lodgings for that night, and I don't want to be overburdened for just a day there when the more I'm carrying means the less easily I'll be able to dance.

Feel free to post comments with suggestions. Right now I'm thinking capri's, boots, short sleeve black shirt, vest, space holster for various items, but that's where my creativity stops. Maybe I'll get one of those plastic collapsible rain sleeves, but I still don't know what to do about a place to put sunglasses, etc. I might have to cave and buy smaller sling bag. Damn me for not bringing my camelback, it would have been ideal for this conundrum.

Of course, the airline might have made me check it, since it is a giant receptical for liquids. Who fucking knows.

Vexed,

-Sean

Tuscany Pictures

I try to put comments in all the pictures, so if you want to see what they say, just click on the slideshow when it's going.

VRM VRM VRM VRM

Somewhere, an engine is turning over. Someone in the driver's seat is smiling to themself, satisified that it's finally working, after they've spent hours under the hood trying to get in running. That's what I feel like today.

Friday I got on a bus with a bunch of other kids from API (the company I went through for my study abroad) and we drove to the Tuscanny region. We went to a ceramics company and got a tour of the facility, with an explanation of the basic principles to making good hand-crafted ceramics. Temperatures for baking certain colors, speed of turning for different shapes, etc. I bought some finery, and we went on our way.

The bus rides were probably some of the best parts of the whole weekend, because I can't even describe how beautiful it is there. I tried taking pictures of it, and my camera wasn't good enough. I tried writing in my travel journal about it, and words failed me. Rolling hills of green, vineyards and crops traced across them in agricultural geometry that runs into bursts of treeline racing throughout the hills in sporadic populations, achingly tall hills topped with 700 year old monastaries crafted out of marble and sandstone, bell towers that reach toward the sun and ring clear across miles of valleys... see, it's just words, and it doesn't do the trick. I started to feel tears pushing at the edges of my eyes when we were at the wine tasting, just standing on the front lawn in front of the cellars and looking out over their fields of grapes. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Next stop on Friday was the hot springs spa. We all got to go frolic in the hot springs fed pool, half indoor, half outdoor, with a little tunnel connecting the two, and I sat under a waterfall they had situated over stone benches, letting the water run over my legs, and poking holes in the cascading liquid blanket with my fingers. I got a full facial and massage, which was a tad bit expensive, but worth every euro cent.

I went into a little quiet room with candles burning, and a woman came in and helped me undress, then put a towel over me and left. I relaxed for a little, and then another woman came in and covered my face in a mask of nutrients that she let set for about 20 minutes. After this, she came back and did a salsylic peel and microdermabrasion, then left. Another woman came in and introduced herself as the masseuse. Tiny, probably in her 60's, and her skill with her hands showed every year as experience. She massaged my face with another nutrient mask and moisturizer, neck, shoulders, hands, feet, and head. Then she left me to nap for another 20 minutes, came back and washed my face, reapplied moisturizer and sunscreen, and sent me on my happy way with an apple and a hot cup of detoxifying tea.

After this, I slept on the bus for the two hour drive to our hotel. The next morning we went to Siena and did a guided tour of the city. I saw the remains of Saint Catherine, literally her skull in a glass case. Apparently the remains of known saints were one of the first forms of tourist attraction in Italy, and so the church that Catherine had grown up in got first dibs on some displayable bits, so they picked her skull and thumb. Couldn't take pictures of it, though. Siena was beautiful, and is a VERY proud town. They don't like Firenze (Florence) and have no problem openly talking shit about Florence at every available opportunity. They even have a tower that isn't taller than one the one in Florence, and so they put a flagpole on it to run their flag higher than Florence's tower. They also have the most beautiful city center I've ever seen. It's like a seashell, and they hold annual horse races there every year.

I abstained from buying anything there, and instead laid on one of the monuments during our free time and watched the clouds sail by. We went to another town that day, San Gimigiano, where I bought a really cool leather mask. The town was tiny, had almost nothing to do, aside from the fact that it was situated in a particularly beautiful area of Tuscanny.

Went out that night with the API kids and drank at the only bar that stays open late in Pienza, where our hotel was. It was not stumbling distance, and so I took it easy and tucked in early. It was nice getting to socialize a bit with the 20 year olds, we managed to talk about our favorite television shows and contrast points on popular music.

... yeah.

Anyway, Sunday was the wine tasting. We did a tour of a few towns beforehand, but it was cold, windy, and raining, and the towns weren't very interesting. By this point I was a little toured out, anyway, and just wanted to do something that didn't involve a lecture I would only retain 10% of later on anyway. So the wine tasting. The Vineyard was beautiful, as I said before, and it was probably the most fun we all had the whole trip. The tour coordinators had to have us all fill out release forms saying that we wouldn't get drunk, etc, etc, because API doesn't condone alchohol abuse. Knowing that I was actually older than the tour coordinators didn't help to make the situation any less laughable.

I discovered a few important things during the wine tasting:

I love being able to drink wine
I love cheese dipped in local honey
I love fish pattè
Desert wines are the shit

I bought the first bottle of wine I've ever bought for myself, and plan to keep it for some years. Some day when I'm old I might crack it open and enjoy memories of the beautiful Tuscan countryside.

We toured the facility and saw the casks that they store the wine in. We couldn't talk very much because sound disturbs the aging process, as do heat, light, and a bunch of other subtle influences. After the tour I bought my wine, then picked lavendar in the front lawn and sat in the grass, staring at the windswept fields below. It was so calming, I just wanted to go buy a hammock and string it up in the surrounding forests coming over the hills. It reminded me of what we talked about in Environmental Psychology, how just the sight of nature can improve mood and cognition, and relieve stress far more effectively than many forms of talk therapy.

We rode back to Rome, having to detour back to our hotel to pick up a jacket that one of the girls had left in her apartment, much to the grumbling of many students. With nothing really to watch on the DVD player, much of the weekend was spent watching two seasons of Friends. I never want to see an episode of that show again for the rest of my life. I'm very serious about this, and will probably get violent with anyone who tries to get me to.

-Sean

Off to Tuscany

Took my midterm, probably got another B. Leaving for Tuscany in the morning, but I leave you with this:

>

-Sean

Had to come back

To the internet point after dinner. Holy fucking shit, was that delicious. Tender, bloody steak, with fried sweet potatoes and kidney bean soup. Throw in some Tiramisu and an hour of undisturbed reading of Gibson and Sterling's Difference Engine, and you have the happy Sean that you see here now.

And man, am I happy. I'm practically fucking beaming. I've got the food giddies like crazy.

I also came back because I forgot to mention the demonstrations yesterday. I wish I could more easily get pictures on here, but leave it to say I felt the presence of the police state of Italy breathing down my neck as I walked back and forth from school and home. The Carrabieri were out everywhere in full force, wearing riot gear and... shaking people's hands?

Big smiles, lots of laughs, helping old ladies cross the street, the MP of Italy apparently want to put out the message Italy's Carrabieri: Surpressing your liberal angst with a smile!

I've got to hand it to them, though, they have some kick ass riot gear. I like their motorcycles too. Make me think of Tron. I'll have to take a picture of all the tron bikes and three wheeled (two in the front) motorcycles here, they're the newest Euro accoutrement, to be worn with your best buttonup and gold fringed tie.

-Sean

I hate to be a product whore

But I love Proactiv. Love love love it. I'm going to write them one of those gushing customer emails about how my life is ten times better with their assortment of face washes and other crap they sell. It's crazy how happy I get just from having my skin be under control, and how much it effects my moods. Crazy crazy, like you could write a paper about this shit.

And in fact, someone already has. Studies have shown that people with severe skin problems tend to be more introverted, easily stressed, and go outside of their homes less. Describes me for the last two weeks to a T.

So yeah, I got my package, after the Italian government raped me and it for money and wrapping. Happy Sean. I'm so happy that I'm treating myself to steak tonight, even though it's a reckless financial decision. I want steak. Steak steak steak. Dead cow, in my mouf, yes please, gimme more.

Tomorrow is my midterm, and it helps that I have to study so much with the whole, "I'm not doing Italian stuff in Italy," lament I've been having. Transitive and Intransitive verbs are my culture conquest here, not statues that I've seen a thousand pictures of already.

Is it wrong that I don't like tourist attractions? I'm in what's regarded by many as one of the greatest ancient sites in the world, ruins everywhere, statues, busts, TONS of history, from Campo di Fiori to the leisurely figure of Trilusa, Piazza Popola to the Vatican Museum, Royal Museum, Collosium, Pyramid, etc, etc, etc, ad nauseum, and all I can think about when I'm in these places is how many fucking tourists there are standing around and gawking.

I see a beautiful statue and think, wow, that's a beautiful statue. I'm hungry. What time is it? Gilato time. Am I shamelessly American? Horribly apathetic? Overwhelmingly uneducated? I know what a great deal of these places represent, the history behind their construction, recreation, preservation, etc, but I just can't get into it.

I know Mustafa is reading this right now (if he's reading it) and gagging, or scoffing at me, or scoffing while gagging, in some kind of scoffgaggery that I've yet to see performed by man. I do have to say that Trilusa was a cool guy, as was Bruno. There's a couple of everyman-joe's who got thrifty with their pens (and in Bruno's case, burned alive for it).

I'm teaching my roomates how to play a card game tonight (after downloading three different sets of the rules and compiling them into the set of rules I actually remember), but I can't really drink while we play because of my fucking midterm tomorrow. Bitch is going to be hard. I'm not worried about the written part, so much as I am about the listening exercise. All of our listening exercises have used this CD where the characters talk ridiculously fast through some distorted medium, a telephone call with a bad connection, a noisey resturaunt, an office with copy machines in the background, and the two other girls in my class and I just stare like labotomized cats at this boombox, waiting for it to get easier.

I'm actually in an internet point across the street from the steak place I'm about to go lavish my tongue at. I keep looking out the window to see if they're open yet. There are so many little things Americans take for granted that would throw an unexpected wrench in one's plans without being aware. Resturaunts, for example, do not open until after 7 oclock. You can hit up pizzerias and panini shops, but most resturaunts close between lunch time and dinner time. Which is why I'm drooling in an internet point, staring at the sign that says i butteri. Just say that out loud, and tell me it doesn't make you want a steak. i butteri. I think my stomach is making noises at me now.

I caved and bought another American book, because as much as I love trying to read So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish in Italian, it gives me a fucking headache after a while. The way I've been doing that is going page by page through a chapter, highlighting words I don't know the definitions of, then making a list of the words, defining them, making flash cards, doing the flash cards for a while, then trying to read the chapter again. It's helping me build my vocabulary a lot, but I'm still somehow a total idiot in conversation.

I did make sure to add the words "bitch" and "treacherous" into my flash cards today. One never knows when they'll need to scream that into the night.

Sweet! They're opening!!! Steak time.

-Sean

Half way!

Man, I knew I was going to be here for a while, but today I woke up and did my usual business getting ready for school, realizing that this was the halfway point in my journey. It made me think about all the things in Rome I hadn't done (including the Vatican), and how I still feel like I can only barely converse in Italian, and badly.

Gaia messaged me last night, telling me in her bad English to be home at 2:30 so that she can force me to talk in Italian. It was basically a command, which made it even more adorable. I'm excited to get another opportunity to hang out with people here, instead of with my roomates (not that they're bad guys, they're just more of the same Americanism I'm trying to escape).

One of said roomates had some face wash that's actually helping, and we're going to a spa this weekend, so I'm getting a luxurious face treatment with massage on API's bill. Excited about that. We're going to Tuscanny on Friday and checking out some Italian countryside. It's a bus tour, so each apartment is trying to get together their own weird set of DVD's to make everyone else watch. We're vying for Super Troopers and Airheadz, and Tank Girl if I can find it somewhere.

I have a whole bunch of homework due today that I'm simply avoiding, which is bad. I should stop blogging and work on it.

-Sean

P.S. Thanks to the special someone who called me last night. That was awesome.

Oh shit

So, my Wells Fargo account is drained.

Looks like some pending transactions didn't go through immediately, and I had an inaccurate view of how much money I had left. Now I have a little over €100.00 in cash left, and that's not going to last me very long. Part of what sucked up the last of my money was going to the doctor yesterday and the prescription he gave me. Felt like shit after this weekend, couldn't get out of bed, so I finally caved and went to get checked out.

In other shitty news, my proactive still hasn't come, and I now don't even want to go outside. I'd post pictures of how bad it's gotten on here, but I can't get the fucking school's wifi to let my picasa on my apple connect. All in all, I'm in a shitty mood today. It's spread on my cheeks, jawline, under my eyes, and just kind of working it's way up. I've started noticing how people look at me like I'm some kind of leper, sticking out among all the smooth faced Italian beauties walking around.

Started shaking I was so pissed off last night, after trying to scrub my face clean with about a thousand different shitty products I've gotten over here, just wanted to hit something really hard. My roomates were all pretty skittish around me, but Eben (the goofy floppy haired one) came in to my room and commanded me to get up and go get gelato with him. Things went better after that, and tonight we're going to go see Wanted for a little touch of home. Maybe we'll get some french fries from McDonalds too, since apparently that's the only thing they can make correctly.

For all the fun I've been having, this trip has been a real insanity well of crazy. Coming here fresh out of the rubble of relationships ending, burning up my power converter (and a wall socket), not having my proactive and getting exploding face syndrome, some flu-like shit, and no money one day before the half-way point of my trip.

Maybe God is getting me back for making the joke about getting stoned and going to the Vatican.

-Sean

Ugh...

My head. Won't move. Can't wake up. Want to wake up. Can't wake up. Must research things for people and stuff.

*slap*

HELLO AND WELCOME TO WEEK THREE OF SEAN'S FIVE WEEKS IN ITALY! IF YOU'D LIKE TO HEAR MORE ABOUT SEAN'S WEEKEND IN FIRENZE, PRESS 1. IF YOU'D LIKE TO SEE PICTURES OF THINGS, PRESS 2. IF YOU'D LIKE SEAN TO POST A COPY OF THE EMAIL HIS NEW FRIEND SENT BACK TO HIM, PRESS 3.

YOU HAVE SELECTED 3.

wow your italian is really a shit but my english is not better ...
yes i wanna met you again of course...i teach you the italian lenguage and you teach me the martial art..when i can i write you a message to see you, cause i work and no have many time . A notice: today i found in the road a small cat and now it stay with me at home is another new friend...hihihi..**

If that's not adorable, I don't know what is. I wonder if it took her ten minutes to write that short message, since it took me that long to write this:

Ciao!

Voglio parlare gratzie di nuovo per il divertimento abbiamo avuto a Amore. Manderó le fotografie a domani, quando ho la volta le fare l'upload. Sono sicuro mie scritte non é meglio di mio parlo. Allora, fammi sappere se vuói a ci incontriamo.

-Sean

Oh well, at least we suck as a team. I'm going to upload pictures here in a bit, and my jacket cost €100.00, for the Nuzzer who was asking.

-Sean

Apeshit Goods

Oh damn. Damn damn damn.

This place is like the mall I should never be allowed into. I already got a bunch of things for family, and after walking back and forth for nearly four hours I caved and bought myself something. Something really expensive. Something I probably shouldn't have spent money on, since I won't even get to wear it until it gets below 50 degrees outside. Leather, black, smooth with asymmetrical cuts and a clasping collar.

Not that expensive, since it would have cost about three times what I paid for it here in America. All in all, I feel pretty good about my shopping experience. I didn't put myself into a financial danger-zone, but I did cut it pretty close.

Now I just have to figure out how to spend the rest of my time in Italy on a gellato-less budget.

THEY BE STEALIN' MAH GELLATO!

-Sean

A night and day in Firenze

Today I woke up with my brain in tiny little pieces all over the inside of my skull, blasted to bits by the berzerker fun I had last night at Amore. I learned a new word in Europe, "bomba," which when said while indicating one's mouth (like you're eating your fingers) is basically universal slang on this continent for disco biscuits. The venue for this event was a huge concrete parking lot at the back of a bunch of warehouses, with large scaffolding stages and booths for water and other goods. I arrived pretty early, on the scale of things, since most other people didn't start showing up until 1 AM.

It amazes me how intimate and friendly people are here, especially guys. I had tons of guys coming up and taking pictures with me, hugging me, giving me high fives, not because they were interested in me sexually, but because they liked my outfit, or the way I danced, or the fact that I was American. I know it wasn't just that lots of people were fucked up, because this was going on before many people even started showing up.

I saw Sasha play, but was constantly drawn away by the intense awesomeness of Magda's set. Lori was right, that bitch is hot shit. She had my ass on the floor and slaving to her beats for almost all of the three hours she was playing. I ran around like a crazy person, crowing at the night, showing off some capoeira moves I'd been practicing in the apartment, and taking the occasional moment to lay on the concrete and let the cool stone soak in and chase away some of the Roman humidity.

It was while I was taking just such a moment that two girls approached me who were sitting some distance away. One was wearing a festa mask, and the other was wearing pants and a shirt made out of a lot of shirts with images from the Peanuts comic strip on it. They started commenting on my attire in Italian, saying that we stuck out together, since I was wearing my Kick-Ass-and-Cut-Hair capri pants, Oakley boots and vest, and my new MP gloves. I told them I was American, and they decided to take me under their eaves and lead me about with gusto. Gaia (real name), the one who had the mask, spoke a little English, so with prompts from her for definitions of words I didn't know, we managed to spend the entire night conversing in Italian. I'm sure that for her it was very similar to talking to a 10 year old with a learning disorder, but she bore through it politely.

In one night I managed to converse more in Italian than I think I have in the last year, and by sunrise when they offered to give me a ride home, I was prattling away about Human Traffic, Carl Cox (who they informed me is playing in Rome next Friday), and a volley of other incidental subjects. It felt great. We exchanged emails and numbers, and she told me she actually lives fairly close to where I live. I have finally made my first Italian friends. At a rave. And then there were glowsticks.

It was funny how at moments I felt like the first white men in America, we would exchange cultural gifts, me teaching them how to do a basic pop-and-lock maneuver and them breaking down the best way to score at a party in Rome, or going back and forth helping each other with lingual techniques.

All and all it was an amazing night, and I got a free ride home out of it.

I slept until about 1, then woke up with the intention of doing Vatican city. After reviewing the status of my brain, energy level, and emotional disposition, I opted to go plot out the free wifi's in the city instead. Failing that, because all of the free wifi's suck, I followed a sudden urge to go to Firenze. Erin offered to let me crash in her apartment while her and her roomates were on an excursion, and I hopped on a Eurostar and met up with her for some of the best pasta in truffle oil I've ever had.

Tomorrow is shopping, then back to Rome. I got to catch a glimpse of all the vendors packing away their wares as I arrived, and I know I'm going to have a REALLY hard time not going apeshit on goods.

MMMmmmmm... delicious apeshit goods.

Now, I think, it's time for gellato.

I'll upload pictures and videos from last night, maybe tonight, maybe Monday.

Cuddles.

-Sean

Pictures from first week in Italy

How to kill time in the computer lab

Thing is, it's really fucking hot here. Pretty much constantly. For those that read this who are burners, imagine 3:30 in the afternoon at Flipside every day when you're on the opposite side of the whole event from the creek, and you don't have a hat. And no wind.

So I stay in the computer lab for the afternoon, usually. Today I'm actually waiting for my package to get here from my parents with a new thing of Proactiv in it. I lost mine in transit, and my face looks like I used poison ivy and sticking my head in a box of mosquitos as cleanser.

I've always heard that if you stopped using Proactiv it would do that, I just didn't realize how severe it would be. I imagine the effect will reverse pretty rapidly once I start using the stuff again. I just really want my skin crack to get here so I can dose up and look pretty again for all the girls I still can't talk to.

So, how to pass the time. Here it's 3:30, but there it's 8:30, meaning everyone is asleep, just waking up, or going to work. I plan to stick around until 5 to see if I'm going to get my box. Of course, I didn't bring my casual reading books with me, because I try to reduce weight as much as possible for walking around with my bag. The hike to school is only about 25 minutes, but sometimes I'll want to go somewhere else after class, like for gellato.

Annnnddd I just got a call from the Italian customs office telling me that they had to open my package because it's illegal to import cosmetics unless for personal use. Guess I can go home now.

-Sean

!!!!!!!!!

So my coordinator, Sophie, has tuned in to the fact that I like to party. She came in to my class right before my test started and dropped a piece of paper with a list of all the active Discotechs in Italy. Then, after that, she showed me an article about a party happening tomorrow night called Amore.

It starts at 9 and ends at 9. Here's the lineup:

Danny Tenaglia- Sasha- Magda

Marco Carola- Guy Gerber

Claudio Coccoluto- Camea

Dj Red - Maurizio Cascella

Francesco Assenza

!!!! Tenaglia and Sasha. Say no more. Say. No. More.

Ok, enough rave talk. We have an Italian assignment to research a famous Italian poet, and I've taken a shine to Trilussa.

Numeri

è vero, ho poco valore,

- diceva l'Uno allo Zero -

ma tu che vali? Niente, proprio niente.

Sia nelle azioni che nel pensiero

Rimani un oggetto vuoto e intuile.

Io, invece, se mi metto davanti ad una fila

Di cinque zeri uguali a te,

lo sai che divento? Centomila.

è una questione di numeri. Più o meno

è quello che succede al dittatore

che aquista potenza e valore

tanti più sono gli zeri che lo seguono.

Numbers

Yes, it's true, I'm not one of value,

- says the One to the Zero -

but what's your worth? Nothing at all.

Neither in the actions or in the thought

You still remain an empty and useless thing.

Me, instead, if I am first of a line

Of five zeros like you

Do you know what I become? One hundred thousand.

It is a matter of numbers. More and less

it's the same that happens to the dictator who increases his power and value

according to the zeros that follow him.

Trilussa was well known in Rome for speaking against the church, government, power in general, and writing of for the people. He often spoke in satire, equatable in some ways to Jonathan Swift. Nothing in his repetoire about eating babies, unfortunately.

Get to download a whole lot of culture next week, lots of walking tours and learning. My head has started to hurt at the end of my Italian classes, and I have to get up and walk around to stay focused.

But yeah, Sasha. Unst unst unst.

-Sean

WOOOOO!!!!

Two things. Important things.

One. I am clutching in my leather gloved hands (I bought some Italian Military Police (Carabiera) fingerless kevlar padded riot gloves) one plane ticket to Dusseldorf, Germany, from which I will depart by train to Dortmund, where I will spend 30 hours dancing my fucking ass off at Love Parade. July 19th.

That's right motherfuckers, Love Parade.

I am a giddy ball of giggly squirmy happy glee right now, just thinking about pumping my fist in the air senselessly for two days.

Point two. Today I have my first test, after which I am going to celebrate by going to check out the discotec scene at the beach tonight. So, more dancing. The tomorrow I'm going to Sperlonga for some small town Italy oceanside tanning and tourism, then the Vatican on Saturday. Sunday will probably be filled with checking out free concerts around town, or I might go up to Florence for that day. I need to go to Florence, gods dammit.

I'm really nervous about my first test. My Italian class is literally my teacher speaking in Italian about Italian for 3 and a half hours, and our book is a book about Italian in Italian, so studying takes about 5 times as long as normal.

Gotta go, test time.

-Sean

Severe lol's

One of my roomates told us about this email that a friend of his found on a girl's computer when she left her email open. It's an intranet emailing system called Blitz, and after discovering this the friend who found it forwarded it to everyone in the school. We read this aloud last night while sipping vodka shots after a hefty pasta dinner.


honey bear, now for a more you and me note--
seeing you on video on my computer was amazing, even whenyou had your clothes on. you really looked beautiful and itmade me miss you terribly. it was wonderful to see yourfacial reactions as you read my words to you. your face ispriceless. so lucious a bear i do not deserve! and yourbody, oh your body. your breasts are really just perfect,and its not, as you suggested just me seeing a lot of breatsand wanting them and dealing with it by telling you i likeyours. yours (mine) are the ones i want, and that is that.and your honey pot...oh love, i know you dont think so, butit is beautiful! no joke love, your peach fish is one of myfavorite things in this universe. your perfect fuzzy pubictriangle is no doubt the most lovely geometric entity in theentire world of shapes. had i known that such a wonderfulshape could exist i might have paid more attention in 10thgrade geometry. oh how your creamy white skin of your tummytransitions into a cute little forest of honey colored hair.how i'd like to run my hand through your jungle of love.how i'd like to rest my head on your tummy, with my chinhair mingling with your down-there hair and my ear pressedagainst your womb so i might hear your cries for me. i betyour womb needs me. i bet your honey pot needs me. babybear sure needs you. perhaps i could work my hand down alittle further and round the corner until i just rest it onyour honey lips. then a little gentle pressure and theneasing off as i begin to rub gently up and down, all thewhile kissing your neck softly. licking your ear until ittickles and occasionally entering deep into your mouth withmy tongue. and then you notice i'm not so innocentlytouching the very top of your honey lips, rubbing up anddown, occasionally straying to your soft thighs and downbelow your honey to your butt. oh love, how i long to touchyou. you'd be wet by now and i'd work my hand slightlyinside you and you'd moan and i'd moan and then my middlefinger would be all the way inside you rubbing in and outand pressing up on the inside of your honey pot. you'd moanagain and say, 'maybe she needs a little kiss' and i wasjust waiting for you to ask! i'd give her a little kiss atfirst. and then a big one. then i'd take you inside mymouth and suckle intently on your honey lips as you screamwith pleasure. then i'd lick you softly up and down withbroad strokes of my tongue. and perhaps you would let mepour warm honey over your breasts and down to your honeypot. i'd start with your love buttons and lick and squeezeyour breasts until you force my head down between your withyour hands. i open my mouth and suck on your lips and startllicking and licking and youre moaning faster and faster andpush my head down so i cant breathe and i'm suffocating inhoney pot delicious goodness. yumm! and then you moan, 'fuckme, fuck me bear and i stop licking your honey covered potof love. you lie on your back with your legs in the air andi come up on to you and you take my hard dick into your handand guide it into your dripping wet pussy. it slides ineasily and you only moan a little. the whole time im moaningand saying, yes anna, yes, im giving it to you. and i amgiving it to you. soft at first and then hard and deep.you moan, fuck me from behind bear. ok love bear, i will.you turn onto your side and wait in the fetal position forme to enter you. i come up behind you and sink my dick deepinside your welcoming honey pot and fuck you hard from theside. then i get on top of you and thrust hard and fastinto your tight and wet pussy as you lie on your side in thefetal position. youre getting close to coming so i get onmy back and you get on top and again take my throbing penisin your hand and shove it forcefully this time into yourneedy vagina. then you move from a kneeling position lyingdown on top of me. you hump your cute little butt up anddown and my dick slides in and out. you go faster andfaster and start moaning and panting heavily. you say, imthink im gonna come soon, and scream fuck me anna. you gofaster and harder and have me pinned down to the bed. i amyours. all for you, my pussy is all for you, you moan as youfuck me. you start screaming and moaning and your wholebody convulses. i thrust a few last hard times deep intoyour pussy and we both scream nonsensical love words as wecome together. our climax is long and perfect and then wejust lie there together and hold each other and whispersweet nothings that mean everything. a happier moment ihave not known love bear! of course you ask for a tissue,and i oblige, limping naked across the room with strainedlegs from loving you so hard. i bring you tissues and youstop up your honey pot, which is dripping with my seamen.we lie together naked until we fall asleep in one another'sarms. a happier moment i have not known love bear!

Back to Italian class I go.

-Sean

Getting ditched in Italy

Sucks.

Last night our school sponsored us tickets to a Monday night Ragga festival, and I wanted to go. I went home in the afternoon and laid down for a nap, and when my roomates left they failed to mention that it was time to go to the show. I woke up about ten minutes after they'd left, threw on my clothes and spent the next hour getting lost looking for the concert. I probably walked three miles after it was all said and done, trying to find the entrance to this park. I'll never forget where it is now, that's for sure.

When I showed up I tried to call one of my roomates to find out how to get my ticket, because the ticket booth was swarmed with hundreds of Roman hippies trying to get in. Turned out after all of my hiking and trying to figure out my location, the coordinator (Sophie) had given away the rest of the tickets to people at the gate.

It was fifteen euro to get in, so I decided to just call it a night and go to bed. What an awesome blog adventure. Sean doesn't make it to a show and goes to sleep early.

Oh! New developments! The psychotic birds that wake us up every morning with their horrific shrill cries are gone!!!

YAY!

Now, instead of Italian banshee birds, we have nail guns, hammers breaking floor tiles, and American pop music on the radio of the construction workers currently destroying the apartment across the courtyard from us. I've started constructing a list of phrases to yell at them when I wake up and get really pissed off about it.

I've been trying to upload my first week pictures from Italy, and my computer is being a cranky bitch. Soon'come. Soon.

-Sean