Friday, August 20, 2010

Same Same But Different

It's odd how you forget somethings. I forgot about the ants.
To be more specific, I used to know how to deal with them. In Bangkok, I lived a year being able to know which ants to kill, how to kill them, whether they were harmless and invading my things or evil. I also used to be able to follow an ant trail like nothing else. Last night, at around 1 in the morning, as I was getting ready for bed, I decided to find one of my journals, to leave a little poem about Athens and my travels so far ( to be posted soon) and instead found an infestation of sugar ants. An infestation is a bit of exaggeration, but now still, in the morning, I have no clue where they are coming from, where they are going, If they are eating my sweets, infesting my suitcase or what exactly is happening. I bashed them with the magazine and you would believe that I had never dealt with them before. I'm not one to be afraid of spiders or ants or anything of the sort ( the ones that fly, send me flying out the room however.) I was abashed at my behaviour last night, so for now I have a collection of small sugar ants in my suitcase.
I will solve the myserty of what they need soon, hopefully before I take them with me to Italy.

SPEAKING OF ITALY,
I am set to fly to BOLOGNA on September 6th. I have only 3 hours traveling and a two hour lay over in Rome. I am terribly excited and terribly conscious that my Italian is seriously under par. So like any golfer in languages, I'm practicing.


I purchased, at Winners before I left a book on sale from 30 to 7$ (5.52 Euros according to Wolfram Alpha) and this book "ITALIAN BEYOND BASICS" complete with a 7-cd set, is helping me practice my ghastly pronunciation, understanding and reviewing my grammar.

Here, you ( yes that's right YOU!) can learn Italian too:

Parlo motlo in Italiano perché voglio impararlo bene!
I speak Italian a lot because I want to learn it well!

Non buttare via la pasta! mangiala!
Don't throw the pasta away! Eat it!

Io abito a Bologna!
I live in Bologna!

Just from that you've learned vocab! grammar of present tense ( sentence 1 & 3) infinitive of the verb to throw ( sentence two) and that I will live in Bologna. Oh My, what a great lesson!


Continuing on, I "google mapped" my address and here it is: MY HOME FOR THE NEXT YEAR.
Street name?
Via Stalingrado. It's meant to be, honestly!



Also, lasting note, If you have no idea what Wolfram Alpha is- get ready and excited.
It's a pretty excited website which groups together useful data.
Try heading to the website ( if you're bored, which you must be if you're reading my blog!) and type in "7 Euros to canadian dollars" or any mathematical equation ( you might even get a graph) or just head to the example page. My personal favorite though, is typing in my own name ( there is a dwarf planet out there somewhere named Veronika.) It also tells you how common your name is, in the world. Languages are pretty sweet too. Then if you're getting bored do a comparison.
Such as: Dan vs John
Audrey Hepburn vs James Dean
or my favorite: Japanese, Italian and English.

BAM! tables of information.

Well it's time for me to get ready to go to Corinth.

BLOG you later, alligator.


1 comment:

  1. why is via stalingrado meant to be?!
    can you teach me how to say "i miss your face" in italian. haha

    and ps.
    IM READY FOR OFFICE STORY TIME!!!
    and FA book writing!

    oh and DUDE!
    at walmart in lameville (aka oakville)
    i found OAKVILLE postcards!!!
    i didnt even know our town was cool enough to have postcards!
    SOOOOOOO send me a postcard!
    i'm gonna e-mail face my address and you e-mail face YOUR address in response!
    and i will send you LAME but totally AWESOME postcard of Jokeville :D

    ALSO...do you have new awesome euro phone number?

    ReplyDelete