Just another day ... in paradise?

Tuesday, September 08, 2009
What a tease. I just tried to see if maybe I had wireless in the apartment again and it said I was connected, but the page wouldn’t load. So … no wireless. BOOOO!

I go to bed a lot earlier than I ever did back home, but often I just stay up a bit longer reading The Shadow in the North. It’s that book I swiped from the book exchange back in Kilkenny…shhhh don’t tell anyone, but I didn’t have anything to exchange. Marcus said he had an extra though. It is set in Victorian London involving murder, mystery, fraud, conjurors, and private detection. All things I love to read about, but the heroine is kind of making me mad right now. I couldn’t take it and I skimmed through the last few pages to see what happens. I was devastated to find that they kill off the dog, an Irish Wolfhound named Chaka. How dreadful!!! Why must they always kill off the dog? What did he ever do besides try to protect his master? Another character dies too, but not the girl it seems. A lot of people would be going crazy right now and calling me all sorts of names for hearing that I’ve cheated the book by reading the ending, but it ruins nothing for me. I will still enjoy finding out how the ending comes to pass as much as I would have before. It takes very little to get me back in the trance of a good book, hanging on the edge of every word. Knowing just saves me a lot of worry and stress. It’s the same with movies. I admit that you should never watch a suspenseful movie with me if I know you have seen it before. I will be asking questions the whole way through.

That’s one thing that is getting at me a little about this trip and one thing that is also intriguing at the same time. There is no one to ask what is going to happen, and I have to bide my time waiting for a potential employer to call and hire me. Zach and I said that we’re giving it 3 weeks from Friday and then we shall travel a bit and head home about mid October. But I hope it won’t come down to that. I really want to stay till Christmas. I think the dynamics here will change a lot through the holidays to make it beautiful. I wouldn’t mind staying if I had a job to keep me busy. That said, I passed out 5 more CVs at 8 different places I went today.

Becky woke me up around 11. To clarify I was up at 9, but it was raining and gloomy, so I went back to bed. She wanted to walk around town, so I went with her from souvenir store to souvenir store (by then it was sunnyish). I ate some leftover tortellini for lunch. I thought it was even better than the night before. Could be because the flavors sat and marinated together overnight or could be because something you’ve just cooked doesn’t taste as good as when you just get served the food. Since some time had lapsed, it was like I hadn’t cooked it.

I went to the library today to check my e-mail hoping someone had decided to e-mail a work request instead of call, but nothing turned up. I poked around a bit and checked out the soundtrack to South Pacific and a book by Joseph Conrad, The Secret Agent. Last night I downloaded a bunch of podcasts off itunes, which I found out were free! I got a few travel documentaries and then some “stuff you never learned in history class” segments.

Later in the evening Zach and I went over to Becky’s hostel hoping to find some DVDs, but they had none so we played trivial pursuit 90s edition, - that game is hard! Too hard. We picked up scrabble instead. It got a little creative – mostly my fault! Nky is a word – shorthand for Nike – and yes, I use proper nouns. After the games Zach said he was going for a run. It was about 9:30. I was planning on running tomorrow (since I don’t run at night alone), but I asked if he would mind company. We ran a good 15 minutes. It was cold, so my chest was burning, but I felt like my body needed the run. I have been getting really tired after I eat and feeling kinda blah. Steady exercise really makes a difference in bodily functions. I’m a bit sore, but in a good way, nothing I can’t stretch through. I’m hoping to find a park or somewhere to run. The streets make me cough with all the smells and exhaust. Plus, I don’t like all the stares. The best way to get a European’s attention is to run. It’s something of a novelty over here. They wouldn’t know what to do if they saw all the runners on Chapel Hill’s campus. People just look at you run by like it’s the first time they’ve seen a runner. I guess they mostly stick to gyms and such or just walk a lot. I’ve never seen a European run outside of a match. Anyone I saw in Florence running was always an American student – you could just tell. There aren’t many American students here at all, so no runners just alcoholics.

That is what you see a lot of around here. Correction – hear a lot of. Being that our apartment is center city, I hear a lot of people mostly young adults out at all hours of the night. It’s every night too. They could give the college greek system a run for its money over here. I’d like to know the average number of liver transplants or some statistics on cirrhosis here compared to other countries. It’s crazy. I’ve seen drinking in plenty of countries, but I’ve never seen the number of drunks this high. I heard on BBC before I came over here that the British and Irish are known in the rest of Europe for binge drinking. I understand what they mean now, and I haven’t even been out to really experience the nightlife yet, I can just hear it and see it occasionally.