frutti.gummi

For the past month, my shoes have been making squeaking sounds whenever I walked on wet surfaces. At first, I just ignored it since it's seldom wet here. Then on one wet day, I was walking about 10ft behind a couple of guys and my shoes were squeaking so loudly that those guys turned around to see what's making the sound. I pretended I didn't hear anything and started walking much slower. I suspected it's caused by drying them in the dryer earlier. When I moved, I wanted the shoes to be cleaned before I put them into the luggage. So I washed them by hand and had difficulty drying them. At first, I put them on my window ledge but the wind was blowing so strongly that day that I was afraid they'll get blown away. I took them back in and put them on top of the heater. It didn't get any drier so I decided to put them into the dryer for about 25 minutes. It turned out still a bit damp and I left it on the heater overnight. I was quite relieved that they turned out ok. Well, when I checked just now, I found out that some parts of the sole are loose! I guess the some of the glu did have melted under the heat. This is most probably the cause of the squeaking sound. Now I need to find a glu for it and hopefully they sell it in the supermarket.

I have classes starting at 8:30am every day and amazingly, I'm not struggling to get up eventhough I still go to bed around midnight. Wonder if I can keep it up for the rest of the semester. Hehe. The classes here are more technical and some of them involved programming. I have only started installing the necessary development tools and have yet to get my hands dirty. The projects are due in the end of the semester so there's time for me to learn Java and OpenGL again.

It's very inconvenient to do shopping here as the shops are closed in the middle of the day for lunch (usually 3 hours) and then closed for the day at 6pm or 7pm. In addition to being closed on Sundays, the shops are also closed either on a Monday mornings or Wednesday evenings. It's a great place to work! Also, there are no department stores here so it's quite difficult to figure out where to buy stuff and things here are more expensive than Germany.

Food here is nice. Even at the Mensa, you get a complete Italian meal with bread, pasta or riso, meat or fish, salad, fruits or dessert, and water or coffee. After taking lunch at Mensa, I'm still full in the evening so I usually just have bread or fruits for dinner. I haven't been cooking much either. So far, I've only been making pasta and frying up some fish fingers and chicken nuggets at home. I also found instant risotto packets with various flavors that cooks in 15 minutes. There's only one small pan and 2 big pots in the kitchen and it's difficult to cook the stuff that I wanna make with those. I also feel like I need to cook fast since my flatmate would want to cook next. Had a cooking session with a couple of friends for Friday's dinner. My contribution was abc soup and stir-fried veg. Hehe got others who can cook the meat.

Since I don't have internet at home, I think I would be more productive at working with school stuff. Sometimes I would bring my laptop to school for the internet since there's wifi and stay in school till 8pm or until I feel hungry. Luckily the school lab is also open on weekends so if I need internet, I can go back to school. The bus runs every 20 minutes Mon to Sat or can also walk down the hill for about 20 minutes. At first I did thought of getting internet service but found out it's expensive to hook up the service on my own as it'll cost about 50€ a month for both phone and adsl. Without internet, only weekends would be boring if didn't go anywhere. I thought of getting books to read but the bookstores here don't carry English books. I have yet to check out whether it's possible to change the language of the DVDs here to the original English version, not the dubbed Italian version. If possible then can rent some DVDs to watch.

My new room is on the top floor of a 4-story apartment building. The 2-bedroom apartment is shared with 2 other lovely ladies who have been living in the apartment snce last Sept. There's a washing machine in the bathroom so no more paying for laundry :) There's no dryer though and there's a drying rack. Would be nicer if there's mircowave or oven. I quite like my room except for a few things. There's no internet connection at home so I have to go to school for internet. Luckily the school's lab is open during the weekends and there's also wifi. It would also be nice to have a proper window. The only window in my room is the door that leads out to the balcony with a view of neighbor's backyard. They should use glass doors like the German's which can be opened like a door with hinge on the side or opened like a window with the hinge at the bottom. The bed is a bit small but more comfortable than the one in Germany. If my have my furry friends with me, then they would have fallen off the bed when I wake up the next morning.

Home in Bonn -> Colgone/Bonn airpot -> Venice Marco Polo Airport -> Venice train station -> Verona train station -> Trento train station -> Trento bus stop -> Home in Povo.

on the flight from cologne/bonn to venice, you get to look down at the alps. the view is just so amazing!
venice seems very interesting. we dragged and carried our heavy luggages across the streets to get from the bus staton to the train staton across the canal.
if i knew there are so many freaking stairs, i wouldn't have agreed to walking and insisted on taking the boat! we have to cross a few small bridges on the same side to get to the main bridge to cross to the other side. all the bridges are made up of flights of stairs. the small bridges has about 1o steps up and 10 steps down. when we got to the foot of the bigger bridge, we were already quite tired. so took a few minutes break and continued going up the bigger bridge. this bridge is twice the size of the smaller bridge. i only managed to get half way up and i just didn't have the strength anymore. then, a very nice man approached and helped me carry my luggage all the way across the bridge. :D since my friend said there are no more stairs to the train station, i was quite relieved. but when we got to the train station, more stairs! up the stairs to get into the station. when we changed train in verona, the next train was in the other platform so we had to go down the stairs and up agan. there are no escalators and no evelator on sight. actually, even to carry the heavy luggage onto and off the train is difficult because the platform is at the same height as the train's wheels. when we finally got to trento, the last flight of stairs awaits us. it's like one and a half stories high. after we got the keys to our apartment, we took a bus there. when we got off the bus, we still had to walk up the slope to get to the apartment. even pushing/dragging the luggage up the slope is very tiring.

lesson learnt: my luggage was 24kg and i can only lift it up with both hands and only carry it for max 10 steps. the next time i travel, i won't pack luggage until i can't carry it comfortably.

train system compared to germany:
1. in germany, escalators and elevators are availble and can be easily spotted.
2. in germany, the platform is usually at the same height as the floor of the train and the gap is quite small so you can just drag your luggage out.
3. in germany, you know which platform the train will leave and arrive when you buy the ticket. in italy, you have to check the board and wait for it to update. when we were in venice, people are standing in front of the board, waiting for it to update the platform number. when the platform number for our train was updated, the train in that platform was already there in front of us while we were waiting!
4. in germany, they announce the stops and train connections. in italy, you have to look at the time or look out the window. when we changed train in verona, one of us had to run down the platform to check the board which platform for our next train.
5. german trains are nicer and also more expensive