Rik's Blog

My First Trip to the Philippines, Day 12

2010-09-16T11:00:00.002+02:00

Day 12

I love big cities. I especially love seeing big cities in other countries that I’ve only ever read about or seen in movies, TV shows, books or magazines, so I was eagerly anticipating doing a little sightseeing around Manila today and even more so because Tita Conchita and Tito Willy were born and raised here so who better to have as tour guides? Unfortunately, this being the rainy season, we were not able to see as much as I’d hoped. Instead, we spent just about the whole day at…wait for it…the mall. But that was still pretty cool believe it or not, at least at first (more about that later). After 10 days in the provinces, it was nice to spend a day in a big, modern city with all its conveniences. First stop? The coffee shop for an espresso of course. Starbucks and Starbucks-type coffeehouses have gotten very popular in Asia over the past few years and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more Starbucks in Asia than in the US these days (As Conchita says). They’re just everywhere. I remember going to Thailand a few years back and it wasn’t uncommon to see two Starbucks right across the street from each other. Same with Hong Kong. I personally hate Starbucks so I avoided it but the coffeehouse we went into served the same exact kind of coffee as Starbucks – burnt. So not the best espresso ever but what the hell, after ten days drinking nasty instant Nescafe, I’ll take it.
After that it was lunch time so we hit a Chinese type place and it was phenomenal. The Chinese food here is just so much better than in the US or Europe, I could eat it all the time. Tita Conchita was born in Manila but she is actually Taiwanese so she knows her Chinese food. After that we strolled around the mall for a bit on our way to the ice cream place to get some halo halo. Along the way we hooked up with the wife’s cousin Gie and her sister. The halo halo was just awesome – I got mine with avocado and purple yam ice cream, my two new favorite flavors. As I mentioned in one of my earlier entries about halo halo, everybody seems to make it a bit different and with different ingredients and imagine my disgust when I noticed that this place put corn in their halo halo. Now, I’m sorry but…corn? In ICE CREAM?! WTF. Other than that, it was delicious, I really love halo halo.

We hadn’t really planned on doing any shopping but the wife wanted to go check out the DVD store as she usually manages to buy a bunch of DVDs for like a buck or two a piece when she comes here. Meanwhile, Gie and her sister took the X Man into the huge arcade place next door to play some games. I joined them after a bit and it was actually a fun place, reminded me a lot of a place called Funworld back home although at least half the place was devoted to rides and games for smaller kids. The wife’s father was accompanying us and it was kind of funny to me to see him watch the kids playing in this place and wonder what must have been going through his mind. This is a completely different world than the provinces. They had one of those “strong man” things where you hit the thing with a huge mallet and see how high your power meter goes so I decided to give it a try. I reached a max of 82, which wasn’t too bad considering that the high for that day was 83. I told the wife’s father to try it because, despite his small size, he is literally as strong as an ox so I thought sure that if I hit an 82, he should be able to hit 90 but to my surprise, the highest he could get was 77. Apparently I got game baby.

Outside the arcade place was another little Starbucks-type coffee stand with all kinds of drinks, sandwiches, desserts, etc so we took a break and I had my espresso while everyone else ate sweets. There was a slightly uncomfortable moment for me as we had asked the wife’s parents if they wanted anything and even though you could see them practically drooling as they looked at the decadent chocolate cakes and cheesecakes and such, they were too shy to say they would indeed like a piece. I honestly think they didn’t want me to spend the money on them, even though it was just a freaking piece of cake. So we got a piece for them anyway but we literally had to force them to eat it. I didn’t want to be rude but all I could think to myself was “Cripes, would you just eat the damned cake, it’s not going to bankrupt me!” Not long after, Tita Conchita and Tito Willy joined us and informed us that there was a ban on driving downtown that just went into effect until 5pm so we were stuck in the mall until then. It was like 3pm at the time so we had to kill two frigging hours in the mall with nothing to do. Man did that SUCK. They were planning on taking us to a comedy show tonight but since we were stuck in the mall Conchita decided we would just get some beer, some KFC and have a little party at their house which sounded fine to me. The X Man and I wandered around the mall a bit, then the wife and I checked out a store where I bought a couple of nice dress shirts, we had more coffee and eventually 5pm rolled around and we took off. We got to KFC in Quezon City and man it was PACKED. Filipinos love fried chicken so KFC is very popular here. In fact, that’s one of the first things I found out about the wife was that her favorite place to eat was KFC. Unfortunately we don’t have a KFC on the base, we only have a Popeye’s which I guess is not as good. At KFC, we met up with Gie’s partner Mel (yes, they are) who joined us for dinner before we headed back to the house. Conchita broke out the beer and snacks (nuts, nogaraya, etc) and we sat there chatting for a while. Somehow the topic of basketball came up and Mel mentioned that she loves the NBA so I asked her what team she liked and to my pleasant surprise, she said she’s a huge Celtics fan! I love that girl. The wife’s mother must have been feeling left out because she actually decided to try and drink a beer. She finished about half of it and then had to go lay down because she wasn’t feeling good, God bless her heart…

Gie and Mel were planning on hitting a nearby bar later on and asked if we wanted to join them. Originally I said no because it was already late and I didn’t want to stay out all night the night before we flew home but eventually my party side got the best of me and I figured hell, I can always sleep on the plane so we agreed and said that the wife and I would go with them, as well as her father who wanted to go out and have a good time with us on our last night here. They made it sound like a karaoke bar so the wife’s mother decided to go as well which I immediately did not think was a good idea. And sure enough, she did not look comfortable all night in a bar where people were getting drunk and dancing and stuff. Not only that but it wasn’t really a karaoke bar, it was more like a bar with a girl performing on stage, you could request songs for her to sing or you could even request to sing a song yourself (for a 100 piso “tip” of course). We were all a bit tipsy by the time we got there so we were having a good time from the start and when the girl saw that there was a white guy in the audience, she came right over to me and started interviewing me. Afterwards she asked if I had a request, I said “Yeah, sing ‘Crazy’ by Patsy Cline!” and she did…but only after forcing me to go up on stage and sing it with her as a duet. At first glance, the chick appeared to be smoking hot but when I saw her up close, under the lights, well…let’s just say we suspected she might be a tranny. In fact, several times I joked that next time I go up on stage I was going to stick my hand up her skirt just to see what she was packing. She also was a bit rude – she kept calling the wife “African”. For some reason, most Filipinas want to be white, so much so that skin whitening products are big business here. I guess they think it’s more attractive, I don’t know. But up in the north where the wife is from, most people are really dark skinned (like the wife). It’s kind of amusing to me to see all the Filipinas trying to lighten their skin (one of these days I’m going to walk around Manila yelling “ALL Y’ALL TRYING TO LOOK JUST LIKE ME!) while back home in the US and Europe everyone is always trying to look darker.

Anyway, the rest of the night was freaking awesome, I was having such a great time that I even got up and did my trademark ‘Copacobana’ as well as joining some Filipino dude for the end of ‘Faithfully’. I also spent some time out on the dance floor tripping the light fantastic with Gie (the wife was too chicken) and her sister. I can only imagine what was going through the wife’s mother’s mind as she watched us! But quite honestly, I didn’t care, I was having so much fun I wasn’t going to let anyone ruin it. In fact, the wife and I were thinking about just staying out all night since it was such a great time but then I ran into her father in the bathroom. I was coming out as he was going in and he was swaying very badly and was obviously very drunk so I figured I’d better watch out for him. I practically had to carry him back to the table so I told everyone that we’d better leave because he was in a bad way and I didn’t want anything bad to happen. He is not a beer drinker at all but had been drinking beer with us all night so I think it was affecting him more than he thought it would. We grabbed a cab and headed home but I gotta say, the last night here was probably the most fun as I just love nights like this and the wife and I never get to enjoy them anymore with the two rugrats. I told Conchita that next time we come, we’ll plan ahead better and next time we’ll be staying out ALL night.

Oh well, last night here. Sad, but at least we made the most of it. Filipina lesbians…who knew they were so much fun?!

My First Trip to the Philippines, Day 11

2010-09-14T13:40:00.002+02:00

Day 11

Not much to say about today as most of it was spent on the bus. It was hard to say goodbye to everyone this morning but here I am back in Manila. I can’t believe my vacation is almost over and I can’t believe it’s only been about 10 days, it feels like I’ve been here for years. Got up this morning and had some tortong talong for breakfast as usual, then started the tedious chore of packing up. While we got ready to go, we went through the usual routine of taking a bunch of last minute pictures and saying our goodbyes to anyone who wouldn’t be coming with us. We had to carry our suitcases all the way to the bridge and it’s so frigging hot that by the time I got there I was just soaked with sweat so the wife’s sisters had to settle for business-like handshakes instead of the usual goodbye hugs. We loaded everything onto the tricycles and headed for Rosario to catch the bus. The wife went off with Luca to get some diapers and her mother went off to get some drinks and snacks for the bus ride and her father sat with the tricycle, leaving me standing at the bus stop watching over all the bags which was a little uncomfortable because every single person in the area was staring at me constantly. At one point an older woman walked up to me and started asking me something in Tagalog (or some other language) and even though she didn’t look disheveled or unkempt in any way, it seemed t ome that she was begging for money. I just told her I didn’t understand and she gave me a weird look and then sat down on the bench next to us talking to nobody in particular. A little while later the wife’s mother came by and the crazy lady saw her talking to me so she got up, walked over and started talking to her about who knows what. I don’t know what they were talking about but a couple times during the conversation I distinctly heard the wife’s mother say “In Jesus name…” so I figured I’d better stay out of it. Eventually the bus came by and we loaded all the bags in and got aboard. The ride was long but pretty comfortable. The bus was air conditioned and was so chilly that the wife’s parents, as well as the X Man and Luca, all wore jackets. For me, it was paradise. The ride went a good 5 hours or so but I could not sleep a lick as it was a good chance to see more of the country which I always enjoy, even if it is through a bus window. Just outside of Manila however, the skies opened up and it poured so hard that I couldn’t see a thing. For some reason the bus dropped us off at a different stop than everybody seemed to be expecting so we stood under a building awning in the pouring rain while we waited for Tita Conchita to make her way through the congested madness of the Manila traffic.

So here I am Tita Conchita and Tito Willy’s house in Manila (Quezon City to be exact) with visions of the beach and the provinces in my mind. The plan is for Conchita and Willy to spend the day tomorrow showing us around Manila which I’m really looking forward to but I have to admit that I really miss Pangasinan.

One interesting thing did happen during my last night at the wife's parents' house, or this morning I should say. I got up in the middle of the night, sometime around 2 or 3 am and I had to take a leak really bad so I stumbled to the bathroom, turned on the light, and as I was about to go in, sitting there on the wall near the floor was ANOTHER huge freaking spider. I turned around, shut the light off and went and pissed outside, although I did manage to get a picture of the bastard first.

So in case you’re keeping score, there were zero snakes but three huge, ugly spiders.

My First Trip to the Philippines, Day 10

2010-09-13T19:18:00.001+02:00

Day 10

Roding came by early this morning and we were able to take a good look at the inside of the beach house. It’s about what I expected, a little better even. Like I said, it’s not huge but it’s perfect for what we would use it for – a yearly vacation house on the beach and a possible retirement venue someday. I was probably about 75% certain that I wanted to buy it after seeing the outside yesterday and after seeing the inside I’m probably closer to 90% now. I told the wife to get the contact info before we leave and we’ll call the owners when we get home to see what we can work out.

As far as the inside, you walk in and there’s a cozy little living room area with a nice leather couch. Plenty of room to put a TV and a few other things too. Go down the hall and there are two bedrooms, a master bedroom with a double bed and a second bedroom with two single beds. At the end of the hallway is a little kitchen with a sink and a gas stove and next to that is a small bathroom with a flush toilet and a shower. You can tell the place has not gotten much use in a while (with the exception of the bedroom I’m guessing) as it needs to be cleaned up a bit but for the most part it’s ready to be moved into right away if someone wanted to. And really, that’s one of the main selling points for me; the fact that it doesn’t require any additional construction. For example, Nestor showed us another lot down the beach that was a lot bigger, had a lot more land and that could probably be had for about the same price as this one however there is no house on it, it’s just a big plot with a few nipa huts. So even though it’s a lot more land, I’d still have to spend at least another 20k or more to clear the land and put a house on it and from what I’ve heard and read about hiring contractors here, well, that’s just a road I don’t want to go down. The place we’re looking at is already built and furnished and since I am planning on paying cash for it, we could own it outright and use it right away without having to invest any more money in it with the exception of a few small things like an air conditioner and a TV and such. And one of the best things is that the wife’s family live so close that they can use it whenever they want which they seem to be thrilled about. We haven’t even bought the place yet and her mom is already thinking of possible businesses to set up during peak season to make some extra money. I told her that if we get it and they want to clean it up and fix it up a bit, they can rent it out and keep whatever money they make off it. I’m not interested in trying to use the place as some kind of business venture, it’s strictly a vacation place for us. With the X Man in school and Luca starting in another year or two, we’ll most likely only be here during the summer months (June, July or August) and peak season here is March-April so that would work out well. I’ve met and heard about plenty of guys that come here and think they are going to start a business and get rich and end up losing their shirt and I ain’t going to be one of those guys. I still have to wait til we get home to talk to the owners and this is the Philippines after all where nothing is easy so there’s every chance we won’t ever end up owning it but I’ve gotta admit, I spent most of the day thinking about the place and what we could do with it if/when we get it. Air conditioning is first and foremost of course but after that I will have to look into putting a karaoke machine in the nipa hut. Eventually I’d like to put a pool table in there as well. The wife’s family are very industrious, good at carpentry and stuff like that and they’ve already told us that they will do all the cleaning and fixing up that needs to be done for us. Since they’ll be using the place a lot more than us it’s probably only right that they do anyway so I’m glad they offered. I feel a lot better about buying the place knowing that they are close and will be taking care of it for us. Hopefully things will work out.

Anyway, the rest of the day was pretty uneventful. We took a tricycle to Dagupan City to hit the ATM before catching a bus back to Rosario where we did some shopping at the market. The stares continued as usual which you’d think I’d be used to by now but it still is annoying. Got back to the house in the early afternoon and then we went over to visit Steve and Jovi which was a lot of fun. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this already but Steve arranged to have a pool table delivered to Jovi’s family’s house since he was going to be here for an extended amount of time on this trip and would need something to do. So we ended up playing pool and drinking Red Horse beer most of the afternoon and into the evening which was great. Eventually they broke out the karaoke machine – I’m telling you, the Filipinos are INSANE about karaoke – and we sang when we weren’t playing pool. Jovi’s family has like a complete freaking sound system set up in their yard too, it’s amazing. It’s like being in concert with all the speakers set up. I did a few songs (including my trademark ‘Copacabana’ of course) and then they brought some food out and invited us to stay for dinner but since we’re heading back to Manila tomorrow for a couple days before flying out on Saturday, this is our last night at the wife’s parents house so I told them that we really should do dinner there, with her family.

Our last night here turned out to be really memorable. The whole family was outside the front porch/terrace type area and we enjoyed a few drinks together, shared some stories and remembered some of the funnier moments from our stay here. At one point I asked the wife to translate for me as I spoke from my heart and made a toast to our last night here. Basically I said that I’ve enjoyed every moment that I’ve been able to spend with all of them and that I am so happy to finally meet everyone after so long. I thanked them all from the bottom of my heart for everything, especially for making me feel so welcome. With that, I raised my glass to the wife’s father and we drank together. Then it was his turn to make a little speech. He started out by saying how sorry he was that they didn’t have a lot to offer – at this point I interrupted and told him that we may have more money or luxuries than them but they have so much more than that…the closeness and the bond that he and his family have is something I’ve never experienced before and they have far more than I’ll ever have. Kind of corny I know but what can I say, Red Horse makes me emotional. He then went on to describe the immense joy he felt at my being here. He said that he was worried that he would die without getting a chance to meet his son in law and the fact that I’m here has made his life complete. It was a cool moment, fitting for my last night here. I’m really going to miss these people when I leave, they’ve made quite a mark on me.

The wife and I were talking earlier tonight and apparently I’ve made quite a name for myself here, folks all over the Barangay have been talking about me. I guess my little stroll around the Barangay impressed a lot of people, including the wife’s family. They say that of all the white guys that have come here over the years, I’m the only one that left a favorable impression; almost all the others that come here act arrogant and don’t make any effort to try and meet people or even be cordial to the locals so I guess I did something right. Even Cesar (the ladies man) told them that of all the white guys who he’s ever met here, I’m the first one that he really liked. I think a big part of it was the party we had at the beach, I like to have a good time and spent the whole day and night laughing and joking around with everybody and I think that more than anything left a favorable impression. Whatever it was, I’m just happy my first visit went so well. I’ve honestly had a blast here and can’t wait to come back in another year or so. The first day or two was a little rough as I adjusted but eventually I felt right at home here. Using the bucket to flush the toilet or the tabo to take a bath is really no big deal. Overall I feel perfectly comfortable here. The only bad part about it is the boredom and the unbearable humidity although I think the humidity feels worse than normal because of all the extra weight that I’m carrying right now which makes me sweat more than usual. I’m sorry to have to leave tomorrow morning but I’m really looking forward to seeing Manila before we leave.

So my time in the provinces is up and after 10 days, not a single snake. I’m actually a bit disappointed to be honest…

My First Trip to the Philippines, Day 9

2010-09-10T18:18:00.003+02:00

Day 9

Yeah, so…remember that beach house I mentioned yesterday? I think there’s a good chance we might be buying it. I was admittedly skeptical when they told us about it but after seeing it this morning I changed my mind. It’s not a huge lot with a mansion on it but compared to what I was expecting for such a cheap price it looks like a hell of an opportunity. It’s got a small, fully furnished 2 bedroom house (pretty sturdily built) and a huge nipa hut (bungalow) out front, also fully furnished. Between the house and nipa hut there’s an empty plot that we could build something on or use as an outdoor cooking area or maybe even a small garden or something. There’s also a small back yard with a water pump although it does have indoor plumbing too. It’s locked up so we weren’t able to see the inside yet but from what I’ve seen it looks great. The price, well…let’s just say it’s cheap enough that we could probably pay cash for it without having to borrow any money or dip into my retirement fund. I mean, hell, this whole place costs 10,000 bucks less than my car for cripes sake! That means we could own this place outright and since it’s ready to be moved into right away, we could use it as a vacation home when we visit every year or so. The best part is that the wife’s family live only a half hour away so they could manage the place, when we’re not there. Use it whenever they want, even sell their vegetables, food, whatever, to make a few pisos. The nipa hut is pretty big and perfect for beach parties. I could easily put a karaoke machine and a pool table in there. Who knows, in 20 years we could even retire here. The funniest part is why the people are selling it in the first place; I guess the owners live in the US and their father lives in nearby Dagupan City and he’s the only one that uses it. However the reason the father – who is in his 70’s – uses it is for his extramarital trysts. Apparently the family is tired of his antics so they decided to just sell the place. Not sure how true all that is but it sure is pretty funny. I told the wife to get the owner’s contact info before we leave and when we get home we’ll give them a call and see what we can work out. Even at the full sale price it’s a great deal but if I can talk them down a little, even better. Ever since I got to the beach all I can think about is that I’d love to come back here every year if I can so this place would be perfect. And the thought of the X Man and Luca having a place right on the beach to spend a month or so every summer is just too good to be true. The main thing that would make it doable is that the wife’s family lives so close so I wouldn’t have to worry about the place when we’re not there. I won’t go too crazy til I get home and talk to the owners as it seems too good to be true but it definitely looks like a great opportunity and it’s definitely doable for us. Stay tuned…

Anyway, I love it here so much and the rooms are so cheap that we decided to stay another night. I told the wife to tell everyone that they’re welcome to stay but most of them work and stuff so In the end the only other people who stayed were two of the wife’s sisters, Lorna and Christina. They spent just about the whole day on the karaoke machine by themselves too, singing songs one after the other. I might have joined for a song or two except that after last night’s festivities my voice is almost completely gone. The constant singing combined with my cold has just about done me in, I can barely even talk let alone sing. The guy who lives next door (Nestor) sort of oversees a lot of the places around here and he’s been very helpful in showing us around and making sure we have everything we need. He walked us down the beach a bit to a big resort place called the Lazy A Beach Resort which is great ,they have a restaurant that serves all the local Filipino and Asian dishes as well as western style breakfasts, lunches and dinners. Like I said, there are a lot of ex-pats around here. The best part is that they have free WI-FI so I was able to catch up on email and sports scores while I enjoyed the best tasting omelet I’ve ever tasted. I figured a big breakfast would be a treat for the wife’s sisters but with a plethora of Asian and western style dishes on the menu, they each opted for the Filipino breakfast which consisted of white rice and two hot dogs. Old habits die hard I guess. Across the lawn from the restaurant (which is open air, so nice) there’s a big building with…wait for it…a karaoke machine for the guests and there was a short dude (I honestly could not tell if it was a guy or a girl) singing song after song by him/herself. I mention this because he/she was wearing a #5 Kevin Garnett Celtics jersey. It’s funny, I’ve seen probably 10 Celtics jerseys since I’ve been here and every single one has been a #5 Kevin Garnett jersey. Weird.
On the way over this morning, Nestor had pointed out a couple places right next to where we were staying that had western ex-pats as owners. One of them was a bar a couple plots down that he said was owned by a Canadian guy named Peter, right next to that was a beach resort owned by a Scottish guy. I figured I’d stop by the bar later that day and chat with Peter, maybe get to know a little more about the area. But first, it was so warm and the X Man wanted to play in the sand so I decided to take a dip. I can’t believe how warm the water was, it was almost like being in a warm bath. I didn’t want to stay in the sun too long so I went into the shade and listened to Lorna and Christina singing karaoke while the X Man played by himself near the water building sand castles and digging holes and such. God that kid just loves the beach. After a while some locals started pulling in one of the fishing nets so I went down to the water to watch. They ended up with nothing more than a few tiny fish which seems to be the norm since I’ve been here but it was still fun to watch them perform their craft. I’m telling you, the longer I’m here the more I love it, this place is just so completely laid back and welcoming. I can just relax and enjoy myself without having to worry about anything, not even how much money we’re spending since everything is so cheap.

In the afternoon we did end up going to the bar. It’s a typical beach bar, sort of a little shack on the beach with stools around the outside, like the one that Tom Cruise was working at in the movie "Cocktail". Me and the X Man went ahead and when we walked up and sat down I noticed all the other guys at the bar were white like me (albeit older) and each of them was with a young Filipina, pretty much as you’d expect. I sat down and they looked at me and one guy said “Ah, another white guy! Welcome!” He asked where I was from, I said the US, he asked which part, I said about 45 minutes north of Boston and the guy at the end of the bar pipes in “You guys got a shitty baseball team up there!” I laughed and said “You must be a Yankees fan…” Sure enough, he was although he was from Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania rather than New York. We all got to chatting and they asked me the usual questions, am I on vacation, is my wife a Filipina, is it my first time, etc. I mentioned that I was looking at buying a place nearby and they immediately asked me a litany of questions almost like they were reading from a list. It was obvious that they were experts and had all been through this before so I decided to pick their brains a bit and I liked what I heard. I told them the price and they all said it was very reasonable for this beach. I described the place a bit and they asked where it was. Now, I have to admit that I’m a bit leery of them because for all I know, they could be businessmen who would jump at the chance to buy a place like that as an investment so I didn’t want to give too much away. I just said “Down the beach a ways”. At that point I saw the American guy lean over to his buddy and say quietly “Sounds like the place that Mike is looking at…”, which made me a bit nervous that we might have competition. Regardless, they all agreed that it sounds like a good, solid deal and said that having a place on this beach would be a great thing for us. The American guy was a retired Air Force Senior Master Sergeant (E9) and had been here for many years so he gave me a lot of good info and advice. I appreciate that they didn’t sugarcoat anything for me, gave me the plain truth about what to look for when buying property around here and such. They said that I asked all the right questions and seem to know what I’m doing so I should be fine which makes me feel even better about possibly buying the place. After a while they all left except for the guy who greeted me when I arrived and as it turned out, he was Peter, the owner. He’s originally from Newfoundland, Canada but spent a good chunk of his life in Scotland so he speaks with a strange accent. He was quite an entertaining character and I hope we’ll be seeing more of him in the future as well.

Interesting thing happened while we were at the bar. You see beggars often here and at one point a young kid, probably all of 11 or 12 came by begging. I sometimes give a few pisos to beggars but the wife’s sisters said don’t give him anything because he works for the syndicate. I asked what they meant and although they weren’t 100% how it works, basically it’s like an organized crime type thing, they get these young boys and send them out begging and whatever money they make goes right to the bosses. They said they knew because of the mark he had tattooed on his hand. Eventually he left and soon another young boy came up begging and they saw the mark on his hand as well. They asked him to show us his hand and he immediately hid it behind his back and would not show it to us. So we gave him nothing except a slice of pizza (you can order pizza at the bar) since the poor kid was probably starving. Harsh dose of reality right there, I thought to myself.

Had dinner again at the Lazy A tonight, it was fantastic. We ordered a smorgasbord of different Asian dishes (and French fires for the X Man) and I caught up on email and sports scores again. We got an sms that the wife’s family had stopped by and were wondering where we were so we left and met them at our place, they were there with Roding and Audie. We sat and chatted for an hour or so before calling it a night. Roding has arranged to go early tomorrow morning and pick up the key to the beach house so he can show us the inside before we leave. Can’t wait for that.

Day 9 in the books, not even a sniff of a snake so far. I love it here.

My First Trip to the Philippines, Day 8

2010-09-09T17:31:00.002+02:00

Day 8

Best day so far. As I mentioned, the wife’s cousin Roding gave us a good price on a beach rental and what a price it was – about 30 bucks a night for an air conditioned room (with a flush toilet and a shower!) right on the beach. In addition to the room, there’s also a couple little huts and a big barbeque/karaoke area for parties so the wife’s whole family and a bunch of friends came for the day and what a party, everybody had such a great time. We got there in the morning, about 20 people packed into 3 tricycles and met Roding and a couple others on the way. The wife went off with her father to get food and beer while her brother in law went to get some stuff for the barbeque. All in all, we ended up with enough food and drink for at least 30 people - fresh vegetables, chicken, fish, seafood, fruits, beer, brandy, etc – for less than 100 bucks, it was unbelievable. The kids hit the sand and the water right away while the rest of us fired up the karaoke machine. For those not in the loop, let me tell you about Filipinos and karaoke: THEY ARE INSANE. They just cannot get enough and they don’t care how bad or how funny they sound or if they can even pronounce the words, they just keep belting them out one after the other. Watching a bunch of Filipinos who can barely speak English singing karaoke is by far one of the highlights of my life so far. First up was one of the wife’s uncles singing “Johnny Come Lately” by the Eagles, then her father with his rendition of “I Can’t Stop Loving You”. Cripes it was just so much fun watching it all. I’m not a big karaoke guy but in a group with a lot of people having fun, I’ll certainly spend my share of time rocking the mic...after I get a few beers in me of course. Eventually the beer arrived and I cracked one open but here’s the problem: the cold that I’ve been suffering from has rendered my voice practically unusable for karaoke. The first song or two I was ok but as the night went on it got worse and worse and eventually I could not sing a note without my voice cracking like Peter Brady singing “Time to change”. The funny thing is that I guess since I’m a native English speaker I’m like a celebrity and everybody kept asking me to sing certain songs – “Seeng dees one! Seeng dees one!” - so my voice seldom got a break. The highlight was when I did “Copacabana”…brought the house down. I kid, but truthfully some of the Filipinos there could actually sing pretty good. One of the guys that came was the guy who gave us a ride in his tricycle the day we first arrived. His name was Cesar and from what people tell me, he is known as somewhat of a ladies man around the Barangay even though he’s in his 40’s. He’s got his own karaoke machine at his house so he could handle a few of the tunes really well. He did an excellent job with “Quando Quando Quando”.

The food was nothing short of amazing. We had plenty of fresh fish on the grill, plenty of prawns, some chicken, even some huge squid that the wife sliced up and served with some chili dipping sauce. Plenty of fresh fruit too, mostly lanzones and rambutan, neither of which I’d ever even heard of before coming here but am quickly getting addicted to. This being the Philippines, people come up to you constantly trying to sell you stuff and at one point someone came by selling fresh oysters and we bought the whole lot. It was like 3 big buckets full, at least 4 or 5 pounds and the whole thing cost about 2 bucks. I remember back in Germany, the wife loves oysters so we would occasionally splurge on a few for her at the Nordsee fish store and we paid a euro and a half for ONE freaking oyster - same price we paid for about 50 of them here! And these were fresh out of the water. Man, I could get used to this…

We also got a visit from the ice cream man this morning. He came up ringing his bell and all the kids wanted ice cream but instead of the 5 pisos that the guy back in the provinces charged, this guy was charging 15 pisos each. I started to order a few for the kids but everybody quickly stopped me and told me not to because 15 pisos was just too unreasonable. Now, the American in me reasoned that 15 pisos is still only about 30 cents and that’s pretty damned cheap for an ice cream but the Filipinos would not allow me to pay such an exorbitant price for ice cream. So I figured I would meet them halfway and told the guy that if he would give them to me at 10 pisos each, I would buy them. He declined initially but when it was clear that he had lost the sale he agreed on 10 pisos. I prepared to pay…and once again the Filipinos would not allow it. Even 10 pisos was too expensive! My God, I could not believe it but I didn’t want anybody to get pissed off at me (except the kids who didn’t get their ice cream of course) so I just told the guy to forget it. He stayed there for a good 15 minutes trying to get me to buy them at 10 pisos each and I kind of felt bad but sorry guy, maybe next time…assuming there are no Filipinos around the witness the transaction.

One thing that kind of sucked is that I couldn’t spend much time in the sun because every time I’d go out in it, it would feel like I was being burned really badly. I’d look in the mirror and I wouldn’t even be a bit red so I’m guessing this is what the doctor meant when she told me the malaria medication would make me ultra sensitive to sunlight. Next time I come here I think I’ll forgo the malaria medication, I really don’t think there’s much chance I’ll catch it here and it’s already hot enough without taking medication that makes me even MORE sensitive to sunlight for crissakes. Besides, so far it looks like I’ll be going home after 2 weeks in the Philippines with my skin just as white as it was when I arrived. *Sigh*.

Luca and the X Man just absolutely had a blast playing in the sand and in the water. I’m not sure when I’ve ever seen them so happy. I remember growing up, my dad would take us to Hampton Beach every summer to visit our grandparents who spent a couple weeks there and how much I loved it there, playing in the sand and frolicking in the waves. I imagine the X Man is enjoying it just as much here. The beaches near us in Italy are overcrowded and really expensive so we don’t normally bother but after seeing how much he loves it here, we might have to start. He doesn’t burn very easily too, he gets dark like the wife. Lucky bastard.

A little later on, Roding and Audie came by to join the party which ended up going late into the night. The wife’s father had invited a bunch of his friends to join us and everybody was drinking beer and brandy all day and since it was getting late I told Roding that we’d take another room so anybody who didn’t want to drive back home could stay overnight. At 30 bucks a night, that was a no-brainer for me. Everybody was having so much fun, it would have been a shame for the party to end because people had to go home. A few people did leave and the crowd thinned a bit as those who couldn’t run with the big dogs went to bed but we still had quite a few people late into the night. At one point Audie got on the mic and did an unbelievable version of “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” by Five For Fighting. Probably the best performance of the night, I was floored. I could hardly sing with my voice all cracking but someone put in “Living Next Door to Alice” and shoved the mic in my face. I’m not sure if anyone knows that song but the guy who sings it has a real gravelly voice so I completely nailed it, sounded just like him! Unfortunately, although the song was popular, nobody knew the “live” version so when I got to the end of the first verse and yelled “ALICE? WHO THE #@$% IS ALICE?!”…well, let’s just say I was the only who yelled it. And I yelled it very loud. Some people started laughing but I got the sense that most were afraid to sing that part because the wife’s mother was present. Definitely a “you had to be there” moment but still hilarious. Of course, the FUNNIEST thing happened this morning; they had gotten some ice for the drinks but ice here comes in huge blocks. So they put it in the cooler with the drinks and the wife’s brother Zaldivar was chopping it with an ice pick and while he was chopping he accidentally hit the big plastic bottle of Sprite which started spraying everywhere. I started cracking up but as if that weren’t funny enough, he grabbed the bottle and picked it up and as he did so, the wife’s father comes walking up and the bottle sprayed all over him and he reacted like he’d just been shot. My God, I laughed so hard I started crying. The look on his face was just priceless.

Roding was telling the wife about a lot nearby that someone was selling and supposedly the price is real cheap. I dismissed it originally as the last thing on my mind is buying property here but I told Roding to come by tomorrow and we’ll go look at it, if only to appease the wife. As an American here I am a bit leery of people trying to sell me things, even if he is family. I think it’s somewhere around a million pisos which is about 20k but I’m sure it needs a lot more put into it as that sounds pretty cheap for a place right on the beach. Then again, it is the Philippines so you never know.

Well, this day has just been fantastic. When I knew I was coming here, the thing I wanted most was to spend some time on the beach and it has certainly not disappointed - these Filipinos sure know how to party! Especially after the provinces, this place just seems like paradise. Since it’s the rainy season right now the whole beach is practically empty but it’s still so hot that it’s like we have the whole beach to ourselves. I’m told it gets completely packed during the summer months and there are plenty of western ex-pats around but haven’t seen any yet. Right at this moment I’m about as relaxed and content as I’ve ever been. We’re hoping to come back every year so to visit and if I have my way, we’ll be staying here at the beach most the time since it's so damned cheap. Luckily the wife’s family lives a mere 30 minutes away so that is definitely doable.

Sad to see this day come to an end. Still no snakes…

My First Trip to the Philippines, Day 7

2010-09-08T18:12:00.001+02:00

Day 7

When I went to bed last night, the party was still going pretty strong, there were plenty of people still here, I figured they’d leave eventually but when I got up in the morning, most of them were still here. Everybody slept wherever they could find a place to crash. Most of the men stayed up all night playing some card game called Tong-it or something like that. I guess it’s really popular, Audie was trying to get me to play with them but I’m not really a card guy but apparently he is as he cleaned up last night. The wife’s sisters made breakfast and everybody got their fill and eventually all the guys that were here for the Lechon Baboy yesterday took off leaving just the wife’s family. Her mom was up early and ready for church and expecting everyone else to be as well but I wasn’t sure if we were going because the wife didn’t seem very keen on it. I didn’t want her mom to blame me for our non-attendance so I was kind of hoping we would go and sure enough, we got ready just in time and headed to church. I actually really enjoyed it. Filipinos are really religious people in general. I’ve always known them to be one of the biggest Catholic countries in the world but since I’ve been here, I’ve not seen that many Catholic churches. On the contrary, I have seen a TON of protestant churches such as Baptist, Pentecostal, etc., and you see Bible verses and religious sayings on everything from jeepneys and tricycles to buildings and eateries. The wife’s family is protestant but I’m not sure if it’s any particular denomination. I know her mom is a Born Again Christian. The church was nice, not very ornate, mostly just a big auditorium with a stage and a pulpit for the pastor and the choir and metal folding chairs for the congregation to sit on. The service had already started by the time we got there and everybody was standing up, singing and waving their hands. It reminded me a lot of the churches I grew up in or attended back home in the US most of my life. When the singing part was over, they welcomed the guests and apparently the wife’s mother had told them about my presence as I had to stand and wave when they introduced me which of course brought more stares. Just what I need, more attention on me and more people staring. Later on in the service they did a “greet the family” type thing where you say good morning to each other and everyone made a beeline to say hi to the white guy and shake my hand. I must have shaken a hundred hands, I felt like I was running for office for cripes sake. The actual sermon almost put me to sleep however as the guy who gave it spoke in a monotone voice in mostly English with some Tagolog mixed in. I’m sure that it meant a lot to the wife’s mother to have us in church with her so I’m happy that we went.

The rest of the day didn’t quite go as smoothly. After church, some of us went to Rosario for lunch at the Chow King. Believe it or not, it was one of the best meals I’ve had so far. I got the beef wanton noodles and a side order of siomai. I’d never had siomai before – I’d never even heard of it – but it turned out to be exactly what I’ve been looking for since I got here. I am a huge fan of Chinese dim sum and siomai is sort of a Filipino dim sum, a little steamed pork dumpling basically. They give you a little thing of chili sauce to dip them in and they were just delicious. The place was so packed that we had to split up on two different tables. The wife and I were sitting at a table next to an older couple who paid us no mind during our meal but afterward the wife started talking to the woman and after talking to her for about 10 minutes, they suddenly realized that she was her teacher when she was in school years ago. It truly is a small world but I probably shouldn’t be surprised as it seems like the wife is related to, or friends with, every single person we meet here, it’s crazy. The wife’s brother Samuel is very active in the church and he used the church van to drive us to lunch which was convenient but the problem was that it had no air conditioning and since I was sitting in the front, the sun was hitting me directly and causing a lot of discomfort as my exposed skin felt like it was burning. I’m taking malaria medication called Doxycycline and one of the only side effects of it is that it makes you much more sensitive to the sun so the doctor warned me to stay out of the sun as much as possible and wear very strong sun screen. I brought SPF 60 but I haven’t bothered to use it because I sweat so much that there’s no point to putting it on. Anyway, Samuel dropped us off at the bridge and as we started walking across on our way back to the big house, I was not feeling quite right. I felt extremely sluggish, like I didn’t even have the energy to take a step and I felt like just dropping to the ground where I was at. I slowly kept going, feeling worse by the minute and eventually I started getting light headed and a bit dizzy. I’m pretty sure I was starting to get heat stroke. I made it back to the house and sat in front of the fan mopping my forehead and eventually I felt a little better but I was on the verge of telling the wife that I don’t care if her family gets offended, we are checking into the hotel. But, we are going to the beach tomorrow so I changed my mind and decided to ride it out here.
So it’s been just about a full week here and it’s flown by. Overall, I am really enjoying myself here despite the inconveniences and lack of things to do. I definitely hope I’ll be able to come back on a regular basis, maybe even every year if possible. The wife’s family are a little shy but they seem to be warming up to me a little. For my part, I just love them all to death, they are such wonderful people. I’m actually a little embarrassed because this summer has not been kind to me – between leave, trips for work, the World Cup, and the wife being away, it’s been 3 straight months of eating and drinking mostly crap and too much of it at that and this has caused me to pack on between 10-15 pounds so I hate the fact that they are meeting me for the first time when I’m so overweight. But whatever, nothing I can do except make sure I’m back in shape next time we come so they can see the real me.

Since we’re at the halfway point in my trip, I figured I’d write some observations I’ve made during my first week here:

* I’m guessing they must have problem with crime here because security guards are everywhere. At banks especially, you’ll see several of them carrying machine guns but even the smaller businesses have them. It’s not uncommon to see, say, an appliance store with an armed security guard standing outside the front door. And when you go into the malls, they have guards at all the entrances to check your bags or pat you down. A lot of places make you check your bag at the front before going in. Restaurants have them as well, it’s kind of weird to be sitting in a Jollibee and have an armed guard outside. It’s funny too, many of the guards help by clearing tables and such, makes me chuckle.

* The people here are some of the friendliest I’ve encountered anywhere. Everybody calls me “sir”…and I mean EVERYBODY. You walk into a place and everybody who sees you greets you with ”Hello sir!”. It’s quite charming actually. They are also some of the most honest people I’ve ever met. For example, I needed to buy a sim card for my cell phone and there were 3 phone shops right next to each other so I picked one and asked which card would be the best for me to send text messages back to the US. He said Global so I said ok, I’d like to buy a Global card. He checked and said they were out so I asked if they had any other ones. He said they did but it would be better for me if I went to another store and bought a Global card. Cripes, if this was the US or Italy, he’d have sold me anything he could but here the guy sends me to another store!

* You will never go hungry in the Philippines. I’m astounded at the amount of places I’ve seen selling food in this country. Not just restaurants like Jollibee or Chow King either, it seems like every two feet there is some kind eatery. Some of them are just little stands on the side of the road but they’re freaking everywhere. I guess it’s the easiest kind of business to run here as everybody has to eat and if there’s one thing Filipinos can do well, it’s cook. The most common seem to be little makeshift places selling hot food with a sign out front saying somebody’s eatery. For example, “Rowena’s Eatery”…”Maria’s Eatery”…”Lucia’s Eatery”…etc., etc.

* Basketball is far and away the most popular sport here. There are basketball courts EVERYWHERE and it seems like every other guy you see is wearing a basketball jersey. The NBA is very popular here so you see a lot of NBA jerseys which are perfect since it’s so hot here. The two most popular teams are the Celtics and Lakers and it’s not uncommon to see tricycles and jeepneys decorated with team logos and such. There’s even a basketball court on the dirt path next to the wife’s family’s house, in the middle of nowhere. Soccer doesn’t seem to be very popular here but I have seen quite a few Brazil hats and shirts worn.

* The kids absolutely love it here. I had my doubts about the X Man as he can be kind of wuss sometimes and he’s afraid of everything but he has surprised me. Back home he gets scared of everything from dogs to house flies but here he plays with bugs, plays with the goats and catches frogs. He has a couple cousins close to his age and he loves going off with them to play in the woods or the river or to climb trees. Luca seems to love it here as well. Call me crazy but they both seem happier here than back home in Italy. I was a bit worried that a month and a half might be too long for them but obviously not. The X Man is even starting to pick up a bit of Tagolog.

* The whole white rice phenomenon makes much more sense to me now. I know it’s very popular because it’s so cheap and everything but the main thing is that it is filling. The wife’s family is pretty big so they have to make a little bit go a long way. I couldn’t understand it at first because we would go to the market to buy fish or a chicken or whatever and the wife would only buy a little bit even though it’s so cheap compared to what we pay back home. Basically they buy enough meat or fish so that everybody gets a little, then they eat some vegetables and a ton of rice with it and they get completely full. I’ve never been a big rice eater so I’ve probably eaten more white rice in the past week than I have in the past 20 years. You will never come to our house and not find a big pot of rice on the stove or in the fridge but the wife eats it all, I never touch it.

* So far my favorite Filipino dish that I’ve had is called “Tortang Talong”. It’s basically just a stuffed eggplant omelet but it’s delicious. They char the eggplant, then peel the skin off, then mix in some egg and grill it. I love eggs and I love eggplant but I’d never heard of this before. The wife’s sisters make it for me for breakfast pretty much every morning, I can’t get enough of it.

Most importantly...halfway through my trip and no snakes.

My First Trip to the Philippines, Day 6

2010-09-07T17:41:00.002+02:00

Day 6

Today was a great day – it was “lechon baboy” day. Lechon baboy is a Filipino specialty and is basically a huge pig roast. Although many different cultures and countries do it, it’s a tradition that’s practically been raised to an art form here in the Philippines. I’ve heard about them for years and always wanted to experience one so we planned it ahead of time and the wife made the arrangements. It’s usually a big deal , the whole Barangay comes out and there’s a ton of food and they do piñatas and other games for the kids. Things didn’t start off very well though as I’m pretty sure I fell victim to the “Cano curse”, whereby you end up paying more for stuff because you’re American. Here’s what happened: the wife had arranged for a medium sized pig, about 30-40 kilos which cost 5,000 pisos (about $100). However, when she called this morning about it, she was told that we were given a much bigger pig – at a cost of 10,000 pisos. She was visibly upset and I was a bit angry myself because I have a feeling that as soon as they found out that the American was the one buying the pig, it suddenly doubled in size (and price). It was too late to change it by the time the beast arrived so we were stuck and the Cano Curse had struck again. Oh well, next time I will know better. I wasn’t going to let anything ruin the festivities so I bit my lip. They delivered the pig this morning and it was huge - 95 freaking kilos! After some preparation they got ready to kill the thing which I’d never seen before so I was fascinated. They had 4 or 5 guys hold the thing down with their hands and with the help of a huge wooden plank since it was so big while another guy slit the throat with a big knife. I’ll never forget how loud the thing was squealing, it was hair raising. The whole Barangay must have heard it (I got a good video of it). They put a big pan under the neck to catch the blood and after a few minutes it stopped struggling, then stopped moving, then it was dead. After that, they cut the belly open and removed all the insides and washed them in the outdoor sink. Next they take the blood and the entrails and make another Filipino specialty: Diniguan. I’ve heard plenty about Diniguan but this was the first time I’ve ever actually seen it. Basically it’s a stew made out of the blood and insides of the pig with some vegetables, spices and other stuff thrown in for good measure. I’ll try a lot of things but I don’t eat things made out of blood and I don’t eat intestines and stomachs so I passed but the Filipinos went crazy for the stuff. Even the kids, they had like three servings over rice. But back to the pig – after he’s gutted, they shave him and then wash him thoroughly with steaming hot water. After that he’s ready for the spit which is a huge, long bamboo pole. I watched, amused, as 5 or 6 guys forced the pole into the pig’s ass and through his mouth because it kept getting stuck and the whole thing took like 15 minutes. Finally it was done and he was ready for the fire. It was interesting to see how they do it: they dig a small hole on the ground, then surround it on two sides with charcoal. The pole is placed on a couple pivot poles with notches cut into them so it doesn’t fall off. On one end of the big pole, there’s a handle. There are 2 or 3 guys called “drivers” whose job is to sit at the head and slowly turn the pole by the handle. They sit in a chair and put some plywood up to protect them from the heat and take turns so they don’t get too tired. Our pig was a massive 95 kilos so they said it would take about 5 hours to cook. Every 5 -10 minutes another guy will come over with a washcloth attached to a long stick and rub cooking oil on the pig so it doesn’t dry out.

For some reason our pig seemed to be cooking a lot faster than they thought and the skin was soon getting charred and black so they had to keep spreading the coals out to even the cooking out a bit. I asked how they would know when it’s finished and was told that these guys were experts and they just know. This wasn’t good enough for the wife though as she had a meat thermometer in the house so she gave it to the main guy to use and this is where everything went wrong. Apparently the guy somehow used it wrong or read it wrong because they declared that the pig was ready after only about 3 hours or so. It certainly looked done from the outside as the skin was black in some places and golden brown in others and smelled delicious. So they took him off the fire and brought him over to the table and removed the pole from his ass and cut into him. First they cut the head off and it seemed a bit undercooked to me. Sure enough, the meat on the outside was cooked fine but the further in you got, the less cooked it was. As a result, a lot of people didn’t eat much of the meat and so we ended up with probably over a hundred pounds of uncooked meat. Nobody seemed to mind though as there was plenty of food and some of the pig meat was edible anyway. I partook of the feast and ate way too much and we had plenty of beer to wash it down and it was a really fun night, one of the best since I’ve been here. I was amazed by the wife tonight too; not wanting to let it all go to waste, she grabbed her big cleaver from the kitchen and spent a good part of the night carving up the pig carcass and filling several huge plastic bags with undercooked pig meat for people to take home with them and cook at home the next day. Turns out nobody left empty handed and man, you should have seen her carve up that pig. She would make a great butcher, I was very impressed.

In fact, since I’ve been here I’ve seen a side of my wife I’ve never seen before. I call it her “province side”. She’d been living in Hong Kong for 10 years when we met and one of the things that attracted me to her was that she was a city girl. I loved the fact that she knew her way around a huge city like Hong Kong and was independent. I knew nothing about the provinces or the kind of world she grew up in. So to see how comfortable and in her element she is here is quite unexpected and somewhat surprising as she moved to Hong Kong when she was pretty young so she’s spent most of her life living outside this place.

Jovi and Steve came over for the festivities and I had a good time chatting with Steve most of the night about football (soccer) and a few other things. He’s spent a good amount of time here so he’s a good source of information. One thing he told me that was surprising is that the water in this particular area of the barangay is considered some of the best in the Philippines for some reason. It’s so good in fact that they are considering bottling it and selling it. When I first got here I asked the wife if the water is drinkable, she said her family all drink it but that we would only drink bottled water just to be safe. I told her what Steve told me and she was quite surprised…but we’re still drinking bottled water.

I met plenty of people today but one in particular stands out: Audie. Audie is an extremely interesting individual. He was born and raised here to a Spanish/Filipina mother and a German/Romanian father. Because of this he looks like a white European but then he opens his mouth and he speaks fluent Tagolog. Not only that but he’s fluent in something like 17 different Filipino languages and he also speaks really good English. We hit it off right away and I ended up spending most of the day talking with him, completely amazed by his breadth of knowledge about so many different topics. He’s incredibly well informed about politics, current events, history and a ton of other subjects and he’s so laid back and friendly that within 2 minutes you feel like you’ve known him your whole life. He’s also a tremendous wealth of information about the Philippines and its customs and history, the people and such. I honestly could have talked to him all day and not gotten tired. I hope we’ll be seeing more of him, he is one cool cat.

As it turns out, the guy who was in charge of the lechon baboy was the wife’s cousin. His name is Roding, he doesn’t speak much English but he’s a businessman - although he certainly doesn’t look the part as he wears shorts and a basketball jersey with a huge belly sticking out from under his shirt. Part of his business empire includes managing some rental properties on the beach in San Fabian so he’s giving us a good price on a few rooms there for next week. We’re going to head out Monday for at least a day or two. I’m SO looking forward to that as life here in the provinces is really getting boring and tedious, today’s festivities notwithstanding. A few days on the beach are just what the doctor ordered right about now…

Almost a full week in now and still no snakes.

My First Trip to the Philippines, Day 5

2010-09-03T14:37:00.001+02:00

Day 5

Today was pretty uneventful. Boredom is really starting to set in a bit as there is absolutely nothing to do here. However, in the late afternoon/early evening I took a walk that turned out to be one of the most enjoyable experiences I've had here so far. It was sort of a lazy day and I was getting a bit stir crazy so I decided to go out walking. The wife was taking a nap which worked out well because I was kind of hoping to get in some alone time at some point and this afforded me the perfect opportunity. I haven't had a second to myself since I've been here - there's always at least 3 or 4 other people around, usually more, and this isn't cool for me as I'm an independent person and I need some time to myself occasionally. Especially when I'm in a new environment; while it's nice to have someone to show you around, I've always found it more enjoyable to explore on my own and see what I find. There's more adventure in it I guess. I'm sure a lot of guys in my shoes would be a bit intimidated walking around an area like this on their own but not me. I feel pretty safe here. I only took a couple bucks for a bottle water or a beer so I wasn't worried about being robbed and anyway, it seems like 99% of the baranguay is related to the wife's family so I didn't think I'd have any problem. It turned out to be an interesting and fun time. I started out not knowing where I was headed but after a while I decided to just walk to the small house since I knew my way there and wouldn't get lost. I thought it'd be cool to surprise the family who were there, show them that I had no problem getting around by myself. On the way there I realized pretty quickly that walking around alone was a vastly different experience than walking around with the wife. When I'm with the wife, people just stare the whole time but never say a word. When I was alone, a lot of them will say hi and some even tried to talk to me. Some of the little kids are curious about this strange white person in their world and they asked me my name and where I'm from, then follow me around like I'm a celebrity. Occasionally I would pass by a house where a few men were drinking and they'd ask me to have a drink with them. One such house creeped me out a little; I passed a house with a little store out front and there were 7 or 8 scuzzy looking Filipinos in the area to the side drinking something and they seemed enamored of me when I walked by. I asked if they had mineral water and one guy sprang to his feet and said yes as he motioned for me to come inside and join them. I repeated my request - "Do you have mineral water for sale?" and he said yes, and motioned even harder for me to go inside and join them. Just then a woman appeared at the storefront so I asked her if she had mineral water. She said no, they didn't have mineral water for sale. I looked at the weird guy and he was still motioning for me to go inside but given that the girl said they didn't have mineral water for sale, I was a bit suspicious of him and declined. I just said "She said you don't have it..." and quickly walked away. The adventurous side of me really wanted to go inside but the cautious side said screw them so I kept walking. Just down the street from the small house there were 3 young people sitting outside a little storefront so I stopped and asked if they had mineral water and they did so I bought one. There was a young guy standing behind a small grill and another young guy and girl sitting on a bench next to him. The guy sitting was wearing an Orlando Magic jersey and asked me a few question in decent English while the girl just stared at me. The other guy came back with my water and asked if I wanted to have some barbeque with them. I looked down at what he was grilling and I swear to god, it was a small chicken head and two little chicken feet on wooden sticks. I didn't even know you could eat those things! Needless to say, I politely declined. They asked if it was my first time in the Philippines, I said yes and the guy at the grill smiled and said "Your wife's mother is my auntie!". Of course she is, I thought to myself. I thanked him for the water and bid them adieu. I got to the small house and her father's tricycle was outside but no sign of anybody so I went inside and walked to the back of the plot where I found the wife's youngest sister, Christina (I think she's 24). She seemed a bit surprised to see me but said hello, I asked where everybody was and she said they were at the other house without even looking at me. She asked me where the wife was and I told her she was taking a nap, then she walked right past me to the front of the place and started cleaning something like I wasn't even there. After a minute I kind of got the feeling she was really uncomfortable with me being there, especially without the wife, as if it wasn't proper or something so I said goodbye and decided to walk back. I'm really starting to get the feeling that her family isn't really taking to me as well as I'd hoped they would. I've been here 5 days now and most of them are still standoffish towards me, as if they're either afraid of me or just plain don't like me. I've gone out of my way to be as nice and friendly as I possibly can - which is no small feat for me - but I guess I'm just as charming as I thought I was. The wife says they're just shy but it seems more than that. I'm not overly worried about it to be honest because let's face it, after eight years of marriage and a couple of kids, it's not like I need to win their approval or anything, It'd just be nice if I felt a little more, I don't know..."accepted" I guess? Whatever. Nobody has been rude or anything like that so I'll take the wife's word for it, that they're just shy because they don't speak much English. The rest of my walk was pretty interesting. I got plenty of stares and a few times I walked by a group of locals who were engaged in some kind of activity and said activity would completely grind to a halt as I walked by and everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at the white man walking by. The funniest one was when I walked by a basketball court with a pickup game going on. As soon as one person spotted me, the game stopped and all the players stared as I walked by. For a second I thought about yelling "THREE SECOND VIOLATION!" but decided against it. On one road I walked down, a few of the young kids even made fun of me and I'll admit that there were a couple of times when I felt a bit uncomfortable and paid extra attention to the people around me but for the most part I loved every minute of it. There were two really funny moments. One was a tricycle that was packed with young kids, probably in their late teens/early 20's. They seemed fascinated by me and they ended up passing by me about 4 times and each time, two girls that were riding on the side gave me what I could only describe as catcalls. The first time it was innocuous stuff like "Hello, what's your name?" but by the 4th pass, it was stuff like "I love you! I love you!". I doubt I would have heard that if the wife was with me! The other funny thing that happened was on my way back, there were a group of young kids probably around the X Man's age (maybe between 5-9) who were playing and when they saw me they starting acting out all kinds of stereotypes that they'd heard about white men or Americans. One kid made guns with his hands and yelled "AMERICAN SOLDIER!" and made machine gun sounds. As I walked by a couple of them made really some sarcastic remarks in mocking tones, stuff like "What's up dude" and such which sounded really funny in their broken, Filipino English. Then, after I was past them, I heard one of them say, in a really mocking tone as only kids can do "Oooh, my body is soooo white!". All I could do was laugh, turn around and wave at them. Crazy Filipino kids, I probably made their whole year just by being there. As I approached the bridge, there were a few shady looking guys sitting at a makeshift table drinking. I said hello and they asked me to come have a drink with them so I happily obliged. They were drinking gin so I poured a glass and downed it in one gulp, feeling a little uneasy as they were just staring at me as if they were sizing me up. (Do they have cannibalism in the Philippines? I'm kidding, I'm kidding...) They poured me a glass of water, I drank it and said "Thank you gentlemen", then beat a hasty retreat so as not to overstay my welcome. When I got back to the bridge, the wife father was sitting there as if he was waiting for me. I actually think he was worried and planning on going out looking for me. At least now everybody knows that I'm not afraid of this place and that I can take care of myself. I can't understand why some people would be afraid of just going for a walk around here, it's just a foreign country like any other. People stare and it can get uncomfortable but they're just people like anywhere else. Besides, what better way to see the real Philippines than to just walk around by myself in the middle of nowhere?

I'm going to bed early tonight, gotta rest up for the huge pig roast tomorrow. 5 days down, not a snake in sight. I'm starting to get used to it here.

My First Trip to the Philippines, Day 4

2010-09-02T16:42:00.002+02:00

Day 4

It's official: I'm sick. I'm in Southeast Asia, it's 1,000 degrees here and I catch a cold. WTF?! The night we slept in Manila at the wife's aunt's house, we had the air conditioner on all night and Luca wouldn't use a blanket so he caught the sniffles and I obviously got it from him. I'm trying to remain positive but it's uncomfortable enough here without having to deal with a frigging cold at the same time. Cripes, I can't wait to see what happens to me next. I did finally break down this morning and told the wife that we are either buying a couple mattresses for the beds or we're checking into the hotel. My body can't take it anymore, my two hip bones are so sore I can't sleep - or even sit - comfortably anymore. There's a new store that opened up in Rosario recently called the Friendship Market so we went there this morning. It's kind of like a mini Filipino Wal Mart, it sells a variety of different stuff, everything from food and drinks to appliances, furniture, and other stuff. We bought a couple mattresses, some groceries and other stuff, then headed to Agoo afterwards. Agoo is another big city, about the same distance away as Dagupan. First stop: Jollibee. I was looking forward to it as the X Man said he was going to get the huge cheeseburger they have and he can only eat half of it so I was planning on eating the other half. I don't normally eat fast food and I can't remember the last time I ate a fast food burger but with all the Filipino farm food I've been eating...well, let's just say the thought of a big, juicy cheeseburger is very appealing to me right now. Unfortunately the X Man threw me a curve and opted for the Jollibee jumbo hot dog instead so my lust for cheeseburger goodness went unfulfilled. Oh well, maybe next time. The kids got pineapple juice with their meals and I gotta tell you, that was the best freaking pineapple juice I've ever had in my life. Just so fresh and delicious, not all syrupy sweet and crappy like the stuff you get where we live. The wife wanted to try some place called Inasal so we went there afterwards and the wife ordered a dish called Sisig. You can get it with pork or bangus but she got bangus and to my huge surprise, I loved it. She delighted in making fun of me for eating bangus as I'm always teasing her about how disgusting it is. But what the hell, that's why I'm always willing to try different things, you never know when you'll come across something you really like that you'd never think you would. I still don't like bangus in general but at least I found one dish with bangus that I like. Plus, it was made with a teryaki like sauce and some red chilis so you could hardly even taste the actual fish. On the way home I took my first ride in a Jeepney. It was pretty cool, nothing amzing or anything but at least I can say I rode in a Jeepney. Jeepneys are one of my absolute favorite things in the Philippines. They have an interesting history; the original jeepneys were surplus jeeps from WW2 that Americans sold or gave to the locals, who changed them up a bit to carry several passengers. Eventually they became the main mode of public transportation and at some point the Filipinos starting decorating them in loud, bright colors and designs. You see them everywhere and in the cities you probably see more of them than any other type of vehicle. I personally LOVE them, I just can't get enough of them. Some of them are so creative, it's fascinating to see what people here have done to them. I'd say the most popular themes are religious in nature as you see a lot of them with Bible verses painted on them or religious sayings and such. NBA teams are another popular theme. I've known about them for years and seen plenty of pictures but seeing them in person is nothing short of awesome (NOTE: If you want see how cool they are, go to Google Images, type in "Jeepney" and prepare to be amazed). Anyway, I was a popular topic of conversation between the other passengers and the wife as they asked her all kinds of questions about me and kept staring. The people around here are funny, they have absolutely no problem just staring right at you. Ain't no shame in their game either, they just stare right at you even if you stare back. I've been to a lot of different countries but never have I ever encountered anything like this. It's difficult to describe what it's like to walk around and have every single eye on you. Not only that but I watch people out of the corner of my eye and not only do they stare but they also tap their friends and point to me, as if their saying "look, that must be the legendary 'white man' we've heard people talk about!". I've given myself a nickname: "White Devil". I told the wife that sooner or later I'm going to be in the middle of the market and get so tired of all the staring and the pointing that I'm going to yell at the top of my lungs "THE WHITE MAN IS HERE AND I'VE COME FOR YOUR WOMEN!"

Anyway, as it turns out, Virginia has a friend who lives two houses down who is married to an English guy. She has been telling me about him and asking me if I want to go meet him and this evening we finally did. Her friend's name is Jovi and her husband is Steve, they live in London. Steve is a nice guy, we got along really well and it was really cool to have another white devil to talk to. I brought up football (soccer) early on in the conversation and his reaction gave me the impression that I was unfortunate enough to run into the only man from England who didn't like footie but then I asked him if he had a favorite team that he supported and you can imagine my pleasant surprise when he replied Tottenham! I've always been a Manchester United fan but the past 5 years or so, Tottenham have become more or less the team I follow and support most of the time. So we hit it off pretty good and I invited them to the pig roast we're doing on Saturday, which I'm really looking forward to. Jovi said something about them finding a dead snake just down a the road a little ways so I asked what she meant by "big snake" and she pulled out her camera to show me pictures. The thing was at least 8-10 feet long! It looked like a python which I guess are pretty common here since the rice fields are perfect hunting grounds with all the frogs and rats and stuff. This is not good because now, every time I walk out to dirt path I have to go through the rice fields and I am constantly scanning for snakes. It was freshly dead when they found it in the road and they picked it up and ate it I think. You can imagine how uneasy seeing those pictures has made me now. I'm still traumatized from the dual spider incidents that past couple nights and now this. We ended up chatting so much that we lost track of time and soon enough it started pouring out so we had to walk back to our house in the pitch dark, pouring rain. I did not enjoy that at all.

Despite the pictures Jovi showed me, I'm on 4 days now and still haven't seen a single snake. Let's hope it stays that way...

My First Trip to the Philippines, Day 3

2010-09-01T18:03:00.002+02:00

Day 3

Pretty uneventful day today. I think the heat and humidity are starting to get to me because I spent a good chunk of time laying in bed today doing nothing, sleeping occasionally. Part of it was because I'm a little wiped out from the weather but part of it is also because I'm kind of bored here to be honest. I already described how far out in the middle of nowhere the wife's family's house is so it should come as no surprise that there's nothing to do here. The kids love it since they have their cousins to play with and a place like this is great for them because kids love playing outside, climbing trees and such but for a white city boy from the US...not so much. I brought a book to read ("Opening Day; the Story of Jackie Robinson's First Season") but I can only sit around reading for so long, especially on the furniture here. Let me tell you about the furniture here; it's very uncomfortable. It's all handmade out of bamboo and looks really cool and was fine the first day or so but by now my body is sore from constantly sitting on hard wood. The tricycle ride to Dagupan City yesterday was very unforgiving as the seats are small and made of wood and the roads are very bumpy so my ass is really sore from that. And the beds are the worst part. The beds are also handmade from bamboo and there no matresses which normally wouldn't be a problem if I were used to sleeping on my back but unfortunately my sleeping habits are to sleep on my stomach or on my sides. And that just does not work on a bed made of wood. My two hip bones are bruised from pressing against the wood. I am trying to be the proverbial gracious guest so I have not complained about any of this to anyone but I'm not sure how long I can hold out. When you come to a place like this you quickly realize some of the things you take for granted in your cushy life back home and right now one of those things I'm realizing is the ability to just sit on a cushioned couch or chair or sleep on a soft matress. It's no big deal for these people as they've done it their whole lives so it's normal to them. But for us spoiled westerners, it takes some getting used to.

One thing I forgot to mention from yesterday is that on the way to Dagupan, we stopped at a hotel/resort type place nearby to check it out in case staying at the wife's parent's place just becomes too difficult for me. It actually looks really nice, air conditioned rooms, comfortable beds, swimming pool, pond out back to go fishing and only 2,000 pisos a night (about $40). I guess the wife must have mentioned some of my discomfort to her mother because after we looked at it, her mother said to her privately "Why not just buy an electric fan and a mattress, it's cheaper". I'm learning quickly just how wide the chasm is between how we in the "rich" countries view money vice how people here do. Spending $40 on a nice hotel room with a pool, air conditioning and mountain views is considered cheap by our standards but to some people here, it's a frivilous luxury, something totally unnecessary. We decided that we may end up checking in to the hotel next week for a few nights, if for no other reason than just to get a little privacy and have a mini vacation with the kids since they have a pool and fishing pond. It's funny, before I came here I told the wife that I would prefer to stay in a hotel nearby rather than try and rough it at her parents place but since I got here my better insticts have prevailed and I'm determined to stay at the house as long as possible, if only to prove that I'm not a wuss. And honestly, it's not that bad here. I spent enough time in the field when I was in the Army that I've lived in a lot worse conditions than anything I have to deal with here. Hell, my first 2 weeks in Kosovo I took showers with baby wipes. In some ways, life here is a lot like being in the field actually. I shave outside with a little cup of cold water and a mirror and brush my teeth out there with a bottle of water as well. Baths are a little easier. The bathroom is a little empty concrete room with a bucket. You fill the bucket with water and use a little scoop type thing called a "tabo" to wash yourself. No hot water but it's so frigging hot here that you don't mind using cold water. The worst part about it is that it's so humid that the second you're done, you're already sweating profusely again. The sweating here is really annoying. I may be from New England but I've spent time in some very humid places, places like Georgia, Florida and Honduras and Italy gets extremely humid in the summertime, almost unbearably so. But let me tell you, those places have NOTHING on the humidity here. I sweat 24 hours a day, nonstop. I've taking to carrying a washcloth around with me everywhere - I call it my sweatrag - and within 30 minutes it's completely soaked so I have 2 or 3 that I rotate. We're in the rainy season here right now so occasionally it pours down and cools off a tiny bit but not much. They have one electric fan in the house and they've pretty much given it to me full time. When I sit in the living room, they turn it on so it blows directly on me and at night we sleep with it in our room. So far I'd say the humidity and constant sweating are the hardest thing I've had to deal with.

In the afternoon we decided to go to the small house. Her parents have two houses; the big house and the small house. Here's the back story: about 4 or 5 years ago her parents had a friend who was selling a small plot of land in a great location and offered it to them first at a cheap price since they were friends. Of course they couldn't afford it so they asked us if we would loan them the money. It was only about $2,000 and as the old saying goes "land is the best investment because it's the only thing God ain't making any more of" so we bought it for them, as a gift. What makes the land so attractive is that it's on a main road, which makes a hell of a lot more sense to me after seeing the other house where you have to go down a dirt road, cross a small walking bridge over a river and then walk down a muddy trail through the rice fields to reach. So they got the land but since they have very little money they can't afford to build a big house on it so they've managed to piece together a decent little shack for a house on it and they call that the small house. The big house is the one we're staying at. Industrious folks that they are, they've also managed to buy a pig and some chickens that they keep on the land and although there's not a lot of land her mother has a garden where she grows vegetables to sell at the market. It's about a 20 minute walk from the big house to the small house and it was a very enjoyable little stroll. Along the way, every single person that we passed stopped dead in their tracks and stared at me like they'd seen a ghost. I'm getting the feeling that people around here have never seen a white man before. Just down the road from the small house, they're building a big supermarket and a couple other things which is a great sign. They've already started construction and have started widening the road and that means that the little plot of land that we bought her parents for a mere $2,000 will soon be worth a HELL of a lot more than that. In fact, someone recently offered them $3500 for it which they turned down cold. That little piece of land might just end up being one of the best investments we've ever made and here's the funniest part - when they bought it, they put it in the wife's name since we gave them the money for it as a gift. So technically, we own it. I'm not interested in making any money off it though, it's more for the wife's family to do with it what they want. As far as the other house, they own that land as well even though it's in the middle of nowhere. The wife says that there are plans to build a big bridge over the river and a big road connecting the land that the house is on and when they do the value of the big house will skyrocket so that's why they are doing everything they can to keep up the big house even though it's so secluded. From what I've seen so far, things move extremely slow here so I'm thinking there probably won't be a bridge or a road appearing here anytime soon though. Maybe not even in my lifetime.

Earlier tonight, I was sitting in the living room relaxing when suddenly Xavier started screaming "MOMMY! MOMMY! HELP!". I jumped up and ran into the kitchen and he was in the other bathroom which is basically another little flushless toilet bowl in an empty cement room in the kitchen. As I get to the kitchen, he comes running out of the bathroom screaming "SPIDER! SPIDER!". So I asked him what the problem was and he said there was a huge spider in the bathroom on the wall. Now this surprised me because since he's been here, he's really become quite a country boy, playing with bugs, climbing trees, petting all the animals, etc. so I had a hard time believing that he'd get scared by a spider. Sure enough, we looked in and there was no spider to be seen. He knows how much I hate snakes and spiders so he occasionally thinks it funny to try and scare me so I figured that's what he was up to and I went back in the living room. He stayed and continued to look for the spider and about 5 minutes later yelled to me that he found it. My curiosity got the better of me so I went in and looked through the open door in the bathroom and oh...my...GOD. On the wall was THEE biggest spider I'd ever seen in my life, even bigger than the one on the wall last night - and that one was huge. It was about the size of my hand when I spread out my fingers. Virginia's sisters were laughing at us and kept saying "Eh, those things don't even bite, don't worry about them" but I don't care. They tried to get it but it ran quickly up the wall and into a crack that separates the kitchen bathroom from the other bathroom and the shower room. Needless to say, I am extremely traumatized now. Every time I have to use the bathroom, I go in very slowly, looking for any sign of the gargantuan arachnid. I've named him Spiderzilla. Fortunately, it is normal for the men to urinate outside since we're in the middle of nowhere so unless I have to take a crap, I think I'll be peeing outside the rest of my time here.

My First Trip to the Philippines, Day 2

2010-08-31T18:13:00.002+02:00

Day 2

First night's sleep was ok, a bit rough sleeping on a bamboo bed with no mattress but I've certainly slept on worse (Honduras springs immediately to mind). The wife planned a trip to Dagupan City today. Dagupan City is, I believe, the nearest big city to them here. It's about 30-45 minutes away by tricycle and it was one of the least comfortable rides I've ever taken. The wife's father's tricycle is fit with a sidecar with bench seats but the benches are basically a couple pieces of wood. Combine this with the fact that it's not that big to begin with and let's just say it's not the best mode of transportation for long trips. Virginia's mother came with us since a trip to Jollibee was in the cards and the wife said she just loves Jollibee. For the uninitiated, Jollibee is the Philippines' answer to fast food. It's a fast food chain that serves burgers, hot dogs, fried chicken, spaghetti, french fries, etc and it is extremely popular here. In fact, when I told a Filipino friend who lives in Germany that I'd soon be taking my first trip to the Philippines, the first thing he said was "Have some Jollibee for me!". Luca and the X Man absolutely love it. On the bus ride up here, every time Luca would spot a Jollibee sign, he would say "Oh...Jollibee!". And sometimes the mere mention of the name throws him into a fit of joy - "JOLLIBEE!". So we made the trip to Dagupan and the plan was to hit an ATM machine first so I could get some pisos (pronounced "pesos"). The wife still had plenty on her but I don't feel comfortable in a foreign country when I have no local currency in my pocket so I insisted we do that first. There's a bunch of different banks in the Philippines but the wife usually only uses the ATM at two of them as she doesn't trust some of the others. The ATM experience turned out to be my first frustrating one since I got here. I had intended to take out 10,000 pisos (about $225) which I figure will last a long time here since everything is so cheap. I prefer taking out larger sums when I travel since I get hit with a bunch of fees (anywhere from $5 - 7.50) when I use one in foreign country. I know most people recommend not carrying large sums but I've been traveling abroad for 12 years now to some pretty seedy places at times, and I've never had a problem so I don't sweat it. Anyway, we hit the ATM and after I put in my PIN and hit "withdrawal", it asked me which account I wanted to withdraw from: Savings, current, or credit card. Our account is a checking so I asked the wife which one she normally selects since I didn't see checking and she said savings. I hit savings and 10,000 pisos and got an error message saying "Insufficient funds". Well this concerned me greatly because perhaps my greatest fear is having my bank account info stolen and someone stealing all my money. I have two accounts and what I try to do when the wife comes to the Philippines is put some money into the smaller account and have her use that one. That way, if her card or number gets stolen, they will only get a small amount. However I didn't have time to take care of everything before I left so we're using our main account for the trip. I've had my ATM card rejected in other countries before but the error message usually says something about invalid card or unable to process transaction. I've never had one say insufficient funds before and to me insufficient funds means just that - not enough money. So I was nervous as we tried to find another ATM. We tried a second one and things were going fine until it showed the amounts that I could choose from and the highest amount was 4,000 pisos (less than $100). I was not about to only take out such a small amount and then have to do it again soon due to the aforementioned fees I get hit with so I angrily stormed off in search of another ATM. I know the Philippines is not the most modern country in the world but cripes, it should not be this difficult to find a frigging ATM that works with my card and will let me withdraw some money in a normal amount, especially not in a big city like Dagupan which is littered with shopping malls and restaurants. I tried another one and to my astonishment it worked fine so I finally had my money in my pocket and we set out for lunch. I thought we were eating at Jollibee but instead we went to a mall and the wife and her mother took the kids to another traditional Filipino fine dining establishment. You may have heard of it; "McDonalds". I didn't come all the way to the Philippines to eat at McDonald's (I don't even eat there back home) so I told her I would go get something else which worked out perfectly because I found a Japanese place that had sushi, one of my favorites. I got an 8 piece order of California maki and a large bottle of water and the total price was about $1.90...wow. The same thing in Italy would have cost me over $10.00. And this tasted much, much better. I was a little disappointed that I didn't get to experience Jollibee but I've got plenty of time.

From there we went to a different mall where the big supermarket - Robinson's - was to get some halo halo and do some grocery shopping. From what I can tell, there seem to be two main fast food chains here, Jollibee and Chow King. While Jollibee is American style fast food, Chow King is sort of a mix of Chinese and Filipino and, like Jollibee, they're everywhere. They have really good halo halo so we went there so I could try my first "real" one. Halo halo is a very popular Filipino dessert which is kind of hard to explain. It has to be experienced to get the full effect and I've never seen anything like it anywhere else in the world that I've gone. It's sort of a mixture of ice cream, flavor ice, varies tropical fruits, beans, purple yams, flan, and a few other things. It's delicious and perfect on a hot day. Different people make it in different versions and the wife sometimes makes her own at home during the summer but nothing is as good as the real thing. The halo halo experience finished, we hit Robinson's to do the grocery shopping. I've noticed the the wife's father is very fond of his brandy so I bought him a bottle of Napolean Brandy as a gift but he didn't seem much impressed by it. Perhaps he only likes the cheap stuff, who knows.

There was a really funny moment today as I bought a sim card for my phone. I did this for two reasons; first, so I'd be able to communicate with the wife if we get separated or are in different places and second, because I need my Geno fix. Geno is one of my best friends and we exchange email and sms back home throughout the day. I could not fathom a full two weeks without our normal daily banter so I needed a Philippine sim card. Shortly after, I sent him a short sms saying "Testing, this is my number in the Philippines". A couple minutes later I get a message that says "Great at 2am dick". I completely forgot that he is in the US and he's now 12 hours behind instead of 6! Cripes did I laugh when I got that message. In fact, I'm giggling out loud as I write this just thinking about it as I can picture a grumpy Geno, in the middle of the night, sending that message..."Great at 2am dick"...THAT'S WHAT YOU BRING TO THE TABLE GENO!

Dagupan City is the king of Bangus. Bangus is a fish that is extremely popular here and also among Filipinos abroad. I think the actual name is Milkfish but whatever it's called, it stinks to high heaven. We can actually buy bangus at the commissary on base where I work so the wife eats it occasionally and when she does, it stinks up the whole house so she mostly makes it when I'm not around. In our house it's affectionately referred to as "stinky bangus" and although I love fish, I've tried bangus and it's horrible. I've never understood why the wife still eats it so much when we have every other kind of tasty fish readily available to us in Italy such as salmon, tuna, and such. I guess it's just comfort food for her. Or maybe she truly and honestly likes the taste, hard as that is to believe. Anyway, like I said, Dagupan City is the king of bangus in that they are raised in little ponds all over the place in and around the city (Dagupan is situated right on Lingayan Gulf, where Gen MacArthur famously declared "I shall return") and when you drive in you can't escape the smell. It's not pleasant. On the way home we stopped at one the many little roadside stands for some fresh coconut. Turns out the guy is related to the wife's family, I think he was a cousin. Seems like everyone we run into is related to the wife somehow - cousins, uncles and aunts mostly. It was kind of cool watching him slice open the top of the coconut, something that looks easy but is very difficult, before slipping the straw in for me to drink. Fresh coconut juice, delicious. As I'm standing there, I look at the wall of his stand and he has a picture of a Filipina girl in a US Navy uniform. Turns out his sister is in the US Navy. After that we stopped at one of the many fresh fish markets on the way home and I bought some more shrimp for dinner. I'm a shrimp fiend, can't get enough of it, and it's so damned fresh and cheap here that I wouldn't mind eating it every night.

One of the biggest surprises yet came at Robinson's Supermarket today. While perusing the limited beer selection, I came across a beer I have not seen or drank in almost 20 years - Lone Star beer! They actually had Lone Star beer at this little supermarket in Dagupan City in the Philippines! I was shocked but I bought several cans and enjoyed them after dinner tonight. It was a fun night too, the wife's mother was here and after dinner we all sat out on the front terrace. Now the one thing you should know about Virginia's mother (Aggripina is her name) is that she is extremely religious. She also worked in Hong Kong for a few years while the wife was there so she can speak English pretty good but she's very shy and when she does speak, she talks so softly that I can't hear or understand hardly anything she says. She has endured a lot of hardship in her life for the good of her family and she's done a wonderful job raising nine (yes, NINE) kids and I have the utmost respect and admiration for her. Having said that, there are times when I feel like she doesn't particularly care for me, that maybe she wishes her oldest daughter would have married a nice Filipino boy from the hometown church instead of some white guy from the US who likes to drink beer and listen to ungodly music. I'm sure it's in my head, I just can't shake the feeling sometimes. Anyway, as I said, we were all sitting outside after dinner and I had been listening to the wife's iPod before everyone came out and was singing along with some of the songs. I took it off when everyone else came out and the wife's mother started singing some hymns. I knew one of them so I started singing along and then it turned into a hymn-fest with the two of us singing hymns together. It was a special moment, one I'm sure that meant a lot to her. Not surprisingly she asked if we would be going to church with her on Sunday and I said we probably would. The pressure is on now; if we don't go to church with her on Sunday, I might be kicked out of the family.

One last note about tonight. While we were sitting outside on the terrace I was in one of the bamboo chairs against the wall. At one point the X Man suddenly yells "Whoa, daddy, look at that spider!" I pull out my chair and on the wall behind it, a mere 6 inches away from where my back had been all night, was the biggest freaking spider I've ever seen in my life. I flipped out and tried to kill it with my foot but it was too fast and I missed but luckily the wife's aim was better and she killed it. I still get the willies thinking about how close I was sitting to that God-ugly thing.

Day two is in the books...still no snakes.

My First Trip to the Philippines, Day 1

2010-08-30T16:44:00.002+02:00

Day 1

Stayed at the wife's aunt and uncle's house in Manila. Tita Conchita and Tito Willy live in Quezon City, a suburb of Manila. The plan is to come back here a day or two early before we fly out so Conchita can show us around Manila a bit. I'm looking forward to that as I really am more of a big city person and I've never seen Manila. Tito Willy drove us to the nearest bus station early this morning and we were dismayed to find that the next bus leaving for Pangasinan did not have air conditioning. It was 8 am, that one left at 9 and the next one with AC left at noon. There was no freaking way I was riding in a bus for almost 5 hours in this extreme heat and humidity and the thought of sitting outside a bus station for 4 hours in the heat waiting for a bus was equally unappealing so Virginia's mother hailed a taxi to take us to another bus station. No luck there either so we went to a third station. The taxi had AC and the driver said he would drive us all the way to Pangasinan for 4,000 pisos (about $90) and I actually considered it but fortunately the third station had a bus with AC leaving in an hour. It worked out well as the bus was a lot more comfortable than a taxi would have been. The bus stopped a bunch of times on the way up for bathroom breaks and such and every time it stopped, a handful of street vendors hawking all kinds of different food items would come on board and try to sell them to the passengers. The most popular items seemed to be pork rinds and some kind of special pie called Bako pie. I know it was special because every time a guy would come on board selling them he would say repeatedly "Special pie...special pie...". I did my customary hand wave at each one and they left me alone but at one stop the wife bought a little plastic bag filled with what I thought were some kind of large, speckled gumballs. Turns out they were hard boiled quail eggs, she said Luca loves them. I tried one and they were good, basically tasted like a mini boiled egg. The whole bag cost like 50 cents for 10 eggs. The wife had bought a roll of toilet paper at the bus station in Manila which I thought was strange until she told me that the public bathrooms in the Philippines don't have any. Yikes. Manila is dirty and looks run down but the drive got more interesting as we got further from the city and into the provinces. At one point we passed by what used to be Clark Air Force Base. Clark was closed back around 1991 when a nearby volcano (Pinataubo) erupted and covered the area in ash and soot. I've always been fascinated by US military bases - especially those in other countries - so I felt a bit saddened seeing what must have once been a bustling area and a great place to be stationed. Continuing on, you start seeing enterprising Filipinios selling all kinds of stuff in little shacks and stands right on the side of the road. Snacks, drinks, coconuts, anything they think they can sell. You literally see them one after another all over the place.

After several hours we finally arrived in Rosario, La Union, which is the closest bus station to Boloen, the little Baranguay where the wife's family lives. Rosario is a big public market town so the place was crowded with people and every single one of them was staring right at me. I got the feeling none of them had ever seen a white person in person before. It was a little disconcerting but I did my best to ignore it. A few minutes later the wife's father and sisters pulled up on a couple of tricycles. Here, a tricycle is basically a motorcycle with a sidecar attached. They're very popular as they're the cheapest way to get around and they can go on the little roads and dirt paths that most cars cannot. You see them everywhere, especially in the provinces. They remind me a lot of the "Tuk-Tuks" you see everywhere in Thailand. Anyway, after nearly 8 years of marriage, I finally met Virginia's father, Herminigildo. Herminigildo is a very small but muscular man. He's been working the fields his entire life and it shows. His skin is so dark that he could almost pass for a black person and it's just as weathered as it is dark. You can tell just by looking at him that he is a hard man and an extremely hard worker. He's probably no more than 4 foot 10 or so but he looks as strong as an ox. Since we were right next to the market, we did some shopping first to get some fish and other stuff for dinner. I held Luca as we walked through the market which was sort of indoors as it had a low hanging tarp covering it. Inside there were all manner of fish and meat, all caught or killed that day, and tons of different fruits and vegetables. The wife chose some shrimp and some fresh fish and haggled with the vendors while every single person in the place stared at me. Again I did my best to ignore it but imagine walking around in a place where everybody just stares at you. My brother works in Africa and I'm guessing he deals with this as well. Definitely takes some getting used to. Across the dirt road from the market were bulidings with shops just like in any other town in Europe and also a decent sized supermarket where we bought coffee and other stuff that I can't live without. Unfortunately it's instant coffee as I doubt anyone here has ever even heard of espresso. I'm prepared to sacrifice certain things for a couple weeks and it looks like my morning coffee will be the first to go. *Sigh*. I was quite surprised to see an actual supermarket in such a small, austere place though. Perhaps it's the first of many misconceptions about this place that are sure to be shattered in the next couple weeks.

Arriving at the house was quite a shock. We got out of the tricycles and I noticed Virginia give the young guy that drove our tricycle some money. All of us and our bags would not fit in one tricycle so they had asked a local friend if he wouldn't mind giving us a ride. I thought it was a relative but he was just a local friend and I guess they don't do stuff like that around here for free, not even for friends. I probably shouldn't be surprised, they're very poor here and need to make money any way they can. Not to mention that he's gotta pay for his gas somehow. This is how the wife's family had to get around before they bought their tricycle last year; every time they needed to go somewhere, they had to pay a friend to take them. I can't imagine how inconvenient and annoying that must have been. When their crops were wiped out last year by the extreme flooding I offered to send them some money to help them recover and they spent that money on the tricycle. I have to admit that my first thought was "We send them money and they use it on a motorcycle?". The wife assured me it was the best thing they could buy. I was not convinced then but I certainly am now. The tricycle is practically their lifeblood and I can't even imagine how they got by without it before last year. But back to the house; the tricycles stopped at a little foot bridge next to a river. We grabbed all the bags - the wife's father grabbed the biggest, heaviest one - and started across the bridge and I quickly realized that we wouldn't be able to just pull my suitcase along by the handle, we would have to carry them all the way. To get to their house you first had to cross this little creaky, metal hanging foot bridge, then walk about a half mile or so on a dirt path through a bunch of rice fields. I was immediately glad that I packed everything into one suitcase but carrying that thing all the way in the extreme heat and humidity kicked my ass, I'm not ashamed to say. Arriving at their lot, we had to walk along a narrow little path through the rice fields to get to the house which was pretty much what I expected it to be. Most of the furniture was hand made out of bamboo. There's an upstairs and a downstairs but the upstairs is completely empty since they had to replace the roof a year or two ago due to termite damage and they still haven't finished it yet. The boards that make up the floor are so thin that you can see the downstairs through the cracks. The place would actually be pretty decent if it was all fixed up and furnished. The kitchen has no furnishings except for a refrigerator which they don't put a whole lot of stuff in because they are prone to long power outages here. For cooking, there is a fireplace. They cook everything over an open flame pretty much. In the living room there's a tv but the wife says it's from 1976 and it only gets two channels. The bad part for me is the bathroom. They have an actual toilet (with no seat) but no indoor plumbing, just a bucket of water they keep next to the toilet. Basically you do your business, then dump water in the bucket until everything goes down. That will take some getting used to I'm sure but I've crapped in worse places so no big deal. The shower is just an empty cement room with a chair in it. You drag a bucket of water in there and take a field shower. In the front yard they have a big cement sink type thing with a big water pump next to it which is how they get their water. They keep a huge bucket next to the pump full of water and use it for everything; cooking, cleaning, washing, etc. Luca likes to give himself makeshift baths by taking the little dipper in the bucket and pouring it over his head, it's very cute. There are witndows but most of them are broken which isn't a big deal as the house is usually wide open anyway. You can't completely close it up because there are cracks and openings all over. And the bugs! There are more flies here than I've ever seen before. You sit down and you've got 4 or 5 flying around you all the time, it's very annoying. Mosquitoes don't seem to be much of a problem yet thankfully. The kitchen table is covered with little tiny ants. The wife said they normally spray some stuff that keeps the ants away but I can't remember why they haven't recently.

We bought some fish at the market for dinner and I bought the biggest prawn (shrimp) I've ever seen in my life. The wife had the fridge stocked with beer - she knows me so well - and I gotta tell you, there's nothing like a cold beer on a really hot day, even in the Philippines. The wife's father came by after dinner with a small bottle of brandy and he and I sat and bonded while we got slightly inebriated. It was a fun experience. He can actually speak English a tiny bit albeit in short, halting half-sentences that I have to struggle to understand. He seems to have taken to me more than anyone else in her family so far which I take as a good sign. I like him a lot, he is really cool.

So Day 1 is over and so far no snakes. We're off to a good start.

The World Cup and Me: 2002

2010-07-12T07:24:00.005+02:00

In May of 2000 I moved to Italy, the magical land of soccer. Through a strange twist of fate I ended up living in a little town outside the city of Vicenza named Caldogno where I find myself living to this day. My first week there I visited the sports bar down the street and was amazed to see the walls covered with newspaper clippings, photos, paintings, jerseys, trophies and all kinds of other memorabilia all dedicated to one man: Roberto Baggio. It turns out that Baggio was born and raised in my little town of Caldogno, about a two minute walk from my little apartment! It was unfathomable to me that one of my favorite players of all time, the man I had personally witnessed beat Spain in the Quarterfinals of WC 1994, was from the little town I found myself living in. My 5 favorite players in the world at that time were Francesco Totti, Zinedane Zidane. Paulo Maldini, Eric Cantona and Baggio, 3 of whom were Italian. Although I still admired the French team, my affections quickly shifted to the Azurri. I'd been a fan pretty much since the time I heard that they had beaten Germany to win it all in 1982 and now that I was actually living in Italy, it was impossible to resist. I immersed myself in all things Azurri (for those who don't know, 'The Azurri" is the nickname of Italy's soccer team, taken from the blue shirts that they wear). I already knew most of their players and had watched them in every tournament since WC 1994 so it was easy to follow them. And follow them I did, watching every friendly and qualifying match they played in the 2 years leading up to World Cup 2002.

The Cup was co-hosted by South Korea and Japan that year, first time ever it was held in Asia. This sucked right away because the time difference meant that many of the matches would take place during the day here in Italy while I was at work. It was a strange tournament to be sure. For one thing, France failed to make it through the first round which was quite shocking as they were defending champions - and had also won the European Championship 2 years prior. I still had a soft spot for France at that time but I quickly realized that the team I admired so much in WC 1998 was long gone, replaced by a bunch of overpaid egos and attitude (Zidane being the exception). I would never cheer for them again after that tournament although Zidane does remain one of my favorite players ever and probably the best I've watched in my lifetime.

World Cup 2002 was memorable for several reasons. For one thing it was my first World Cup in Italy which was a dream come true in itself. The building I worked in had almost as many Italian workers as Americans so every TV in the building had the game on when the Azurri played. I remember watching Italy-Mexico in the small office of one of the Italians, Mexico had the lead and Italy needed a tie to go through to the next round. In the second half I repeatedly called for Del Piero to come into the match, that he would score for sure and after about the 10th time, I got the feeling that the Italian guy was starting to get annoyed with me. however, Del Piero DID come into the match and wouldn't you know it, he scored the tying goal that sent Italy through to the next round. I'll never forget the look on the guy's face when Del Piero scored too, he looked at me in astonishment and then started laughing as I gave him the "I told you so" look.

Perhaps most memorable for me was that 2002 was the best ever showing for the US team in my lifetime. They reached the Quarterfinals before losing to Germany although they outplayed Germany that day and even had a valid goal disallowed.

Plenty of great goals stand out to me as well: Robbie Keane's dramatic last minute goal against Germany giving them an improbable tie and sending them to the second round...Ronaldinho's long distance goal against England that looked suspiciously like a cross that just happened to find the back of the net...Garcia-Aspe's sublime header against Italy, just to name a few. A few matches stand out, most notably the Brazil-Turkey semifinal, The US-Mexico Quarterfinal and Germany's 8-0 drubbing of Saudi Arabia and there were also a handful of teams who came out of nowhere such as Turkey and Senegal.

Sadly, this was the first world Cup I can remember where the refs made headlines with their poor performance. It was at this tournament that I became convinced that FIFA are corrupt. South Korea were a team that had never even advanced to the second round of a World Cup before and yet some very shady refereeing ensured that they made it all the way to the semifinal of World Cup 2002 which they just happened to be hosting. It certainly left a bad taste in my mouth but overall this was a very entertaining tournament with a lot of surprises. Interestingly, when Germany met Brazil in the final, it was the first time the two countries had ever played each other in a World Cup. I didn't like the fact that I had to miss so many matches due to the time difference but I had high hopes for 2006 which was being hosted by Germany.

Up Next: 2006

The World Cup and Me: 1998

2010-07-08T07:31:00.011+02:00

In the years immediately following World Cup 1994 it is no exaggeration to say that I was completely obsessed with the world of international soccer. A couple different things helped me considerably with my passion; first, a couple channels on our cable system started showing highlight programs of the English Premier League and Italy's Serie A. Cripes I was in heaven, I was finally getting to see the best players in the world on a regular basis. Second, somewhere around this time we got our first Barnes and Noble in Nashua and with it came a great selection of soccer books and magazines. "World Soccer", the fantastic magazine from England became a monthly buy and I tore it apart, devouring every article and every little tidbit from all the European leagues, the US, South America...hell, even some of the Asian leagues. I also bought a handful of books including one called the Soccer Encyclopedia which I spent hours reading, learning as much as I could about the history of the big leagues and players. I was particularly interested in the history of the World Cup itself and I read as much as I could about every tournament starting with 1930 and commited tons of stats to memory. The Slav and I also developed another hobby - collecting soccer jerseys. They weren't as easy to find back then as they are today but we bought em when we could. At one point I even remember calling all the way to a shop in England that advertised in the back of "World Soccer" to order a Newcastle United jersey. If you added up the cost of the call, the exchange rate and the shipping charges I probably paid 3 times the cost of the shirt but I didn't care.

In the spring of 1998 I enlisted in the US Army. For those new to this blog, I did this for two main reasons: to get money for my Masters Degree and to see Europe. I was guaranteed an assignment in Germany and the fact that the World Cup was being held that summer in neighboring France was certainly not lost on me. I arrived in Germany about a month before the tournament began and the first thing I did was go downtown to find a sports bar that would be showing the matches. I found one right away called, appropriately, "The Sports Bar" and it was on.

Now, at this time I didn't really have a particular country that I supported. I was more interested in watching all the teams and comparing the styles of play. I cheered mostly for certain players (my two favorite players back then were Roberto Baggio and Zinedane Zidane) and for teams that played well. I rooted for the US of course but they were still nowhere near the level of the big teams in terms of quality of play and they were usually painful to watch. I had a lot of friends back home who followed teams of their ancestry (Ireland, Italy, etc) and though this sounded like a good idea, my immediate ancestry was Canadian and they were even worse than the US at soccer. My brother had once sent me a copy of our family Coat of Arms going all the way back to France and I really liked the French team back then since Zinedane Zidane was at his peak so I adopted them as my team. I did actually speak a little French back then so it seemed a natural fit.

Every day, as soon as final formation was over, I would rush back to the barracks, change clothes, and get down to the Sports Bar as fast as I could to catch the first match of the day. Those were some very special times for me sitting in the Sports Bar watching all the matches with the locals, drinking German beer and going out between matches to grab a doner kebab. The owner was a young German guy named Miguel and he used to do a "tip" before every match where you put in 2 Deutschmarks and predicted the score of each match and if you won, you won the pot. I'm proud to say that I won my share of tips which gave me instant credibility with the Germans. They all spoke English and we would sit there talking "Football" during the matches and they were quite surprised at how well I knew the teams and players, especially the smaller teams that they knew nothing about.

The US were drawn in Germany's group in WC 1998 so a friend and I went down to support the American team. The sports Bar was completely packed and there were only a few of us there to witness Germany just completely dismantle an overmatched US team who would go on to finish dead last in the entire tournament. The German fans were great though, they were almost apologetic that Germany had embarrassed the US so bad.

Somewhere after the first two rounds of matches we were scheduled to go out to the training area in Hohenfels for a week of field training. I was not happy about this as I would have to miss an entire week of matches - and the third round of matches at that, which usually decided who would be going on to the knockout stages. I was on a retrans team with two other guys and we spent most of the week camped out at the edge of a field in the middle of nowhere. After a couple days of reading the World Cup magazine I'd brought with me I could not take it anymore and begged my boss to let me try and find a town to watch the Brazil-Norway match that night. He reluctantly agreed and I put on my PT clothes and started walking in the direction of the nearest town, called Velburg, which the sign said was 3 kilometers away. I arrived in Velburg and walked around until I found a gastehaus and went in to ask if they would be showing the match that night and they said no, they were simply a restaurant. I asked if there was a place in town that would have it and they said no, the nearest place that would probably have it would be the next town which was 5 kilometers away, back in the direction that I'd just come from. Two directions I could have gone and I chose the wrong one! But Brazil-Norway was a big match so I had no choice...I had to make the trek. I walked and walked and walked and eventually got to the town, checked into 2 or 3 gastehauses and eventually found one that had a little TV and would show the match. In the dining room area where I watched I noticed a plaque on the wall, went over to see what it was and to my amazement it was plaque commemorating West Germany's 1990 World Cup victory and was signed by every member of the 1990 team! I was definitely in the right place. I drank a hefeweizen, ate a schnitzel and watched Norway upset heavily favored Brazil, thinking that all the walking I did to get there that night was well worth it.

We got back to Kitzingen by the time the knockout stages began and my nightly routine got back underway for about a week but soon the 4th of July holiday was upon us and since the main reason I'd joined the Army was to travel and see Europe, there was no way I was staying around Kitzingen with 4 days off. France was in the Quarterfinals that weeekend so I jumped on a train and took my first ever trip to the motherland, to the city of Strasbourg. Walking around Strasbourg Saturday morning was just an unbelievable experience as the match was that afternoon and the city was abuzz with excitement. I went into the news shops to get a paper or bottle of water and every newspaper in the place was screaming about the match. I did some sightseeing and then about an hour before the match, took a seat in a little bar right next to the huge cathedral. There were only a couple other people in there and I couldn't understand why it wasn't completely packed for such a big game. To my horror, France had drawn Italy in the Quarterfinals and I was not happy about having to root against Italy, but I loved this French team and I was all in. It turned out to be one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences too, one I will never forget. Looking back I think the bar was empty because most French people didn't think they had a chance. I say this because as the match went on more and more people started coming in. By the time it got to overtime the place was completely packed and when the match went into penalty kicks, not only was the place packed but there were people stacked up at the windows at least three deep trying to get a glimpse and yelling "ALLEZ FABIAN!" (The French keeper's name was Fabian Barthez). France ended up winning the match on penalty kicks and I spent the rest of the day walking around the city taking in all the celebrations before heading back to the hostel to watch Brazil squeak by Denmark. That day has always been one of my favorite World Cup moments ever. The next night I mistakenly incurred the wrath of a German high school group who were staying at the hostel. Germany took on Croatia and although I liked the German team, I was sure that Croatia would upset them that night. Croatia had a fantastic team in 1998 and I felt that Davor Suker was one of the most underrated strikers at the World Cup so I had told the German kids that I'm sorry but they were going to lose that night. They did not like my prediction and they liked the actual match even less as Croatia completely dominated them 3-0. The German kids spent the rest of the night telling me how terrible Americans are at football and how their national team is a joke. France drew Croatia in the semifinals and although France beat them (just barely), they ended up finishing 3rd in World Cup 1998.

Back in Kitzingen the following weekend we prepared for a France-Brazil final. Brazil were heavy, heavy favorites but once again, I had no doubt that France would win it all. I'd fallen in love with their team by that point, they played such a beautiful style and had Zinedane Zidane who I'd watched for years and was quickly becoming the best player of his generation. France hadn't won anything by that point (except for a European Championship in 1984) and were hungry. They had no egos or attitudes. They had players I admired such as Bixente Lizerazu and Emmanual Petit. Brazil were Brazil but anyone who watched France play in that tournament should have known that they would not be denied even though I seemed to be the only person who recognized it. I defiantly told everybody at the Sports Bar in Kitzingen that France would beat Brazil - I even GUARANTEED it - and everybody laughed at me. In fact, France were up 2-0 at halftime and one of the bartenders told me that Brazil would still win and even bet me a round of drinks that they would. When the final whistle sounded and France were World Champions for the first time ever, everyone at the bar congratulated me and joked that they would never doubt me again and we all drank long into the night celebrating the end of a fantastic World Cup tournament. World Cup 1998 remains to this day my favorite tournament ever.

Up Next: 2002

The World Cup and Me: 1994

2010-07-06T08:38:00.007+02:00

My knowledge and interest in the "World Game" increased exponentially in the years between 1990 and 1994. We had a girl in my Army Reserve unit who had been stationed in Germany during WC 1990 and I used to ask her about it all the time, what it was like to be there when they won it all. Also, due to the magic of videotapes I was able to watch old matches and finally get to see some of the players that I'd only read about in action. I remember being mesmerized by Marco Van Basten and becoming a fan of AC Milan - still my favorite club team to this day - because of him. We had a soccer store back home in Nashua and I bought a cheap replica of Germany's 1990 World Cup shirt and wore it proudly during my intramural games. My friend Dave (who we called "The Slav") shared my love of soccer and the international games in particular and since he was my only friend who cared anything about the game, he and I spent a lot of time watching highlights and reading about matches, teams and players wherever we could find information.

World Cup 1994 was being hosted by the US so by the time it started I was at a fever pitch. I had hoped to see as many matches in person as possible (Foxboro, MA was one of the host cities) but I didn't think it'd be possible as I had graduated college the year before and was still looking for a real job by the time 1994 rolled around. By the late spring of 1994 I found myself living in a house in Dover, NH with a couple guys I didn't even know and it was there that I watched the US-Switzerland match which kicked off World Cup 1994. I remember it like it was yesterday; Switzerland scored first on a free kick and I thought "Here we go again, the US is so bad...". But then something amazing happened. Not long after going down 1-0, Eric Wynalda curled a free kick perfectly in the top corner of the Swiss net to tie the match 1-1. At that one moment I started to realize that maybe the US wasn't that bad after all. That goal, which was truly world class, gave the US team instant legitimacy. With a point in their first match, I was hopeful that they might advance to the second round but they had to play Columbia next and Columbia were one of the favorites of the entire tournament. Pele himself had actually picked them to win it all. I'd actually seen Columbia play in person a few weeks earlier as they played Northern Ireland in a friendly at Foxboro Stadium and The Slav and I had gone. They were an impressive team led by colorful Carlos Valderrama famous as much for his huge red afro as his sublime playmaking ability. I had gotten a job in advertising sales at one of the big radio stations on the coast called WERZ and had to work a big functon that night so I was really upset at having to miss the match. At some point in the night one of the DJ's grabbed me and told me they had the match on at the bar. It was in the second half and the US was actually ahead 1-0! Everybody was shocked. Suddenly Stewart took a pass and scored a second goal and the US were up 2-0 on mighty Columbia. Valencia scored in the 90th minute for Columbia and there were some nervous moments but oh the joy when the ref sounded the whistle. With one match remaining, the US were actually tied at the top of their group, it was unthinkable. The expectation and drama going into their last match was unbelievable. They could win the group if they won but could still advance with a loss. One thing sticks out to me about that match and that was the goal that Romania scored. Petrescu took a shot from the corner and Tony Meola played the angle about as bad as you could possibly play it. For me personally it was a harsh reminder that despite a couple good results, the US were still nowhere near the level of the "big" soccer countries. They lost to Romania 1-0 in their last match but still advanced to the second round where they had to face Brazil. There they played the match of their lives (on the 4th of July no less) but lost 1-0. The World Cup was over for the US but their Cinderella run had sparked an interest in many Americans in the World game. For me, it was just nice to see other Americans finally starting to realize how beautiful the "World Game" was.

I have a ton of great memories from World Cup 1994. Among them:

* So many great matches stand out in my mind such as Spain-South Korea (where the Koreans scored twice in the last 5 minutes to finish with an improbable 2-2 draw) and the amazing Quarterfinal between Romania and Sweden but believe it or not, the best match of the tournament - and still the most entertaining World Cup match I've ever seen - was, for me, Bolivia-South Korea. Drawn in a group with Germany and Spain, both teams knew they would have to win that match if they had any chance of going through to the next round and both teams just completely threw everything at each other for 90 minutes. I've never seen anything like it, just back and forth, back and forth. There must have been at least 500 shots off the crossbar and an equal number of great saves. I was on the edge of my seat the entire match, it was just breathtaking to watch. And the most amazing part? The final score was 0-0.

* WERZ had advertising accounts with one of the corporate sponsors of the WC and because of this I was able to get tickets to two first round matches (Argentina-Nigeria and Argentina-Greece). At the second match, The Slav struck up a conversation with the guy sitting next to him who, as it turned out, had a bunch of tickets to the Quarterfinal match to be held at Foxboro. We had no idea who would be playing and we paid a hefty price for them ($120 a piece) but I didn't care, nothing would stop me from missing the chance to attend a World Cup Quarterfinal match. And it worked out perfectly as the match turned out to be Italy-Spain. I wore my AC Milan shirt and the Slav wore his Inter Milan shirt. The hatred between those two teams is like the Red Sox-Yankees times a thousand and sure enough, as we walked into the stadium an old Italian guy jumped in front of us and started pointing to our shirts and screaming excitedly in Italian. It was a great World Cup moment for me.

* The Quarterfinal match itself was unbelievable. 12 years after hearing the words "Italy beat Germany to win the World Cup" and developing a love affair with Italy's soccer team, I was actually getting to watch them in person...and in a World Cup match. I could have died right at that moment. With the match tied near the end, Beppe Signori intercepted a pass near midfield and fed a streaking Roberto Baggio. I'd already become a huge Baggio fan in World Cup 1994 so when he took the pass, dribbled wide past the keeper and buried a shot from a near impossible angle to win the match in the 88th minute and send Italy into the semifinals I was practically ready to name my first kid Baggio Thibodeau.

* Rudi Voeller's last hurrah. Voeller was one of the main players I remember watching on Channel 11 as a kid and I'd always loved him. Berti Vogts was not playing him in the group matches and I was mad because I knew it was probably my last chance to watch him and I thought he was better than Karl-Heinze Reidler anyway. When he finally played in the second round match against Belgium, he put on one of the greatest displays of how to play the game that I've ever seen, scoring two goals. Watching him and Klinnsman together was just like watching perfection.

* World Cup 1994 was just a great tournament but the one bad thing about it was that neither England nor France qualified. To have a World Cup without at least one of those teams, it just always felt like something was missing.

Up Next: 1998

The World Cup and Me: 1990

2010-07-06T08:07:00.004+02:00

My memories from World Cup 1990 are even more limited than 1986 but for a very different reason: I was in Basic Training at Fort Dix, NJ during the tournament. I've always regretted missing the 1990 tournament for several reasons. For one thing, it was the first time since 1950 that the US actually qualified. Also, the tournament was being held in Italy which, if you recall from the introduction, was the magical land of soccer in my mind. I'd just finished my freshman year of college and though I didn't play on the University team, I did spend the year playing intramurals and it felt great to be back playing the sport I loved so much. We had a lot of players from other countries at my school and I became even more interested in the game outside my own country.

I left for boot camp in late May and the tournament started in early June so I missed the entire thing. My mother used to send me newspaper clippings of some of the matches and results which were like gold to me. We had a guy in my company who played ball at the University of Maryland and whenever one of us would get articles sent us, we would sit on the floor and pour over the results. Not only was it great to get World Cup news but it also provided a welcome respite from the day to day stress of boot camp. The thing I most remember was reading the clipping of Cameroon's shocking upset of defending champion Argentina. I'd never even HEARD of Cameroon before that. Such is the power of the World Cup. I also remember getting a clipping of the US getting thrashed by Czechoslovakia 5-1 and thinking "Well, at least they're IN the World Cup". Then a week or so later I received a clipping of the US-Italy match. The US had lost 1-0 to powerful Italy and the article was about how there was hope in the US that we were getting better because hey, they had only lost to Italy 1-0! How quickly the 5-1 drubbing at the hands of the Czechs was forgotten...

Germany ended up winning that year and suddenly they were on top of the soccer world again. Although I didn't get to watch any of it, I read as much as I could about World Cup 1990 and, as I would find out eventually, there were several things about that tournament that would affect me in the years to come (as you will see)...

Up Next: 1994

The World Cup and Me: 1986

2010-07-03T08:09:00.005+02:00

My memories of the 1986 tournament are pretty limited. It was the first one that I actually watched on TV. I was 14 going on 15 during that tournament and was probably at the apex of my playing days (such as they were). My second to last year in the Litchfield Youth Soccer League I dominated, scoring 22 goals in 6 games. The next year, my last, I played the second half of every match in goal and still scored 24 goals in 6 matches. My love of the game was at an all time high. After the school year ended I spent most of my weekends at my father's house and in his neighborhood there were 4 or 5 other kids a little younger than me who loved soccer and so we turned the backyard into a field and would spend the day playing pickup games and knocking the ball around. To be honest, I had no idea the World Cup was even being played at that time since I'd long lost touch with any "real world" soccer news and let's face it, back then nobody in the US gave a rip about the World Cup. One afternoon I came into the house and there was a soccer match on TV. I started watching it and quickly realized that it was the World Cup! The only thing I remember about the match was that France was playing and it looked so much different than the soccer I was used to. Rather than one guy taking the ball and trying to dribble around everybody before shooting (guilty) the teams looked like they were playing keep away. Every now and then, one team would push the ball forward and make a run at the goal or send one his teammates running with a nifty ball that would slice through the defense. I'd never seen the sport I loved played like this before and for the first time I had an inkling that the sport we called soccer was played much different in the rest of the world.

Unfortunately the tournament started a couple weeks earlier that year than normal and by the time I discovered that it was on, it was almost over. So I only got to see a couple matches, very few details of which I can actually remember. What I remember most was that my fascination with the World Cup was instantly rekindled. The one player who stood out at that World Cup was of course Diego Maradona and he became the first World class player that I idolized. His team, Argentina had won the Cup and it opened up a new world for me - the world of South American soccer. Where we lived we had a lot of different immigrants and many of them were Hispanic. Suddenly I had a glimpse of why they loved the game so much. I ended up playing on the JV team of my high school that fall and we had a kid named Febonio who used to try and get fancy and dribble around everyone like Maradona and the coach used to mockingly call him "Madonna". That was a rough season for me as the coach played me at left wing which was probably my worst position and most of the other kids on the teams were a bunch of prima donnas and bad attitudes who were not fun to play with. It was the first time ever that I didn't enjoy playing the game and the next year I didn't even try out. My senior year I had originally planned on playing but, as I've written about on here before, I couldn't quit my job since I needed money for various things so I didn't. For all intents and purposes, my playing days were over as I would be leaving for college soon and given that my College team was made up almost entirely of foreign players while I'd played exactly one year of JV ball in high school, I'd have no chance of making the cut. But while my playing days were drawing to a close, my days of being a fan of the World game were just beginning. As Gino commented in my last post, I would occasionally stumble across a copy of Soccer Digest and through it, started learning about players and teams from other countries. The flame continued to be fanned, slowly but surely...

Up Next: 1990

The World Cup and Me: An Introduction

2010-06-29T07:26:00.007+02:00

You may have noticed that I'm a passionate follower of the World Cup. I'm sometimes asked by people in Europe how I, an American, became such a fan and know so much about the tournament and the sport in general as Americans are not generally known for being so passionate about the game of soccer/football/calcio. I don't know how it happened, I've just always loved the sport I guess. So since the World Cup is currently underway, I thought it might be interesting to do a blog series looking back at my own personal history of the World Cup through the years, maybe it will help explain why I go completely batshit crazy for a month every four years.

The first time I remember ever hearing about the World Cup was in 1982. I had just turned 11 and although I grew up playing several sports, soccer was always my favorite. Not surprisingly it was also the one I was best at. Around that time, one of our public tv stations, Channel 11, used to show a German League ("Bundesliga") match every Sunday morning and I was glued to the screen just mesmorized by what those guys could do with a soccer ball. I'd spend every Sunday watching teams with names like Bayer Leverkusen and Eintracht Frankfurt and idolized players like Toni Schumacher and Rudi Voeller, often trying to mimic them in our Saturday morning games on dusty old Brickyard Field. Back then, Germany was all I knew about professional soccer because of channel 11 and also because my first coach, Bill Morris was a German guy and used to talk about them as the gold standard. In the summer of 1982 I was playing on a town traveling team and at one of our matches one of the fathers, Mike Kaberle, yelled across the field to another father the words that started it all for me:

"Italy just beat Germany to win the World Cup!"

I was shocked. I didn't really know what the World Cup was but I did know that there was some kind of big tournament going on because I'd heard Bill Morris talking about it. I had taken for granted that Germany would win of course because they were Germany after all. So the fact that there was a country out there who could actually beat them, wow, I couldn't believe it. There's a sizeable Italian population in Boston ("The North End") and I remember the nightly sportscast that night showing scenes of them dancing in the streets, waving flags, singing songs and just going nuts. We have a rich sports tradition in Boston and I grew up following the Red Sox, Patriots, Celtics and Bruins and had even seen the Celtics win a championship by that time but I'd never seen anything like that. At that moment, Italy, to me, became the magical land of soccer, a place where they ate pizza and spaghetti and played soccer day and night. I still liked Germany but in my mind, Italy had replaced them as king. It didn't matter that I knew none of their players or had never even seen them play; they'd beaten the powerful Germans.

Not long after, Channel 11 stopped showing Bundesliga matches. Back then there was no internet or cable which meant that places like Germany and Italy might as well have been on another planet. We had a "pro" league in the US, the NASL, but by the early 80's it was becoming a farce and was never shown on TV and anyway, the Boston team was so bad that I seem to remember them relocating to Jacksonville somewhere around that time. The US had not qualified for a World Cup since 1950 so there really was no national team to speak of. In fact the only US player I knew back then was Ricky Davis and that was only because he had been in a freaking soap commercial. Years later I would look back and wonder how different things would have been if I'd been born in a soccer-mad country and had world class players to grow up emulating. As it was I would have to wait 4 more years to be reminded that there was a whole different world of soccer outside of the Litchfield Youth Soccer League...

Up next: 1986.

World Cup Preview, Part III

2010-06-11T14:00:00.002+02:00

Top 5 Golden Boot candidates (Top scorer): Luis Fabiano, David Villa, Robin Van Persie, Wayne Rooney, Lionel Messi

My pick: Luis Fabiano (Brazil)
Dark Horses: Diego Milito (Argentina), Robinho (Brazil)

Top 5 Golden Ball candidates (Top player): Lionel Messi, Xavi, Wesley Sneijder, Wayne Rooney, Christiano Ronaldo

My pick: Xavi
Dark Horses: Lucio (Brazil), Maicon (Brazil)

Top 5 Yashin candidates (Top GK): Iker Casillas, Julio Cesar, Gigi Buffon, Maartin Stekelenburg, Hugo Lloris

My Pick: Iker Casillas
Dark Horses: Mark Schwarzer (Australia), Tim Howard (USA)

Top 5 Candidates for Best Young Player: Mezut Ozil, Javier Hernandez, Yoann Gourcuff, Angel DiMaria, Jesus Navas

My Pick: Ozil (Germany)
Dark Horses: Dominic Adiyiah (Ghana), Alexis Sanchez (Chile)

My Top 5 Picks to Win It All: Brazil, The Netherlands, Spain, Argentina, Germany

My Pick: Brazil
My Dark Horse Pick: The Netherlands

Top 5 candidates for Most Entertaining Team: Spain, Brazil, The Netherlands, Argentina, Portugal

My Pick: The Netherlands
Dark Horse: Chile

African country I pick to go the furthest: Nigeria & Cameroon (Quarterfinals)

Number of African countries I’m picking to make the second round: 3

Number of African countries I’d be picking to make the second round if the tournament were not being held in Africa: 0

Best Nickname: Jong Tae-se, North Korea. The prolific goal scorer with the slightly plump figure is known in Asia as “The People’s Rooney”.

World Cup Preview, Part II

2010-06-10T09:37:00.001+02:00

GROUP E:

Netherlands are the story here. I was almost prepared to pick them to win it all until the injury to Arjen Robben this past weekend which will keep him out at least for the first match, maybe more. With a healthy Robben, I personally think Holland are the strongest side in Europe, even better than Spain. They still enough to make a run at the prize but it’s hard to see them winning it without him, he is that much of a difference maker. It’s likely that at least one of their strikers - Kuyt, Van Persie, Huntelaar or star-in-waiting Eljerio Elia will challenge for the Golden Boot and they have possibly the world’s best playmaker in Wesley Sneijder directing the attack. The key for the Dutch will be how airtight their defense plays as they are breaking in a new goalkeeper in Maartin Stekelenburg after Edwin Van Der Saar’s international retirement. Watch out for defenseman Gregory Van Der Wiel who is on the verge of becoming the next big Dutch export. Holland are a solid team all around with enough in reserve to overcome the loss of Robben. They still remain my official darkhorse pick to left the Jules Rimet when all is said and done. A Quarterfinal matchup with the Brazilians looms which could well be the match of the tournament.

Denmark was quickly entering darkhorse territory themselves after an impressive qualifying campaign in which they easily topped a tough group that included Sweden and 2006 semifinalist Portugal. The Danes usually play solid ball but they might also be missing some key players due to injury. Simon Kjaer (who I know well as he plays in Serie A for Palermo) looks to be out for the opening match against the Netherlands. On offense they will go as far as Nicklas Bendtner takes them. They’ve had a poor run of form since qualifying and my guess is that they peaked too soon. With a good young nucleus of players like Bendtner, Kjaer and Daniel Agger, Denmark should in the hunt for the next WC again but I think they go home early from this one.

Cameroon are in a very tenuous position going into this tournament. Tabbed by most prognosticators as the most talented African team and the one that should go furthest, they currently have problems with the “spirit of the team”. Their all-everything striker Samuel Eto’o is unhappy about recent critical comments made by Cameroonian legend Roger Milla towards him and even threatened to quit the team over them. It’s no secret that Eto’o pretty much IS Cameroon so if he is unhappy or unmotivated, Cameroon will go home early. I’m betting on manager Paul LeGuen’s ability to keep the peace though and do just enough to finish second behind the Dutch. If the Indomitable Lions falter in their opening match to the Japanese, look for the team to fall apart and for the Danes to easily slide in second in this group.

Speaking of Japan, they’ve had a decent record of qualifying for the WC lately but have never won a match outside of their own country (2002). Don’t look for that streak to end here either, I think the best they can hope for in South Africa is picking up a draw or two. However, they have vowed to play an attacking style and indeed, they are coached by Brazilian legend Zico so they should at least be fun to watch.

My Picks:

1. The Netherlands
2. Cameroon
3. Denmark
4. Japan

GROUP F:

As you know, I’ve lived in Italy for the past 10 years (minus a 2 year stint in Germany) and have followed the Azzurri religiously in that time. So it’s no small thing for me to say that this is probably the weakest version I can remember. Here in Italy most people are trying to keep the faith and trying to say the right things but the truth is, few really expect this team to go much further than the quarterfinals. Had they been drawn in a tougher group there’d be worries about them not even getting out of the first round. This is an old group but a proud group so they should never be counted out but there’s little to make me think that they can recapture the magic of 4 years ago when they came out of nowhere to lift their 4th World Cup trophy, second only to Brazil. Their only playmaker, Pirlo, will be out at least the first 2 matches and there’s nobody else on the roster who can create like he does. His absence puts more pressure on Ricardo Montolivo and Andrea Cossu, both making their WC debuts. Up front they will probably rely on Alberto Gilardino and Iaquinta, both decent finishers, but neither has done much in International play. Toto DiNatale is the most prolific goal scorer in Serie A but has never been able to replicate that for La Nazionale for some reason. There’s hope in Italy that he might be the Toto Schillaci of this WC. Without Pirlo, much will be expected of Daniele DeRossi who might just be the best player on the current roster. The defense is, in a word, old. Fabio Cannavaro won the best player award in 2006 but he’s 37 now and has lost a little more than just a step. Ditto Zambrotta. The strongest defender is Giorgio Chiellini; if Italy are to go far, they will need one of their young defenders – either Bonucci, Criscito or Maggio – to step up big time. Between the sticks they are set with Gigi Buffon, still regarded as one of the top 2 or 3 goalkeepers in the world. It’s fashionable to be down on the Azzurri these days as the current team has not looked very impressive lately. But they are still Italy and should not be overlooked. Last time that happened was 4 years ago and looked how that turned out…

Paraguay figures to be Italy’s main challenger for top spot in this group. I don’t know too much about them but I do know that they usually raise their game considerably when they play in the World Cup. They should also be helped by the altitude and southern hemisphere climate. I’ve also seen enough of them to know that they can definitely score goals.

Slovakia are playing in their first World Cup but it figures to be a short lived experience. Their best player by far is Marek Hamsik who stars for Napoli in Italy’s Serie A. Best known for his crazy spiked hairdo, he is a dynamic playmaker, deadly finisher and will most likely be on the move to a much bigger club before too long (Inter have been rumored to have strong interest in him). Slovakia should go as far as he can take them. They were decisive in qualifying but in a pretty weak group and they give up a lot of goals which will not bode well for them at this World Cup. Second place is not out of the realm of possibility for this team though given the competition.

New Zealand, along with North Korea, are widely seen as the worst team in the tournament. I don’t see it that way. I’ve watched them play a few times and they are full of pluck and fight. On any given day they are capable of a shock upset, especially considering the fact that they’ll be playing in a familiar climate. They will most likely finish bottom of the group but they are hardly going to go down without a fight. I recall watching them come within a whisker of upsetting Italy in a friendly about a year ago, giving the mall they could handle before losing 4-3 in a very entertaining match. If they can carry the spirit they displayed in that match into the World Cup, they should at least provide a good show.

My Picks:

1. Italy
2. Paraguay
3. Slovakia
4. New Zealand

GROUP G:

The popular pick for the “Group of Death” but I disagree; no group that features North Korea can be considered a group of death in my eyes. Still, this should be a very entertaining group to watch. It all begins with Brazil of course. This should be a very different Brazil team than we’re used to seeing as they are built on a defense first mentality. And what a defense they have, maybe the best Brazilian defense I’ve ever seen. First you’ve got the twin pillars of Maicon and Lucio, both of whom anchored Inter’s historic Treble this past season. Lucio has been making a name for himself as perhaps the world’s best defender the past year or two but he is also dangerous carrying the ball forward. In addition, you’ve got Thiago Silva who was far and away AC Milan’s best defender this past season, plus Daniel Alves, Michael Bastos, Juan and Gilberto. This is a strong defense. Behind them is Julio Cesar, one of the top 2 or 3 keepers in the world and also a teammate of Lucio and Maicon at Inter.Dunga may have built this team on defense but they can still score a ton too. Up front they are lead by Luis Fabiano who is one of the most prolific Brazilian strikers ever (He is also my pick for the Golden Boot). He is joined by Robihno who is usually quickly dismissed by pundits as a bust for not living up to his enormous potential (and contract) in Europe but who saves his best performances for the Selecao. Their weakness is in the midfield though, which could prove costly. It may seem crazy to call any midfield that features Kaka a weak spot but he has been slowed by injuries the past year or so and has not looked himself for either Real Madrid or Brazil lately. He’s joined by Felipe Melo who has been in poor form for both club (Juventus) and country and who was somewhat of a surprise inclusion to the squad. If they end up against The Netherlands, poor midfield play could see them out of the tournament as players like Sneijder, Van Bommel and Van Der Vaart could eat them alive. Dunga took a huge gamble leaving both Ronaldinho and Pato at home this World Cup. If they don’t win it all, he will be crucified back home. I think he’ll be ok. Brazil are my pick to win the whole thing.

People seem to be forgetting that Portugal made the semifinals 4 years ago. They are a dangerous team who have more to offer than Christiano Ronaldo. Up front, they finally may have found a striker who can take some of the scoring pressure off Ronaldo in Liedson, a Brazilian born naturalized citizen. They should be lively in the midfield as well although midfield artiste Deco is getting up in age although Tiago may be ready to take over anyway. Carvalho anchors the defense as always and is one of the better ones and the inclusion of Pepe only strengthens the unit. Losing Nani to injury takes away another scoring option but it might not be a huge loss given his inconsistency and I think Simao is a better option hands down. My view is that Portugal’s best chance at WC glory was 4 years ago and they couldn’t quite get over the hump. They should finish second in this group which means a second round match up with arch rival Spain awaits.

So far the biggest story leading up to the World Cup has been the unbelievable amount of injuries to key players. And no team has been as unlucky as the Ivory Coast in this regard as they will probably be without Didier Drogba, the heart and soul of the team and the one African player who was supposed to shine brightest at this cup. He suffered a broken arm in a friendly against Japan and although there is still hope that he might see the field, perhaps with a cast, he won’t be the same and neither will the Ivory Coast. In a different group they’d still be able to scrape through but they were unfortunate to draw Brazil and Portugal who I think would beat them even with a healthy Drogba.

Nobody really knows much about North Korea. Here in Italy, the mere mention of the name makes people shake their heads as they still talk about NK’s shock 1-0 over Italy in the 66 WC that saw Italy go home early. They’ll face Brazil in their opener but there’s no chance they can hope for a repeat of 1966 I’m afraid. They go three and out and head home early.

My Picks:

1. Brazil
2. Portugal
3. Ivory Coast
4. North Korea

GROUP H:

Spain are the odds on favorite to win World Cup 2010. It’s funny to think about that as, for most of their history, they were known as the biggest underachieving sides in every tournament they entered. I guess finally winning a major tournament (Euro 2008) changed people’s minds about Spain. I’m still not convinced though. Yes they are completely stacked. Yes, they have two of the world’s best strikers in Torres and Villa. Yes, they have one of the best midfields in the world with Iniesta, Xavi and Xabi Alonso. Yes, they have Iker Casillas in goal, one of the top keepers in the world. Despite all this, how far they go will depend on how well they defend. Puyol gets most of the press but Sergio Ramos was the star at Euro 2008 and Gerard Pique might just be their best defender these days. Nobody will be surprised if Spain win the World Cup this year but I don’t think they will. With all of their talent, they still suffer from mental lapses and tend to play down to the level of their competition at time (witness their loss to the US in last year’s Confederations Cup). They’ll win this group easily and should go very far, if not all the way, but in the end, they are still Spain and I think they will stumble, possibly against Argentina in the semifinal.

Chile should be fun to watch as they are the classic “all or nothing” team. If Humberto Suarez is back from his injury and fit, they should score a lot of goals – he was the leading scorer in South American qualifying as Chile finished second behind Brazil. They give up a lot of goals too which should prevent them from getting too far but it should be a fun ride. They are another team that could benefit from the tournament being held in a similar climate/altitude. If they do finish second as I predict, it will set up a dynamic second round matchup with Brazil. What a match that should be.

The Swiss have a pretty good track record of making tournaments but once they get there they seldom impress. The young generation that was being groomed for Euro 2008 never lived up to their potential and their best goal scoring threat, Alexander Frei, left practice yesterday with an injury. The Swiss always rely on defense – amazingly, they were the first team to get knocked out of a WC without conceding a single goal in 2006 – but in a group with Spain and Chile, their defense probably won’t be good enough. They were very fortunate to draw Spain in their opening match and they can somehow escape with a draw, they could very well go through. I say it doesn’t happen.

Honduras are just happy to be here. They benefitted from a weak qualifying group in which they finished level on points with Costa Rica but went through on goal differential. They probably couldn’t have asked for a better draw but it shouldn’t matter, they have little chance of going through despite some talented players such as David Suazo (plays for Genoa in Italy) and Wilson Palacios (Tottenham Hotspur, England).

My Picks:

1. Spain
2. Chile
3. Switzerland
4. Honduras

(More thoughts later on…)

World Cup Preview, Part I

2010-06-09T07:27:00.004+02:00

Decided to come back to the blog, at least during the World Cup. Here goes...

GROUP A:

Strange group, very difficult to predict as all 4 teams are question marks. France would normally be heavy favorites here but they have been playing terrible lately and only qualified because of the infamous double hand ball by Thierry Henry. The injury to Diarra will hurt them more than most people realize and two of their more reliable strikers (Karim Benzema and Samir Nasri) will be watching the World Cup from home. They also have problems in defense as Eric Abidal and William Gallas have not clicked for some reason. I’ve never liked Gallas mainly because of his attitude and I can see that being a problem in a squad that seems on the verge of self destructing at any moment. They survived – and thrived – in 2006 mainly because of the leadership and midfield play of Zinedane Zidane. He won’t be there in 2010 and Yoann Gourcuff has yet to step up and fulfill the role as many (including me) predicted. France are a team that could just as easily make the semifinals as crash out of the first round.

Mexico are hard to get a handle on as they started out with a terrible qualifying campaign and were actually on the verge of not qualifying at all when they got smart and fired Sven-Goran Erikkson before it was too late and replaced him with Mexican coach extraordinaire Javier Aguire. Aguire turned things around quick and Mexico has been in fine form since the switch. Still, they have a young team without a lot of international experience and when your best player plies his trade in the MLS, well, let’s just say that doesn’t bode well for their chances.

Uruguay are the wild cards in this group. A lot of people are tabbing them to advance from this group mostly on the strength of their two world class strikers, Diego Forlan and Luis Suarez. They should score some goals but their defense is swiss cheese. They were actually the last team to qualify from the South American federation (CONMEBOL). If they are to go through, they will probably have to score a lot of goals as they will probably give up their share. If the defense can hold out, they could easily go through though.

Everyone has written off South Africa before the tournament has even started…everyone except me that is. I may be the only person in the world crazy enough to predict it but I honestly think the Befana Befana have a good chance of making it out of Group A for a few different reasons. For one thing, you cannot discount the effect of being hosts. Granted, they are probably the weakest hosts in the history of the tournament but are they really that much worse than the US team that shocked the world in 1994 and made it out of a group that included Columbia and Romania? I don’t think they are. Strange things happen when a country hosts a World Cup. How else do you explain the South Koreans making it all the way to the semifinal in 2002? There are other factors at work here too. For one thing, FIFA are corrupt. I’ve followed this World Cup closely and from the moment South Africa were announced as shock hosts, FIFA chief Sepp Blatter has talked non-stop about how much Africa deserves to host a WC and how the continent has been plundered by the rest of the world for years so it’s time to give something back (yes, he actually said that). Not only that, but FIFA have tried to stack the deck in favor of the African teams, even making sure no two African teams were drawn in the same group, presumably increasing the chances that more of them would make the second round. Then there’s the team itself. They endured a rough stretch but Parreira (won the WC as coach of Brazil in 94) seems to have put things together recently and they have enjoyed a good run of form at the right time. The player everyone knows is Steven Pienaar as he plays in the English Premiership for Everton but I like Katlego Mphela and think he could be a player to watch at this WC. Add all this together and I’m picking South Africa to advance from this round.

My Picks:

1. France
2. South Africa
3. Uruguay
4. Mexico

GROUP B:

Argentina are obviously the class of this group. There’s a lot to like about them, starting with the obvious – FIFA world player of the year Lionel Messi. Beyonf him, they also feature Sergio Aguera, Carlos Tevez, Diego Milito and Higuain so goals should not be a problem for them. Their defense, often overlooked, should be tough as well, led by Walter Samuel who played a big part in Inter winning the treble this past season. Some surprises in midfield however as stalwarts Javier Zanetti and Cambiasso were passed over in favor of Pastore and Maxi Rodriguez. That means it all could rely on Juan Sebastian Veron who has certainly seen better days. Argentina definitely has the talent to win the whole thing, especially since it’s being played outside Europe and in the southern hemisphere. They will win their group easily and go far but they won’t win it all for one reason: Diego Armando Maradona. More of a hindrance than anything, he’s been crap as a manager. He experimented way too much and tried too many different players and I just don’t think he has what it takes to guide a team to a WC title as a manager. I’m guessing he has at least one off the field episode before it’s all said and done.

Nigeria are my pick for the African team that goes the furthest in this WC. They were lucky to be drawn in a relatively easy group and should come second. Obafemi Martins has been one of the most consistent strikers over the past 10 years, never flashy but puts the bulge in the onion bag. They could sneak into the quarterfinals with an easy draw in the second round as well. On any other continent I wouldn’t give Nigeria much of a chance but they’ve been the more successful land competitive African teams over the past 20 years and I’m betting that playing on the continent will raise their game.

Greece are Greece. They’ll keep 10-11 players behind the ball and look to take advantage on the counter attack. If they have any chance of going through, they will have to win their first two matches. Their two biggest assets are coach Otto Rehagel who consistently gets his teams to overachieve and hitman Theo Gekas.

South Korea has probably been the most successful Asian team in World Cup history. They always seem to make the final stages but have only once advanced past the first round – and even that deserves an asterisk as it was at home and due mostly to some very questionable refereeing in their favor (Like I said, FIFA are corrupt). Win or lose, they are usually fun to watch as they feature a lot of movement and are never afraid to take chances. Sort of like the anti-Greece. They’re led by JS Park who stars for Manchester United but is currently suffering from a hamstring injury that could see him miss some if not all of the tournament. They don’t have much else going for them though and I’m predicting a last place finish for them in Group B.

My Picks:

1. Argentina
2. Nigeria
3. Greece
4. South Korea

GROUP C:

All the focus is on England and the US but you would be wise not to overlook Slovenia or even Algeria, both of whom are capable of springing an upset. England should win this group but I don’t think it’s going to be the cakewalk that everyone is expecting. Losing Rio Ferdinand hurts them in the back and up front they need to pray that Rooney stays healthy. Seems like he picks up an injury at every major tournament England play in. They’re basically the same team that didn’t qualify for Euro 2008 with a couple differences, the biggest being Fabio Capello of course. Don’t overlook James Milner, he had a great season for Aston Villa and could be needed. England seem to be everyone’s fad pick to win it all for some reason but I still see weaknesses, not the least of which are in goal. Not only that but my feeling is that the altitude will affect them negatively. I’m always pulling for England and I’m hoping they go far. But I don’t see them winning it all. Regardless of whether they win the group or finish second, a tough draw will await them in the next round.

Being overseas for the past 12 years means that I am not as familiar as I probably should be with the US national team. I am a big fan of Clint Dempsey and I think he’s the most talented and dangerous player on the team, even more so than Landon Donovan. The US are not the most tactfully gifted team but what they lack in skill and organization, they more than make up for in grit and determination. That could be enough to get them through to the next round with this draw but they will have trouble against teams who are organized in attack. Onyewu was showing signs of being a star in the Confederations Cup last year and then tore up a knee tendon and lost an entire season. He still doesn’t look entirely healthy and the layoff seems to have left him rusty. That could really hurt the US. Fortunately they have Tim Howard in goal and he is the kind of keeper who could get hot and carry a team (similar to Kasey Keller in 02). I’m picking the US to advance in second place but I’m not entirely convinced that Slovenia will go through in their place.

Slovenia are a team devoid of stars but they are at least as good as the US tactically and they play in a much tougher qualifying region, having beaten a very strong Russia team to make the WC. They are the classic team that everyone overlooks and then springs a shock upset. Plus, they are from the Balkans and in case you’re not familiar with my “Balkans Principle”, it goes something like this – in every WC or European championships, there is almost always at least 1 team from the Balkans that surprises people and goes further than anyone predicted. Past examples are Romania and Bulgaria (1994), Croatia (1998), Turkey (2002), Greece (2004) and both Turkey and Croatia again (2008). The smart money is on Serbia for the Balkans Principle this year but don’t overlook Slovenia.

Algeria are best known for causing one the biggest upsets in WC history when they beat West Germany in 1982. On paper they don’t have much but they easily handled African champions Egypt in qualifying so they should not be taken lightly.

My Picks:

1. England
2. US
3. Slovenia
4. Algeria

GROUP D:

This is my pick for the real “Group of Death”. Germany are always Germany, Serbia are a very popular dark horse pick, Ghana have been the best team in Africa the past few years and the one who went the furthest 4 years ago and Australia have been coming on strong lately, making the knockout stages in 2006 before losing a heartbreaker to eventual champion Italy. All 4 teams have a realistic chance of going through here. Germany should win the group, even without Ballack, their midfield general. Schweinsteiger will step up and look for another youngster to make his mark, probably Mesut Ozil. Low needs to resist the temptation to stick with Miroslav Klose who is obviously past his prime. Podolski is their best option at striker now. He hasn’t had a good domestic season but always raises his game for the Mannschaft.

Serbia dominated their qualifying group, a group which included France. Since then they’ve looked disorganized and uninspired. Serbia are a defensive team and that’s what is expected to carry them far in this WC but I’m not convinced. While everyone seems to picking them as a darkhorse, I’m picking them as a darkhorse disappointment to crash out early.

Australia are a much better team than people give them credit for. They played out of their skulls in 2006 and bring back a similar team this year. I REALLY want to pick them second in this group for the simple fact that the tournament is in the southern hemisphere which might give them a slight edge. But I just can’t do it as I can’t see them recreating the same magic of the 06 team that took Italy to the wire.

Ghana suffered a major blow when Michael Essien was lost with injury. He’s the engine that makes them go. I am picking them to go through this group for 3 reasons. First, they have some young, dynamic talent such as Dominic Adiyiah who can really pressure defenses. Second, even without Essien, they came one or two bad calls from upsetting Brazil four years ago and can hang with almost any team in the world. And Third, they are from Africa. Not only does that mean they will get a mental boost by playing a WC in Africa but it also means that they could benefit from FIFA wanting very badly for African teams to have a good showing. Hint hint.

My Picks:

1. Germany
2. Ghana
3. Australia
4. Serbia

(For Part II, CLICK HERE)

Spent.

2010-01-02T08:45:00.003+01:00

It's time for another sabbatical. I've got too many things going on lately and I'm a little burnt out so I'm taking a break from the blog for a little while. As with the last break, I don't know how long it will be, I'll just pick it back up when the spirit moves me.

Couple of videos from last week's snowstorm

2009-12-31T06:59:00.001+01:00

Luca helps daddy shovel the walk:

And this is how Italians "shovel" their driveways:

Merry Christmas to all...

2009-12-25T07:12:00.002+01:00

Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in a manger.”

Luke 2:10~11

My favorite Christmas song of all time.

2009-12-23T06:38:00.000+01:00

I hate snow.

2009-12-22T08:05:00.003+01:00

We don't get much snow here but when we do it really sucks. As opposed to back home, where it snows a lot and often, a "snowstorm" here constitutes anything close to 6 inches. And the good thing is that it's usually gone within a week or less. When it does snow here though, things become very difficult. The Italians are terrible about plowing and clearing the roads. In fact, most European countries don't use salt, they use sand instead so the snow stays on the roads and gets packed in, making it worse. Not only that, but mixing snow and slippery roads with Italian drivers - who are terribly reckless even in the best of conditions - is nothing short of a recipe for disaster. Many of them drive in snow like it's not there which leads to many stupid accidents as well as cars sliding off the road and getting stuck or even overturned.

So anyway, we had our first snowstorm this past Saturday. It was good timing since I didn't have to drive anywhere. I actually enjoyed grabbing the shovel and clearing the driveway, so much so that I ended up shoveling three others as well, just to be a good Samaritan.

It snowed again yesterday, all day and we got quite a bit of snow. But this time it really sucked because it's a work day. Now, usually when we get a lot of snow, they end up closing the base so I was hoping they would do that because I am trying to avoid driving in the snow as much as possible. It's not that I don't know how, in fact quite the opposite is true; I grew up in New Hampshire so I'm no stranger to driving in the snow. You may remember that I recently purchased an AWD Volvo XC90. It will be arriving here around January 11th which is obviously horrible timing with all the snow the past few days. When it arrives, I'll be selling my Passat to a guy at work which Im using as my entire downpayment and a hefty one at that. I'm desperately trying to keep the car in perfect condition for the next few weeks until my Volvo comes in. And as you can imagine, I'm petrified that some reckless idiot will cause an accident. That would be very bad. Accordingly, I was praying that they'd close the base this morning so I wouldn't have to drive. But it was not to be. Instead, they issued a late work call - for 0900. This actually made things worse for me as I usually start work between 0700-0730 and if I waited another hour or two, the traffic would be a complete nightmare since the roads still aren't completely clear. So I decided to go in at my normal time when there aren't many cars on the road. We got so much snow yesterday and last night that the driveway and car were snowed in so I awoke at 0400 this morning, had my coffee, checked sports scores, email and Facebook as I always do, then went out and shoveled the driveway. My back is sore from all the shoveling the past few days so the hot shower felt great.

So I drove to work extremely cautiously this morning and still almost got in an accident because some moron was tailgating me since I was driving slower than usual and the roads are still slippery. Fortunately I got to the base without incident but there was more to come. The office that I work in is at the top of a small mountain. As you can guess, the roads were not cleared a single bit and there was no way the Passat was going to make it all the way so I had to park at the bottom and walk all the way up, in 7 inches of snow. Even better, it was sleeting when I started and it soon turned to rain. Thankfully I was smart enough to take my umbrella. I shudder to think about what else this day has in store for me.

BTW, here is the funny postscript to the story; When I pulled through the gate, I asked the Italian guard if he thought my car would make it up the mountain. He looked at my car and replied "Earlier, someone with an all wheel drive Volvo came in and made it...but I don't think you can do it in your car."

*Sigh*

Talk about pouring ~~salt~~ sand in my wound...

Christmas in Italy: Befana the Witch

2009-12-17T07:43:00.002+01:00

In Italy they have Santa Claus - his name is Babo Natale - but, unlike most of the rest of the world, he is not the one who brings gifts to the children on Christmas. In Italy, children receive their gifts on the day of the Epiphany which is the day that the 3 Wise Men visited Jesus in the manger, celebrated on January 6th (although many Italians do the normal gifts-on-Christmas day thing). And the person who brings the gifts to the Italian children is a Witch named La Befana. Rather than try to describe La Befana in my own words, here's a description I pulled off some random website:

The Befana is a Christmas witch that comes 12 days after Christmas on January 6. January 6 is Epiphany and is a celebration of the visit by the three wise men to the baby Jesus. La Befana is derived from Epifania, the Italian for Epiphany.

In the distant past the people of Italy thought La Befana was evil. They rang clay bells and made noise to keep her away. Now she is viewed as a gentle spirit that will give gifts to the children of Italy.

According to the Italian legend, La Befana lived on the road the three wise men took on their journey to visit the baby Jesus. The three wise men on camels loaded down with gifts, approached La Befana’s house as she was busy working. They stopped to ask directions to Bethlehem and to ask if she could provide them with food and shelter for the night to see if she might join them on their journey. La Befana was too busy to talk to the wise men. Later she changed her mind and decided she should have gone with the wise men.

La Befana gathered up some gifts and set off in search of the Christ Child. Like the three wise men she followed the bright star shining in the sky. She was not able to find the stable where the Christ Child lay.

Befana did not give up and to this day is still looking in every home for the Christ Child. She flies on her broom to each house that is home to a child. La Befana leaves gifts in every house she visits in case one of them happens to be the Christ Child. If a child is particularly naughty she is said to leave a lump of coal in their house.

Some pics from the X Man's birthday

2009-12-15T07:39:00.013+01:00

Yesterday was the X Man's 6th birthday. Since it was on a Monday, we celebrated it on Sunday as nobody works on that day. His friend Daniele's birthday is a couple days earlier (he's a year younger) so we ended up celebrating both at the same time. The wife made a cake and put both names on it along with both ages - 6 for the X Man and 5 for Daniele. (Please spare me the "Is the X Man 65 years old?!" jokes, I've heard them all already...)

Luca and the X Man in Venice

2009-12-14T05:29:00.002+01:00

For those who haven't seen them yet...

Brian Kelly is the new Notre Dame coach.

2009-12-11T09:08:00.003+01:00

It's time to wake the echoes my friend. Notre Dame have themselves a new coach and he seems to be the perfect fit: he's an Irish Catholic lad from Boston (Chelsea) who went to Assumption College (we used to play them in college). He's won at every level and every school that he's coached at.

Welcome to Notre Dame Nation Brian...we're looking forward to our return to glory!

So this is Christmas.

2009-12-08T07:39:00.003+01:00

Christmas, as the song says, is the most wonderful time of the year. Seems like every year I get caught up in the Christmas spirit; usually all it takes is hearing a Christmas song or two. I revel in seeing the tree in our living room, all lit up. But for some reason I just haven't been feeling it this year. We're already into the second week of December now and normally by this time I'm singing "Deck the Halls" in my sleep. We put our tree up this past weekend and then watched "Emmitt Otter's Jugband Christmas". Emmitt Otter has been a Christmas fixture in the Thibodeau household since I was a kid and nothing puts me in the spirit more than watching Emmitt, Ma, Wendell, Doc Bullfrog and the hijinx of the Riverbottom Nightmare Gang every December. But it just didn't do it this year for the first time ever. I guess I've just got too much non-Christmas stuff going on this year, my mind is elsewhere and I'm feeling more stressed than usual. You might even say I'm feeling like a cotton headed ninny-muggins...

More College Tales - The Rebound.

2009-12-03T07:42:00.002+01:00

So anyway, my freshman year was over and I was in rough shape academically. Not only was my GPA sitting at a paltry 2.00, but because of the Renaissance Art fiasco I had accumulated a mere 9 credits. I started wondering if maybe I wasn't college material after all and I probably would have thought long and hard about dropping out were it not for one thing: basic training.

As you probably already know, I had enlisted in the Army Reserves about a month before school started. I did this mostly for the college money as my father had informed me that there was no way he was going to just pay my whole way through college and I figured there was no other way. I enlisted under the "split option" program which means you do your basic training (aka boot camp) and your job school in the summers between school years. That meant that as soon as I finished my first year of college, I had about two weeks off, then headed down to lovely Fort Dix, New Jersey for basic training.

Basic training would have been a tremndous shock under any circumstances but after spending a year in college getting drunk every weekend and sleeping in most mornings when I didn't have class, well...let's just say it was quite a wake up call. While my classmates headed off to summer vacations or internships, I spent two months getting screamed at, being woken up at 0330 every morning, shining boots, doing push ups in the rain, running 5 miles, learning how to shoot various weapons and basically just trying to get through one day at a time. When you look back at it, it never seems that bad but when you're right in the middle of it things looked a whole lot worse. Everything changed for me about 2 or 3 weeks in. My squad had guard duty and I had drawn the 0200-0300 shift. When you're on guard duty you don't have much to do so most people, including myself, spend the hour writing letters to people back home. So that night I was sitting there trying to describe to people back home how much of a nightmare basic training was when it suddenly occured to me that the whole reason why I was putting myself through that was so that I could afford to get through college. And then I started thinking about my disastrous freshman year and I guess I must have realized the folly of putting myself through such hell if I wasn't going to be serious about school. Things changed for me that night. I finished basic training and went back to college with a renewed sense of purpose. I still had no idea what I wanted to do after I graduated but I figured that would work itself out, I just needed to get my grades up.

And I did. In fact, in my last three years at Franklin Pierce College I made the Dean's List every semester except one when I missed it by about a tenth of a percentage point. It's always stood as one of my proudest achievements (and I don't have many...).

Unfortunately my disastrous freshman year has always haunted me. For one thing it brought my overall GPA when I graduated down to a 2.8 which is nothing to be proud of, despite my subsequent good grades. Not only that but I was never able to make up the lost credits and ended up finishing 6 credits short of my degree which almost prevented me from graduating. Since I was 6 credits short, I had to go before a review board comprised of professors and faculty members and make a case for why I should be able to graduate with my class. I explained how I turned around my failings from freshman year and how I had completed every class needed for my degree and that the 6 credits were just electives which could easily be knocked out in a semester or two and they agreed to let me "walk". This means I would get to graduate with my classmates but instead of a degree, I would recieve a blank piece of paper. I would recieve the actual degree as soon as I finished those 2 or 3 classes. In the years that followed, I never had a problem getting hired for jobs that I'd applied for so I never bothered to finish those last couple classes. In the end, I didn't actually have to. Colleges can opt to award credits to students for military service as long it somewhat correlates to your degree. In 2003 I submitted a military "transcript" of all the training and schools I had completed with the military and asked them them to review to see if I could get a couple credits out of it. To my astonishment, they replied that what I had accomplished would easily cover my remaining handful of credits and so, a whole ten years after I graduated the first time, I finally received my degree.

The Wife and I

2009-11-28T08:54:00.003+01:00

More college tales...

2009-11-25T07:55:00.002+01:00

So when we last left our hero, he mentioned that he finished his first semester on academic probation. Let's pick it up there...

The root of my freshman year problems actually started my senior year of high school. I'd been accepted to FPC and it came time to pick my class schedule for freshman year but being a high school student, I knew absolutely nothing about how to do it so I went to see my guidance counselor. Your high school guidance counselor is supposed to be the expert on such things but I was unlucky to have a terrible guidance counselor. How terrible was he? Let's put it this way - when he "helped" me with my SAT application, I somehow ended up being scheduled to take the test in Kents Hill, Maine, a town on the Canadian border about 6 or 7 hours away, instead of in Nashua with all my classmates.

Anyway, I took my course manual to him and asked for help. He perused the manual and read the requirements and said "It says here that you will have to take an art class and a music class as part of your core requirements so let's get them out of the way your first semester." I agreed, he told me which classes to enroll in and I did so. When he finished with his recommendations, I looked at my form and noticed there were only 4 classes instead of 5. To graduate with a degree, you'd need 120 credits and the average class was 3 credits so 5 classes per semester is the average (and recommended) course load. I asked him about this and he replied "You don't want to get overwhelmed your first semester of freshman year so it's best to take 4 classes instead of 5 and then you just make up the other 3 credits sometime in your next 3 and a half years, it's easy". Sounded good to me. So my first semester my classes were:

Art, Drama, Music
Renaissance Art
Science for the Citizen
English 101

Normally this might not have been a problem. However a couple weeks into my classes I discovered that the "Renaissance Art" course that my idiot guidance counselor had me enroll in was a freaking honors level art class for Art History majors. I don't know how in the world I was ever allowed to enroll in it in the first place - just about everyone in the class were juniors or seniors who were majoring in Art History and were all advanced. The only way the class would have made less sense to me was if it wer etaught in a foreign language (which a lot of it was actually). So I tried to switch out into a different class but by that time everything else was full and no other professors would accept new students. The only option I had was to drop the class but - and here's where it gets comical - I could not do so because I was only enrolled in 4 classes instead of the normal 5 and to be considered a full time student, you had to carry at least 4. I was stuck. I tried to grit it out but I was in so far over my head I had no chance. I completely bombed the class, finishing with a big, fat 'F'. I did ok in my other classes but the F in Renaissance Art brought my GPA down to 1.75. Anything below a 2.0 puts you on academic probation so there I was, a very inauspicious start to my college career.

Things didn't get any better over the semester break either. As I mentioned earlier, I thought I was interested in a career in radio. We had a campus radio station and I had a show that semester that I enjoyed. It was mostly just talking about sports but it was a nice break from classes. So during Christmas break I called up our local radio station, B106 and excitedly told the DJ that I was a college student and I was planning a career in radio and asked what advice or info he could give me. He told me "Well, I'm not going to lie to you. You're going to spend the first several years of your career bouncing around small towns in the middle of nowhere working the overnight shift for very little money. If you're lucky you might slip into an afternoon drive slot but that won't happen until you've got years of experience under your belt and even then you won't make much money". I hung up and suddenly realized that a career in radio was not for me. Mass Communications was the only thing I was remotely interested in majoring in so that was quite a kick in the nuts.

I sleepwalked through my classes second semester with no idea where I was headed and finished with a 2.25 GPA which was not good but combined with my first semester to put me exactly at a 2.0. I was off academic probation but just barely.

Next time I'll write about how I rebounded...

Franklin Pierce College University

2009-11-24T07:51:00.006+01:00

I've been getting notices from my alma mater lately asking me to update all my information for the alumni association as they're trying to update all their records or something. It's been kind of reminding me a of my college days so I thought I'd write a bit about em.

My senior year of high school I applied to a total of 6 colleges; University of New Hampshire, Plymouth State, Castleton State, Franklin Pierce, Southern Vermont and, I think Keene State. The only one I really wanted to go to was UNH of course as almost all my friends were going there. So naturally, UNH was the only school of the 6 that I didn't get accepted to. I had toured Franklin Pierce College and liked their Mass Communication department so I decided on them as my second choice with my mind on a possible career in radio. FPC, at the time, was a small, private, liberal arts college tucked away in the southwestern corner of New Hampshire in a little town called Rindge, right on the Massachussets border. There is literally nothing there except the college but it sits on a lake with beautiful Mount Monadnock in the background overlooking the campus and it's such a gorgeous picture that many people choose it simply because of the view. Of course those same people spend most of their 4 years complaining that there's nothing to do. When I was there, the enrollment was somewhere around 1,300 students so it was very small and they were so big on the small town, family atmosphere that fraternities and sororities were not allowed. A year or two ago, Franklin Pierce College changed their name to Franklin Pierce University for reasons I've yet to fully comprehend.

Looking back, I would have loved to have gone to college far away from home, maybe even on the other side of the country...but I had enlisted in the Army Reserve to help pay for school and I'd have to drive back home for drills once a month so I opted to stay closer to home mostly for that reason. Of course it was my first time being on my own so even though I was only two hours away, it felt like a lot more.

I remember my first day pretty vividly. I had on my favorite pair of acid wash jeans with the legs pegged at the bottom - hey, it was 1989! - and a yellow shirt. My dorm room was tiny, barely enough room for me and my roomate. My roomate was from Connecticut, his name was Paul Keegan but everybody called him "Kegger". He was really tall, a basketball player, and we got along really well. He was pretty laid back, had a girlfriend back home, seldom studied and ended up dropping out due to terrible grades after the first semester. I myself finished my first semester on academic probation. But that's a story for the next post...

Back from the doctor - no mumps...YAY!

2009-11-18T12:34:00.002+01:00

Doctor ruled out the mumps right away, saying the swelling is not in the area that mumps typically affect. After a full exam, she determined that it's just a virus that is making his lymph nodes on one side swell up considerably. Both he and Luca also got a PPD (TB) shot just to be safe. I thought it was strange that he might have the mumps as he's already received the MMR vaccination. Thank God I was right...

The X Man might have the mumps.

2009-11-18T09:04:00.003+01:00

We're taking him to the doctor in about an hour to find out for sure but it certainly looks like the mumps. One side of his neck, underneath his ear is all swollen up and is painful. He's already had the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccination when he was younger, he's not running a fever and doesn't feel sick but I can't imagine what else it could be.

I'll post an update upon returning from the doctor.

Commute.

2009-11-17T07:40:00.002+01:00

You may recall that a few months back I made a post saying that, although I am happy to be back in Italy, all is not roses and sunshine. I believe the phrase I used was "Be careful what you wish for". I spent my entire two and a half years in Heidelberg trying like hell to get back here to Vicenza somehow, some way. People misunderstood that and took it as me not liking Heidelberg and Germany in general but nothing could have been further from the truth. We LOVED our life in Heidelberg. We loved everything about it except one thing - it wasn't Italy. But I often said, if I never got back to Italy, I would be very happy staying in Heidelberg.

When I got my old job back here I knew instantly that there were many things I would miss about Heidelberg. I have since come to realize that the thing I perhaps miss the most is the commute - or lack thereof - that I had. The base I worked at up there was within walking distance. A long walk to be sure, but walkable nonetheless. But driving there and back each day never took more than 10 minutes and in the morning with little to no traffic, it was not uncommon for me to reach the base in about 5 minutes.

Coming back to Italy, we were adamant that we wanted to live in our old town, Caldogno. We practically had roots there, many friends and neighbors which was a major reason why we wanted to come back here and we were fortunate to find a nice house only one street away from our old place. During my first 6 years here, one of the few things I really hated was the commute to and from the base. It took anywhere from 15-30 minutes but it was all traffic, lights and crazy drivers and was a considerable source of stress for me as I HATE sitting in traffic and even moreso dealing with idiotic drivers, which is commonplace in this country. So I get back here and find out that I'll be working at a satellite facility which is about 15 minutes away from the main base. And it just so happens that it's 15 minutes in the opposite direction. In other words, my hellish commute, such a source of stress for me, is double what it was last time I was here. There are basically only two routes to this base from my house and either way I go, I have to deal with traffic and crazy Italian drivers so it's usually the lesser of two evils. I also have to work an earlier schedule because if I leave the house later than 7-7:15 am, it will take me at least 45 minutes to get to work. This cuts into my ability to establish some kind of pre-work exercise routine in the morning.

I don't know why it stresses me out so much. I mean, it's not like driving in Boston, Rome, Naples, or a big city like that. It's just that sitting in a car in stop and go traffic for a half hour grates on my nerves. It's so bad that when I'm in the car on the way to and from work, I can literally feel my blood pressure go up and often get stress headaches. In the States it wasn't as bad because I listened to talk radio a lot which distracted me but there is no talk radio here. I sit there alone with my thoughts which, believe me, do not make very good company.

Anyway, there is a very good possibility that we will be relocating back to the main base within the next 2-3 years so I keep telling myself that it's not forever and will get better eventually but in the meantime everyday is a freaking nightmare driving to and from work. Definitely one of the worst parts of being back here.

New pictures of Luca

2009-11-16T04:16:00.003+01:00

Should be here by Christmas...

2009-11-12T12:28:00.003+01:00

Thanks to my buddy Wayne who got me a great deal...

The Wall.

2009-11-10T08:04:00.004+01:00

The Berlin Wall has been in the news quite a bit recently as yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the day it officially "fell". All the news coverage really takes me back to my own personal experiences with the Wall, limited though they are.

I was born in the early 70's and so growing up the Cold War was going strong and it often inspired much of the culture we were exposed to growing up. There were the James Bond movies whose villians usually were, or had dealings with, Soviet Union. And of course, Pink Floyd's 'The Wall". There were also popular songs about the Cold War. One song in particular made me much more aware of Germany's role in the Cold War and that was "99 Red Baloons" by Nena. Nena was a German pop singer and as the song gained popularity in the early 80's, the original German version - "99 Luftballoons" was also released. I developed a bit of interest in Germany and Berlin and the Wall in particular. I remember President Reagan's famous "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" speech in 1987. And I remember watching news footage the day the Wall finally fell and Berlin became a united city again. I'll never forget the images and the joy and celebrations...you just could not help feeling the enormity of what was happening. But alas, I was in my freshman year of college and was too preoccupied with other things to really take it all in.

In 1998 I joined the Army and went to Germany. I was a bit older than most of the other people in my company so I had much more interest in the history of the country and being stationed there, I was just constantly inundated by the history I'd only read about or seen on TV growing up. It was probably the main reason why I became so enamored with Europe to be honest. I took my first trip to Berlin in the spring of 2000 and spent a few days touring around, taking in as much of it as I could. I was completely floored. It was like being in a living museum. So much of the history I grew up learning was literally all around me; the platz where Hitler held book burnings, the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag, the remnants of the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie...I was just overcome. I spent several hours in the Checkpoint Charlie Museum and could have spent several more if I'd had time. The Checkpoint Charlie museum is filled with the history of the Berlin Wall, complete with photos and stories of hundreds of escape attempts (there were about 5,000 successful attempts). It was, by far, one of the most amazing museums I've ever seen. As I was seeing all of this, I just kept thinking to myself "This was all happening while I was growing up a world away." Seeing what those people were going through compared to what I had in the US at the same time, it just made me realize how lucky I was. I also went up into the Fernsehturm, the 1,200 feet tall TV tower in the former East Berlin. There's a revolving restaurant at the top now and I sat there drinking a beer staring down at Berlin...it was so high up that you could literally see what used to be East Berlin and what used to be West Berlin, even 11 years after the Wall had come down. But there was construction everywhere and I just had the feeling that if I came back a few years later, I probably wouldn't even recognize the city. And I was right.

A few years later, in 2003, I had a great opportunity to see Berlin again, completely free. I had to go there for work but all I had to do was bring some passports up there to an Army officer and then wait for him to process some visas. The process took a week so I basically had nothing to do except sightsee for the whole week which was right up my alley. I spent an entire afternoon in the Checkpoint Charlie Museum and then walked around looking at the few pieces of the Wall that still stood, most now covered with graffiti. But sure enough, the city had changed. So much of it was new and nowhere was the city's progress more evident than Potsdamer Platz - once a veritable wasteland, it's now a modern area with some futuristic looking buildings and bustling city traffic.

The Berlin Wall has really become one of the most inspiring and influential parts of my European experience. I'm still fascinated by the history of it and the stories of the people who were affected by it. The most memorable moment for me came during my first trip to Berlin; as I was sitting in an outdoor cafe enjoying a beer and taking in the scene around me, I noticed that there were elderly people all around me, just sitting there eating and chatting and it struck me how similar Berlin is to any other major city I've been in like Paris, Rome or London. Then the thought occured to me as I watched the old people who were probably in their 80's...imagine the history that those people have witnessed in their lives. Everything I learned in school or saw in the movies - the rise of Hitler, World War 2, the rise and fall of the Berlin Wall, the reunification of Berlin and Germany - these people personally witnessed all of it.

Just made me realize how much I have to learn.

(I've got a bunch of pictures of the Wall, the escape attempts, the Fernsehturm and more on my website: Click Here.)

SITREP

2009-11-09T09:51:00.003+01:00

In case anyone is interested, here's an update on what's going on in our world...

Wife and kid came back last weekend after 5 weeks in the Philippines visiting her family. Since they've been back Luca has become an insufferable mama's boy. He's 18 months old now and he's still breastfeeding. This might be normal, I don't know, but the X Man stopped after 7 months. In Luca's case, it's obviously a comfort thing. Also, he can't stand to be away from the wife for a second and is constantly clinging to her. It's impossible for her to cook or clean or do much else. We have found one thing that helps a bit though - we put some Sesame Street videos on Youtube and he'll sit and watch them for a while with no fuss. He's still adjusting to the time change and usually wakes up in the wee hours. He's at his happiest when he wakes up too, just wants to play and dance. And man, can he dance. I've never seen a kid who loves to dance as much as Luca. The first sound of any kind of music he stops what he's doing and starts shaking his behind. And not just to music either, he'll dance at anything. The wife has a really funny video of him in the Philippines, her father was sawing a board and he was dancing to the sound of the saw going back and forth. He's got some moves too, I really need to capture him on video and post it to Youtube. We had a firend over for dinner this past weekend and he just could not stop laughing all night watching Luca dance.

The X Man is doing great in school although the schedule is rough on him. the Italian public schools are free but have a shortage of money so not everybody gets to go Monday - Friday for a full day. Kids who have one parent that doesn't work (like the X Man) go to school half a day (8:15 - 1:15) Monday through Saturday. I totally hate this. I mean seriously, making a kid go to school on Saturday?! That's just cruel. Plus it ruins our weekend as we pretty much lose Saturday. It seems to be taking its toll on him too, he's starting to dislike going to school. everyday he asks how many more days he has to go and often pulls the "I don't feel good" routine in the morning.

We're also having trouble with the X Man's behaviour lately. He obviously doesn't like not being the center of attention and often acts out to get some attention back on him. He was good while the wife and kid were away but since they've been back he's reverted to his old ways. I try to be patient but find myself yelling at him a lot which I don't like because I've inherited my dad's bad temper and the last thing I want is for him to grow up scared of me the way I often was with my dad. Also, the X Man's car addiction has been replaced by a Transformers obsession. Whereas he used to not go anywhere without a car in his hand, now he will seldom be seen without one of his Transformers in his hands. Every day day he begs us to watch the Transformers cartoon on Youtube. He is truly obsessed.

On the homefront, things are fine as well. The wife currently is down with the flu - in fact, I'm leaving work soon to go take care of the baby so she can rest and recover. I'm sure i'll be coming down with it soon as well, not looking forward to that. I'm also in the market for a new car and will be test driving a new Volvo XC90 this week. I've already got a loan in place and will be selling the Passat to use as a down payment so if the test drive goes well, I'll be buying the Volvo. We've got friends coming down from Germany and up from Florence for Thanksgiving in a few weeks so we're looking forward to that.

That's pretty much it for now. If you read this, then consider yourself caught up on things...

Me and the X Man

2009-11-06T10:24:00.003+01:00

Devil's Forest Pub, Venice

Happy Birthday Tay-Tay

2009-11-05T09:59:00.000+01:00

Regrets.

2009-11-04T09:34:00.001+01:00

The Wife and Kid are Home

2009-11-02T09:01:00.002+01:00

Great to have the little guy home
And it looks like they left just in time as another typhoon battered Manila a few hours after they left and several flights were cancelled. But it's great to have them home and have things back to normal a little bit. Luca is still adjusting but he seems to have developed some bad habits during his time away. He's become a complete mama's boy and even worse he is prone to throwing temper tantrums. That's something the X Man never did so it's new territory for me. I may have to call Supernanny if it keeps up. But he's still as cute as ever and still completely addicted to dancing. I'm hoping to post some cute videos of him dancing in the next few weeks.

I Don't Particularly Care for MPs.

2009-10-30T08:18:00.003+01:00

I've never really been one to buck authority. I do believe we need laws in a society and the military is no exception. Despite this, I cannot stand military policemen ("MPs" for short). They are some of the most arrogant, hypocritical people I've ever met in the military. I'm sure there are some really good ones but I've met and observed so many bad ones that it's impossible for me to have a favorable opinion of them, especially when you see them doing the very things they are so fond of giving other people tickets for such as speeding or parking in no parking areas. They get a little bit of authority and it goes right to their heads and affects their ability to use common sense and reason. For example, an MP on base once gave me a ticket for going 13 MPH in a 10 MPH zone. I assure you, I am not kidding.

The base here is one of the worst I've seen. Part ofthe problem is that most of the MPs here are Reserve or National Guard units that come here for a few weeks to do their time, then go home. They throw on the uniform and suddenly they all think they're freaking Serpico. And to make matters worse, most of them are young E3's or E4's which means they've only been doing it for a couple years or less. They are not content to come to Italy for a few weeks, do their job, enjoy the sights and go home. Nay, they feel they must leave a trail of ridiculous tickets and harassing traffic stops in their wake. Consider this story...

We have a shoppette on base which is like a little convenient store. It's the kind of place where people run into real quick to pick something up or drop a movie rental off. There's an expansive area in front where you are not supposed to park at but people do all the time when they are just dropping a movie off as it takes about 20 seconds to run in and run out. About 5 years ago I was on base with the wife and the X Man (who was just a baby) in the car and we needed to return a movie. There were no parking spots and I didn't want to have to unhook the baby seat and carry him in so I pulled up to the front and told the wife to run in and drop it off. No sooner did she get out of the car when I noticed an MP car so I backed out so as not to get a ticket. As soon as I did, the sirens came on and he proceeded to follow me with the sirens blaring as I parked in an open spot. I can hear him on the radio calling it in and then a few minutes later he gets out of his cruiser and slowly walks to my window WITH HIS HAND ON HIS GUN. I'm watching all of this thinking "WTF, do you think me and my newborn baby are packing heat?!". He asks for the usual documents and I tried to explain that I was just dropping my wife off to return a movie but it didn't matter, he tells me "When I see you stopped in front of the shoppette, for all I know, you could be inside doing your grocery shopping". Seriously, he saw my wife get out of the car and he saw me sitting in the drivers seat with a baby in the back. He then proceeded to hold me there for TWENTY minutes while he ran my info and then let me off with a warning to "Watch yourself next time" as he might not be as lenient.

Thank you Cagney, say hi to Lacey for me...

Well I had another incident this morning. We had a cold snap last week and one of my headlights went out. Changing a headlight on my car is no small feat, the entire thing has to be removed and replaced and it's way above my knowledge and skill level. Since I had to go to Germany for work this past week I figured I'd get it fixed when I got back. So I'm driving onto the base this morning and sure enough, there's a reservist MP who takes my ID, then asks me to turn my headlights on for him. When he sees one of them is out he tells me to pull into the temporary holding area and asks for my license, registration, proof of insurance, etc. Then he disappears for 15 minutes before I even get a chance to explain that it just went out and that I just got back from Germany so I haven't had a chance to get it fixed. He comes back, gives me a ticket and asks me if I have any questions. My reply was "Yeah, here's a question, how am I supposed to get my headlight fixed right away when it takes two weeks to get an appointment at the garage on base?". The kid looks at me and says, very condescendingly "You can change a headlight yourself". Well, I started to go off on him about how replacing a headlight on my car is a big job and that I just got back from Germany but then remembered that MPs are complete dickheads so I just stopped my self and said "Nevermind, just give me the damned ticket."

There is a reason why the MPs are the most hated people on military bases. If anyone has any MP stories, please feel free to share in the comments section...

The Wife Comes Home Tomorrow.

2009-10-30T05:06:00.000+01:00

Thank God.

Headed to Germany for a few days...

2009-10-25T07:05:00.003+01:00

Be back on Wednesday.

Dinner at the Neighbors.

2009-10-22T08:16:00.003+02:00

Our neighbors are Calabrese, that is, they are from the region of Italy named Calabria. Calabria is found way down south, in the "toe" area of Italy that is kicking the island of Sicily. Giorgia and Daniele are their names and they also have three daughters, two who live with them and one who lives in town, and a grandson, little Daniele who I previously wrote about on here. Giorgia is a teacher in the X Man's school and she is wonderful, we love her to death. The whole family is great actually and we love having them as neighbors. In typical Italian fashion, they always want to have us over for dinner. Although I love eating dinner over there, I have to decline sometimes for a couple reasons; first, like most Italians, they eat dinner very late, usually around 8 or 8:30. That's just way too late for me as I'm usually in bed by 9 since I get up around 0430 for work. Also, dinner at their house means way too much food for me. A normal Italian meal has 4 or 5 different courses, then they force dessert on you and then maybe some cheese or fruit afterwards, not to mention the vino flowing freely throughout the meal...it's just too much for me, especially late at night.

With the wife away, I think Giorgia took pity on me and the first week asked me to come have dinner with them. I didn't want to be rude but I explained that they eat too late and that I'm usually in bed around 9 so I would have to pass. She understood and was not offended but since I mentioned that weekends were better since I don't work, she wanted to invite me on a weekend but every weekend so far has been either full or they have been in Tuscany visitng her brother. She invited us for lunch this past Sunday but we had plans to be in Venice all day so I had to decline once again but I felt bad so I agreed to come to dinner on Wednesday. It worked out perfectly as there is an American kid named Jeremy staying with me this week, he is the son of a girl I went to school with back home. He's a freshman in college spending his first semester in Florence on an exchange program and he's on semester break so I offered for him to come up here if he wanted to see Venice and experience some real Italian culture. Well, let me tell you, if you want real Italian culture, go to dinner at an Italian's house.

We ended up eating around 8 and what a freaking meal. Antipasto was prosciutto crudo from Tuscany, then bigoli all'anitra (fat pasta with duck meat) which is a speciality of the Veneto region where live. After that they brought out a huge plate of homemade polpette done in Calabria style. Polpette is similar to a meatball except it's mostly flat instead of round and they make theirs with meat, cheese, parsley, cream and one or two other ingredients I can't recall. Absolutely delicious. Along with the polpette was a big plate of a special sweet salsiccia (sausage) from Asiago, the famous alpine town nearby known mostly for it's cheese. As a contorni (side dish), there was also a huge plate of steak fries (which I avoided) and a big bowl of salad. I was completely stuffed but then Daniele insisted on bringing out the big block of Asiago cheese and then a big bowl of roasted chestnuts. Dessert was a torta (cake) with pear on top. We also had three different kinds of vino.

The food was amazing but the best part of the night, as it often is, was the fellowship. The entire evening was spent with us learning a lot of Italian language and culture as well as introducing the neighbors to a lot of American language and culture. That kind of thing has always been one of my favorite parts of living in Italy. And it was quite an experience for Jeremy as well, as he was able to practice his Italian and the look on his face was priceless and I'm certain that he will keep that experience in his mind forever.

I didn't get any pics from dinner but I found a few online of some of the dishes:

Prosciutto Crudo
Bigoli all'anitra

Polpette

Update on the Wife

2009-10-19T07:54:00.002+02:00

The main reason the wife and kid went back to the Philippines was because her family had decided to hold a huge family reunion this month. Unfortunately the typhoons came one after the other and her family's farm was hit hard, losing all of their crops before they had a chance to harvest them. the reunion was scheduled for Saturday, October 17th and I was wondering if they would even still have it since they are still recovering from the floods but I heard from the wife on Saturday and she said that all of her aunts and uncles and other relatives showed up and that it was a fantastic time. She says it was weird seeing family members that she hasn't seen in 20 years and I can just imagine but I could sense the excitement at it all. She says that everything is fine and the recovery is going well. Her family is just in love with Luca and having a ball with him and he is enjoying himself quite a bit, playing with his cousins and grandparents. hopefully she's taking a lot of pictures and videos so I can post some of them when they get back. They're arriving back in Milan on Saturday, October 31st.

On the homefront everything is well. I had another great weekend with the X Man. We spent the day in Venice again yesterday and he was well behaved and didn't whine a bit, I was quite surprised. When we got home he went right over to Daniele's house for the rest fo the evening before going back to Giampi and Agnese's house for the week.

Sometimes I Wish I Were Italian. Or Irish. Or...

2009-10-15T08:50:00.003+02:00

I'm French. More specifically, I'm French Canadian. 100%. As far as I know, there is only French blood running through my veins. Both my mother's and father's side of the family can be traced immediately back to Canada, most of them to Quebec. Growing up, French Canadians - lovingly referred to as Canucks - were predominant in my neighborhood, my town and my schools. Most of my classmates had last names like Levesque, Francoeur, Boucher, Gagnon or Cote and many were fluent in French. Most of my older relatives spoke French and when I got to high school I started learning French partly because I wanted to feel like part of my heritage. After college my brother and I went to Montreal and Quebec a couple times and for the first time I saw where my family had come from. When I got to Europe in 1998, I cherished every trip to France because I wanted to sort of get in touch with my ancestry and culture. I even got a tattoo of the Fleur-de-Lis, the symbol of Quebec (also their flag).

But the truth is, I've never felt much nationalistic or ethic pride in being French Canadian. Over the years I've come to be envious of people with other backgrounds. Italians, Irish, Germans, Mexicans, Filipinos, hell even Puerto Ricans. They have so much pride in their heritage and wear it like a badge of honor. Italian Americans and Irish Americans in particular, two of the proudest groups there are in the US. There are plenty of Italian Americans who are 3rd, 4th or even 5th generation but they can still speak the language and still identify themselves as more Italian than American. Italians have made a huge mark on the US with their food, culture, etc. Same with the Irish, I mean they even have their own holiday. All of these groups have identifiable cultures. French Canadians...not so much, unless you want to count meatpies, construction, sheetrock or drywall. Somehow, saying "Kiss me I'm French Canadian" doesn't have the same ring to it as "Kiss me I'm Irish" does.

The funny thing is, living in Italy for almost 10 years now I've developed a lot of Italian traits and can even speak the language decently. In some ways, I'm a lot more "Italian" than many of the real Italian Americans back in the US but because my blood is 100% French Canadian, I'll never part of the club. I've accepted that. But sometimes I wish that I WAS Italian. Or Irish. Or one of those other nationalities who have so much pride in their heritage. In the meantime, I guess I'll just have to say "Je me Souviens!"...and pass me another piece of meatpie.

5 Underrated 80's movies

2009-10-14T11:04:00.002+02:00

1. Big Trouble in Little China

2. Adventures in Babysitting

3. F/X

4. Masquerade

5. Shoot to Kill

Love...Exciting and new...

2009-10-13T09:13:00.003+02:00

A few weeks ago I finally got Sky Italia. Sky Italia is the satellite TV package in Italy, it's got about 800 channels ranging from sports to variety to movies to music. I'm loving it so far as I get all the soccer I can handle and occasionally a movie will come on that I haven't seen in a while (Last week it was "Major League"). One of my favorite channels is Fox Retro. As the name would imply, it shows a bunch of stuff from the 70's and 80's so I love it. i'm enjoying watching shows I haven't seen since I was a kid but I've been surprised at how many of them just don't hold up very well. There is one show however that is just as enjoyable now as it was 30 years ago: The Love Boat.

It comes on a few times a day and I'm loving it. It's amazing to see how many famous people were on it, every episode is like a who's who of American culture. The storylines are laughable, the acting is over the top, and the jokes are corny at best but I don't care. The Love Boat rocks. And the theme song! you cannot hear the Love Boat theme song and not feel happy. You just can't.

The Love Boat Theme Song

This pretty much sums me up...

2009-10-12T11:10:00.002+02:00

Disaster.

2009-10-10T08:45:00.002+02:00

I thought the worst of the storms was over in the Philippines but apparently I was wrong. Typhoon Parma completely destroyed the Pangasinan region, where the wife is staying with her family. I spoke to her on the phone yesterday and she described the devastation to me, it sounds really bad. The good news is that her family's house where they're staying somehow escaped the flooding and everyone is safe and sound. The bad news is that the farm and all of her family's crops - basically, their entire livelihood - have been lost to the flooding. The bridge that leads the highway was also destroyed but she says it should be fixed by the time they are supposed to come home at the end of the month. I was worried about Luca and told her that if it was really bad she might want to think about coming home early but she says the worst is over and the waters are already starting to go down. Plus, the house is fine so there's not really much danger for them at this point I guess. It's probably good that she's there right now as she can help them buy things that they really need to recover. We're going to do what we can to help them get back on their feet but I'm sure it won't be easy to recover from something like this. She sounded pretty upbeat about everything on the phone though so I'm not too worried about her and Luca.

In a way, it's kind of ironic; the last time they had a flood this bad was almost 20 years ago. In that flood they also lost everything and were so desperate that the wife, as the oldest girl in the family, had to go to Hong Kong and take a job as a domestic helper to help support the family. About 10 years after that, we met. And now she's back home visiting her family with our youngest kid and it happens all over again. At least this time she's in a much better position to help them...

The X Man and Daniele

2009-10-09T06:02:00.003+02:00

One of the best things about coming back to Italy is that the X Man has started school and has plenty of friends his own age. We live in a duplex and the people who live in the other side have a grandson living with them named Daniele. Daniele is 4 years old, one year younger than the X Man and they've become best friends. Almost every day Daniele goes outside in the driveway which is separated from our front yard by a little wire fence, and starts his familiar chant: "Xavier...Xavier...Xavier..." and he will not stop until the X Man goes out to the terrazza and visits with him. It's actually kind of cute. Daniele asks everyday if Xavier can come to his house and he usually does. He probably spends more time next door than at home and often eats dinner over there. The neighbors absolutely love him and love having him over as he's a good influence on Daniele.

But things are not always rosy between the X Man and Daniele.

Daniele, although being a year younger, is bigger than the X Man. He's also a brute who doesn't always play well with others. When the X Man is with him, he becomes a lot more unruly than normal and suddenly has trouble listening to the wife and I. I've had to drop the hammer on him a few times and he seems to have learned his lesson. But overall, I'm happy that he has Daniele to hang out and play with, it's good for him to have a best friend. Yesterday, Daniele's grandmother picked up the X Man after school and he played with Daniele in their driveway. When I got home after work and walked up on the terrazza, the X Man was clinging to the fence and in a soft, weepy voice said "Daddy, I want to come home". I saw that he was crying so I asked what happened but he didn't want to say, he just kept saying he wanted to come home. So I went over and he met me at the end of the driveway and took my hand. I picked him up and told Daniele to tell his grandmother that I was taking him home but she was sitting on their steps and jumped up when she heard me and came over. Whatever had happened, she didn't see it and had no idea anything was wrong until she saw the the X Man was crying. When she asked him what happened, he told her that Daniele had hit him. Well she flipped out and started chasing Daniele around screaming at him, it was actually kind of comical. She apologized to me and I took the X Man home and he was fine. According to him, he wanted to "pick a flower for mommy because I miss her" and Daniele wouldn't let him and an argument ensued which resulted in Daniele hitting him several times.

I'm sure it's all been forgotten and Daniele will be outside today calling for him like every other day. But it looks like I'm going have to teach the X Man to defend himself...

Quick Update

2009-10-07T09:56:00.003+02:00

Nothing much new to report. Got a few emails from the wife; her and Luca are doing fine. They haven't gotten hit too hard by the numerous tropical storms that are wreaking havoc on the Philippines fortunately but they've been having rain constantly which makes it impossible to do much except sit around the house. Because of this, she reports that she's pretty bored and ready to come home already. Luca seems to be doing fine except that he caught a little cold and has a runny nose. They all went to her mom's church on Sunday, when they walked in the congregation was singing some praise and worship songs and Luca is such a music nut that he promptly ran to the front and started dancing which made everybody just go crazy. He's become as popular as the X Man was when she took him there. It's great that her family is able to spend time with their grandkids.

On the homefront, everything is good albeit uneventful. I have to take a day off here and there to watch the X Man when Giampietro and Agnese go out of town which I always enjoy. It's a bit difficult but between them, myself and our next door neighbor Giorgia, we are able to make it work with his school. I was kind of worried that he didn't like being shuffled around between all of us but yesterday I told him "See, there are so many people that love you and want to spend time with you that we have to take turns!" and he got a big smile on his face. It was a great fatherhood moment for me. They don't happen to me very often but they do happen. Overall I think he likes staying with Giampi and Agnese most of the time. They are like grandparents to him and spoil him rotten which he loves. We're very lucky to have them in our lives.

That's pretty much it. I'll post another update next week or so.

Daddy and the X Man in Venice

2009-10-04T15:15:00.002+02:00

Took the X Man to Venice today for a little while. Didn't take many photos but here they are:

Click me!

Wife and Kid Are Fine

2009-10-03T07:58:00.002+02:00

For those who haven't been following, there is/was another huge typhoon that hit the Philippines this weekend called tropical storm Parma (How ironic). It was supposed to be even worse than the one that hit last weekend causing massive flooding and damage and almost 300 deaths.

Anyway, got an email from the wife this morning and she said they are fine, apparently the new storm all but passed right by them. All they got was some rain. For anyone who is curious, her family lives in the San Fabian area in the Pangasinan province, near Lingayen Gulf.

Joke of the Day

2009-10-02T11:15:00.001+02:00

Q. Did you hear about about the man who got a viagra stuck in his throat?

A. He got a stiff neck.

Thank you, I'll be here all week...don't forget to tip your waitress and try the veal...

Bonding With the X Man.

2009-09-30T10:21:00.003+02:00

With the wife and Luca gone, it's just me and the X Man here. Unfortunately my work schedule makes it impossible for me to bring him to school in the morning and pick him up in the afternoon so he's staying with Giampi and Agnese during the week and I see him after work. I have him all to myself on the weekends though and I am really enjoying the time alone with him. He really is such a great kid, well behaved and very polite. Giampi tells me that the people around town are so impressed by him and his good manners, always saying please and thank you and such. He's also very affectionate and often says "I love you daddy" right out of the blue. Just melts my heart. He constantly cracks me up with the things he says too, you never know what he's going to come up with next. For instance, we had this exchange on the way back from the airport last weekend:

X: Daddy, do you like the day or the night?
Me: Umm...I like the night because I can sleep.
X: I like the day because I can learn stuff and go to school and have a lot of adventures.

Anyway, I was hoping to take a few trips on the weekends while the wife is away but I think I'm just going to hang out with the X Man instead...

Wife and Kid Arrived Safely

2009-09-28T09:34:00.004+02:00

There were a few nervous moments for me after reading about and seeing video of the flooding in Manila this weekend but I got an email from the wife this morning saying the flooding had gotten better by the time they arrived yesterday. Her aunt picked them up and they should be at her family's place in Pangasinan by now so I guess there's not much to worry about anymore unless another tropical storm hits. Apparently the flooding was some of the worst ever there with over 100 people dead, over 2,000 missing and hundreds of thousands without homes or electricity.

On the homefront things are fine. Had a great day with the X Man yesterday, just a couple of guys hanging out. He left for Giampi and Agnese's house last night and will staying with them during the week as my work schedule will not allow me to bring him to school or pick him up. Since Giampi and Agnese will be bringing him to school in the morning and picking him up in the afternoon, they said it's easier if he just sleeps there each night. I'll probably go over after work to see him and maybe have dinner. They are very excited about it too, they really adore him as if he is their own grandchild and especially now that he is fluent in Italian. The X Man is thrilled too, he absolutely loves staying with Giampi and Agnese. For my part, I'm completely ecstatic to have the entire house to myself. I cherish the peace and quiet. Don't have to close the door when I go to the bathroom, I can walk around naked...it's faaaaaaaaaaaaaaantastic....

The Wife and Baby are Away...

2009-09-27T07:36:00.002+02:00

The wife and Luca left out of Milan last night headed for Manila with a layover in Abu Dhabi. Her family decided to hold a huge family reunion so her and Luca will be there about 5 weeks, returning on October 31st. Unfortunately the timing could not have been worse as Manila is currently suffering from some of the worst flooding in its history due to tropical storm Ketsana that dumped the equivalent of an entire month of rain on the area in 6 hours. I've been very worried as the situation in Manila is extremely dangerous right now - estimates say that 80% of the city is underwater - but the last thing I read was the the airports in Manila and northern Philippines have been reopened so hopefully the situation is improving. As I write this, their flight from Abu Dhabi is waiting to take off so there's still several hours until they arrive in Manila. I've got status updates on the flight being sent to me as they occur so I'll be tracking closely.

My Favorite Pizza

2009-09-24T08:30:00.004+02:00

I've had dozens of different kinds of pizza during my time in Italy. When I first arrived in 2000, the first pizza that I was addicted to was "spinaci e ricotta" (spinach and ricotta cheese). Eventually I started experimenting with different toppings and combinations. For a while I was partial to "proscuitto e funghi" (Italian ham and mushrooms) and then after that I discovered just plain old pizza con olivi (pizza with olives).

Then a few years ago while we were living in Germany and visiting Giampietro and Agnese, we took them out for dinner. They suggested going to a nearby restaurant called La Fenice, (Italian for "The Phoenix"). Normally when we go out to eat with them I've noticed that they usually each order a different pizza, eat half, then switch. However on this night they both ordered the same pizza. It looked liked nothing more than just cheese and cherry tomatoes so I paid it no mind but at one point Giampi told me about the pizza - it was called "Estate del Sud", which means "summer in the south". The south of Italy, particularly in the Naples area, is known for great pizza and great food in general featuring delicious produce and ingredients. So on the Estate del Sud pizza was just tomato sauce, mozzarella di buffala (mozzarella cheese made with the milk of a water buffalo which is only made in the south) and some kind of special cherry tomatos that are only grown in Sicily and only in the summer months so the only time you can get this pizza is when the tomatoes are in season in Sicily. The finishing touch is a bit of basilico (basil).

Anyway, Giampi had me try a bite and I can't even describe my reaction. I'd never tasted anything like it, the flavor was just indescribable. I've since ordered pizza with mozzarella di buffala and cherry tomatoes at other places but the taste doesn't even come close. I've not found any other pizza like the Estate del Sud at La Fenice. It is far and away the best pizza I've ever had in my life. Unfortunately summer is over now so we have to wait til next summer to enjoy it again.

Here's a couple pics of the Estate del Sud (click to enlarge):

Autumn is upon us.

2009-09-22T08:22:00.003+02:00

You may have heard me say it many times before but autumn is far and away my favorite time of the year. For most people spring is the time of year that represents renewal but for me it's the fall. For me, the fall is when everything is coming back to life. For the first 22 years of my life it meant that the school year was starting up again. It means that the football, soccer, basketball and hockey seasons are starting up again. This was always the best time of year for me growing up because I was such a soccer nut - nothing made me happier than playing soccer and so the fall was the best time of the year for me. The fall meant Saturday mornings at Brickyard Field in Litchfield. Later on it meant soccer practices after school and bus rides to places like Milford, Derry and Merrimack for games.

I guess I don't really know exactly what it is that makes autumn my favorite time of year. There's just something comforting in it, something that brings back all the fondest memories of years gone by. Growing up in New England, fall was always magical if for no other reason than because of the leaves changing. My brother has traveled all over the world and seen more places than anyone I know and he says that New England during peak foliage season, when the leaves are at their most colorful, is still the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. I'm inclined to agree. I was fortunate to attend college at a small, private school tucked away in the mountains in southwest New Hampshire called Franklin Pierce College (Now called Franklin Pierce University). It sits at the base of Mt. Monadnock, the second most climbed mountain in the world after Mt Fuji, and is right in the heart of leaf-peeper territory. "Leaf-peeper" is the term that refers to the droves of tourists that flock to the area in the fall to admire and photograph the vibrant foliage colors, many of whom come from as far away as Europe and Asia.

It's not that often that I find myself missing home. But seeing pictures of the foliage definitely brings back some very fond memories.

By the way, here's a great one-stop website for New England foliage:

www.yankeefoliage.com

Fatherhood Moment

2009-09-18T09:13:00.002+02:00

Luca falls asleep sitting on my lap...

I'm growing a beard.

2009-09-16T19:35:00.003+02:00

I'm a lefty. And my surgery a couple weeks ago was on my left shoulder. One result of the surgery is that I'm not able to lift my left arm much higher than my shoulder which makes simple things like brushing my teeth, combing my hair and shaving nigh impossible. So here it is a couple weeks after my surgery and I haven't even attempted to shave so I've got a pretty good beard started. Although I've done the goatee thing a few times since getting out of the Army, I've never attempted to grow a full beard so since I had a good two week start I figured I'd keep going and see how it looks. It's coming in pretty nicely so far and although I had planned on shaving it off in a week or two, I have received a few compliments on it and I kind of like the way it looks. I guess you could say it's growing on me - literally and figuratively. So I'm keeping it for now. When it starts getting unmanageable in another week or two I might end up shaving it off but until then I'm kind of digging it. Here's a few pics...

Update, Part 2

2009-09-15T09:12:00.004+02:00

Shoulder is coming along slowly but surely. I'm getting quite a bit of my old range of motion back although I've still got a ways to go until I'm back to normal. I had my follow up appointment with the orthopedist yesterday and he told me that, looking a tthe post-surgery reort, the doctor ended up doing a lot of other stuff than what was originally planned so once he got in there he must have seen something that didn't show up on the MRI. But I'm out of the sling for good now, all the bandages are off and I'm able to do a little more each day with my left arm/hand. It is still very sore when i move it though and I still pop a couple percocet when I'm at home, assuming I'm not driving anywhere. I start physical therapy this coming Monday so hopefully I'll be back to normal soon and I'll be able to start back up with my kettlebells before the end of the year...

Update

2009-09-11T11:24:00.002+02:00

Well, it's been over a week now, my shoulder is getting better, the bandages are off but I still don't have very good range of motion. I am going to attempt to drive to the base for the grocery shopping in a couple days. If that goes well then I will be going back to work on Monday as scheduled. While I'm not looking forward to going back to ~~hell~~ work, I am going absolutely crazy sitting at home with nothing to do. I ran out of movies/tv shows after about 4 days so mostly I sit on the couch watching stuff on Youtube or wasting time on Facebook. This is not how I prefer using my vacation time I can assure you.

Anyway, nothing else to say except I'm glad that September is here and the cooler weather. With it come soccer and football season so I am a happy boy...

My wife is leaving me.

2009-09-07T11:25:00.002+02:00

Well, for a month anyway. Her family is having a huge family reunion back in the Philippines in October so she is headed back for a little over a month to spend time with her friends and family. She is taking Luca with her as her family hasn't seen him yet but the X Man will be staying here with me since he will be in school and 5 weeks is too much time to miss.

They'll be leaving out of Milan (much cheaper than Venice) September 26th and returning October 31st and the wife is very excited to see family members she hasn't seen in many years. As for me, I doubt I'll be doing much while they're gone as the X Man will still be here but I'm hoping to do a trip or two if possible. The hardest thing will of course be working around the kid's school hours. My work schedule will make it difficult if not damned near impossible to bring him to school in the morning and pick him up afterward but fortunately Giampietro and Agnese will be around to help. Not only that but our neighbor Giorgia is a teacher at his school and will be helping out as well. It'll be difficult but it should work out somehow. I'm also considering hiring a part time maid to help out with the housework. Unless there's someone out there who wants to come stay with us for a month...anyone?

Surgery report

2009-09-03T11:41:00.002+02:00

This will be short as it's hard to type with only one hand...

Surgery yesterday went fine. It was obviously not a pleasant experience but thank God it's done and I can look forward to a healthy shoulder again once it heals.

The surgery itself went good but it was not without incident. When I woke up I wasn't feeling any pain except my throat which hurt like hell. The nurse explained that I had stopped breathing in the middle of the operation for some reason and they to shove some kind of tube down my throat to get me breathing again. Other than it was routine but then in recovery my blood pressure shot up and I ended up staying an extra couple hours until it came down to acceptable levels.

Right now I'm home with some kind of strange, futuristic, uncomfortable sling on, I can't shower for the next 4 or 5 days (sponge bath!) and I've got a bunch of percocet to deal with the pain although it hasn't been too bad yet. I'm off of work until the end of next week and I'm bored already...

Two more days...

2009-08-31T08:26:00.003+02:00

Only a couple more days until my shoulder surgery and it feels like forever. My shoulder has been really hurting the past couple days so I'm actually really looking forward to going under the knife and getting this damned thing fixed once and for all. It's almost as if my shoulder knows it's getting operated on and is trying to make my last two days as miserable as possible. My coworker is taking me up to Aviano tomorrow and we'll stay overnight there since I have to be at the hospital by 0630 on Wednesday. I'll be home probably Wednesday night and then I'll be taking a week or two off from work to recuperate. I won't be able to lift my arm past my shoulder for a few days or so and I won't be able to drive for at least a week so I'll be confined to home and it's going to be extremely boring as I haven't set up my satellite dish and only get a few Italian channels and of course I can't drive anywhere. Times like this I wish I lived back on the Hauptstrasse in Heidelberg. Caldogno is a nice town but there's not a whole lot to do there. Also, the X Man doesn't start school until the 14th so the house will be anything but peaceful and quiet. I'm going to go to the library today or tomorrow and pick up a few books I guess. I'm also planning on chopping all my hair off since I won't be able to brush it for the next couple weeks...

Nice Six-Pack...

2009-08-28T12:20:00.001+02:00

Bees are trying to kill me. And my family.

2009-08-27T10:54:00.002+02:00

A few months ago the wife was walking around town with the kids. Suddenly a bee appeared out of nowhere and flew close to the X Man. He is terrified of bees and when he saw it he flipped out and ran out into the street to get away from it. Fortunately no cars were driving by at that moment or he would have been run over for sure. It's pretty scary to think what could have happened if a car actually had been driving by at that moment. I shudder to think about it.

Yesterday I was driving back to the base and I was on a little small road that is barely big enough for two cars and has drainage ditches on either side of it. As I'm driving, some kind of big bug flies in through my window and almost hits me in the head. I look down at my leg and there it is, a huge freaking bee sitting there looking ominous. Well I hate bees almost as much as the X Man - especially after getting stung at work a couple weeks ago - so I temporarily lost control of my faculties as I saw this ugly thing sitting on my thigh. When you're behind the wheel, there's nowhere to run so I instinctively slapped it with my open hand as you would a mosquito. Fortunately that killed it but as I looked up I quickly realized that I was in the other lane with a car headed right for me. Thankfully I looked up in time and swerved back over to my lane. Had the timing been different, I could have easily either hit another car head on or ended up in the drainage ditch on the side of the road. It's funny because over the years of driving down that road, I've often seen cars overturned in one of those ditches. I'd say I've seen it about 5 or 6 times. I've always laughed to myself and figured it was the Italians driving too fast and crazy that they went off the road but now I'm starting to realize that it was probably the bees. They are apparently as cunning as they are frightening and ugly. They tried to take out the X Man a few months ago and failed. They tried to take me out yesterday and failed. From now I roll my window up whenever I'm on that stretch of road - they may be smart but they will not outsmart me. I'm on to them now.

Beware the bees.

My Top 5 of Italy

2009-08-21T09:05:00.008+02:00

Yesterday a friend mentioned that her and her daughter might take a vacation in Italy and asked me what the 5 things I would recommend are. Immediately I thought this might make a good blog post so here goes...

5. Bologna. People are always surprised when I tell them this but I really think Bologna is one of the best kept secrets in Italy. I've often said that Bologna features the best food in all of Italy and since food is a major reason why a lot of people come to italy, it's surprising to me that Bologna isn't more popular. One of the best tasting dishes I've ever eaten in my life was a plate of freshly made tortellini cooked in a balsamic vinegar sauce at a little ristorante next to Il Due Torri (Two Towers) called Tinellos. Bologna is the capital of the Emilia Romagna region which is Italy's culinary heartland. In Emilia-Romagna you find balsamic vinegar from Modena (Pavarotti's hometown) as well as the city of Parma, famous of course for Parmesan cheese and Parma ham. For gelato lovers, Bologna is generally known as having the best gelato in all of Italy as well. But it isn't just the food that attracts me to "Bologna la Grassa" (Bologna the fat). There is quite a bit of history there as well. There is a big Duomo worth seeing as well as the famous Two Towers, all of which have an interesting and quirky history behind them. Bologna is also home to the oldest university and the university population drives a surprisingly enjoyable nightlife scene. Bologna is truly a hidden gem.

4. Florence. I sort of have a love-hate relationship with Florence. One on hand, there is no shortage of things to see there. It is, after all, the cradle of the Renaissance. However it's so famous and beloved that everytime I go
it's so unbelievably crowded that it's difficult to enjoy as much as I normally would. For me the highlight is the area around world famous Duomo, perhaps the most famous in the world. One tip I give people is to wake up early, around 6 or 7 and go walk around before the tourists arrive. Then, just as it opens, climb to the top of the Campanile (bell tower) that stands next to the Duomo for some of the most spectacular views of bella Firenze. Florence is the undisputed king of Tuscany so the side streets are littered with enotecas where you can sample some of the best vino in the world. Not to mention that some of the most famous and beautiful works of art reside in Florence, most in the Uffizi Gallery. The Ponte Vecchio is famous but these days is nothing more than one big outdoor jewelry shop. Despite the crowds, Florence is a wonderful city with no shortage of man-made wonders to marvel at.

3. Cinque Terra. Some friends took me to Cinque Terra for the first time way back in 2000 and I was instantly smitten. You won't find glorious churches and expensive works of art here; this is nature at it's finest. Cinque Terra basically consists of 5 little small fishing villages on the Ligurian coast that have evolved into a popular tourist destination over the years. The entire area has been turned into a national park and is a popular hiking destination as well.
What makes them special is the way they are positioned on the water with the mountains so close to them that they seem to be pushing them into the sea. Each of the 5 villages has its own charm and personality but my favorite is Vernazza. We usually go there every 4th of July to relax and enjoy life as it should be. In some ways, Cinque Terra is Italian living at its best. The pace of life is slow and sometimes the most enjoyable thing is to just sit in the pizza with a glass of vino and watch the children play in the water. The seafood is plentiful and delicious and the scenery is some of the most beautiful and dramatic in all of Italy. I'm a big hiker so that's one reason I love Cinque Terra so much. The hikes are the most enjoyable I've ever done. I can't say enough about the place, it's just magnificent.

2. Rome. I really go back and forth with Rome on whether it's my favorite or my second favorite. For most people it would probably be number one but this is my list so I'm putting it as #2, although in reality it's probably more like 1A. Rome just might be the most famous city in the world and for good reason. So much of the world's history was influenced by Rome in some way. I'm a huge history buff and Ancient Rome has always fascinated me so whenever I go to Rome - and I've been there I think 6 or 7 times now - I find new things to discover and explore. Rome is so big you'd need a month to really see everything. You could spend an entire week exploring the Vatican. One of my favorite things about Rome is that you can get blown away just walking around. The list of historical places in Rome reads like a history book: The Colosseum, The Pantheon, Circus Maximus, The Spanish Steps, The Trevi Fountain, The Forum, Piazza Navona, The Campidoglio, etc. Rome is huge and this is perhaps one of its few turn offs. The Metro goes around the edges but if you want to explore the city center, you either take a bus and risk getting pickpocketed or you walk. For me, I love exploring big cities, there's such an energy and excitement to them and Rome is right at the top of the list. You can choose to visit all the famous monuments along with the crowds, you can sit in one of the many piazzas and sip vino as you watch the struggling artists work, you can take an evening passagiata down Corso Palladio with all the lovers, young and old alike, or you can cross the Tiber and relax in Trastevere, Rome's Bohemian area. The city is packed full of bars and pubs too and I once spent an entire weekend visiting as many different pubs as I could. Rome is mysterious and seductive. She is historic and wondrous. And I always miss her tremendously if I go too long without seeing her.

1. Venice. I'm sure that many people would disagree with me on this and I can certainly understand why. There is no middle ground on Venice, most people go and either love it or hate it but believe me, you cannot form an accurate opinion of Venice from just one visit. I'm fortunate to live a mere 30 minute drive from Venice and have been going continuously since I first came here almost 10 years ago. Venice has its turn offs, the crowds being probably the biggest. I would say that Florence and Venice are the two most crowded places I've been to in Italy. In the summertime, the heat in Venice can be oppresive, the humidity brings out the mosquitoes and the combination of the two can make the canals give off a less-than-appealing odor. Despite all this, I have always enjoyed Venice immensely. I've been there no less than 50 times and I can honestly say that I have never not enjoyed myself. Every time I go, it's like seeing it for the first time. I never tire of walking around along the canals, over the endless bridges, taking in the eroding splendor of what was once the most powerful empire in the world. Venice is expensive but savvy tourists can get by cheaply. There are also parts of Venice where tourists seldom venture. It's joy to discover these areas. Perhaps I enjoy Venice more than the average person because I've learned my way around it by now and yet despite my familiarity with Venice, she always manages to show something different every time I go. Venice has so much to offer for those who are willing to accept. If you want to see the real Venice, the best time is very early in the morning and late at night. During these times, all the tour groups and tourists are back at their hotels in Mestre, the industrial wasteland across the lagoon on the mainland where the cheap hotels are. I like to walk around Venice around 6 or 7 in the morning. The city is almost completely empty except for some locals getting ready for the day. It's like you have the entire city to yourself. Several years ago a friend and I did an impromptu pub crawl in Venice and it was so enjoyable that it has become a regular tradition. Pub crawls in Venice are different than in any other city as the enjoyment is as much in seeing the city at night as it is in enjoying the drinks and cameraderie. I don't do much when I go to Venice these days. I mostly just like to wander aimlessly through the streets and back alleys, pop into the Devil's Forest or the Fiddler's Elbow for a pint (or 3), grab a panini and just take it all in. Being in Venice gives me a sense of comfort. Venice is unique, there is no other place like it in the world.

A Painful High School Memory

2009-08-20T09:16:00.002+02:00

Not all of my high school memories are happy. In fact, my entire freshman year was miserable. I grew up in a small town called Litchfield. Litchfield was so small at the time that it did not have a high school. You went through grades 1-8 at Griffin Memorial School (GMS) and then, depending on which part of town you lived in, you attended high school either in Manchester or Hudson. Myself, I ended up at Alvirne High School in Hudson. It was a real crappy deal for us Litchfield kids - you had the same classmates for 8 straight years and then half your class ends up going to a different high school and the ones that go to the same one as you, you usually end up losing touch with. For me it was terrible. I was cock of the walk at GMS, I had tons of friends and was pretty popular, like a big fish in a small pond. Then I end up going to this huge high school where I hardly knew anybody. It was very difficult for me as every single friend I had at GMS ended up in different classes than me at Alvirne so I literally knew nobody. And even worse, the kids from Hudson in my class had all gone through 8 years together and pretty much all knew each other and, as 14 year olds will do, weren't especially welcoming to kids they didn't know.

Some Litchfield kids were able to adapt and make new friends...and I might have too were it not for my sister. My sister Tracy was a senior during my freshman year. We were 4 years apart and had never really gotten along that well growing up. She wanted nothing to do with her little nerdy freshman brother; for example, she drove to school every day in her little Chevy Chevette but would not give me a ride so I had to take the bus. I never understood why she didn't seem to like me in those days but I didn't let it bother me, I was too busy trying to fit in in my new surroundings. Now, back then there was said to be a tradition wherein seniors would embarrass freshman by making them do things like sing or clean their table at lunch. Nobody ever knew anybody who had ever actually done it or had it done to them, it was just something meant to scare incoming freshamn, as I was told. Well, my sister decided that it needed to be done to me. She was friends with pretty rough and tumble guys in high school so she got two of them who looked like cavemen to do her bidding one lunch period during the first week of school. Somehow I had gotten word that she was planning on doing it at the start of the lunch period. The cafeteria was completely packed and everyone seemed to be looking over at me and whispering. My stomach was completely in knots and I was so nervous and scared that I thought I might pass out. And then it happened. The two cavemen appeared at my table and informed me that, at my sister's request, I was to go clean their table. I looked around for a teacher and tried to stall but nothing doing. I was trapped. In front of everybody, I got up, walked over to their table, picked up the trash and put it in the trashcan. I tried to keep a smile on my face as I did it, so as to not let them know that it bothered me but in reality I had never, ever felt so embarrassed and small. Any chance I had to ever be popular and be one of the "cool kids" - things everybody wanted in high school - were killed by those five minutes.

We got home that night and I was almost in tears at the embarrassment my sister put me through and the subsequent teasing and abuse I was subjected to by kids in my class. I told my mother what had happened and to my astonishment, she took my sister's side, said it was funny and that I was making a big deal out of nothing. To me, it felt like my life was over. I don't think I've ever as much hate and anger for my mother and sister as I did in that moment. I was so distraught and upset that I actually spent the rest of the night in my room making a list of ways to get even with my sister. Stuff like putting cat shit in her food or cutting off her hair while she was sleeping but in the end I did nothing. The rest of the year I continued to get teased by other kids about the episode and I pretty much just went into a shell and kept to myself. My entire freshman year was probably one of the most miserable times in my life.

Eventually the year ended and by the time sophomore year came around I started to come out of my shell a little bit. I joined the soccer team, made a few friends and even had two girlfriends by the end of the school year (of course, they were both freshmen and weren't aware of my embarrassing episode the year before!). Every now and then someone would recognize me and say something like "hey, aren't you the kid who had to clean your sister's table last year?" but for the most part it was forgotten.

I don't think my sister ever realized what a horrible thing she truly did to me or how much anger I felt towards her for a long time after that. I made a lot of friends and memories at Alvirne but I also spent 4 years convinced that she had completely ruined my high school years before they even began. You have to remember that I was a 14 year old kid, in a new school with no friends, hoping just to fit in. Of course I got over it and my sister and I are pretty close these days. I laugh about it now because I've got a lot more good memories from high school than bad ones. But that definitely is one of the bad ones...

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

2009-08-19T10:37:00.004+02:00

More from 1989: The Time Mike Sold me Down the River.

2009-08-19T08:01:00.002+02:00

So senior year I'm working at the video store. Often my friends would call and tell me to grab a movie and come over after work. One Sunday, my best friend Mike calls me up and says his parents will be at church for the whole night and suggests that I bring a porno over. The video store had the movies categorized and color coded - anything with a yellow dot on it meant "Adult" so before I left for the night I quickly grabbed the first yellow stickered movie I could and my friend Troy and I headed over to Mike's. Mike decides to hook up dual VCRs and tapes the entire movie while we watch it. I open the case and the name of the movie is "Blonde Heat: The Case of the Maltese Dildo" (By this time, I was fully aware of what a dildo was, I can assure you). We watched the entire movie (with pillows on our laps of course...), we go home and the next day I slipped the movie back in it's place with nobody noticing.

Back in those days I spent more time at Mike's house than at my own as I was practically part of the family. I even called his parents mom and dad. So one morning several months later I was sitting at their kitchen table having coffee and Mike's mother asks me if I've seen any good movies lately. Seemed like a strange question from her but I said no without looking up from the sports page. She continues with the movie theme saying stuff like "Hmm...well, we've seen some good movies lately" and "In fact we saw a really good movie the other night...". It didn't take long for me to realize what she was talking about even though it had been several months since that night so I looked at Mike and he nodded. I then received a lecture from Mike's mom about how serial killer Ted Bundy, after he was caught, talked about how he was addicted to porn as a youngster and how it had warped his mind, yada yada yada. But as I'm listening to her, I couldn't help wondering how she knew that I was there? The only way they could have known is if Mike told her and surely my best friend wouldn't do that, would he?

Well here's what had happened. After taping the movie, Mike had hidden the tape up in the ceiling of his room, which was in the basement, and forgotten all about it. Several months later there was a big storm which knocked out the cable to his sister's room. His sister's room happened to be right above his so when his father went to fix it, he had to go in through Mike's ceiling and of course in doing so he finds this video. This seemed strange to him so he went to the VCR and popped it in and after seeing it called his wife down and Mike was nailed. They confronted Mike about it and apparently the conversation went like this:

Mike's Mom: Where did you get this trash? Did RIK get this for you?!

Mike: YES!

And there you have it. No attempt whatsoever to protect me, just gave me right up. I asked him about it afterwards and he said he was sorry but he had panicked and didn't know what to say. We still laugh about it to this day of course and to be honest I even found it funny back then when it first happened. But I've never let Mike forget about the time in 1989 when my best friend sold me down the river...

High School Memories, take 1

2009-08-18T08:56:00.002+02:00

I had a music appreciation class my senior year where we studied all the classic composers. It was in that class that I developed an obsession with Mozart and his music. I liked most of the others but there was something about Mozart's music that just appealed to me on a different level from anyone else. Mrs. Friborg showed us the film "Amadeus" in that class. I had never seen it but was instantly hooked and ended up watching it about 100 times and memorizing all the lines. It remains to this day one of my all time top 5 movies. Years later I had a chance to spend a weekend in Salzburg, Austria (Mozart's birthplace) and it was unbelievable. The entire city is a shrine to him. There was a girl in my class named Robyn Oster, she had trouble with osme of the composer's names for some reason and the one that is sticks in my mind is Bach; for some reason, she could not say his name correctly. She pronounced it "Bark". Both Robyn and I were addicts of the soap opera One Life to Live which came on every afternoon at 2pm. We were stuck in class until 2:19pm so we had to miss the first half hour so for some reason we developed a strange tradition - every day when the clock hit 2pm, we would look at each other and hit our desks three times to symbolize the last three notes of the OLTL theme song ("cause we only have one lift to live...bum bum bum!"). God, the things you remember. Robyn is now a professional singer in Las Vegas.

I was a big soccer player growing up and at the risk of sounding immodest, I was really good. I played for the JV team my sophomore year but since I was from a different town the coach did not know me and stuck me at left wing all year which is a very unnatural position for me. I ended up only scoring one goal since the coach would only allow me to cross the ball and never shoot. not only that but I kind of felt like an outsider since I was from a different town than everyone else on the team. It really left a bad taste in my mouth and I didn't bother playing junior year. But I missed it so bad and had made friends with a few other guys who played by then so I had planned to play senior year no matter what. But fate had other plans. Going into senior year I had a job as a video store clerk but I had planned on quitting when soccer season started. Unfortunately I had a car that I had to pay for, then senior pictures (which were over 200 bucks), then prom tickets, not to mention college less than a year away and all of a sudden I realized that I couldn't quit my job. I lived in a one parent home and my mother worked to make ends meet so I didn't have the luxury of just asking my parents for the money for stuff I needed. In the end I made the heartbreaking decision to forego playing my senior year in order to be able to pay for the stuff I needed. It was tough and the coach made it even tougher. his name was Mr. Taft, he was a gym teacher and he also went to my church. He watched me play in phys ed class quite a bit and lobbied hard to get me to come play for him, told me he really needed me, etc. And as luck would have it, my school went to the state championship that year and lost a devastating 1-0 decision to arch rival Nashua High. Not playing that year has always been one of the biggest regrets of my life. It's 20 years later and it still bothers me. I missed so much that year. Ever since then I've always told myself that if my kids get involved in sports I will not only encourage them but I'll do whatever I can to ensure that they don't have to miss out on playing because of something stupid like I did. You can never get those memories back. And besides, I had a shitty time at my prom anyway...

1989

2009-08-17T07:49:00.004+02:00

This past weekend was my 20 year high school reunion. For the mathematically challenged among you, that means I graduated high school in 1989. 1989 was quite a year in my life. It brought many changes, some new beginnings and some endings. It was one of the more enjoyable years of high school for me as I was a senior and enjoyed quite a bit of freedom.

My two best friends in high school that year were Randy Pouliot and Dan "Bubba" Francouer. Study hall that year was the best ever as all three of us were in there and the teacher/monitor was Ms. Dickson who was a history teacher that liked to treat seniors like they were adults rather than students. It was Bubba who gave me the nickname by which I would be known for the next 5 years or so. Since I was learning French, the guys used to call me Richard, but with a French accent so it sounded like "Ree-shard". I watched the Superbowl at my sister's house that year. Randy, Bubba and a bunch of others were watching elsewhere and drinking beers. Suddenly Bubba realized that I wasn't there and asked "Hey, where's Ree-shard?!". As he did so, sportscaster Ahmad Rashad came on the screen which led to some "Ahmad Ree-shard" jokes and by the end of the Superbowl (49ers over the Bengals) I became known as Ahmad. The name stuck so well that during the following 4 years in college, not a single person knew my real name was Rik. I was Ahmad Thibodeau and to this day, my college friends still call me Ahmad, the name I acquired in 1989.

I had been accepted to Franklin Pierce College (since renamed Franklin Pierce University) by the time 1989 had started but I had no idea how I was going to pay for it. So on a whim I enlisted in the US Army Reserves in the summer of 1989, a move that would have a bigger impact on my life than any other I've ever made. The years I would spend in the reserves were mostly uneventful. But years later, tired of a dead end job and a dead end life, I would enlist active duty and come to Europe to start a new life. My preference was to join the Air Force as it would have been a better quality of life and better job training but because I had been in the Army Reserves, I was not allowed to join the Air Force. I had to join the Army or nothing. The Army it was. In the end it turned out very well for me as I have lived in Europe for over 11 years now, have seen the world and have started a family. But oh how different it might have been if I had not made that fateful decision to join the Army Reserves to get money for college way back in 1989.

There was a poignant moment in the summer of 1989 that I have never forgotten. I played in a church softball league with a bunch of friends from my church. One Friday in the summer of 1989 my best friend Mike Buczynski picked me up in his little gray Toyota Tercel and we headed to the ball field. One of the most popular songs that summer was "The End of the Innocence" by Don Henley and it came on as we pulled into the parking lot. Mike said to me "Have you heard this song?" and I said yes, I really liked it. Then he said "you know, if you think about it, it really is the perfect song for us right now. We just finished high school and we're about to go to college. We'll be on our own for the first time and suddenly we have to grow up. So it really is the end of the innocence for us.". It may sound corny to you but it really hit me when he said that. We had reached the end of an era. High school was fun, we had no responsibilities, no worries. And now things were about to change and we were all about to go our separate ways. I guess it might have been different if I were going to University of New Hampshire with Mike, Jen, Steve and most of my other Nashua friends but that was the one school I applied to that didn't accept me. Within two months I would be starting college and military service (such as it was). Looking back, I don't think I was prepared for either. It truly was the end of the innocence for me; the summer of 1989.

I have a feeling there will be more high school posts forthcoming...

The X Man is a Dancing Fool

2009-08-14T06:21:00.001+02:00

My Top 5 Underrated Rock Songs

2009-08-13T09:46:00.002+02:00

1. Stone in love (Journey)

2. American Girl (Tom Petty)

3. Flirting With Disaster (Molly Hatchet)

4. Little Guitars (Van Halen)

5. Train, Train (Blackfoot)

Me and the X Man

2009-08-13T06:51:00.003+02:00

Watching the Italy-Switzerland match last night...

Life was so much easier...20 years ago.

2009-08-11T08:32:00.002+02:00

This Saturday is my 20 year high school reunion. 20 years. Amazing how fast they fly by. The peculiar thing is that, at 38, I still feel relatively young. Certainly not like someone who graduated from high school 20 years ago. I've accomplished quite a bit in those 20 years although nothing that I expected. It was actually 20 years ago this month that I enlisted in the Army Reserves to help pay for college. I then went through 4 years of college and got a Bachelor's Degree. I entered the work force and spent 5 years in sales and advertising only to realize that it was not for me. I even spent a year living on the beach.

I survived 8 weeks of basic training at Ft. Dix, New Jersey and another 12 weeks of training at Ft Gordon, Georgia. While definitely not enjoyable I count them among the experiences that helped shape me into a man.

I spent 2 weeks in Honduras with my Reserve unit helping build a school and a medical facility for poor villagers. I'll never forget it, they had no school or medical clinic in the entire village before we got there...but they had a bar.

9 years after graduating from high school I felt like I was going nowhere so I started over, joined the Army and came to Europe to see if I could find what I was looking for and ended up getting it in spades.

Looking back, I think my fascination with Europe was born in high school. My family are all French Canadians and I hated the fact that when I got together with my older relatives, they would be speaking French and I couldn't even though I was only one generation removed from them. I took French class in high school and it opened up new horizons for me. For one thing I was lucky enough to have a teacher, Mr. Cote, who was funny and got me really interested in learning the language of my people. Of course the French that was taught in school was from France not Canada so a lot of the lessons incorporated everyday life in the motherland, which I found fascinating. In fact, years later when I finally did come to Europe, I was in Germany and my favorite trips back then were always to France because I was experiencing first hand the type of life that I had studied years before in Mr. Cote's class (And Mmes. Ravenelle and Mulhern too of course). I guess I'll always be thankful to Mr. Cote for planting that seed so many years ago.

The funny thing is, when I was in Germany and wanted to transfer to another place in Europe, my dream at the time was to go to Belgium. I loved the whole "Benelux" area and was convinced that after a tour in Belgium I would be fluent in French for sure. At the time I was probably about halfway there anyway. I put Italy second on the list as a fallback and what a fallback it turned out to be. I've spent the past 9 years of my life immersed in all things Italian and have developed a love affair with this endearing country that has never subsided or abated. It's funny to look back and realize how it all could have turned out different if I had been approved to go to Belgium instead of Italy 10 years ago.

I've been fortunate to be able to see a bit of Asia as well. In the 20 years since I graduated, in all the places that I have seen, Hong Kong still remains my favorite place in the world. I've been there three times and it breaks my heart that I am not able to go there every year to get at least a taste of it. I could never explain what draws me to the place, it's just something I feel when I'm there. Hong Kong has given me a wonderful wife and 2 beautiful kids. So yeah, I guess you could say it's had quite an impact on my life.

It's funny, a week or so ago out of nowhere, the song "Twenty Years Ago" by Kenny Rogers just popped into my head. I downloaded it on iTunes and have listened to it a thousand times since then. Something about it just really takes me back to twenty years ago and all the high school memories, good and bad, come back to me. I picture in my mind sitting at my 20 year high school reunion watching a slide show of all of us from back then with the song playing in the background. Unfortunately I won't be there. I've got a wife and two kids now and a job that takes up way too much of my time, not to mention that I'm an entire continent away. I wish it was as easy as jumping into my crappy old Chevy Cavalier station wagon that I used to drive in high school and driving down to see everyone but I guess it's like Kenny says; life was so much easier...20 years ago.

My 5 Favorite Beer Countries in the World

2009-08-05T11:43:00.002+02:00

1. Belgium

2. England

3. Germany

4. Ireland

5. Czech Republic

Top 5 Non-European Cities I've Been to

2009-08-05T11:33:00.005+02:00

1. Hong Kong

2. New Orleans

3. Las Vegas

4. Bangkok

5. Montreal

5 US States I Wouldn't Mind Living In

2009-08-05T11:27:00.002+02:00

1. Maryland

2. Montana

3. Washington

4. Oregon

5. Pennsylvania

The 5 Sports Teams I Hate the Most

2009-08-05T11:24:00.003+02:00

1. New York Yankees

2. Los Angeles Lakers

3. New York Jets

4. Montreal Canadiens

5. USC Trojans

My 5 Favorite TV Show Theme Songs

2009-08-05T09:23:00.001+02:00

1. The Love Boat

2. Cheers

3. Dallas

4. Welcome Back Kotter

5. The Jeffersons

5 Embarrassing TV Shows I Used to Watch Regularly

2009-08-04T13:58:00.002+02:00

1. Beverly Hills 90210

2. 7th Heaven

3. Saved by the Bell

4. Blossom

5. Boy Meets World

I'm Buying These Shirts for Luca...

2009-08-04T11:40:00.002+02:00

5 Colleges I Applied to in High School

2009-08-04T08:28:00.002+02:00

1. Franklin Pierce College

2. Plymouth State College

3. Castleton State College

4. University of New Hampshire

5. Southern Vermont College

5 Girls I Had a Crush on in High School

2009-08-04T08:17:00.002+02:00

1. Gwen Storey

2. Stacey Lee

3. Melissa Chasse

4. Kim Lorrey

5. Peggy Campbell

Top 5 Classic Films (pre-1960)

2009-08-04T08:02:00.002+02:00

1. Casablanca

2. Singin in the Rain

3. From Here to Eternity

4. It's a Wonderful Life

5. Stagecoach

5 80's Movies I Can Watch Over and Over

2009-08-04T07:49:00.003+02:00

1. Vision Quest

2. Top Gun

3. The Last American Virgin

4. The Breakfast Club

5. Fast Times at Ridgemont High

I'M TIRED OF THESE @#!$% SNAKES IN MY @#!$% FISHING SPOT!

2009-08-03T07:42:00.002+02:00

You may recall my terrifying encounter with a snake while fishing up in Valstagna a couple months ago. I'm still a bit traumatized and every time I head up to the river I step cautiously and am constantly scanning the area for any sign of the vile demonic serpents. Thankfully I have encountered none since that fateful day back in June.

Yesterday was a beautiful day so I decided to hit the river once again. The X Man always asks to go with me and watch me fish but the only way is if the wife goes to watch him while I'm in the river and she is afraid that he will spend the whole time whining about the bugs or being too hot. However I talked her into coming with me yesterday and we decided to go to one of my favorite spots, Valstagna. The area is a popular tourist destination and is especially crowded on Sundays. Sure enough there were people everywhere so I wasn't worried about snakes as I figured all the people would keep them far away.

Now, you may remember that the reason I almost stepped on the satanic creature in the first place was because I was looking for a way through the brush and overgrowth to the really good spot just around the bend from my spot in Valstagna. Right now the river is so low due to the heat that it was obvious that I could actually walk to the spot around the bend in the water with my waders on. I entered the river and started wading slowly upstream however the river was still a bit deep where I was so it was obvious that I would have to wade probably about 3 or 4 feet from the shoreline. This did not worry me as I figured as long as I'm in the water I have nothing to worry about. I continued to head closer to the shoreline as I made my way upriver and suddenly stopped as I got about 8 feet away. About a foot from the shore there was what appeared to be a stick poking out of the water. Normally this wouldn't have even phased me but since my horrifying episode with the offending viper a couple months earlier, anything long and thin - such as a stick - makes me do a double take. So I looked at the stick for a second and wouldn't you know it...it was a snake. THERE WAS A FREAKING SNAKE IN THE FREAKING WATER. What I thought was a stick was actually it's head and as I watched, you could see his little forked tongue going in and out of his mouth as if he was aware of my presence. Thankfully I was not close enough to make him actually start swimming or I would have flipped out and fallen in as I was about up to my waist at that moment. I slowly started backing away and moved about 100 yards back downstream, into the middle of the damned river where I felt safe.

I honestly think this little bastard is stalking me.

New pics of the kids...

2009-08-01T08:20:00.000+02:00

CLICK HERE!

Surgery Update...and another Top 5 list.

2009-07-31T10:37:00.003+02:00

Had an appointment with the surgeon this morning and my surgery is scheduled for Wednesday, September 2nd up at Aviano AFB. They're going to knock me out and then he's going to go in and basically cut a centimeter off my clavicle. Or my collarbone, I forgot which one. I'll be in a sling for a couple days followed by two months of physical therapy. I'm not looking forward to it but at this point i just want this damned thing fixed. I don't enjoy hospitals.

Speaking of hospitals...

The 5 Things I Have Been in the Hospital For:

1. Being born

2. Tonsils removed

3. Adenoids removed

4. Hit in the ribs with a Matt Briggs fastball in little league

5. Hit in the eye with a softball in a church league softball game

The 5 Best Foods I've Eaten in Italy

2009-07-30T07:31:00.003+02:00

1. Penne w/ white pesto (Il Castello in Vernazza, Cinque Terra)

2. Tortellini al balsamico (Tinello’s in Bologna)

3. Pizza w/ Olives (Napoli)

4. Scaloppini al curry (Ristorante da Fernando in Rettorgole, Vicenza)

5. Risotto frutti di mare (Ristorante al Company, Vicenza)