postiblog

Our Four Honeymoons (Leg 3, Azerbaijan)

2011-12-04T23:00:00.001-08:00

Following our first two honeymoons, first around Mount Rainier and then to Leavenworth, Sara and I returned to our jobs for one week and then embarked on our next adventure. The first destination on our next adventure was Azerbaijan for a business trip, then two nights at the only destination of our four that people normally go to for a honeymoon: Paris. Ah, I love Paris, je t'aime...

Because I am a geography nerd, I was aware that a sovereign nation called Azerbaijan existed, most non-geophiles (i.e. normal people) have never heard of it. A little background: Azerbaijan is a former Soviet republic bordered on the North by Russia, the West by Georgia and Armenia, the South by Iran, and the East by the Caspian Sea. The people speak Russian and Azeri, and the unit of currency is the Manat. A moderate form of Islam is the national religion and the country is a thriving democracy. Over 8 million people live in the country which is about the size of South Carolina. Nearly 1/4 of Azeris live around the capitol of Baku. We read and were repeatedly told that little old Azerbaijan contains 9 of Earth's 11 primary climate zones, many of which we visited.

Sara and I arrived in Baku on October 2nd after two flights and an 8 hour layover in London. Following nearly two full days of travel, we got to the hotel pretty beat. Of course, our hotel reservation had been made incorrectly and checking in took a half hour. Baku is an even 12 hours ahead of Seattle and, our internal clocks skewed, we slept most of our first day. Monday morning I began class and in the evenings Sara and I would normally head into downtown Baku to eat and explore.

Juxtaposition of old and new in Baku

Baku is an interesting town of contradictions. Flush with oil money, downtown Baku is amidst a building boom of shiny modern buildings. The large, pedestrian-only "Fountain Square" dominates the center of town and there is a nice sea-front promenade with the "world's tallest flagpole" nearby. At the same time, downtown Baku is choked with traffic, reeks of auto exhaust, littered, and crossing the street you feel like a daredevil playing Frogger. Baku's walled "Old Town" dates back to medieval days and today his home to many swanky hotels and restaurants. High-End western hotels are sprouting up like dandelions around the city center, the Hilton opened while we were visiting. The glitz and wealth of the tourist area is sharply contrasted in Baku's residential neighborhoods. Most Bakili (inhabitants of Baku) live in Soviet block houses surrounded by dirty and deteriorating streets. I found a certain charm to the authenticity of these neighborhoods; the people seemed happy. Downtown felt like a facade, the neighborhoods felt alive.

The purpose of my visit was to teach 15 of Azerbaijan Airlines mechanics, and what a great group they were. Each of them were sharp, studious, and knew the airplane. We did our job and had a good time doing it. Towards the end of my stay the treated me to a generous feast as we swapped stories. When I arrived they were 15 students and I was the instructor, after 11 days in class together I viewed them all as friends. They took care of me and I look forward to seeing my Azeri mates again soon.

The mountains near Qusar

My friends were nice enough to invite Sara and I on outings to see their country. Our first Friday night in Azerbaijan Emin and his brother took Sara and I to an international soccer match pitting the home country against Austria. In the grandstand amidst a sea of men we cheered, hollered, and banged our noise makers throughout Azerbaijan's 4-1 loss to the Austrians. Look at this photo and see if you can spot a woman. Later in the week I played alongside my students in a soccer match versus the teenagers form the national aviation academy; we tied.

The next outing was a big one. Class leader and my friend Zabil was nice enough to drive us over 3 hours north to the Caucasus Mountain region of Qusar (pronounced goo-sar). Qusar's climate is similar to that of Colorado and it is only about 10 miles from the border with Russia. The surrounding mountains and countryside are understandably beautiful. We had a wonderful day and for it I cannot thank my friend Zabil enough, спасибо.

Street market in Lənkəran

The following weekend Sara and I embarked on an overnight trip to the southern seaside town of Lankaran, about 25 miles from the Iranian border. Lankaran was recommended to us by Negyar, one of the two employees of Boeing Field Service in Baku, who is a frequent visitor to the city. Our transportation south was a rickety Soviet era overnight train. The first half hour was a little jolting and unnerving. Once we adjusted we slept fine, still I will be hesitant to complain about Hungarian trains again. Negyar arranged for us to receive a taxi tour of the countryside, which was beautiful. At times it reminded me of Wisconsin, other times Washington; two good parallels. Sunday we spent much of the day exploring Lankaran's expansive street markets. Everywhere we looked were bags of dazzlingly colored spices, huge bushels of beans, and an abundance of fresh fruit. We also picked up some tea for which the region is known, we'd be happy to brew you some at our house in Seattle. Sunday night, October 16, we flew back to Baku on an ATR-72. Two days later we bid farewell to Azerbaijan and set off to our next destination...

Never in my life had I visited a place like Azerbaijan. It is truly a land of contrast: rich/poor, new/old, clean/dirty, urban/rural, Soviet/Muslim... Undoubtedly the thing I will remember most about Azerbaijan is the people; hospitable to the core, smiling, fun, food loving folks. So many little stories left untold, we are fortunate to have been able to go, and I look forward to our return.

Next up, Paris...

Our Four Honeymoons (Legs 1 & 2: Washington)

2011-11-26T22:09:00.001-08:00

Back in September, my beautiful bride Sara and I tied the knot on a blissful Saturday at Mount Rainier in Washington. Friends and family came in from all around and we had a great weekend, truly a time to remember. Our friend and wedding photographer Andy Aupperlee wrote a recap and has a slew of great photos on his explosion5000 blog.

We'd been planning the honeymoon for months, in a way we planned the honeymoon first and then fit the wedding into those plans. For our honeymoon, Sara and I chose to hike the Wonderland Trail, a 93 mile circumference loop of Mount Rainier. Many of our wedding gifts were from REI and intended to be used on our hike.

We hit the trail Monday morning, September 12, with gorgeous weather. The first day was a relatively gentle 6 mile hike from the Longmire Ranger Station to Devil's Dream camp. Just like when I was there in 2009, Devil's Dream was really buggy. We spent the evening and night in our bug-proof tent, only leaving to cook dinner and run to the outhouse. Day two was far more strenuous and scenic; we hiked 10 miles down to Tahoma Creek, up Emerald Ridge, down to the Puyallup River, up to St. Andrews Park, and down once more to Klapache Park. The mountain vista to the East and sea of clouds to the West provided a breathtaking sunset in both directions.

Day three was a big day, 14 miles from Klapache Park to the South Mowich River. Thankfully, the bugs had largely subsided and we got off to an early start. We started off quickly, descending to the North Puyallup River and following the trail up through a fire scarred hilltop to Golden Lakes. From Golden Lakes it was a leisurely 7 miles down to our campsite. All day the clouds had been rising as fast as we'd been descending and by time we arrived at our campsite we were below the cloud cover. We had the campsite to ourselves and had a nice night alone together, four miles from the nearest human. Day four is the one that did us in.

Things started nice enough with a fun, heart-pumping climb up to the Mowich Lake Ranger Station. The exposed Mowich Lake area was chilly and, while we picked up our food drop, Sara and I debated whether or not to press on. We chose to keep going and set off on the Spray Park Trail. The first mile was ok, after that we: 1.) climbed steeply uphill, 2.) traversed a meadow in blowing, 40 degree rain, and then 3.) navigated treacherous snowfields without proper equipment in sideways blowing ice/rain. By time we arrived at the Cataract Valley Camp we were tired, hungry, and freezing. Quickly we set up camp, then rid ourselves of wet clothes and warmed ourselves inside of a sleeping bag with a bottle full of boiled water. Day four was not fun and that night we decided there is no sense in spending the rest of our honeymoon fighting off hypothermia; the next day we would head home. Looking back, we made a wise choice. The weather didn't improve and the snow level dropped to below altitudes which we had planned on camping.

See all of our Wonderland Trail Photos here

Both Sara and I had taken two weeks vacation from work and had no intentions of either a.) squandering it at home or b.) returning to work early, so we improvised a second honeymoon. Lacking a car, we chose to take Amtrak to the Bavarian style mountain town of Leavenworth in Central Washington. The four hour train ride was splendid and upon our arrival in Leavenworth we checked in to the cheapest hotel in town. The next day we went for a hike, this time in the perpetual sunshine of the Eastern Cascades. For two nights we relaxed in Leavenworth eating, wandering, writing thank-you cards, and enjoying our natural surroundings. On the day we had originally intended to return home from Mount Rainier we hopped a bus (significantly less fun that the train) and returned home to Seattle: two honeymoons in the bag, two more forthcoming.

Cobras 7, Ravens 6

2011-06-06T10:45:00.001-07:00

Cobras

One of the many joys derived from moving back to Seattle is being reunited with my PSSBL Cobras baseball brothers. Our first game of the season was a blast and we won 8-4. In my absence the Cobras won the second game 11-5, meaning a victory today and we'd begin the season riding a three-game win streak.

Taking the hill today versus the Ravens was longtime Cobra and crafty lefty Mike Popelka. Like myself, Mike has returned to the Cobras (as well as the Seattle area) after a two-year sojourn in Iowa. Mike stifled the Ravens in four solid innings, throwing no-hit ball through three and giving up only one total run. Reliving Popelka was young Cobra rookie Dan Lockett. Dan is a hard throwing righty and a nice contrast to Mike. Lockett worked out of a bases loaded jam in the 5th or 6th inning (as I mentioned in previous Italian baseball posts, some game details tend to blur), yielding only one run. We were down 2-0 until the bottom of that inning. Another Cobra rookie, Mario Slaughter, manufactured a run by stealing, forcing an overthrow to second, and allowing Dan Baumfeld to score from third. The Ravens tacked on two more runs, one on a odd home run call by the field umpire, putting us behind 4-1 entering the bottom of the eighth.

I'd need the scorebook to recall the exact details of our eighth inning, here is what I remember. Two of our batters quickly reached base on a single and walk. The next batter made an out somehow and Mario then reached base, loading the bases for my buddy Nick Foti. Foti drew a four pitch RBI walk bringing me to the plate with bases loaded and (I think) two outs. Since the Ravens' pitcher had walked the man before me on four pitches I took the first pitch, a curveball for a strike. He then threw me a similar pitch which I hit off the end of the bat just enough for an RBI 'dying quail' to left field. I cannot remember if one or two runs scored. I know without a doubt that the next batter, rookie Jason "Hack" Wenzek ripped a double to the left field gap. Running from first, I had to stop at third base because the ball rolled off the field for a ground-rule double. Dependable bat Steven King then smacked a solid single to center scoring both myself and Hack. When it was over we had scored six runs and moved to the top of the ninth ahead 7-4.

Only some of us on the field believed the score to be 6-4, more on that in a minute. Hack took the mound in the ninth, I moved to left field, and David Rosenthal relieved me behind the plate. The Ravens' lead-off man reached base on a nice 0-2 base-hit to center. The next batter walked and suddenly the Ravens had something brewing. At this point my outfield-mates asked our scorekeeper on the bench how many runs we were ahead by, two was the response. Hack struck out a batter, then two Ravens hit consecutive singles to center, plating two runs and in our minds tying the game. The bases were loaded with two outs when something odd occurred. The Ravens batter had fallen behind 0-2 when he half swung at a pitch which struck him on the hand or forearm. Instead of taking his base the home plate umpire authoritatively announced that the batter was struck by the ball within the strike-zone, meaning that the pitch is called a strike, and the batter had therefore struck out to end the game. The Ravens were upset and we were confused as some of us though it was time to hit in a tie ballgame. We quickly sorted things out, shook hands, and the ballgame was over. If the batter was indeed within the strike-zone as he appeared to be the ump made the correct call, a gutsy call to end the game in that situation.

It was encouraging to see our bats come to life when it mattered late in the game after playing a little flat most of the day. Most importantly our pitchers threw strikes and our defense was solid. The game was played at a public park in downtown Seattle's eccentric Capitol Hill neighborhood meaning we had "spectators" from all walks of life enjoying a sunny day in the park with us. I'll post a link to the box score once it becomes available. We look to keep our hot streak going next Sunday against the Mustangs, way to go Cobras.

America: Through the Windshield

2011-04-12T11:12:00.005-07:00

Greetings from Seattle! After three weeks on the road Sara and I have arrived safe and sound. Along the way we had numerous adventures, some planned, some unplanned. Our grandest planned adventure was in hiking and camping is spectacular Joshua Tree National Park. Our unexpected adventure led us to spend three nights in Brookings, Oregon while my car's clutch was replaced.

Hopefully I'll write a full travelogue soon, until then here is a video. Somewhere in mid-Kansas I had the idea to take a windshield photo once every hour along our westerly route. Here is one snapshot every hour, across America, from plains to mountains to desert to coast to trees. Enjoy

Click to see Video

Interesting tidbit: When I uploaded the video to YouTube the music was disabled due to copyright infringement. When I upload the video to Picasa, also owned by google, the audio plays fine. The song is "Junko Partner" by Dr. John, in case you're wondering.

Great American Road Trip

2011-03-01T08:19:00.000-08:00

As mentioned in yesterday's post, Sara and I are moving back to Seattle in March. Capitalizing on an open and flexible timetable between Racine and Seattle, we will embark on a venerable great American road trip to get there! Neither of us have spent much time in the Southwest and that will be our focus. My intention is to courageously deviate from freeways and truly explore this country of ours. Also, I am aware of the irony that a geography nut like myself is planning an exceedingly un-geographic route, so don't bother pointing that out.

Racine, WI to Seattle, WA: the Scenic Route

As you can see in the above map, our route begins with a day long drive through Wisconsin, along the Mississippi River, through rural Missouri to Kansas City. Food is another theme of our trip, and our stop in Kansas City is entirely dedicated to eating barbeque. Once in Kansas City we'll feast upon KC's world famous barbeque, seek out a jazz club, spend the night, then wake up and shoot across Kansas to Denver. We'll spend up to three nights with friends and family in Colorado, likely visiting in Denver, Boulder, Ft. Collins, and up in the Rockies. From Denver we'll head through the mountains south to Santa Fe and the old Southwest.

Route 66

Sara and I are both quite excited to visit Santa Fe. Neither of us has ever visited New Mexico and Santa Fe possesses an alluring mystique. We plan on spending two nights hiking, eating chili, and exploring this oldest capital city in America. From Santa Fe we'll traverse the desert west, stopping at Petrified Forest National Park, en route to Sedona, Arizona. Knowing very little about Sedona, I've done some research and it sounds like a fascinating place. Encircled by buttes, Sedona is a mecca for outdoor sports and home to many famous vortexes. We will explore Sedona for two nights and use it as a base for a day trip to the Grand Canyon. From Sedona we'll retrace historic Route 66 west across the Colorado River to Joshua Tree National Park in Southern California. Assuming the weather is ok, we'll camp for a night then hike around the National Park the next day. Leaving Joshua Tree we'll ditch the desert sand for the white sand of Venice Beach and Los Angeles.

Bixby Canyon Bridge, Hwy. 1

LA begins the northbound Pacific leg of our road trip. We'll stay with Sara's friend in Venice Beach and spend a few days wandering around Southern California. From LA we'll motor north on one of my all-time favorite drives, coastal Highway 1, en route to my aunt's house in Monterey, CA. Our northern route up the West Coast will be along Highways 1 and 101, hugging the scenic coastline as much as possible. After spending a night with my aunt we'll continue north through San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge, and up the California coast until setting up our tent in a state park. Our last true day on the road will be spent hiking around Redwoods National Park, driving Highway 101 along the Oregon Coast, then heading inland across the Coastal Range to the house of Sara's Mom in Eugene, Oregon. Our road trip will wind down in Eugene where we'll spend the remainder of the week with Sara's family. After Eugene we'll boogie up to Seattle, likely making a stop in Portland along the way. Then our life together in Seattle begins.

The plan is always in flux and I'd love to hear any suggestions of things to do along the way, please post them in the comments section. Lastly, there is anomaly in the way that the states are drawn on the map above, can you find it?

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Past, Present, and Future

2011-02-28T10:14:00.002-08:00

Hello blog friends! It has been a while and I have news about the future; first a few words about the past. The biggest news of the last few months occurred Christmas Day when I asked Sara to marry me and she said yes! We are planning a wedding next September at Mt. Rainier National Park in Washington.

We have been trying to stay active with friends and family during this snowy Wisconsin winter. On the days surrounding New Years we joined friends at a cabin near the Northern Wisconsin town of Laona. At the cabin we played games, danced competitively, hiked in bitter cold, stargazed, and rang in the new year with fireworks. This cabin is a mere 20 miles from a cabin my family owned when I was young and I'll always love going "up north". In early November, and again last week, Sara and I drove to Minneapolis to see my sister, brother-in-law, and their puppy. They have a cozy house just outside the city and Sara and I enjoy cooking/hanging with them, biking around Minneapolis' lakes, and of course playing with Tenly the puppy. We've been to Milwaukee numerous times, Chicago twice, Madison, and Detroit visiting friends and family. Groundhog Day graced us with Racine's largest blizzard in 12 years and, while in Minneapolis, we were treated to 20 inches of snow in less than 24 hours: gotta love winter in the Midwest.

The big news about the future is that Sara and I are moving back to Seattle! A return to Italy appears unlikely, so we'll hit the road next week and should arrive in the Emerald City around April 1st (road trip details forthcoming in a subsequent post). Our motivation to return to Seattle are many: to be with old friends, to more easily plan our wedding, to resume our self-motivated lives together, and to revel in the natural splendor of the Northwest. As of today, neither Sara nor I have jobs nor a place to live. We are pursuing employment and living opportunities which will hopefully materialize in the next month. In recent weeks I have been in contact with my former Boeing coworkers and a return to Boeing is a possibility.

Moving to Seattle is both exciting and bittersweet. While I cannot wait to see old friends, hike, and return to grown-up life, I am sad to leave my friends and family here in Wisconsin. For nearly 12 of the last 18 months I've been reconnecting with my roots and spending time with my buddies. While I won't miss Racine's dispiriting pessimism, I'll miss this city: the nature, the weather, and most of all the people so dear to me. I like it here; I'm proud to call Wisconsin home, and blessed to call you guys my friends.

A presto, Seattle...

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postiblog: The Book!

2010-12-03T08:16:00.001-08:00

Just in time for the holidays, all 73 postiblog entries have been assembled into an easy to read, high quality photo book! The book features every blog entry (edited for grammar) leading up to, during, and after my time in Italy, as well as over 200 hi-res photos chronicling our summer. In fact, there are more photos in the book than here on the original site. Never has it been easier to read my story of one guy doing what he loves while residing in Wonderland with the woman he loves.

The book is available at viovio.com, order before December 8 to receive yours by Christmas. Also, as a special treat to my loyal blog readers (whom made blogging so enjoyable), use coupon code TENOFF at checkout and receive $10 off your order.

http://www.viovio.com/shop/83548

Personally, I ordered a softcover copy and it looks great. If you'd like to see the print version prior to ordering, drop me a line and we'll get together. Also, upon clicking the link, check out the flip preview to preview all 100 pages of the printed book. Thanks for following me all summer, enjoy the book, merry Christmas, and happy Hanukah.

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Highlights of the Summer

2010-10-22T12:05:00.002-07:00

Sunday, October 24th marks our two month mark back in America and to commemorate this anniversary I look back on the top ten locations we visited over the summer. My loose selection criteria were how much I enjoyed the location and which locations I'd be most inclined to revisit. Intentionally omitted is the city in which we resided, Verona. Suffice to say Verona is great and you should visit, heck visit them all. Without further ado:

10. Spinazzola, Italy (June 6,7)
A sentimental pick. We visited with the intention of visiting my late grandfather's WWII Airbase and discovered a scenic region inhabited by warm locals who cared for us and took us into their homes. Also home to my favorite gelato in all of Italy. Blog entry: Boongoggle in Puglia, Day 1

Myself, Sara, and our new friend Ivan near Spinazzola

9. Malcesine/Upper Lago di Garda (May 4, July 13)
Despite being located just west of Verona I only visited Lago di Garda twice over the summer. My first experience was on a rainy day in early May with my dad and the second was a birthday treat from Sara. The northern half of Lago di Garda isn't too crowded, a cool refuge from sweltering summer heat, and stunningly gorgeous. Blog Entry: Dad's in Town

Lago di Garda from the castle in Malcesine

8. Granada, Spain (August 4, 5)
The highlight of our trip to Spain. El Albaicín, the Moorish old quarter of Granada, is a delightful maze to explore and The Alhambra is an impressive hilltop fortress in which the Moors made their last stand. Granada was authentic, walkable, served free tapas with sangria, and where we viewed Michelle Obama (la mujer de Obama, as she was described) and her entourage. Blog Entry: Our Iberian Adventure

The Alhambra at Sunset

7. Zell am See, Austria (July 21-23)
Located on a natural lake in the Austrian Alps, Zell am See is both stunning and relaxing. The night we arrived (a Wednesday) we discovered a huge street festival with beer and oom-pah bands. We hiked, swam, played mini-golf, ate goulash, met an eccentric mushroom hunter, and finally found Sara some quality beer. Blog Entry: Austria, Part One: Zell Am See

Looking down on Zell am See

6. Zermatt, Switzerland (April 10, 11)
A spur of the moment trip, the goal and highlight of which was to surprise three Seattle buddies with a visit. Located in the shadow of the Matterhorn, Zermatt is tranquil and picturesque. I'd like to return in summer to explore the surrounding hiking trails, plus the train trip from Lugano is breathtaking. Blog Entry: Friends! (in Lake Como and Switzerland)

The Matterhorn from Zermatt

5. Monte Carlo (May 16)
A day I will remember forever. Sara had just arrived and, on a whim, we drove to the South of France. Our day in Monte Carlo, and that entire trip, was unplanned and unfolded flawlessly. We were able to watch the world famous Grand Prix, sneak down by the huge yachts, walk the racecourse following the race, and bask in the perfect Mediterranean sunshine. Blog Entry: Road Trip to the French Riviera

Post-Grand Prix in Monte Carlo

4. Venice, Italy (June 16)
Everybody who has been to Italy has visited Venice, except me. Our afternoon trip was my first Venetian experience and it exceeded my expectations. The floating city lives up to it's scenic reputation and was, aside from St. Mark's and the main tourist area, surprisingly welcoming and not completely overrun by tourists. I'll go back. Blog Entry: Afternoon in Venice

Ah, Venice

3. Monte Isola, Lago d'Iseo, Italy (May 31-June 1)
Up to the undisputed top three. Monte Isola is a mountainous island within Lago d'Iseo which Sara and I camped. Refreshingly, in a society fanatical about cars the island is closed to automobiles. Bikes, scooters, and feet are the most common means of transportation and the largest vehicles are three wheeled mini-trucks and the rare police car. The views are stunning, the location ideal, and the people are friendly; I'd buy a house there. Blog Entry: Another Monday...

Lago d'Iseo from Monte Isola

2. Ljubljana, Slovenia (August 2)
Right off the train the Slovenian capital captivated us with ornate buildings and a hilltop castle and gradually entranced us with it's unique, upbeat vibe. Loob-ee-yan-a possesses an energetic, hopeful vitality unfound in any other place we visited. On top of that the city is filled with large parks, is situated along a scenic canal, and surrounded by the eastern reaches of the Alps. This town really worked for us; who'd have guessed we'd find our spot in the former Yugoslavia? Blog Entry: Croatia (meh) & Slovenia (yeah!)

Sara in Ljubljana

1. Bolzano, Italy (June 20-21, July 17)
The champion. Amidst the Alps, Bolzano boasts friendly people, great food, beautiful architecture, and a welcoming vitality. A part of Austria only 80 years ago this town blends our favorite aspects of Austrian and Italian cultures: a place where it's common to eat a bratwurst, drink a beer, then stroll around town and grab a gelato. Bolzano scratched us right where we itch; I visited twice and Sara three times. It's a place we'd like to live and a place we'd always feel at home, whether visiting or residing. Blog Entries: Bolzano (Part 2), The Joy of the Alps

Delightful Bolzano

That's the list, have you been to my favorites or have an opinion about them? Do you have a favorite spot in the neighborhood? Any other locations I blogged about which you're surprised didn't make the list? Any places you're dying to visit/live? (You should do it!)

View Highlights of the Summer in a larger map

My Kind of Town (Chicago Is)

2010-09-26T14:00:00.000-07:00

Sara and I are discovering many silver linings to our early return to America, a major one is we're able to catch some big league baseball games. In a month we've been to three Brewers games and last Tuesday we went to Chicago for Sara's first game at Wrigley Field. My entire life I've loved the Cubs and their historic ballpark is undoubtably the best place to catch a ballgame in all of baseball. Additionally, we decided to head down to Chicago the day prior to the game and enjoy the Windy City.

Funny as it sounds, the first thing we did upon arrival was make a lap around the big city second hand stores we lack here in Racine. We sort of found what we were looking for, explored the neighborhood, and then drove to lakeside Lincoln Park late in the afternoon. The park was beautiful, busy, and we played catch and sat along the lakeshore at sunset. Following the park we swung over to Byron's on Irving Park for one of their famous Chicago-style hot dogs. The wieners surely lived up to their reputation and our bellies departed very satisfied. We spent the night with my friends Brad and D at their condo near Wrigley Field. It's always nice to see old, hospitable friends and we spent the evening catching up and watching TV in sweat pants.

"The Bean"

Tuesday morning we laid low and hopped the el downtown around midday. Our first stop was a Jewish Deli for lunch, another treat unavailable to us in Racine. The food was fantastic and I had my first matzah ball soup. The deli is a block from the northern end of Chicago's fabulous Magnificent Mile so we strolled down Michigan Avenue, Chicago's core of shopping and tourism. Without stopping anywhere we crossed the Chicago River en route to Millennium Park and the famous "bean". "The Bean" is a large, reflective orb shaped like a huge lima bean and it's odd shape makes for some unique photos, which we took. Tuesday was unseasonably warm so after "the bean" we walked to the Millennium Fountain and, along with kids and tourists, waded around in the water. As much as Millennium Park is fun adjacent Grant Park is scenic. We walked to Grant Park and sat at the famous Buckingham Fountain for a while, then hopped the el back to Brad and D's condo to prepare for the Cubs game.

Rain Delay at Wrigley

It has been three years since my last game at Wrigley Field and needless to say I was excited. Our first order of business was to scalp some tickets which we did for $15 each. We had about an hour until the gates opened so Sara and I went to Murphy's Bleachers for pre-game drinks. After chatting with two businessmen visiting from Connecticut we entered "The Friendly Confines" in time to catch batting practice for both the Cubs and Giants. Sara was a sport as I watched both teams take BP, not the most exciting thing in the world. Once both teams wrapped up BP we went for a mini-tour of Wrigley and spent nearly an hour at my favorite spot in the upper deck. While we were up there a wicked storm whipped up and the grounds crew rushed out to cover the infield. Soon thereafter the rain dumped down leading to an hour and fifteen minute rain delay prior to the game. We didn't mind: we were in the ballpark, under cover, and enjoying ourselves.

Once it began the game moved along quickly and was relatively uneventful. Very unusually we left the game before it ended which I feel ok about, we were at the ballpark for over five hours, it had rained, Sara had to work in the morning, and we still had to drive ninety minutes back to Racine. While listening to the game on the radio we heard the Giants hit a solo home run in the 8th to win 1-0.

Sara enjoyed Chicago and I did too. After this trip I now feel, for the first time in my life, that'd I'd be willing to live in Chicago. What a nice place, we'll be back.

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Hiking in the Alps: Entry #5, Lessinia

2010-09-12T10:11:00.000-07:00

Without the faintest clue that I'd be returning to America four days later, I went for what was to be my final Italian hike for the summer on August 21st in the Lessinia mountains north of Verona. Lessinia is a regional park, famous for it's cheeses and honey, which slopes upwards towards an imposing ridge of skiable mountains. Think of it as Verona's mountainous backyard; many of the people I know in Verona either holiday or own vacation homes in the region.

That week Sara had her childhood friend Nina in town from Germany and they were enjoying Lago di Garda that Saturday. With no baseball and not wanting to idly sit around all day I decided to go for a hike. My resolution to not be bored was fortuitous because, unbeknownst to me, my opportunities to hike in the Italian Alps were fleeting.

Armed with sandwich food I hopped a noontime bus from the center of Verona to the village of Erbezzo, about 45 minutes north of town. The journey was picturesque and I was struck by how quickly the city recedes into the wilderness. Upon arrival I found Erbezzo endearingly charming, even while virtually deserted during lunchtime. My plan was for a 8-10 mile loop up a few hills and through the fields of limestone rocks I'd heard about. Unusually, I had a quality map and a rough itinerary beginning with the nature preserve around Malga Derocon.

I began on a paved road with more cows than cars. The reaching views were nice and I arrived at the gravel road leading to the nature preserve in good time. About a half mile down the gravel road I passed a cheese farm and arrived at a large wooden gate in the middle of the road. Confused, I searched for doorknob until the door magically slid open revealing a man in a booth charging 5€ admission. I found this odd but he was nice so I paid and pressed on.

In the "I should have known better" category, this 'nature preserve' was less of a nature park and more of a natural amusement park. Thankfully there weren't any rides, instead there were many roads, parking lots, hokey tourist shops, and wildlife trails within a fenced off area. The only two conclusions I could reach were either a.) wildlife is brought into the park and cannot escape it's Jurassic Park fences or b.) absolutely zero wildlife is able to enter the park because of the Jurassic Park fences. Either way it's not the authentic way I'd envisioned my Saturday in nature. Being a weekend the nature preserve was alive with people who don't stray 50' from the road who were enjoying themselves. By no means do I intend to slight them, let's just say this 'nature preserve' is not what I had in mind.

Following the routes on my map I next wanted to exit the park and head to the summit of Monte Scriccio. Unfortunately the park is surrounded by the aforementioned Jurassic Park fences which presented an obstacle to my escape. After some searching I found a padlocked gate 8' tall. By this point I didn't want to spend another minute in the nature park so I scanned the area, then scaled the fence. Finally freed of inauthenticity I entered my fields of limestone and summited the peak in about a half hour. Once I arrived at the summit the clouds began to roll in so I hung around for a while then foraged my way down the hill towards a road. I say foraged because, despite being clearly marked on my map, the trails often disappeared and I spent much of the afternoon making my own trail.

Lunch Spot

Hungry, I reached the road and decided it was time for lunch. One of my favorite experiences of the day was eating my sandwich halfway up a scenic limestone outcropping. Throughout the hike the rocky terrain reminded me of the scenery from the Pixar film Up (which I love). After my Up lunch I started back to Erbezzo on an "official" trail clearly marked on my map. Less than 200m in I came to a barricade indicating the trail was closed. I considered hopping the barricade until I saw the herd of cows on the other side and decided the safer approach is to walk the road. Slightly frustrated by the map and trail system I hiked along the road for miles, then lost my way when I turned off the road again in search of the trail. The misstep was fortunate because it led into a pretty valley leading around a bend in the road saving me at least thirty minutes.

Around 5:30 I returned to an awakened and enlivened Erbezzo. Everybody in town was strolling about and I loved it. Mentally I made plans to return with Sara, though now those plans will have to wait. The bus to Verona didn't arrive for ninety minutes so I strolled, ate gelato, bought Lessinia honey, and visited a WWI museum. Erbezzo is a wonderful town and exploring it was a nice cap to an enjoyable, and unexpected day.

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Final Day in Verona

2010-09-06T08:00:00.013-07:00

Today marks two weeks since Sara and I bid addio to Italy and, though we departed in haste, we made the most of our final day in Verona.

Along the Adige on our Final Night

Monday evening, August 23rd, we celebrated a successful summer in Italy with a sunset dinner at a nice restaurant along the Adige, an apt cap to our fabulous adventure. Having only 36 hours from making travel arrangements to wheels up we spent Monday morning packing everything we owned into six heavy bags. The process was less painful than anticipated and we finished in time for one last ride aboard "The General" to say goodbye to Stefano, Paolo, Giovanna, a few kiddos, teammates, and one mom from the Allievi team. My biggest regret from our abrupt departure is not being able to say a proper goodbye to my team of kids and she graciously agreed to do so for me. I'm not only going to miss the kids, I'm going to miss their great group of parents.

The previous evening Sara and I were graced with a spectacular sunset as we strolled around Verona. For nearly thirty minutes the dominant pastels and medieval browns were transformed first to pink, then deeper shades of purple as the sun disappeared over the horizon. The sunset Monday night was nearly equal, an appropriate wordless summary of our experience in Verona. Following dinner we climbed the steps to the Castel San Pietro, our favorite spot in town and the building atop the hill in the photos. Verona is most beautiful at night and we sat atop the panoramic hilltop for what seemed like an eternity, silent taking it all in. Two weeks ago I didn't know what to say nor do I know today. I had just spent six months living in Italy, coaching baseball, playing ball, learning, traveling, and living my dream while accompanied by the woman I love: everyone should be so lucky.

The following morning we were off and that chapter of my life was over. Sure I was sad, but more thankful to have added this chapter to my life. Now we're back to an enjoyable dose of reality in Racine, saving up and doing everything we can to return to Italy for another successful summer in 2011.

On a sadder note our friend remains in a medically induced coma at Froedtert Memorial Hospital so please channel your thoughts and prayers to him and his family, keep fighting buddy.

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The Future of postiblog

2010-08-30T19:25:00.007-07:00

By now most of you know Sara and I are back in the USA, Wisconsin to be exact. Due to our abrupt departure the blog is incomplete, but first an update.

This has been one of the most emotional weeks that I can recall. Last Sunday my grandfather passed away and Sara and I quickly packed up our house in Verona to Tuesday return stateside for the Thursday funeral. Just after my extended family had returned home and things were settling down Sara and I received word that a good Seattle friend of ours was involved in an accident Saturday night in downtown Milwaukee. For years he dated one of Sara's best friends and it is because of them that we first met. Those of you who know him are already aware what happened and I don't want to rehash it here, our buddy has been in the ICU at Froedtert Hospital since Saturday night. For more information or to help out in any way please visit his CaringBridge website or just pray.

Now, returning to the blog, because of our aforementioned early departure there are many blog posts that I've wanted to post so postiblog lives on. Of course, compared to our friend's distress my stupid travel blog seems highly insignificant so the posts will appear less frequently. As a means to raise money for a return to Italy I may also include ads on the blog despite my reservations. After my Italy material is expended it remains to be seen whether I will continue to write about any stateside adventures, it's really up to you guys. It may not feel the same now that I'm back in America but so long as you continue to read, I'll continue to write.

Send your love up to Froedtert.

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Addio Nuovi Amici e Verona

2010-08-23T03:12:00.000-07:00

Sad news from America, yesterday my 86 year old grandfather passed away in Racine. I'm not going to go into that too much, however it does mean Sara and I will return stateside tomorrow (Tuesday). Considering our options I prefer to be with my family this week rather than wait until October to return home, we're ready to go home anyways. Hopefully I can find a way to return to my Veronese teammates for our C1 playoffs in September but I'm not holding my breath, airfare is expensive.

Due to our abrupt departure I will not be able to say goodbye to the wonderful Dynos people I've met this summer. This summer has been a dream come true not only because of an oppurtunity to work in Italian Baseball but because of la grande gente. Voi sono calde, accoglienti, e io non poteva chiedere di più. Mi mancherà il divertimento che abbiamo avuto durante alleniamento, le nostre serate al campo, viaggi su strada, e soprattutto la tua compagnia. Gli Dynos sono una famiglia meravigliosa e io sono fortunato di essere stato accolto così calorosamente. Spero di essere in grado di tornare la prossima estate, mi piacerebbe. Grazie per aver reso il mio sogno.

To those of you back in the states, I guess we'll see you soon; not sure what else to say.

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Homeward Bound

2010-08-20T09:53:00.004-07:00

It's true, Sara and I are returning to the ole' USA on the evening of October the 6th. We arrive into O'Hare and will have less than 24 hours before we hop in the car and set off to Katie Angel's wedding in Colorado. We'll spend the subsequent week driving from Colorado to Indianapolis for Frank and Gina's wedding on the 16th. October 17th marks my temporary return to the real world. The plan is to move to Wisconsin and work over the winter, along the way saving enough money to return to Italy for another summer's worth of adventures in 2011. As of today neither Sara nor I have stateside employment so if you know any connections or can think of anything for us in SE Wisconsin we'd appreciate it.

We're planning on spending the winter in Wisconsin because we can be near friends and family, make some money, and live for free; thought we do have another far fetched option. One of Sara's best friends is moving to the Hawaiian Island of Kauai so there is a chance we'll work on the islands for the winter. Who knows whether that will come to fruition, either way we'll be around for a while in the fall and I'm excited.

Also:
You'll of course notice a completely new look for the blog, I'd love to hear what your feedback, positive or negative. It was made using Safari on my Macbook, does it look ok in Windows? Using Firefox? IE? Chrome? Anything not look right to you? If you have any additional suggestions or nerdy HTML tweaks I'd love to hear those also.

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Our Iberian Adventure

2010-08-19T14:05:00.004-07:00

Now that Sara and I have returned from our two week adventure around Spain and Portugal postiblog is back online. I enjoyed the trip, though Spain was not what I expected and we're both quite happy to be back in Italy. To avoid writing a detailed (and lengthy) description I made a <4 minute scrapbook video from our trip, check it out (best viewed in hi-res/full screen):

Lisbon

To me the highlights of our trip were:
- Staying in our cute apartment within the old city of Granada
- Hiking above and exploring the Alhambra in Granada
- Crossing paths with Michelle Obama's entourage and throngs of gawkers in Granada
- Sipping sangria as we ate free tapas in Granada (not free anywhere else)
- Seeing the Sevilla Cathedral illuminated at night
- Exploring the Plaza de España in Sevilla
- Delicious cuisine in Lisbon
- Our quirky hostel in Lisbon and the new friends we met there
- The beautiful overnight train from Lisbon to Madrid
- Lunch with Liesl in Madrid
- Meeting Sara's family in Barcelona
- Indian food in Barcelona

Un-Highlights:
- Lots of lackluster Spanish food
- The heat was over 40°C (100°F) for much of the trip
- Feeling old at Youth Hostels
- Everything about Madrid minus Liesl
- Hordes of tourists in Barcelona

Here's a link to all of our photos on flickr.

Croatia (meh) & Slovenia (yeah!)

2010-08-03T12:17:00.003-07:00

This afternoon Sara and I returned from our weekend sojourn to the former Yugoslavian nations of Croatia and Slovenia. Our main purpose was to get Sara out of the EU and relax at the beach, very attainable goals.

Saturday we arrived in the seaside Croatian town of Opatija for two nights of relaxing at the beach. Opatija is a former Hapsburg Austrian vacation spot on the eastern edge of the Istrian Peninsula. Some aspects of Opatija were great: the views were nice, the sea refreshing, and the seafood tasty. Other aspects of Opatija were less desirable though not unexpected: Euro-tecno blasting at all hours of the day, a beach paved in concrete, and clueless tourists from all reaches of Europe. To me Opatija felt like Florida; nice, fun, relaxing, a bit cheesy, filled with people who travel heavy, and somewhat bland. Have no doubts, despite the fact that Opatija is not tailored to our style of travel we enjoyed ourselves. We certainly didn't experience a taste of Eastern Europe until walking around the train station in nearby Rijeka on the way to Slovenia.

We found Slovenia to be all the things Opatija was not. The small Alpine nation is quaint, friendly, authentic, and very livable. We spent the better part of a day exploring Slovenia's blissful capitol: Ljubljana. Any way you pronounce it Ljubljana is one of the nicest cities I've ever visited and Sara and I agree we could happily live there. We walked through grand parks, strolled the picturesque riverside, climbed to the storybook castle, and ate decent Mexican food. If I wasn't so tired from an 11 hour train ride which began at 3:30am I'd write a long ode to Ljubljana, suffice to say we loved it, you should go.

Tomorrow we're off to Grenada, Spain. From there it's Sevilla, Lisbon, Madrid, and Barcelona. A presto amici.

An Evening of Baseball with Americans

2010-07-30T14:40:00.001-07:00

I had originally intended my 12th post of July to be on an entirely different topic, but tonight I had so much fun playing a double-header against a group of American kids I'll instead write about that. In two friendly games we played a group of about 20 high-school kids from Northern Virginia. Verona is the first stop on their 8 day Italian baseball trip in which they'll play two games against us, two in Florence, and two in Nettuno (south of Rome). The trip is organized by a sports travel company called America's Team who's owner/founder/entrepreneur came along and he and I chatted for a while between games. All the kids were jazzed about the trip and rightfully so, this sounds like the coolest high school trip ever. Along with the kids were many parents and siblings who were very friendly and, once they learned I was American and living over here, very inquisitive. Hopefully a few of the Italian-Americans in the group will pursue dual-citizenship as a result.

After the games we walked over to the Dynos pavilion for a social feast of tortellini, potatoes, and veal. I spend most of the evening chatting with the dads and getting to know a few of their kids. They are a bunch of good folks having a ball and we all enjoyed ourselves.

On another note, tomorrow Sara and I head to Croatia for two days with a possible third night in Ljubljana, Slovenia. Then next Wednesday we're off to Spain for 12 days where we'll meet Sara's dad and family in Barcelona. As far as baseball goes the Allievi are finished, the A2 team is finished, and our C1 team begins the playoffs the first weekend of September. Until we return from Spain the blog may be quiet, find another way to kill time at work or go out and enjoy yourselves.

Austria, Part Two: Salzburg

2010-07-30T04:34:00.001-07:00

Delicious Pretzels

Dorky as it sounds the focus of our 24 hours in Salzburg was a self guided Sound of Music tour. Originally we had planned on renting bikes around town Saturday afternoon but, because of the rain and our early rousing, shelved those plans and instead napped. We awoke around 5 and spend the evening strolling around Salzburg's charming old town. En route to Mirabell Garden we noticed a river-side bazaar and bought a few delicious street pretzels. They sell about a dozen varieties of pretzels and we started it off with a standard soft pretzel and a doughy, cheesy pizza pretzel. Upon seeing another pretzel stand about a half hour later we splurged and got a chocolate/hazelnut dessert pretzel which was amazing.

Proof that we're both dorks

When we reached the garden observed various locations which were used in the movie; even convinced Sara to take a nerdy picture recreating a dance scene. We then meandered about the rainy old town on our way to the famous Abby which is located just up the hill from our hotel. It was very quiet and we took some pictures and decided to head up to the imposing hilltop fortress instead of back to the hotel. Normally the fortress costs €10 to enter but nobody was working the unguarded door so we strolled right in. Late in a rainy afternoon the fortress was nearly abandoned which created a sense of connection between us and this medieval castle. We had a lot of fun exploring and relished the fact that we could survey the really cool fortress unencumbered by mobs of tourists.

Once we saw all we could see within the fortress we returned to the old town in search of an Austrian pub. Where we live in Italy is home to a lot of mediocre beer and Sara was delighted to be in a place with a bounty of good beers to choose from. We found a local bierhaus and Sara enjoyed some good Austrian beer while we both enjoyed hearty Austrian soups. Afterwards we returned to our cute little hotel and called it a night.

This is what you do when you're 28, going on 29

Sunday morning we awoke early, in time to catch our hotel's breakfast and stroll around town before the bike rental place opened at 10am. Fortunately the clouds cleared and provided us with wonderful biking weather. Our first stop on our Sound of Music bike tour was Scloss Hellbrunn, home to the famous gazebo. The ride along the river was quite nice and we arrived at the countryside mansion to see the gazebo in a garden near the entryway. I really like the photo a fellow tourist took of us and we spend the next half hour exploring the opulent mansion. From there the goal was to find the Von Trapp's big-screen lake and villa. It took a little getting lost and we found the villa which was used for the lakeside scenes. Our return train's departure time was approaching so we returned the bikes and walked to the train station, stopping along the way for what perhaps the best bratwurst I've ever tasted in my life. After that it was so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, Salzburg.

On the way home we had a ninety minute stopover in Innsbruck, just enough time to stroll around the old city and buy an awesome Austrian hat. Seemed like a nice place, worthy of a return visit.

Sara and I both loved Austria. The people are friendly, the mountains are spectacular, the food is delicious, and it has a contagious laid-back feel to it. This weekend we're off to Croatia and Slovenia for a few days then two weeks in Spain beginning next Wednesday, ciao.

Austria, Part One: Zell Am See

2010-07-28T08:00:00.010-07:00

With the Allievi season finished and the A2 league wrapping up I've got more days off than earlier in the summer. Because of this, last weekend Sara and I were able to squeeze in a four night trip to Austria. Our first stop was the lakeside ski town of Zell Am See. I wanted to visit Zell Am See for two reasons, 1.) it is a beautiful town on an alpine lake in Austria, and 2.) the town was featured in the final (and favorite) episode of Band of Brothers.

Enjoying the Summer Nights Festival

We arrived in Zell Am See in time for the weekly Summer Nights Festival which is basically an excuse to don lederhosen, drink in the streets, and listen to oom-pah bands. Sara was happy to finally drink some good beer and I enjoyed the abundance of tasty street chow. After the street festival we strolled the two miles back to our campsite along the lakeside promenade. Thursday morning we rented bikes from our campsite and rode a lap around the lake totaling about seven miles. Afterwards we relaxed, ate, and spent much of the afternoon swimming in the lake. When the sun shines the lake gets busy though it never felt overcrowded. That evening we walked into town for a round of lakeside mini-golf and a tasty Austrian dinner of goulash and beer (or fanta). Though it may sound crazy it was nice to get a break from Italian food and eat something hearty and meaty. The following day we rode a cable car about 2000' up the ski hill which leads to:

Hiking in the Alps: Entry #4, Schmittenhöhe

I love to say "Schmittenhöhe"

We disembarked the cable car to hike the ridge line up to the 2000 meter Schmittenhöhe ski hotel, then descend down on paths criss-crossing the grassy ski runs. The weather was iffy but held for the first portion of our hike. The Austrian trails were delightfully well maintained and clearly marked, a nice change from some of the trails around here. We climbed steadily for about two hours; on the way passing numerous restaurants, ski lifts, lakes, and a herd of cows. Previously I had told Sara about a hike near Interlaken, Switzerland in which I became nervous walking through a herd of cows. Though docile, cows are large beasts and if they chose to take me out they'd have no problem doing so. Sara made fun of me as we walked passed the cows and sure enough they didn't do anything more than chew grass as we passed. As we neared the hotel the wind picked up and the weather began to worsen. We reached the Schmittenhöhe summit and reveled in the panoramic views as we ate delicious salami and cheese summit sandwiches. We found the summit surprisingly crowded because of the presence another gondola taking ill-equipped sightseers to the top. After loitering at Schmittenhöhe for a while we made our way down being sure to take the less traveled, out of the way paths to ensure some outdoor isolation. As we descended the overgrown ski runs a drizzle began and we hiked though it for a while. As we neared the bottom the drizzle grew to a full downpour and, as we briefly glanced down at the map, an old guy and his dog come careening down the path with a bag of mushrooms and promises to drive us home once we reached his car. He seemed trustworthy so we followed the mushroom man down some crazy paths to hop into his car and receive a ride back to our campsite in the rain. He was a really sweet, and eccentric, Austrian mushroom man. In total we hiked an estimated 6-7 miles, going up about 2000' and descending about 2800'.

It rained most of the night and we didn't stray far; ate at the campsite's restaurant, and spent a few hours inside the tent rolling dice and playing nerd games on our ipods. Though this campsite was another European RV campsite it was one of our favorites because they had a separate area for tents, rented out bikes and boats, and it was located right along the shore of the lake.

Pleasant

The word that comes to mind when describing Zell Am See is pleasant. It's a tranquil and relaxing spot with good food, ample things to do, friendly people, and a natural lake to swim in. As mentioned in previous blogs, the temperature in Verona has been above 95 and humid for six straight weeks so temperate, humidity free, and rainy Austria was a very welcome respite. One thing I found unexpected about Zell Am See were the thousands of Arab tourists in this sleepy Austrian town. It was an odd dichotomy to see women wearing full burkas with only their eyes exposed and men with large beards walking past scandalously dressed Austrian teens.

Saturday morning we packed up the waterlogged tent and hoofed it to the train station en route to stop two in Austria: Salzburg (to be continued...).

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Twenty Weeks of Italian Food

2010-07-26T10:16:00.007-07:00

One of, if not the most frequent question I get asked is, "How is the food in Italy?" Short Answer: great, but what kind of blog post would that be? Here's the long answer, twenty weeks of food observations:

- Living over here has confirmed what I sorta knew prior to moving here, Italian food in American is basically food from Campania (Naples area), Emilia-Romagna (Parma area), and Liguria (Genoa area). I've discovered that food in Italy is incredibly diverse and each region (20 total) has their own dishes and specialties. This seems to be the most fertile place on Earth and each speciality is based on what grows in that region. Venice's forte is seafood, in Puglia its olive oils, in Genova pestos, Parma makes great ham, and around here they love their polenta and horse meat. I have yet to eat lasagna, cannoli, or a meatball because none are native foods to Veneto. If you're wondering, horse meat tastes a bit like roast beef, not my favorite but good.

- Italian use locally grown and pure ingredients. Sara and I have both said that we've never had veggies as good as the ones here. At the market each fruit and veggie has a label indicating where it was grown and most are from Italy. There is no such thing as organic food here because most of the food is, and has always been, organic. They also use real cane sugar instead of corn syrup for anything sweet and, to my palate, sodas and sweets taste much better because of that. I've felt more energetic and generally better since arriving and I contribute much of that to eating wholesome food.

- I love hazelnuts. Months ago I wrote an ode to Nutella, my love for anything with hazelnuts has continued to blossom since. Perhaps they are popular in the states and my poor, hazelnut allergic mother kept these delectables out of our house. Either way whenever I get a chocolate bar it's chocolate with hazelnuts.

- Kebabs > American Fast Food. Prior to arrival I had eaten a Turkish kebab or two in my life, now I eat at least one a week. In Italy there are very few fast food chains. Instead, like much of Europe, fast food means a kebab stand on every block. They're cheap, filling, tasty, and always open.

- I'm hooked on fresh daily bread from the local bakery. Grocery stores over here don't really sell entire loaves of bagged bread intended to last over a week. Instead, most people buy preservative free bread from the grocery store or local bakery. The bad news is the bread doesn't last more than a day. The good news is it's cheap, fresh, and tastes great.

- Italians have a million types of ham and they're all speck-tacular. Before I arrived I knew prosciutto and salami. Now I make sandwiches with either crudo, bresaola, capicola, speck, cotto, and they're all fantastic. Additionally there are numerous styles of delicious salami and mortadelle (boloney) which I also love. What we in the states call pepperoni they call "spicy salami" and is rarely eaten here in Northern Italy. The Italian word peperoni means pepper (the fruit).

Those are the highlights. As expected living in Italy is a gastronomic delight, hungry? (come visit)

* Proofread by Sara, the food professional and cooker of this delightful cuisine.

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Congrats to "The Hawk"

2010-07-25T07:00:00.005-07:00

Me and Andre, 1996

When asked who my hero is the answer is the same as it was in 1990, Andre Dawson. Twenty years later I realize it is somewhat silly to idolize an athlete for his prowess on the field of play, my continued idolatry of "The Hawk" is because he is a righteous guy who played and lived the right way. On the field he played the game right and, despite two bad knees, always hustled. When his teammates became entangled in drugs he assisted them back to sobriety. Today he works with his hometown Florida Marlins and just this season he and Tony Perez were the ones to sit superstar Hanely Ramirez down and encourage him to apologize to his teammates after not hustling. He seems like as stand up a guy as you'll find and I admire him as a ballplayer and as a man.

Today my hero will be eternally enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and I wish I could be there. Upon his election last winter my baseball trip buddies and I immediately made plans to include the induction ceremony in our 2010 Baseball Trip itinerary. Obviously living in Europe interrupted those plans and my buddies will soon embark on a midwestern trip highlighted by the Twins new ballpark, Target Field.

Every May/June since 2002 a combination of my friends Neil, Gino, Trey, Dyer, and Kevbo have drove around the country attending baseball games. In year one we visited 11 East Coast ballparks in 12 days and they wrote about us in the paper (anyone have the original link?). The next year we headed south for 7 games in 11 days. In 2004 we headed west, 2005 back to new ballparks on the eastern seaboard, in 2006 we returned to Fenway and Yankee Stadium, 2007 was in the midwest, 2008 again out west, and 2009 we visited both the Yankees and Mets new stadiums in New York and Nationals Park in our nation's capitol. All in all we've been to 37 MLB stadiums and traversed our great nation together.

Baseball trips are normally the highlight of my entire year and I'm sad to experience my first year without one in nearly a decade. Below is a slideshow of my favorite Baseball Trip photos from 2005 on (before that we had old fashioned film cameras, come to my house and I'll show you the photo album). If any Italians would like to discuss MLB stadiums I'd be happy to anytime. Finally to my boys enjoy this year's trip and I cannot wait for Baseball Trip X in 2011.

Oh, and Gino and Neil: Cubs-A's-Cardinals-Red Sox, and a Hall of Famer.

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The Joy of the Alps

2010-07-20T14:59:00.006-07:00

Prior to the afor-blogged baseball games Sara's mom Sheryl and mom's husband John were nice enough to treat us to a night in an alpine paradise north east of Bolzano called Castelrotto. Castelrotto is a quaint mountain town with spectacular views of the surrounding Dolomites. We arrived around 1pm, ate lunch, took naps, then strolled around town and discovered a great playground. The surrounding hillsides are blanketed in meadows and forests and paint quite a canvas.

The next day Sheryl and John rode a gondola to the top of a ridge as we split and hiked along the route to Bolzano. We finally found a quiet, picturesque, well marked, and maintained Italian trail from Suise to some alpine lakes en route to Fie. The trail was wonderful until we reached the lakes which bore a stronger resemblance to Wisconsin Dells than a secluded alpine sanctuary. After some searching we ate lunch at a quiet spot along the upper lake. It is so funny/crazy how they enjoy nature here, even in outdoorsy northern Italy nobody seems to stop and smell the pine needles. We hiked the steep trail downhill to Fie and hopped a bus to Bolzano in time for our game in the evening.

After the game we were treated to a spectacular lighting show while a band played in a large public party tent across the river from the ballfield. This once again proves Bolzano is awesome and Sara and I both agree, we could move there.

Our final bit of nature for the weekend came Sunday afternoon up the road from our hotel near Trento. After sitting around for two hours we went on a 45 minute hike up to a gorgeous panorama in some sort of park and took some photos. I hope you enjoy the photos, now I feel well prepared for our forthcoming weekend trip to Austria.

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Away Games in the Alps

2010-07-20T07:34:00.003-07:00

As alluded to in the previous post our Dynos (C1) team played two away games on a true road swing last weekend, the first in Bolzano and the second in Trento. Entering our final weekend of the regular season we needed to win one of the two to clinch first place in the "E" pool of Seria C. Bolzano is a so-so team and Trento is terrible so things looked favorable.

At bat versus Trento

From the onset, the game in Bolzano was an old fashioned pitcher's duel and we went down 1-2-3 in the first. In the bottom of the first Bolzano's leadoff hitter stroked a two strike pitch to a center field, normally a catchable ball for our regular center fielder who was on vacation last weekend. The ball dropped resulting in a leadoff triple. The next batter dribbled a grounder to short and the runner scored from third making the score 1-0. The next two batters were retired and the game progressed at an unusual clip until about the fifth inning. In the fifth or sixth (I can't remember) Bolzano had runners on second and third with nobody out and appeared poised to blow the game wide open. We escaped the jam by catching the lead runner in a rundown between third and home and retiring the next two batters. Momentum had seemed to shift and I led off the bottom of the seventh with a bouncing single over second base. Alby was up next and he was hit by a pitch putting runners on first and second with nobody out. For the first time all day we had something cooking and things were looking up. Our hopes were dashed when the next batter roped a one-hopper to the third basemen who stepped on third and threw to second for an unconventional 5-4 double play. The next batter failed to reach and our rally hopes were dashed. Bolzano added an insurance run in the bottom of the 8th largely aided by a triple down the right field line that barely eluded the glove of our first basemen. Their starter went the distance and consistently threw strikes in a 2-0 Bolzano victory, our first loss since week one.

After the game some of the Dynos folks, our coach in particular, were very distraught. Perhaps I've been a Cubs fan too long and have grown numb to defeat but Bolzano bested us in a well played game by both sides. It was surprising to see those reactions, all we had to do is beat winless Trento and we had first place locked up.

The game in Trento was an entirely different story. After an interesting night staying as a team in a hotel we thumped Trento 25-1 in a joke of a game. I've gotten to know some of the guys on the dreadful Trento team and they are nice folks who have fun so I give them props. Things got so bad that in our last at bat seven of our nine batters hit from the opposite side of the plate. You read that correctly, we hit backwards and still batted around.

Afterwards there were no celebrations and everyone was ready to head home. The mood was somewhat sullen which was surprising as we had just clinched the division. Our team is pretty good yet not invincible so losses are entirely possible. We must learn from this and adjust for the playoffs. Speaking of the playoffs, they don't begin until September because Italy shuts down for the month of August, I love it.

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Camera Therapy Triumphs Again

2010-07-19T10:15:00.001-07:00

Some of you may wonder whether my life is as hunky dory as portrayed here in the blog and the answer is yes, for the most part. Even when I'm living my dream I occasionally have moments of discontent, and today I had one such moment. Italy is marvelously disorganized and while I often relish the lack of direction, it can at times be exasperatingly frustrating. While I may have two passports signifying that I am legally both Italian and American, I have only one mind and it functions in American mode. When things are moving very slowly and nothing is getting done, my American mind wants to take over and simply do whatever needs to be done. I also prefer to have an idea of what is expected of me, not Italians' forte. Who'da thought, Italy moves too slow for even my lax American mind.

Wherever I'm living and get in antsy moods like these I like to get out and remind myself why I love where I'm at. This afternoon I took a stroll around Verona, took some photos, ate some gelato, and remembered why I fell in love with this town. This city is beautiful, and despite the fact that it's been >90° degrees and humid for over a month, I am still lucky and happy to be here. Below is a slideshow of my "I ♥ Verona" photos (I recommend viewing the slideshow full screen).

In other bits of good news Sara and I just returned from another trip up to the mountainous Bolzano area, this time for two baseball games and to spend time with Sara's mom (blog posts/photos coming soon). Next weekend Sara and I will likely head up to the lively hills of Austria, then a quick jaunt to Croatia followed by two weeks in Spain. La vita e bella, sempre.

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Festa Americana!

2010-07-13T03:05:00.001-07:00

Sara and I have been to so many Dynos parties we wanted to give back by throwing one of our own and what better party to throw than a good old American 4th of July Party. We invited the entire Dynos family (kids, players, parents) as well as basically everyone else I know in Verona and to my amazement most everyone responded yes. The day prior to the party we added it up and planned for 125 people.

With some help we luckily found a store that sells hot dogs in packs of 10, hamburger meat, buns, and other American staples we needed to buy. While I was at the store Sara labored in the kitchen making two pies, two pans of brownies, and a humongous tub of potato salad. We also received assistance from the team president Stefano who arranged for two kegs of Italian beer to arrive mid-afternoon, singlehandedly guaranteeing a good time.

The party began at 6:00pm on Monday, July 5 and I became nervous when only a few people had shown up at 7:00. Then around 7:30 waves of friends arrived and the meat was flying off the grill. All night Sara grilled like a champ and the food was quite good, particularly the burgers. Everyone was enjoying themselves, Sara's potato salad was devoured, and we had American music echoing over the speakers.

Crooning

In one of my classic patterns again spent way too much time preparing a small detail of the party (music) while procrastinating on the important things (food, drinks). I spend days tweaking my USA playlist and by Monday had it perfect. The big surprise of the night came curtesy of Stefano around 8:30 when a DJ arrived and began setting up his karaoke equipment. Despite my early reservations the party really picked up and everyone danced. Since it was our party it was also our duty to christen the karaoke mic so Sara and I performed a spirited and sloppy version of Born in the USA and I sang Fly me to the Moon to Sara as we danced and smooched around the pavilion for an encore.

The party didn't wrap up until 2:00am (on Monday night remember) and I'm pretty sure everyone had a blast. Personally I had a great time because everyone was eating, drinking, dancing and singing.

Hope everyone had a great 4th back in 'merica.

Dynos (C1) 17, Prassiola 0

2010-07-09T06:10:00.000-07:00

Last night we out hit, out pitched, and out played Prassiola in a 17-0 rout. The boys played great, we capitalized on our abundance of base-runners with timely hits to score 17 runs and pitched well enough to shut them down. I write about this game because I finally played well. On the way home from many of our previous games I was frustrated with myself and Sara helped me realize that I was still trying too hard to impress everybody. Since I arrived I've been trying to prove to the Dynos and everyone else that I belong here and I realized four months later I'm the only one who still cares. Upon recognizing this I felt unencumbered to run around the ballfield and have fun like I normally do. My final line: 2-4, 2 2B (one I thought was gone), 4 RBI, 1 BB, and 1 guy thrown out at second. Now I'm pissed it took me so long to come to this realization, oh well.

Next weekend we have our final two games as part of a true road trip to Bolzano and Trento. If we win Saturday in Bolzano we win the division and move on to the playoffs in September. Forza Dynos!

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In the Shadow of the Dolomites

2010-07-08T06:21:00.003-07:00

Ever since Sara and I watched The Sound of Music two weeks ago we've been itching to get into the mountains and last weekend was our chance. We departed Friday on another hastily planned trip, this time to an area of the Dolomites called Cadore. We chose to go to Cadore because our Italian wall map shows it has mountains, a lake, and campsites. The scenery was indeed breathtaking yet the trip was a strange one.

Breathtaking Dolomites

We arrived Friday afternoon and, not knowing were to go, set off for a campsite in the town of Auronzo di Cadore. Lacking information we disembarked the bus 3 miles prematurely and set up our shelter at the campsite just before a massive alpine thunderstorm roared through the valley. As previously indicated I love thunderstorms and there is nothing better than being inside a tent during a hard rain/hail storm. The storm passed and some very interesting clouds lingered as we strolled along the river as the sun went down. We spent the night is our swanky campsite which had a nicer, cleaner bathroom than the one in our house. To top it off the bathroom had music playing nonstop; the campsites here are absurd (more on that later).

Saturday we boarded a bus to another valley to find a campsite nearer to the train station. We paid, set up our backpacking tent, and walked around to disappointedly discover this was another typical European campsite.

Allow me to describe European campsites for you. What they call a "campsite" is what in America we'd call a RV park. Instead of tents and barbecue pits these "campsites" are populated with semi-permanent camping trailers and permanent wood additions which are inhabited all summer. The bathrooms are opulent and each campsite features at least one full service restaurant. Being from America when Sara and I go camping we want to go somewhere quiet, picturesque, and immersed in nature. It seems what Europeans (mainly Germans) seek are comfortable spots surrounded by food, people, and artificial light. To me this is the result of a fundamental difference between Americans and Europeans. Europeans are accustomed to people and never expect to get away from it all, Americans tent to have more of a frontier spirit and go to nature for isolation and solace. Perhaps some people over here are like that too, those in our campsites surely are not.

Good Thing You Can't Smell It, and Beware the Carp

Two other factors added to the peculiarity of our campsite to make this a strange trip. When we arrived at the campsite it was around 85 degrees so we asked the caretaker if we could swim in the lake. He responded with a resounding no, then a long explanation of why not in swift Italian. Sara and I concluded that either a.) the lake is too unsanitary to swim in, or b.) there is something in the lake that will eat you if you go in. The latter theory was further substantiated when we saw a photo of a mutant carp caught in the lake that must have weighed 40lbs. Either way after dinner we strolled to a quiet spot along the shore and it smelled terrible, like a large alpine port-a-potty.

It was there along the shore the night really got weird, allow me to paint you the picture. Around 7:00 music started blaring from a party tent across the lake and, true to European form, most of the music was remixed pop hits from the late 90's. Think of all the songs that would be on one of those stupid "Now that's what I call Music" CD's from the late 90's-early 00's. Now take those samplings of bland pop and use them to interrupt the serenity of a breathtaking lake surrounded by jagged, dramatic peaks silhouetted by the sunset. Now add the port-a-potty smell and you get an idea of what it was like. I joked with Sara that three of my senses are happy (taste, sight, and touch) while the other two are miserable (smell and hearing). Later in the evening the music changed from outdated pop to driving house/tecno beats. The music was loud too, loud enough to echo throughout the large valley for all it's inhabitants to hear. I fell asleep around 1:30am and the music was still going strong; not exactly what I'd envisioned for our tranquil mountain weekend.

Sara and I returned home understandably homesick. There are numerous aspects of Italian life I really enjoy, the way they enjoy nature is not one of them. I just don't understand, a wondrous and remote alpine spot was rendered cheap and soulless by gimmicky campsites and terrible music. Oh well, we still had fun.

Random Thought: Those of you using Safari 5 should use the new reader feature to read the blog, it looks great.

Born in the USA

2010-07-04T04:39:00.003-07:00

Happy 4th of July! What a perfect day for an ode to the land I love.

As you're surely aware I love Italy and I'm thrilled and fortunate to experience a slice of this Garden of Eden. Have no doubts though, my heart will forever bleed red, white, and blue.

Living over here has made clear the fact that we do a lot of things right in our land of the free. Despite our flaws every American should be grateful to live in a land of such unbridled opportunity. At our best America is a worldwide beacon of freedom and hope and our sky is the limit. While I sometimes find our flaws frustrating I always choke up upon seeing the WWII vets at the VFW salute the patriotic floats as the pass in the 4th of July Parade. That's the America I love, the America of saluting vets, bald eagles, kids waving flags, national parks, adventurous frontier spirits, and the great nation of the people, by the people, and for the people.

Embedded is a slideshow of patriotic photos I've taken across our country, from sea to shining sea. I thank our men in uniform, long live the American dream, and god bless America.

Dynos 13, Brescia 0

2010-06-30T08:53:00.001-07:00

Sunday my Dynos C1 team played a well rounded game and triumphed over Brescia 13-0. Gleb again took the mound and pitched superbly. He made big pitches at big moments and didn't give up a hit over his five innings. Brescia only managed one hit the entire game, a sixth inning triple in which the runner was stranded at third.

Our hot bats were again driven by our wee leadoff man Danny Zumerle. For the second straight game Danny scorched the opposition with two bases loaded triples and another hit to boot. Early on we got some clutch hits and everyone hit well.

My first two at bats I again hit like garbage, the first grounding out on a swinging bunt to the pitcher and the second striking out on a curveball in the dirt. Surprisingly this year for the first time ever I've struggled to hit curveballs. I chalk that up to a couple of factors: 1.) hitting third or fourth in the lineup you rarely see meaty fastballs, 2.) Italian pitchers follow different pitch patterns than those in America, and 3.) I'm still trying to impress everybody by smacking the ball really hard. This unfortunately means I've transformed from a gap to gap hitter to a straight pull hitter which is never good. After my strikeout Sunday I was really frustrated with myself and as I sulked in the dugout thought this is a good time for a coach to come talk me down. Then I realized a.) they don't do that here, and b.) even if they did I could only understand every third word. I realized if anyone was going to talk me down it would have to be me, and I did quite successfully. Following that I played a lot lighter and in my third at-bat ripped a curveball off the left field wall for an RBI double. My fourth at-bat I hit a dribbler which luckily went right over third base for another RBI double. Along the way I threw out two guys attempting to steal and ended the game catching a runner leading off second base after a pitch. I felt good, it was a fun game.

The Dynos remain in first place with three or four games to go. We rematch arch-rival San Martino Sunday, Thursday versus Prassiola, and conclude our regular season in Trento on July 18th. If necessary we will make up our rain shortened game in Bolzano on August 7th. Here's the current standings and our remaining schedule on the Italian Baseball Federation website. Unlike in Seattle they don't post stats online so I can't pass that along (which is ok with me).

Enjoy Summerfest those of you in Wisconsin.

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Allievi Playoffs

2010-06-28T13:33:00.002-07:00

Saturday my kids team, the Dynos Allievi, participated in a three team playoff to determine who'd be crowned division champs. I wasn't then, and am still today not sure how a three team playoff is structured. We played each team once and all I knew is if we won both games we're the champs.

We entered the tournament as the number two cede and our first game was against three ceded Vincenza. Vincenza is a pretty good squad with a few American kids that we'd dueled with twice during the regular season. Our boys came out swinging and took an early lead. The hurlers pitched well and surrendered only sporatic runs as we kept up the offensive cavalcade. We won the first game in the midday heat and humidity and had a half hour to cool off prior to the marquee championship match against Prassiola.

Prassiola is the kind of team I hated to play against and, as I discovered Saturday, hate to coach against. They have three stud players and a bunch of mediocre kids occupying the rest of the lineup. It gets frustrating when the awful kids get cocky and think they're good because they play on a team with two kingpins. Saturday Prassiola started one stud on the mound and the other behind the plate meaning those two touched the ball every play. Prior to the game I tried to drive home to our kids contact, if you put the ball in play they'll make errors and you'll reach base. We began the game strong, our leadoff hitter Beppe hit a lollipop over the center fielder's head which turned into a double. A wild pitch, walk, and steal later we had runners on second and third with nobody out. "Looking good", I thought, "we're gonna win". The next three batters struck out and our collective spirits were squashed. The kids ran out of gas as the opposing team's boppers lit us up and we lost dejectedly 13-0.

We ended up in second place and I had lots of fun getting there. These kids are great: they're energetic, funny, crazy, sweet, uncertain, average 13/14 year old kids. The word is out on whether we'll make the national playoffs in September, if we do I'll surely blog about it.

On the drive home from the final match I unintentionally began contemplating life. I'd just completed one phase of a grand goal of mine, coaching baseball in Italy, and that thought put a huge smile on my face. The season went flawlessly, better than I could have imagined, mainly because the Dynos have been so welcoming and helpful along the way. Needless to say I'm incredibly lucky to have this opportunity and I intend to make the most of it. It's a long way off but, given the opportunity, I'd love to do it all again next year.

Now my focus is the Dynos C1 team's ongoing quest to win our division and climb into Serie B. The unchanged plan is to remain in Verona though September, after that...

Buon lavoro kiddos

Ramdon bit of info: Our internet key again needs to be recharged so I used public wi-fi and wrote this post in the Piazza Indipendeza as the sun set.

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America In, Italy Out: World Cup from Verona

2010-06-25T16:10:00.002-07:00

As you've likely heard, the US soccer team beat Algeria with a thrilling, last minute goal to advance to the Round of 16. Watching that match I was the only American in an Italian university bar and, though I didn't see it live, went crazy when Landon Donovan scored in the 91st minute. You may have also seen Italy was eliminated from the World Cup after losing their final group match versus Slovakia.

Prior to boarding the plane I was excited to experience the 2010 World Cup in a soccer-crazy place like Italy (the 2006 defending champs). Once I arrived I prepared for the tournament by purchasing some tacky Italy gear to match my tacky American gear. As the first Italian match approached gli Azzurri were the talk of the town, though many locals had low expectations. I on the other hand assume Italy is always good at soccer and hoped they would win it all so I could party in the streets with hordes of jubilant Italians.

Before Italy took to the pitch the US squad faced England in an anticipated opening round matchup. Sara and I went around the corner to the surprisingly muted college bar to watch the match on a projection screen. Despite the fact that the game was on a weeknight I expected a more raucous crowd. We were accompanied by a few other Americans, a few English, and a few Italians passively watching. The game ended in a 1-1 draw and the Americans fans departed happier than the English.

The big game of course was Italy's opening match against Paraguay which Sara and I watched with lots of friends at the baseball field on a makeshift projection TV. We got a late start and arrived midway through the first half which was fortunate because we were able to observe the desolate city on the walk to the ballfield. Back in Wisconsin I used to run my errands during Packers games because I knew the streets and stores would be empty; Verona during the World Cup was exponentially more empty than Racine during the playoffs. The only sounds I heard during the forty minute walk were the TV announcer's breakneck chatter as we passed an open window and an occasional reaction from those watching the game.

Speaking of reactions, the people here don't hold back. Sometimes accolades are reigned down upon an Italian player but more often curses are hurled at the players of both teams and always at the referees. During the match you hear a lot of mama mia's, madonna's, and bastardo's from the finicky Italian fans.

Italy's first match ended in a draw and Sara and I were on the train home from Bolzano for much of the second match against New Zealand. We did get to see the final 20 minutes and the Italians again didn't look so good. Yesterday was Italy's important match versus Slovakia which they needed to win to advance; they did not. I watched the match at the Dynos field with many of my Allievi kids and their parents. This being Italy baseball practice was postponed forty minutes for the conclusion of the match.

After Italy lost the reactions were expectedly sullen. Some people were angry but most threw up their hands and seemed to say, "this team stinks, what a bunch of babies". If that's not what they said it's surely what I said.

Nobody here seems to care that America (or any other squad for that matter) is advancing to the Round of 16. Much as I'd like to see an African squad win the World Cup in South Africa I hope we beat Ghana tomorrow. If we do our next match also looks winnable and who knows, maybe the Americans can make a run at the cup and those of you stateside can party in the streets amongst hordes of jubilant Americans.

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Castelvecchio (The Old Castle, Not Any of Those Other Castles)

2010-06-24T16:13:00.000-07:00

Castelvecchio at Night (Not my photo)

Tonight following dinner Sara and I embarked on another aimless evening stroll around town and discovered a wonderful sitting spot. Stairs descent from street level to river level and the calming sounds of rushing water accentuate the pretty vista. Visible across the rushing Adige (which descends from the Alps) is the 12th century Torre dei Lamberti, 1st century Arco dei Gavi, and 14th century Castelvecchio (Old Castle). I love the fact that there are so many castles around Verona this one is referred to as the "Old Castle". We joked that this isn't a castle we visit often, maybe in the top three. The "new castle" we frequent was built in the 19th century (1830s), barely old enough to take notice of. I've never lived in a place with so many castles, this is great.

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Bolzano (Part 2)

2010-06-21T23:46:00.003-07:00

As I mentioned in Part 1, Bolzano is a picturesque alpine town in Northern Italy. Our ballgame was Saturday night and I didn't work Sunday or Monday so the plan was to spend Saturday night in Bolzano, head into the Dolomites Sunday, then return to Verona on Monday. It is also important to remember that it was raining Saturday night.

Saturday we had hoped to find a hotel in Bolzano prior to the game, that didn't happen for a number of reasons. Instead after the game we were given a lift into the center of town and, underdressed and protected only by an umbrella, scoured the town for a cheap hotel at 11pm. We of course found nothing and eventually ducked into a swanky hotel to ask 1.) how much are rooms and 2.) where is a cheap hotel. The first swanky hotel clerk directed us to a hotel that was closed, the next gave us a seemingly helpful suggestion of a two-star hotel just up the street. When we buzzed the door at the two-star hotel I asked if they had a room for tonight. The quick and simple response was no and by time I asked for other hotels we had been hung up on. Here we are tired, cold, hungry, and wet in the middle of some strange town which speaks half German, half Italian yet we were still laughing at eachother. Our good spirits were lifted when near the train station we found a hotel which had available, affordable rooms.

Our next task was to find some late-night food and after fruitlessly wandering around in search of bratwurst (more on that in a minute) we ducked into a late-night pizzeria and were greeted by Gleb (our pitcher) and his parents. They were also spending the night in Bolzano and we dined together for over an hour. Gleb and his folks are very sweet and picked up the check on the condition that Sara and I finish our entire grappa. Grappa is Italian hard alcohol and this was the first for Sara and I since we arrived. It wasn't horrible and we finished our drinks, said goodbye, and crashed in our colossal hotel bed.

Sunday we shelved our plans to explore the Dolomites because 1.) it was again raining and more importantly 2.) the tourism information office was closed on Sunday and we didn't want to take a bus to a remote hamlet only to be stranded. Instead we meandered around charming Bolzano for the afternoon. For 300 years Bolzano was a part of Austria and the city has a very Austrian feel to it. As I mentioned half the people speak German and the other half speak Italian. The town feels like a stew of Austria, Bavaria, and the best parts of Italian culture mixed together in a beautiful alpine setting. At lunchtime Sara and I set off in search of some good sausage and found it at a kebab stand type place along the river. I was ecstatic to eat a currywurst and Sara had the always winning combination of a brat and a beer. After round one we weren't quite satisfied so we ordered another brat and some curry fries to split. It was nice to eat some Germanic food and needless to say we left that sausage stand fulfilled. After exploring Bolzano some more we returned to Verona in time to catch the end of Italy's disappointing 1-1 World Cup draw versus New Zealand and enjoyed a relaxing Monday in our home town.

Bolzano is superb, it has everything I enjoy and scratched me right were I itch. We will surely be returning to the city and Dolomites surrounding it, let's hope for no rain.

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Bolzano (Part 1)

2010-06-20T14:58:00.003-07:00

Italian baseball is different than American baseball, sometimes it's great, sometimes it makes me laugh, sometimes it's frustrating. Our game yesterday was a combination of all three.

We arrived in the picturesque mountain town of Bolzano at 4:00, three hours prior to our 7:00 match. As always we lallygagged upon arrival, ate, and got dressed about an hour later. The next hour we warmed up and took batting practice, then sat idly for the an hour waiting for the game to begin. The Italian norm is quite different from my pregame routine in Seattle. The Cobras would rarely arrive more than thirty minutes prior to the first pitch, just enough time to stretch and throw, and after four summers I became accustomed to that schedule. This summer I'm finding myself ready to play about an hour before the game begins.

Yesterday was aslo great/funny/frustrating because it began to rain a half hour prior to gametime. The umpires and both teams were ready to play but it was really coming down so the tarps were brought out and the decision to play or not was delayed for thirty minutes. We hung out in the chilly dugout for those thirty minutes to have the umps add another thirty minutes to our wait time. Nearly an hour after the original start time and in the pouring rain the decision was made to go ahead with the game. Both teams seemed to grumble as new dirt was placed on the pitchers mound and bases as we loosened up again. At 8:15 the game began in heavy rains and neiher team produced much of anything at the plate. After the home team batted in the bottom of the third the umpires called the game and our team was upset, why begin the game in a downpour only to cancel it 45 minutes later? A game which never should have begun ended 0-0 after three innings with only two total hits. No word on whether it'll be rescheduled or not.

The post-game escapades of Sara and I are worthy of another dedicated blog post to come tomorrow. Happy Father's Day to my dad and all you dads out there.

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Afternoon in Venice

2010-06-19T02:11:00.003-07:00

I've been a little bummed all week because the day camp aspect of my job began Tuesday. From mid-June to September the Dynos run a baseball themed day camp where we play games with the kids, feed them lunch, and provide a few hours of baseball instruction. The camp itself is a pretty fun idea and I would have loved something like it when I was a kid. What bums me out is we have too many instructors and I'm scheduled to be there four days a week from 8am to 6pm; I was really getting used to having my days free. This week however it rained and I was only at the camp one and a half of my four scheduled days.

Because of my unexpected recess Sara and I on Wednesday decided to take an afternoon trip to Venice, the first ever Venetian foray for each of us. Venice is in the same region as Verona (Veneto) and only a short 2 hour, €6 train ride from our home.

We arrived in Venice around 4pm and by then the rain clouds had cleared and the sun came out, it was lovely. Those of you who have been to Venice know it is absolutely beautiful, one step out of the train station and you're greeted by the grand canal, boats, and picturesque buildings along the canal. Our plan was to do nothing more than walk around the town exploring and that's just what we did. The city is a maze of narrow, winding walkways and more than once we walked into a dead end. Venice is a wonderful place to meander around and get lost, our favorite neighborhoods were those we accidentally stumbled into.

Prior to arrival I had expected Venice to be both crammed with tourists and expensive. While there were tourists everywhere (particularly Americans, unlike Verona) I was pleasantly surprised to sense the city is large enough to absorb the throngs of sightseers. The only area that seemed crowded was the main area around San Marco. Even with the crowds the main piazza of San Marco was delightful, the tower huge, and the string band performance added a fitting touch of romance. I also found Venice pleasantly affordable, of course you could spend a fortune if you wanted to but gelato was €1.20 for one scoop and €2 for two.

From San Marco we wandered to the northern shore of the city, grabbed some cheese, bread, and wine, and headed back towards the train station. Despite making one wrong turn we arrived at the train station with enough time for a snack in a park and ten final minutes to relax along the grand canal. We returned to Verona around 10:30 and that was it, our afternoon visit to Venice.

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Ya Win One, Ya Lose One

2010-06-14T07:04:00.003-07:00

Last weekend my two Dynos teams had one game apiece and the results were polar opposites. Saturday the Allievi squad suffered our first loss of the season 7-0 and Sunday the C1 team triumphed 10-0.

The first thing I told the kids after the Allievi loss Saturday is that I am disappointed in them, not for losing but for giving up. Our opponent had four very skilled players and one of them hit a home run to put us behind 2-0 after the first inning. Their pitchers threw hard and when they scored two more runs in the bottom of the second our fighting spirit vanished. I did my best to get the kids to understand that we were only down a handful of runs and the other team played bad defense, all we had to do was make contact and good things would happen. A few of the kids understood and put the ball in play, often reaching on errors. Sadly most of our batters became timid and we struck out looking with unacceptable frequency.

I hope the kids learned something from our loss Saturday. This week we are going to practice hitting hard throwing pitchers and protecting the plate with two strikes. Our final regular season game is a rematch next Saturday and, if we come to play, I think we can hold our own with these guys.

As I mentioned the C1 game I played in Sunday was the complete opposite. Playing the team which handed us our only loss of the season we hit the snot out of the ball for a 10 run slaughter-rule victory. I'm proud of our guys, they charged hard right out of the box and never relented. We must have had four triples in the game and the game's highlight occurred when Albie rocketed a 400'+ home run over the center field fence. Our little second basemen Danny Zumerle had a whale of a game; from the leadoff spot he had two triples, four hits, and tripled in our final two runs for a walk off of sorts. Again Gleb pitched well, Nico closed the door, and we never gave them a chance. Personally I hit like complete garbage going 0-3 with a sac fly RBI and a two-out bases-loaded strikeout. Of course it's a lot easier to have a bad game when your team kicks butt like we did (Recap in Italian). As far as I know the Dynos C1 squad remains in first place and I feel pretty good about our chances.

Random Thought: As I type with the windows open listening to Phish's Slip Stitch and Pass I'm reminded what great summer music Phish is. Enjoy the summer tour to those of you going.

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Il Parco Delle Mura

2010-06-12T03:08:00.001-07:00

Park Along the City Walls

Having our days free (for now), Sara and I find reasons to leave the house and do things. Yesterday we again did one of our favorite excursions: a walk into the hills around the walls of the city.

The old city of Verona is completely surrounded by walls and today these walls have been turned into a large, donut shaped park. On the south and flat side of town many people jog or walk along the top of the wall. We prefer the northern hilly side of town, our little urban mini-hike. The loop is never crowded, offers great panoramic views of the city, and contains a rondelle at the pinnacle which is our favorite picnic spot in Verona.

Verona Panorama

As I mentioned Sara and I again walked this loop yesterday and had a great afternoon picnic. We spent three solitary hours at our spot eating and playing games in beautiful weather. I'm finding it's nice to play games that don't use computers or ipods so Yahtzee was the game of choice yesterday. Afterwards we strolled home and I went to work in the evening.

This is another one of the little things that I love about living in Verona. It's hard to beat free time in the Italian summer with my girl.

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Puglia, Day 2

2010-06-08T17:26:00.001-07:00

At the conclusion of a long day of travel/work I'm happy to report Sara and I had more unexpected experiences and today returned to Verona safe and sound.

Monday morning we slept late in our big, comfy bed in a rented apartment and got underway around noon. Feeling great Sara and I hoofed it to the train station in Spinazzola where the next grand adventure began. American tourists are uncommon in Spinazzola and because of that the locals are curious and often struck up conversations with us. While awaiting our train we met one such local who happened to reside in the town nearest our destination, my gradnpa's WWII airbase. After chatting he offered to drive us and in broken Italian we accepted. This weekend we repeatedly learned these locals love to show off their towns and our new friend Neno was no exception. He treated us to a driving tour of his small farming town of Poggiorsini, the final stop his house where we were greeted by his wife and 27 year old son. It was nearly lunch time and Neno's wife graciously prepared two extra plates for her unexpected guests.

The first plate was penne and broccoli in an olive oil soup (the olive oil in Puglia is so good it can be consumed by itself). The second plate consisted of fresh tomatoes and delicious sausage. While consuming lunch our hosts proudly informed us that everything we were eating is grown locally and completely natural. Someday I'll devote an entire blog post to the abundance of local, natural food and how great it makes me feel. Lunch was wrapped up with some of the best salami I've ever had followed by fruit, chocolates, and espresso. Needless to say the only thing better than the magnificent food was the hospitality.

Site of my Grandpa's WWII Airbase

If you've read the previous Puglia Day 1 post you know our goal for Monday was to discover and wander around my grandfather's WWII airbase for a few hours. Our hosts graciously offered to drive us to the former airbase but instead of spending ten minutes in their city and three hours at the base we spent three hours eating and only ten minutes at the base. At the time I was disappointed that we didn't walk/drive the old taxiways and runway or search for buildings recognizable to my grandpa but after our gracious meal I wasn't going to say anything. Though our sojourn was brief I did snap some photos of the farm field which during the war was transformed into a full scale air force base.

Trani Cathedral

Soon after our new friends dropped us off at thee train station for a two transfer trip to the scenic town on Trani on the Adriatic Coast. My engaged Seattle friends Lisa and Brian are living in Trani on a long term Boeing overseas assignment and they gave us another great reason to visit Puglia. Unfortunately my rechargeable phone had ran our of credit before we departed and I was unable to call Lisa or Brian until we miraculously found a recharging point in Trani. We arranged to meet an hour later which gave Sara and I time to catch a beautiful coastal sunset beside Trani's famous coastal cathedral. Once we rendezvoused with our friends they invited us to their lavish rooftop patio for a glass of wine before dinner. Boeing really takes care of their overseas employees and Lisa and Brian's penthouse apartment is posh and huge. We followed the rooftop wine with pizza at the local pizzeria and a stroll along the promenade, eventually turning in around midnight. Lisa and Brian were nice enough to offer us their extra bedroom for the night which we greatly appreciated. We awoke early to catch our trains back to Verona and now I finally have time to reflect on a crazy two-day trip.

The people of Puglia are incredibly warm and welcoming and were undoubtably the best aspect of the trip. In two days we were given rides by three different strangers, pointed the right direction by a score of others, and treated to a lunchtime feast in one of their homes. The food in agricultural Puglia is also spectacular and we ate delicious cherries, gelato, pizza, olives, sausage, ham, and drank our first limoncellos. As with anywhere in southern Italy Puglia is inexpensive and the rolling landscape is lovely. This trip reminded me how much I adore southern Italy and now I cannot wait to return to Calabria later in the summer.

All in all our trip was unscripted, unexpected, and unforgettable.

Boongoggle in Puglia, Day 1

2010-06-06T16:30:00.006-07:00

Sara and I have had the craziest day exploring the Puglia region of Italy. We came searching for the remnants of my grandfather's long abandoned WWII airfield near the hamlet of Spinazzola. The adventure began 24 hours ago when we boarded an overnight espresso train down the Adriatic coast to the town of Barletta. Using the train ticket machines in Verona we learned all the train's sleeper beds were occupied which was fine since we're too cheap to buy beds anyways. Departing Verona Sara and I luckily had a six person compartment all to ourselves and we had a comfortable start to our journey. That all ended in bologna when we were joined by two other passengers, a dad and a roughly 30 year old gal from abroad. Inconsively these two strangers spent the entire four hours between 1am and 5am chatting boistrously. I slept fine, Sara did not. They disembarked and we once again had the compartment to ourselves. This was of course short lived, at 5:30 we were joined by two girls who both inexplicatedly chatted on their cell phones while we tried to sleep. Who carries on a loud and long phone conversation in a small train compartment At 5:30am, really?!

We arrived in barletta around 8 tired, hungry, and grumpy. Our spirits were lifted after coffee, pastries, and a quick jaunt to the beach. At 11am we boarded a bus to spinazzola and that's when the fun really began...

This town is small, quiet, and very outbof the way meaning nobody speaks english. Depending on who you ask my grandpa's old airbase is anywhere from 3 to 22km south east of the town and we were way too tired and hungry to walk. Our bus arrived at the normally quiet spinazzola train station which today was abuzz because a tourist train with 400 tourists was arriving soon. I did my best to communicate with many local farmers and after some deliberation a nice local man gave us an unexpected tour of town and dropped us off at a restaurant. We ate a much anticipated meal and after were given a lift back into town by the nice folks at the restauarant. Not knowing our next move and desperate for a nap we asked folks we had met earlier to arrange accomodations for us. They called a guy who arrived five minutes later and drove us to his bed & breakfast. After chatting with him for a while we both passed out for an overdue 4+ hour nap.

Around 8pm we awoke groggy and refreshed and hit the town. What had been a ghost town during the day was alive in the evening with thousands of locals strolling around. We ate delicious gelatto and then an even better dinner capped with our first limoncellos of the summer. Now we are back in our room about to sleep and tomorrow we again try to somehow get the derelict airbase.

Today really has been a wonderful mess. Any plans went to hell and we've repeatedly employed the assstance of the welcoming locals. The people here in southern italy are so nice, we must appear really helpless and they're so sweet. Tomorrow will likely be another mess as we have no real plan, hopefully we'll see the airfield and rendezvous with my Seattle friend Lisa in her town of trani. Who knows, rest assured I'll blog about it afterwards.

Also, this is my first blog post written on the iPod so I apologize for spelling mistakes and lack of links. Wish us luck...

Sent from my iPod

Another Monday...

2010-06-02T05:41:00.004-07:00

Monday morning Sara and I departed for another hastily planned overnight trip, this time to the spectacular Lago d'Iseo. Dedicated readers may remember my first solo visit to Lovere on Lago d'Iseo about month ago. Instead of returning to Lovere Sara and I instead camped on Monte Isola, the large mountainous island in the middle of the lake.

Prior to departure we knew Monte Isola was scenic, hikeable, and possessed a campsite. We slept through the alarm (which may or may not have gone off) and caught a later train to the city of Iseo, arriving around 1:30. A scenic, hour long ferry ride later we arrived in Carzano on the north-east side of the island. Lacking a map we lost out way while searching for the campsite and employed the assistance of island residents to locate it. We were greeted at the campsite by a warm Dutch lady who has been living on the island for 35 years. She apologized for having only one tent site and when she showed it to us our jaws dropped. Located right on the water the site has a front row view of the lake, island populated by a lone castle, and mountains surrounding the lake. Without caring how much it cost we said yes, waded in the lake, debated where to set up the tent, shelved our plans for a hike, and absorbed our picturesque surroundings for the next few hours.

As with my previous blog post from Lago d'Iseo I'm not sure how to adequately describe the beauty of this place. The entire lake is idyllic and our tent had the best postcard view of the heavenly lake. Hopefully the photos paint a satisfactory picture.

Sara and I relaxed all afternoon until roused to action by our stomaches. After grabbing a quick panino in a lakeside park we strolled a half hour west to the town of Siviano. Along the way we noticed a villa for sale which in our minds we've already purchased. We'll grow our food, Sara will bake, and I'll deliver her baked goods by boat or bicycle. That's another wonderful aspect of Monte Isola, aside from the sporadic bus and three wheeled utility vehicle all traffic is either motorbikes or bicycles. From Siviano we returned to the campsite and ate dinner at the adjacent restaurant. Following dinner we returned to the tent now basking in the orange light of sunset and strolled through sleepy Carzano.

Tuesday morning Sara and I arose early enough to see the sun emerge from behind the mountains on the eastern shore. It was a very quiet, tranquil, take-it-all-in morning and we eventually packed up and returned to the ferry in Carzano around 9:30. After a somewhat complicated journey home we returned to Verona in time to join the Dynos caravan to Rovigo for another Dynos Allievi victory. After the game Sara cooked an amazing meal and we both passed out, tired, full, and happy.

Lastly congrats to Neil Staeck for having the nearest guess as to our overnight destination. Free gelato awaits him (and his lovely bride) in Verona.

Not a Ballfield Tour

2010-05-30T15:57:00.004-07:00

Both of my baseball teams played at home this weekend and I originally intended to use our homestand as motivation for a blog tour of our ballfields. Similar to my initial apartment videos the written ballfield tour was lackluster so I shelved that one for now (for a preview check out the photos on flickr). Today's post is instead devoted to our two aforementioned home games.

The Dynos Allievi kids continued their roll with a 9-5 victory over Rovigo Saturday afternoon. Again the teams were somewhat mismatched though not nearly as bad as the weekend prior. Rovigo has a few kids who can play, one blasted a two-strike tape-measure home run. Nonetheless the game wasn't as close as the score would indicate, we jumped in front with a four run first and three runs in the second. Our second inning was highlighted by a home run of our own by number nine hitter Giacamo. The score was 9-1 when we got a little lax and Rovigo's big boppers tightened the score in the last inning. Dynos recap

We only had ten players on Saturday and I'm proud of our guys for going out and doing what they do. Thought somewhat lackadaisical towards the end they pitched well, stole a lot of bases, and consistently hit. After the game Sara and I hung around the field with many of the kids and parents for pizza, drinks, and another enjoyable social evening with the Dynos.

If the Allievi game Saturday was somewhat close our C1 game Sunday was a complete blowout. In a grossly mismatched game we clubbed Trento 23-0 in one of those games that everyone hit in every inning. For the first time in my life I reached base in each of the first five innings and on top of that scored a run all five times. Thought I never had a great at-bat I got a couple of hits, walked, and reached on an error, my line: 3-5, 5 Runs, 2 RBIs, 1 BB, and 1 weak triple. That's all there is to say about that.

Tomorrow Sara and I are off to another mystery destination, this time by train and within Italy. Again you are welcome to guess our destination, should you hypothesize correctly I'll treat you to free gelato when you visit us in Verona. Here's a clue, many of you in America may be heading to a similar location to celebrate Memorial Day. Enjoy your free Monday.

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Verona on the Silver Screen

2010-05-29T04:27:00.006-07:00

Perhaps you've heard there's a new vanilla rom-com sweeping American theaters entitled Letters to Juliet. The film is about a New York gal who travels to Verona and discovers a long lost love-letter to Shakespeare's Juliet, then gallivants around Italy with the now senior author in tow. You can save ten bucks and 87 minutes by watching the trailer or reading the AV Club's review.

I mention this movie because much of it was shot and takes place in Verona. The guys on the baseball team tell me that the cinematic circus arrived in town last summer and shut down some of the major sights for days at a time. It fascinates me that a normal pedestrian street/piazza will be closed to pedestrians for the shoot and extras will then be paid to walk around impersonating normal pedestrians. From the newspaper and stories I've heard it sounds like Hollywood descending on Verona was a pretty big deal. During my dad's visit we also met some friendly New York/LA gals who were in Venice (and just visiting Verona) for the movie's press junket.

Evidenced by the trailer's quick establishing shots the film appears to capture the beauty our fair city and many of the highlighted sights are less than a mile from our house. Should you go see this film be sure to keep an eye on the background scenery and allow it to inspire you to visit Verona. After we've seen the film Sara and I will be happy to give you a Letters to Juliet tour of Verona. And, oh my god, it's like The Notebook in Italy!

Anyone seen the movie?

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Hiking in the Alps: Entry #3, Malga Foppiano

2010-05-26T04:46:00.005-07:00

Monday Sara and I headed into the mountains for my first hike in six weeks and our first hike together. We undertook an ambitious loop with a gradual ascent followed by a steep descent near the city of Ala. Upon discovering the trail markers in Ala we started up, and up and up and up and never found the path with the gradual ascent. All we could find was the steep route which we had intended to descend and therefore scaled the steep route. When I say steep you can believe it was steep, this trail was relentless. Most trails I hike zig-zag up the mountain and have level sections after big climbs; not this one. As with the baseball game Sunday the heat was also a factor during our hike, my guess is that it was again around 85 degrees in the midday sun. The combination of strenuous terrain and sweltering heat meant that we drank a lot of water and took many breaks on the way up. The views on the way up were sporadic yet nice and we passed a farm, goats, a large rock pile, and almost lost the trail once or twice. It's fair to say the mountain kicked our butts and once we neared the top we were ready to get there.

The scene at the trail's apex made the climb completely worthwhile. The deciduous forest transitioned to conifers, then quickly opened up into a beautiful meadow flanked by two old, stone buildings. The meadow is called 'Malga Foppiano' and we enjoyed a wonderful and overdue lunch on the bench of the stone shelter. We absorbed the spectacular view for what felt like an hour and then explored the other, more dilapidated structure and area surrounding it. The second building reminded us of a fort though it would be an odd place for a defensive position. Knowing the trail down was going to be tough we again took our time, relaxed, and explored.

Originally Sara and I had intended on completing a loop of which Malga Foppiano was only the first third. Once we reached the top we emphatically scrapped plans to press on and descended the same steep route we had climbed. The descent was slow due to the terrain and moreso because the trail was covered in 4-6 inches of slippery fallen leaves. We traversed the steep, confusing trails, crossed the rock pile, passed the farm, saw some goats, never slipped, and returned to civilization around 8:00 famished. Fortunately en route to the train station we stumbled upon a pizzeria and devoured a delicious post-trail meal. Hungry and seeking a slice of home I ordered a hot dog and french fry pizza (sometime called the 'Americano'), it was great you should try it. Sara and I both agree, pizza is good but burritos are the best eats after a hearty hike. Well fed, stinky, and fatigued we rode the train back to Verona silent and satisfied.

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Another Weekend of Dynos Baseball

2010-05-25T01:06:00.007-07:00

Dynos Allievi

Last weekend both the Dynos Allievi youth team I coach and the Dynos C1 team for which I play were in action on the road.

First on Saturday the Alievi squad faced off against Romano D'Ezzelino. Having thumped these guys at home earlier in the season I spent much of the bus ride to Romano D'Ezzelino creating a lineup which ensured everyone ample playing time. The boys played well and we beat Romano D'Ezzelino handily, scoring five runs in three of the six innings to win 18-1. The disparity of talent between the two teams made this game at times ugly, it was akin to watching a MLB team play a high school squad. Nonetheless everyone on the Dynos played well and I'm proud of them. Here's a recap on the Dynos website (in italian).

Ballfield at the foot of the Alps

The game in Romano D'Ezzelino may not have been pretty but the location was beautiful. Romano D'Ezzelino is located just below historic Monte Grappa at the base of the Italian Alps. This area was the front lines of the Italian Front during WWI with the Austrians fighting from the mountains and the Italians fighting from the plain. The baseball field is about five miles from the front range and has a fantastic view of an ornate steeple backdropped by dramatic mountains. From my vantage point in the third base coaches box I would occasionally catch myself losing focus and gazing up at Monte Grappa instead of watching the pitcher's feet. By chance the Monte Grappa stage of the Giro d'Italia (Italy's Tour de France) was taking place Saturday and the roads were teeming with cycling fans and the air abuzz with helicopters. The final stage was the next day in Verona and Sara said the Piazza Bra was mobbed.

Sunday my Dynos C1 team returned to action after a bye week to play Prassiola, and this ballfield wasn't nearly as impressive as the game was. We pitched well and consistently scored runs to win 12-1. As expected Gleb took the mound for us and pitched well to earn the win, throwing more fastballs and laboring less than in games past. Our bullpen escaped the sixth and seventh with double plays and Nico again kept it simple to finish off the eighth and ninth. Another recap on the Dynos website.

This game was hot, probably 85 degrees and played in the bright midday sun. Playing in the heat reminded me of those hot, humid summer days playing high school summer baseball in Wisconsin. We're fortunate here in Italy that most of the dugouts have a sink with running water so after each inning i could refill my water bottle and run my head through the cold stream.

I had six at-bats in the game and the first three were complete garbage. In the first I struck out swinging at ball four with two outs and a man on first. My next at-bat came with nobody out and the bases loaded in the third. Being overanxious and oddly lacking plate discipline I swung though a low curve, then thickheadedly swung at the exact pitch resulting in an infield fly popup to the shortstop. I contributed absolutely nothing in that at-bat and trotted to first mumbling one of the best cruising strings I've had in quite some time. My third at bat I again swung at bad pitches putting myself behind in the count and eventually dribbled a two strike curve to the shortstop. Thankfully things turned around when in my fourth at-bat I laced a line-drive triple over the shortstop's head to the wall. I finished the game with a walk and a weak RBI single to right, final line: 2-5, 1 RBI, 1 R, 1 Triple, 1 BB, 1 K, and 3 terrible at-bats.

The youth Allievi team is now 5-0 and has yet to be challenged. The C1 squad is I believe 4-1 and as far as I know we remain in first place. Both of these teams are quite rich with talent and I've got a good feeling about both.

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A Smart Car, Two Minis, and Little Yellow Fiats

2010-05-23T03:17:00.001-07:00

Sticking with the automotive theme of the previous two posts today's entry is a photo-journal of the cars I'be observed in Verona.

It is quite true that the cars in Europe are generally smaller than the cars in America, though I occasionally see out of place looking SUV's. The smallest cars on our Veronese roads are the many different colored Smart Cars which park wherever they like. I think they're cute and I'd like to drive one. Moving up in size the most popular car I've observed is this tiny Fiat Coupe. These little guys come in all colors and are seemingly everywhere. Moving up another size are the multitude of Mini Coopers. Much like back home they come in all colors though let's face it, Minis look best with slick racing stripes. Curiously and somewhat comically Minis in Europe appear an average or above above sized car. The soccer mom's auto of choice is another tremendously popular car, the little yellow Fiat. These have a distinct shade of light yellow and are easy to spot, even when they're not yellow.

My favorite European cars are two-toned Citroen C3 Coupes. They bear a slight resemblance to new Beetles and for three days I've been unsuccessfully searching for my favorite one: Copper/Orange with a black roof. If I were to drive over here that'd be the car for me (though I do love my Accord).

We have auto manufacturers that aren't found in America. Cars made in Italy like Fiat, Lancia, and Alfa Romeo are predictably popular. We also see many European cars like Puegot, Renault, Rover, Skoda, Seat, Opel, Citroen, Mercedes, and Porshe. Surprisingly I've also observed many unfamiliar cars made by familiar manufacturers like Nissan, Ford, and Chevrolet.

In Verona I've seen cars that are old, sleek, hideous, cute, regal, peculiar, fun, classic, sporty, ugly, and straight up sexy. Just when I think I've seen it all I'll come across something that reminds me of growing up or reminds me of home.

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Road Trip to the French Riviera

2010-05-20T13:01:00.005-07:00

The stars aligned for Sara and I last weekend and we had a phenomenal weekend wandering the French Riviera. Unusually I had three consecutive days off and equally unusual all Dynos teams played locally enabling us to road trip in the team van. Never having driven in Europe I was uneasy about driving a bulky van down Italy's narrow streets and breakneck autostradas yet once I got behind the wheel felt more settled. Our first bit of success came at Milan's Linate Airport where, after some tribulation, we recovered Sara's lost duffel bag. The heavens treated us to a dazzling sunset en route and, famished, we discovered a tasty late-night pizzeria and gelato stand in lovely Imperia, Italy. Once we arrived at the rivera we slept in the van, then in the morning discovered a lavish and cheap campsite across the street from a rail station.

Our day in Monte Carlo was one of the most perfect and best days of my life. Sunday was the renown Grand Prix and we arrived in Monaco two hours before the green flag with no map, tickets, or plan. Quickly we found a map, food, and the unforgettable shriek of Formula 1 cars. While searching for the ideal ticketless viewing spot we meandered around the royal palace and discovered a romantic garden overlooking the Mediterranean. As luck would have it the ideal ticketless viewing spot was in the romantic garden and watched the electrifying first half of the race from there. The second half of the race we spend searching for the perfect listening spot and found it near the finish line. During the race we had little idea of what was transpiring and instead just took it all in.

After the race we were again hungry and, upon deciding to find food, discovered a grocery store right next to us. After stocking up on fruit, sausage and cheese we dined at a picturesque spot which had been roped off during the race. We later discovered that during our feast the prince drove past, it was that kind of day. After eating and resting for about an hour we headed down to the circuit to find it open and walkable. I found this super cool and we walked a half lap past the yachts, through the chicane, around the casino, and finished at the train station. The heavens again treated us to a spectacular sunset which we experienced from the vacant beach adjacent to our French train station, it was perfect. The day was capped off with French wine/cuisine and we fell asleep in the tent exhausted and smiling.

Monday morning we moved slower and arrived in Cannes around 2pm for the famed Cannes Film Festival. A high school friend of Sara's was in Cannes with a movie and we hoped to randomly run into him. We found the city crowded and businesslike and consequently spent the day sitting in plazas and relaxing at the beach. We eventually surrendered to fate and Sara email her friend David to meet up for a drink. David is a good guy and regaled us with his crazy stories of Cannes on the inside. His film Two Gates of Sleep premiered Tuesday and I hope it went well. On the way out of Cannes we stocked up on food and later ate a jumbled meal in the Dynos van. Prior to hitting the road Tuesday we had hoped to swim in the Med' and were thwarted by throngs of jellyfish floating in the surf. Four and a half hours later we were back in Verona and I went to work Tuesday afternoon.

This trip was absolutely perfect and everything worked out flawlessly. It was great to experience Monte Carlo during the Grand Prix and Cannes during the film festival and to share the experience with Sara made it perfect. Not a bad way to spend her first weekend in Europe...

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Life, Sans Car

2010-05-15T04:50:00.003-07:00

Having just gotten behind the wheel of a car for the first time since arriving in Italy I'm reminded how much I enjoy driving and subsequently realized that I enjoy living sans car. In Verona I have no trouble walking or biking to get around. My feet move at a pace that allows me to really discover the shops, eateries, and inviting old streets of this city. If I am in a hurry or carrying something in tow I ride "The General" (which has seen better days, the shifter just broke). Since bikes are allowed up one-way streets and between cars and the curb I often traverse blocks faster than automobiles. In Italy it is common to see people of all ages and all walks of life use a bicycle as their primary means of transportation. When traveling to other cities I ride the extensive and cheap Trenitalia rail network. Aside from trips with a very specific, uncommon destination I haven't felt the need for a car since I arrived. My favorite aspect of not having a car? It's fun! Riding a bike is a blast and I could walk forever.

Living sans car is quite feasible in a compact European city such as Verona and I'm beginning to believe I could transfer this lifestyle back in the USA. In large American cities with ample public transit options (such as New York, Washington D.C....) many people already utilize mass transit with ease. If I moved back to the center of Seattle I could foresee a life using the train, bus, a bike, and my feet to get around. Even Racine has a decent bus system and our downtown is very walkable. Not having a car would occasionally be troublesome but I'd probably feel better once I remembered the money I saved and my positive environmental impact.

Entirely contradictory to this post Sara and I borrowed a car to drive to a unique destination for the weekend. It would ruin the fun if I told you where we're going so I'll allow you the weekend to guess. Upon returning to Verona on Tuesday I'll surely write about our trip, it's going to be an adventure.

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Once upon a time...

2010-05-11T15:53:00.011-07:00

For the better part of two years I studied with the best improv company in Seattle, Unexpected Productions, and loved it. In a supportive environment we learned how to tell a cohesive story, think abstractly on our feet, convey a message without speaking, commit to characters, and reach a conclusion by reincorporating. The cornerstone of UP's brand of improv is the narrative, or storyline, of a scene. In class we'd learn the art of storytelling using simple games, one of which I will today apply to the blog. Here's how it works:

Each story has eight beats which can consist of anything so long as it fits with the storyline. Normally a different person would create each line but of course today it's just me. Here is an example:

Once upon a time… there was a turtle named Sal who lived in a pond
and every day he… sunned himself on the rocks
then one day… the rocks were washed away in a storm
because of that… Sal moved to a new pond with bigger rocks
and because of that… Sal ate different bugs
and because of that… Sal grew into a humongous turtle
until one day… Sal became the alpha-turtle
and every since that day… Sal suns himself on the biggest rock in the pond

See, pretty simple. This story and our improv stories were fiction, today I'll apply this story structure to my non-fictional life (which I'm finding is more difficult). First one:

Once upon a time I lived in Seattle.
Every day I would work in an office like a grown-up.
Then one day I was laid off from work.
Because of that I looked for a new job.
Because of that I contacted my friend Dan in Italy.
Because of that Dan contacted baseball teams in Italy.
Until one day I had a job and moved to Italy.
Ever since that day I work outdoors, in a t-shirt, surrounded by kids.

One more:

Once upon a time I was single.
Every day I would spend time with my friends.
Then one day, while spending time with my friend Drew, I met an amazing girl named Sara.
Because of that Sara and I began dating.
Because of that we visited each other during the winter.
Because of that our relationship became strong.
Until one day Sara boarded a one-way flight to live with me in Italy.
Ever since that day… well, I don't know what happens next because that day is today! I'm going to meet her at the airport in the morning! Can you tell I'm excited? I'm sure she is also.

Those who have met her know Sara is an amazing girl, adventurous and independent, and I'm a lucky fella. Here are some photos of she and I from January. Living together should feel like a big step but it doesn't. For one we're on permanent vacation in Italy and secondly it feels like the natural progression in our relationship. Who knows what will happen ever since this day, I know today I couldn't be happier. And to Sara's girls in Seattle: sorry for stealing her from you. I promise she's in good hands and encourage you to visit anytime.

Should you be inclined to comment on this post please add one line of a new story and we'll create our own simple tale in the comments. Remember there are no wrong answers, the only mistake is one that is acknowledged (he said as he clicked "Publish Post").

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Dynos (C1) Claim Top Spot by Defeating Rival San Martino

2010-05-09T16:21:00.008-07:00

In a back and forth victory over archival San Martino the Dynos (C1) improved their record to 3-1 and moved into first place.

The game began quietly with neither team making much noise in the first three innings. In the top of the fourth the Dynos tallied three runs with a string of hits, the third run plated on a sac fly just before the trailing runner was gunned down at third base for the third out. San Martino responded with a hit procession of their own, taking the lead in a four run bottom of the fourth. True to the back and forth epithet the Dynos answered with two runs in the top of the fifth and another in the sixth making the score 6-4 entering the bottom of the sixth. It was with two outs in the bottom of the sixth that Dynos starter Gleb made his only costly mistake, misplacing a two seamer which was laced to right for a two out, two RBI double tying the score at 6-6.

The Dynos failed to score in the top of the seventh and seized the momentum upon escaping a jam in the bottom of the inning. That inning was lead off by a San Martino batter who singled and stole second. The next batter walked putting runners at first and second with no outs. In a sacrifice bunt situation the runner at second committed a common amateur mistake, venturing too far off the base after an unbunted pitch and was eventually tagged out in a rundown between second and third. Momentum then permanently shifted to the Dynos after an unusual double play in which the other runner, who had advanced to second during the rundown, was tagged out at third while attempting to advance on a groundout to the third basemen. That's a 5-3-5 double play for those of you scoring at home.

Alby led off the top of the eighth with a double against the new San Martino pitcher, a hard throwing 15 year old with control issues. These control issues would cost him and in the eighth the Dynos registered three runs on what seemed like only two hits, then added an insurance run in the ninth. Like a tennis player allowing his opponent to commit unforced errors Dynos relief pitcher Nico simply threw strikes and San Martino hit into their final six outs, the final of which spurred an outpouring of joy from the Dynos, triumphant 10-6.

This was a fun game and I was struck by the passion shown by our players and coaches preceding and throughout the game. They really wanted to beat San Martino which I can understand because both San Martino and Verona have esteemed baseball programs and the two cities are separated by only 10km. The chatter was heightened all week leading up to this game which they call a derby (which I take to mean rivalry). The baseball people from both sides know one another and seem friendly though there is an outside chance I'm mistaken and they really do abhor each other. I was 0-2 with 1 BB, 1 SB, 1 run, and 1 RBI on a sac fly.

After the game the team, and just about everyone in the Dynos organization, drove to the nearby house of the team president for dinner. This is the second time we've been treated by our presidente and the food is spectacular. We began with self-made bruschetta followed by meat, lots of wonderful grilled and smoked meat. Tonight we had ground beef patties followed by sausage and meat resembling ribs and bacon. The atmosphere is very social and the teammates joke, the adults socialize, and we have a few rousing toasts after the main course. The Dynos have an established community and I'm lucky to have landed with such a welcoming group of people. True to form one of the team moms baked a cheesecake and a tort and we departed happy, tired, and full.

Lastly, do you prefer I write game recaps third-person, sports-writer style like above or first-person like this previous entry? Also here are two songs that have no relation to anything, I just like them and was listening to them while writing this.

VE Day

2010-05-08T04:56:00.004-07:00

Today marks the sixty-fifth anniversary of V-E Day, the end of WWII in Europe. To commemorate this day Winston Churchill declared a "brief period of rejoicing" and the streets of London, Paris, and countless other European cities were mobbed with throngs of joyous revelers. I can only imagine what it would have been like to be a part of that mob, everyone euphoric that Europe was at peace after six long years of fighting. Even in the US, in the midst of the Battle of Okinawa and war with Japan still brewing, the streets were filled with smiling faces.

Times Square on VE Day

Being in Europe on this anniversary is somewhat meaningful for me. There are no parties in the street nor major celebrations of any kind. For me it is more of a reminder of the stirring feat these young kids accomplished all those years ago. So, when you go out tonight, lift your glass to our grandparents generation and the boys that fought their way across the continent safeguarding our way of life. While you're at it, have another for our boys serving overseas today.

Study Abroad, Boilermakers

2010-05-06T17:28:00.001-07:00

Friday will be a day of celebration for the student body at my alma matter of Purdue as it is the last day of finals. The conclusion of finals will be extra special for a group of Boilermakers who, one week later, will depart for a six week study abroad experience in Florence.

During my five years at Purdue I tried many different undertakings, my favorite of which was volunteering in the Study Abroad Office for two and a half years. My two jobs were to a.) give presentations encouraging Purdue students to study abroad and b.) organize social events for the foreign students studying at Purdue. The latter was particularly enjoyable and I made some good friends from around that world that I still keep in touch with today. Thankfully those were the days before digital cameras and if you want to see a photo of me with shaggy, hippy hair you'll have to go to my parents house and dig up a real photo album.

In February I drove down to Indianapolis and on the way stopped at Purdue for an afternoon; I hadn't been back in nearly five years. While on campus I ducked into the Study Abroad Office and spent an hour chatting with the current coordinator Mike whom I loosely knew from my college days. I told him I'd soon be moving to Italy and would be happy to assist the Study Abroad Office and any Purdue students studying in Italy during my time in country. Once he mentioned the Florence program I told him I'd be happy to host those students in Verona for a weekend and he supported it, here is what we have in mind:

A group of up to eight students make their own travel/lodging arraignments in Verona and I show them around for a weekend. My goal is to spend an hour seeing the "must-see" touristy sights and the rest of the weekend showcasing what this town is really like; introduce them to bars, restaurants, locations, and people that are authentically Veronese. To use an old adage, "get their feet wet" to authentic Italy. There is an abundance of things to see and do in Verona and I'm certain my fellow Boilermakers will enjoy themselves here. After Mike mentioned this idea to the students some of them have contacted me and I hope they choose to visit.

Whether they visit Verona or not I'm happy that each of these kids has chosen to undertake such a journey. At this age leaving the country for even six weeks is a big deal and must seem somewhat daunting (six weeks will absolutely fly by). I am a firm believer in study abroad programs and believe every kid should do it. Travel teaches understanding, acceptance, perspective, and self-reliance. One of the universal lessons of traveling is there is a world beyond home and traveling at a young age teaches first hand global perspective. In my opinion we could use more understanding these days and people like this make the world a better place.

Enjoy catching the travel bug…

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Dad's in Town

2010-05-06T05:12:00.004-07:00

As Kevbo pointed out I haven't created a new blog post in nearly a week and I'm sorry about that. The reason my blogging fingers have been idle is: 1.) I wanted to keep the apartment tour video on the front page and, more realistically, 2.) my dad was in town from Friday to today (Thursday). It was nice to see the old man and fortunately we were able to spend a few days in my normal life and a few days sightseeing.

Dad in Soave

My dad arrived Friday evening which we spent sipping wine and snacking at a cafe in the Piazza Erbe. Saturday I had no baseball so we took a day-trip to the nearby walled city of Soave. We explored the quaint, picturesque town and luckily stumbled upon the annual Soave Guitar Festival. We walked a lot and, upon returning to Verona, grabbed a bite and crashed.

Sunday was going to be a crazy day whether my dad was here or not. I had two games Sunday, one with the kids at 10am in Vincenza (45 minutes east of Verona) and another with the C1 team at 3pm in Brescia (one hour west of Verona). We woke up early and joined the team carpool to Vincenza. Much like the Cobras the kids played a little sluggish in the first few innings of an early game and we were down 3-0 until breaking it open in the fourth. We scored 4 in the fourth and 5 in the fifth and cruised behind our ace Alberto the rest of the game. Once the game was finished we packed up and set off on the ~two hour drive to Brescia. Once we arrived I was tired, hungry, and had no idea what time the game was starting so I hurriedly changed into my uniform. Of course I later learned that we still had an hour before game time and by time the game began ominous clouds were rolling in. Much of the game was played in the rain, the other team wasn't very good, and the game turned into a slow, chilly, sludge of a game which we won. I hit like garbage, reaching on a few balls that may have been errors (I wasn't watching) and in my eye went 0-6. The team/parents went out for pizza afterwards and I felt much happier once I got some food in my stomach.

Lago di Garda

Monday is my scheduled day off and was sunny so my dad and I planned on making a trip up to Lago di Garda only to miss two busses and postpone the trip for a day. Instead we went for a nice twilight walk up and around the city walls. The night was capped off nicely by wine and the local speciality: horse meat (it was great). Tuesday it again rained, so much that I canceled practice around noon. My dad and I were sitting around the apartment bummed about the rain and decided to go up to the lake despite it all. The bus ride lasts about an hour and a half and in that time the clouds ascended enough for us to at least see the dramatic mountains that rise from the western shore of the lake. The rain also subsided and we had a nice three hours in the lakeside town of Malcesine. Lago di Garda is beautiful, definitely recommended.

Yesterday again was a normal work day and again it rained. My dad didn't want to do nothing while I was at work so he rode the train south to Mantova (Madison's sister city). In the afternoon the rain really picked up and my practices were canceled and it sounds like Mantova was too wet to really enjoy. We reconvened at the apartment around 9 and spent the evening playing Scrabble and just hanging out. Today my dad is off to Firenze for a night to see and old friend, then he explores Umbria for a week.

It was great having him here and we had a lot of fun. I'm happy he got a chance to see my work life and meet all the great people in the Dynos organization. My thought was to have him guest author this post but we never got around to it. Oh well, when you come visit you can guest write.

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Go Cubs Go, on 7-2-0, WGN

2010-04-30T03:47:00.003-07:00

Cubs fans like myself who tuned in to WGN 720 for yesterday's game were thoroughly disappointed by the 13 runs tallied by the Diamondbacks. Conversely, Cubs fans who are myself were thrilled when, on the air in the bottom of the 8th, Ron Santo answered a question I emailed to the broadcast booth. My question was what did Ron look for in a wood bat during his playing days because I'm using wood bats here for the first time in my life. As always he and Pat crack me up, best radio team in baseball. Ron answered my question at the beginning of a rally which led to a Kosuke Fukudome grand slam, which means I should email Pat and Ron more often. This was my first sent email in a lifetime of listening to Cubs radio broadcasts so I guess I'm batting 1.000. Thanks to Pat, Ron, and the WGN broadcasting team for making my day.

Here's the audio (rebroadcasted without the expressed written consent of Major League Baseball, sorry lawyer friends and Bud Selig).

Thanks to my newest facebook friend and former RYS Cub Steve Hueffner for bringing this to my attention.

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Cobra Baseball

2010-04-29T16:19:00.005-07:00

On Sunday, 5500 miles from Verona in Seattle, my former baseball team will begin their 2010 season and this post is dedicated to them.

Cobras

I spent each summer from 2006 to 2009 playing baseball in a Cobra uniform and rank it as one of the most enjoyable and rewarding experiences of my four years in Seattle. In April of 2006 I was drafted by the Cobras and was initially disappointed to not be drafted into the top league, though I quickly came around once I learned the top league is populated with prima donnas. The fellow I helped coach high school baseball informed me of the league and, joining only five months after moving to Seattle, was one of the first 'meet-new-non Boeing-people' things I did. Initially I was nervous, this was my first organized baseball since high school and these guys were all strangers. Luckily I was drafted onto the team with the warmest guys in the league who quickly accepted me as a Cobra.

2007 and 2008 were my favorite years; we were good, had a lot of fun, and I hit the snot out of the ball. I'll never forget the tribute we gave Mikey P in his final game as a Cobra nor our dramatic 2008 playoff run though the losers bracket only to lose an epic 13 inning championship game. I find it remarkable that we made such vivid and lasting memories in an amateur baseball league composed of strangers from all walks of life. I guess that's the beauty of it, we played for nothing more than the collective love of the game and for eachother.

The two things that made Cobras baseball so special were the guys I played with and the way we played the game. While always playing to win we'd be sure to get everyone ample playing time and at-bats. On a recreational team nobody wants to sit the bench and we'd always bat everyone no matter how many guys showed up. Other teams had their lesser players sacrifice playing time for success, never the Cobras. We never had the most talented individuals but would continually have the most talented top-to-bottom team in the division. Cobra baseball also values fun over seriousness. While other teams would have signs, organization, and practices we would just go out and play. Without having a sign for steal second it was normal for the first or third base coach to either point to second base or simply yell "steal" (I think that drove other teams nuts).

The Cobras enjoy post-game tacos after a playoff win in 2008

We had such a great group of guys, some of the best people I met during my time in Seattle. Dan, King and Popelka were the core of funny, ernest, genial, family men. Kierre was our big hearted big guy. Foti, Glen, JJ, and Tommy Bartlett were the competitive, athletic, spirited white boys. Grif was our college kid and his father Gene was our over 60 right field inspiration. Ivan and Vinny were our passionate Latino brothers and go-to battery mates. Hiro was always good for a clutch hit and Tony and Lupe would play from the gut. No other team looked like us, no other team played like us, and I bet no other team had as much fun as us.

This is my first summer away from my Cobra brethren and I will truly miss you guys. You surely had an impact on me and without playing Cobra baseball I wouldn't be here in Italy today. I wish you the best this summer and look forward to seeing you sometime in the future. Give 'em hell in 2010 ¡putas!

Stats:
2007
2008
2009

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Overnight trip to Lago d'Iseo

2010-04-26T16:57:00.009-07:00

Around noon on Sunday I received a call from my Irish friends saying they'd thoroughly enjoyed themselves Saturday night and I'd be traveling solo. Upon hearing this I considered bagging my travel plans but quickly gave myself a nice metaphorical slap in the face. I'm here, I don't work for two days, why the heck not? I didn't come to Italy to hang around my apartment. As for the destination I knew I wanted to go somewhere relaxing, quiet, picturesque, and relatively near. I looked at my Italy wall map and noticed there is a hostel in the town of Lovere on Lake Iseo (Lago d'Iseo). Five minutes of internet research later I was sold. It's a good thing it only took five minutes because I then had only forty minutes to pack and get to the train station. I threw some clothes in my satchel, hopped on "The General", and headed to the train station.

Bliss

The nearest train station to Lovere is across the lake in the town of Pisogne. The journey was quite unremarkable until we reached the lake where a stunning world of water, islands, castles, and mountains opened up. As Wikipedia will tell you Lago d'Iseo is home to Monte Isole, the largest inhabited island of any lake in southern Europe, as well as smaller islands populated by nothing more than a lone castle. Just like at Lago di Como the mountains rise dramatically from the shore; I hope I'm painting a satisfactory picture of how wondrous this place is.

As I said I didn't spend more than five minutes planning for this trip so I arrived in Pisogne hoping/assuming it'd be easy to walk to Lovere. Stubbornly I left the train station and began walking in the direction I though was best only to reverse course about a mile later in doubt. I returned to Pisogne (also a nice lake town) to find a town alive with the festivities of Liberation Day marking the end of WWII in Italy. People, gelato, and the lake breeze cooled me off and I located a map which indicated I had indeed been on the correct course. Four miles and over an hour later I arrived in Lovere.

Hello World!

I checked into the sleepy hostel and enjoyed an evening highlighted by scrumptious homemade ravioli at an out of the way trattoria on the Piazza Emanulae II. I'm pretty sure I was the only guest in the entire hostel which meant I had my own room and fell asleep with the window open to the breathtaking view. I thought the sunset view couldn't be topped until I awoke to see the sun rising from behind the mountains. Take a look at the photo, the entire world was still and it was absolute bliss.

Monday I had planned on taking a two hour ferry ride down the entire length of the lake so I arrived at the ferry depot around nine. Once the boat arrived I found out the full ferry schedule doesn't go into effect until June so I hopped a short, scenic, direct ride back to Pisogne and from there a train back to Verona.

Regular readers are aware of my fondness for Lake Como. Lake Iseo's scenery is similar to Como and feels less developed and touristy. Both are spectacular and if you asked me which to visit first I'd have a tough time answering. Suffice to say I am now quite fond of both Lago di Como and Lago d'Iseo; both will leave you awestruck.

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Dynos (C1) 8, Bolzano 4

2010-04-24T16:39:00.003-07:00

Tonight the Dynos C1 team for which I play had our first home game and I'm happy to report we beat Bolzano 8-4. This game was a lot of fun and at one point I got really riled up, I'll get to that later.

Our ace Gleb took the mound for the second consecutive week and began the game with a strikeout, always a good sign. The second batter reached base and we later doubled him up when he attempted to swipe second on a dropped third strike. In the bottom of the first our #2 hitter Leal reached base and stole second by time I came up with two outs. A two strike bloop single into no man's land behind the second baseman gave us an early 1-0 lead. Gleb cruised the next few innings and faced the minimum through three. In the bottom of the third I came up to the plate with Leal again on second and hit a two strike slow curve over the third baseman to put us ahead 2-0. I reached second when the LF threw home (nobody hits the cut-off man here, nobody) and I'm not sure if they scored it a single or double. Bolzano scored one in the top of the fourth to make it 2-1 until we opening things up in the bottom of the fifth. Again I came up to the plate with Leal in scoring position, this time on third, and walked. I swiped second and a few pitches later Alby laced a two RBI base hit to left. I missed how it happened but somehow we again had runners on second and third when Nico hit a two strike, two RBI single to left. He later came around to score on a wild pitch capping off our five run fifth inning. We were ahead 7-1 until Gleb got into trouble in his last inning, the top of the seventh: thing inning in which I got riled up.

I don't recall how many outs there were or what the situation was but it all began when a Bolzano batter shoved our first basemen on a close play a first. He tried to do it discreetly though it appeared obvious to me. With another runner on third he attempted to steal second and we had him by a mile so he ran into our shortstop Davide (who has a bum shoulder) who dropped the ball in pain. Our shortstop's shoulder was hurt and he was bleeding out of his mouth from a bit lip. Again this guy tried to be discreet but I knew exactly what he was doing. While everyone on our team was assisting Davide off the field I stared this jerk down and from 20 feet away said something like "twice, two times, I'm watching you" and gave him the Meet the Parents two fingers to the eyes sign. As I continued to stare he squabbled to the second base ump that I was threatening him and I'm pretty sure the ump was thinking "damn right he was threatening you, you deserve it". This SOB was on third with the bases loaded when we retired the final out and he purposefully bumped me as he crossed the plate to which I replied to the ump "three times". This baby then whined to the umpire that I was in his way or something so I stared him down, handed him their bat, and returned to the dugout. I played it cool but ooh I coulda decked the guy, injuring our player for his own hubris.

Whining is a part of Italian Baseball I may never get used to. Those of you familiar with soccer know Italians are infamous for exaggerating/faking injuries, incessantly arguing with officials, and sneaking in cheap shots. Baseball isn't nearly as bad as soccer but the mentality persists. In two weeks of games I'm amazed at how many times I've seen pitchers/batters/catchers show up umpires, players exaggerate injuries, indisputable calls argued, and games delayed by men being babies. Every time a batter is hit by a pitch the game stops for two minutes so he can hobble down to first and be sprayed with this ice-in-a-can which is completely preposterous. They just don't play tough (though I'm impressed by our team, we're pretty good about this stuff).

Baseball is a gentlemen's game to be played with dignity. None of us are getting paid and when you injure guys and play like a child you have no business on the ballfield. Sure it's a game and we have fun but play with respect goddamit, deliberately hurting guys is bush league and guileless.

We were up by enough that I sat the eighth and ninth and boy I didn't want to come out. We scored one in the bottom of the eighth to make it 8-2 and surrendered two in a sloppy ninth to make the final 8-4 and our record 1-1. I was 3-3 with 2 RBI, 1 SB, 1 R, 1 BB, 1 out at second, 1 E, and 1 stare down. Hopefully the box score will be posted to the dynos website soon, I'll forward the link as soon as it's up. No photos because of course I was playing and focused on the game.

Tomorrow I'm off to Bologna with my new Irish friends so anticipate a travel post on Tuesday, ciao amici.

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Tour of my Apartment (Wes Anderson Style)

2010-04-20T17:25:00.004-07:00

Shortly after arrival I filmed a video tour of my apartment with the intention of posting it here and never uploaded it because it was really boring. Seeking a more rousing end product I decided to shoot it emulating the distinctive style of Wes Anderson, one of my favorite directors. Those of you familiar with the works of Mr. Anderson know his films are quirky, visual, and clever. If you're unfamiliar with his films I highly recommend them, in this order:

- Rushmore
- The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
- The Royal Tenenbaums
- The Darjeeling Limited
- Bottle Rocket
- Fantastic Mr. Fox

In the end it turned out alright, I only wish I had access to the cameras/lighting/sets that Wes has access to. Without further ado here is L'Appartamento del Dynos.

Wadda'ya think?

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First Weekend of Baseball

2010-04-19T07:34:00.001-07:00

This was the first of many weekends devoted to baseball and I'm happy to report the Dynos Allievi (Cadets) team I coach is now 2-0 after a home win Saturday. The game began as an old fashioned pitcher's duel between Jacapo and the opposing team's best player. The score was 0-0 into the third when we broke the deadlock with a handful of runs. Once we took the lead our pitching began to unravel and we walked bad hitters, made a few errors, and the opposition clawed back to within a run or two. In the end our talent overwhelmed the other team's blundering and we scored a bunch in the bottom of the 5th to win by slaughter rule.

As is apparent by my vague commentary, while the game is transpiring I'm not real focused on the score. I had no doubt we'd win, we were quite superior to the other team, so long as we kept our heads up and played with confidence. My priority was to keep the kids positive, focused, and playing to their potential. The team is talented and they get into trouble when they see the fans and parents and begin to feel the pressure to succeed. At practice I'm going to stress that during the game it's best to focus 100% on the game and block out everything else (which may prove impossible for 13 year olds). I like this team and I like these kids, they're a lot of fun to coach.

I also played the first regular season game Sunday for the Dynos C1 team and our outcome was different, we lost 6-2. The game was closer than the score indicates, we surrendered three runs in the bottom of the 8th to put the game farther out of reach.

Our ace Gleb took the mound and pitched well, giving up only one run in five innings. In the top of the 5th or 6th we scored two in a nice rally to take the lead. The inning began on a hustle infield single/error (not sure how they scored it) followed by a stolen base, strikeout, RBI single by me, stolen base, and RBI single by Albie. Much like the Cubs our bullpen couldn't hang onto the lead, giving up 2 runs in the 6th and 3 in the 8th.

This was a game we could have won. Afterwards I told the guys we played well for 90% of the game only to have that 10% spoil it for us (not unlike Cobra baseball). We walked too many guys, made a few key errors, and most troublesome didn't hit well. The opposing pitcher was very average and I must tip my cap to him, he consistently threw strikes and went the distance.

Personally I was 1/4 with 1 RBI, 1 stolen base, and exited the field with a sour taste in my mouth. There were a few difficult plays I should have made and one or two runners I could have thrown out. At the plate I could have hit better and missed a few good pitches. Chalk that assessment up to me being my own worst critic, water under the bridge. Despite losing in a dissatisfying outing I loved every minute of it and had a great time. The same applies to coaching the kids on Saturday; it's just so much fun.

- No photos from either game because my two camera batteries bought the farm and just today I finally purchased a US/Euro plug adapter to recharge them.

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First Game a Success

2010-04-16T03:36:00.009-07:00

Finally a baseball story for you guys! Yesterday the Dynos youth team that I coach had our first game and I'm happy to report we won. The other team was not very good and we spanked them pretty bad but hey, a win is a win.

I have to admit, prior to the game I was nervous, much more nervous than I've even been to play in a game myself. I filled out the lineup using my best judgement of a.) who's the best, b.) who shows up to practice, and c.) who gives the most effort. I struggle filling out the lineup because I feel bad for the kids that don't start. I solicited some input from the parents and we fielded a pretty solid starting nine.

Once we arrived at the field my anxiety morphed into excitement and from start to finish I had a blast. Being the visiting team we hit first and put up a five spot right off the bat. They have a rule here, not unlike our 7 rule in RYS, that once the lineup bats around the inning is over. We ended the first inning with 1 out, 5 runs in, and a runner on second. Our pitcher Luca was lights out and we cruised the rest of the game, scoring in each inning and winning something like 18-1 in six innings. Our lone run allowed was in the bottom of the sixth on a wild pitch with two outs and two strikes. A pitch or two later the hitter popped out and the game was over. Because it was a blowout everyone was able to play and get at least one at bat which made me happy.

The kids, rambunctious as they are at practice, are pretty good ballplayers and make my job on the field a lot easier. We still have some things to work on and also have our home opener Saturday afternoon. Sunday is my first game regular season game as a player for the Dynos C1 team so be prepared for a deluge of baseball posts.

Nutella

2010-04-15T06:23:00.003-07:00

Prior to my 2004 and 2005 visits to Italy I was told by friends that while in Italy I must try some Nutella, so I did and each time thought it was gross. After those trips I adopted an attitude that Nutella is only enjoyed by those snobby folks who claim everything is better in Europe. I write today to tell you that I have completely reversed that opinion; in my six weeks over here I've eaten my way through three jars of the stuff with another halfway gone. I'm not sure whether in five years my taste buds have altered, Nutella has changed, or I was just being stubborn. Whatever the case I love the stuff and just can't get enough (though I still struggle with those folks who insist everything is better in Europe).

According to wikipedia the formula for Nutella in North America is slightly different so I wonder if any of you know whether it tastes the same back home? Any other Nutella lovers out there?

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Friends! (in Lake Como and Switzerland)

2010-04-12T10:40:00.010-07:00

This was an unusual weekend in that all of my baseball teams were idle and some Seattle friends were in my neighborhood. Conditions were ideal for a little trip so Friday afternoon I hopped a train to meet my friend McKenna in Como. McKenna is a relatively new Seattle friend and she came to Europe to meet her fiancee who was on a backcountry trek in Switzerland.

Until traversing the east side of Mt. Rainier last August I would say Lake Como was the most beautiful place I've ever visited. My first sojourn to the lake was with Gino and Ryan in August of 2005 (amid Hurricane Katrina) during our 5+ week 'we graduated and have no jobs so let's go to Europe' trip. During our time in the lakeside city of Bellagio we hatched a plan to open a bed & breakfast on the shore of the lake; Saturday I scouted out a few locations.

McKenna and I met Friday evening and strolled around the city of Como before grabbing a nice pizza dinner at a restaurant on the shoreline. Friday was her first night in Europe so we took it easy and returned to the hostel by 11:00.

Saturday was a big day of sightseeing and traveling so we began early with breakfast at 8:00. Our first stop was the train station in Como and along the way stopped at the peculiar statue of two hands that I love. In 2005 we had some fun with the statue and in my two subsequent trips I've stopped to give the statue a big high five. Upon discovering we couldn't buy train tickets from Como to our destination in Switzerland we boarded a ferry for the picturesque cruise up the lake to Bellagio. The weather was ideal and from the bow of the boat we were treated to a tour of the lake and provided a chance to photograph the breathtaking Villa di Barbianello. You may recognize the villa as the wedding location in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones or from the Bond movie Casino Royale. We reached Bellagio, grabbed gelato at my favorite spot, hiked around town and up to the point, manifested a vendetta against George Clooney, and grabbed a pasta lunch while waiting to board a ferry to Menaggio. Somewhat miraculously we arrived just in time to catch the international bus to Lugano, Switzerland. Lugano is a nice town encompassed by lakes and mountains and, on this 80 degree Saturday, was bustling. Unfortunately we didn't have much time and rode the funicular up to the train station to purchase our tickets to Zermatt.

Adam, BCox, Curtis, and I in Zermatt

Zermatt is a small, isolated Swiss mountain village where we'd rendezvous with McKenna's fiancee (and my friend) Adam. With 6 others Adam was undertaking the famous Haute Route, a six day skiing trek from Chamonix, France to Zermatt, Switzerland. Among those six others were my old Boeing friends Curtis (C-Murder), Russ, and Brandon (BCox) so I accompanied McKenna to Zermatt for a surprise visit. The only route from Lugano to Zermatt was a six hour, four transfer, Alps traversing train ride and we arrived in Zermatt around 10:30pm. Like a sweetheart Adam was at the station awaiting his lady, we dropped off our gear, and he pointed me in the direction of the other guys. After searching a few bars I found Curtis and BCox having a drink with their fellow trekkers and, in my best German, I asked Curtis for a cigarette. He did a double take, gave me a hug, and asked what the hell I was doing here. I explained to him, BCox, and the rest of the guys the story and we spent the rest of the night bar hopping around Zermatt.

Being a spontaneous trip I hand't made accommodation arrangements in Zermatt and hoped/assumed I could stay wherever my friends were staying. No such luck, in fact I was told the entire town was booked solid. There were a few empty mattresses at the hostel and we all felt quite comfortable that I could find a place to sleep. They went to bed and I took a shower, once I returned to the dorm all my prospective mattresses were occupied. It was then I heard BCox whisper, "everything is full, just crawl in here buddy". That is how BCox and I ended up sharing a cot in the crowded loft of a hostel in Zermatt, Switzerland: quite a generous fellow.

The Imposing Matterhorn from Zermatt

As I mentioned Zermatt is located high in the Swiss Alps and Sunday we awoke to a stunning view of the imposing Matterhorn. Curtis departed early for Milan with BCox heading north to Germany shortly thereafter. We grabbed an expensive breakfast and McKenna, Adam, and I meandered around town until it was time for me to catch my train at 1:00. Two station transfers and five hours later I arrived back in Verona, refreshed, and happy to be home.

While most people don't travel all the way to Zermatt only to stay fourteen hours it was great to see my friends. In two days I visited Lake Como, spent some quality time with McKenna, rode numerous scenic trains through the Alps, gazed upon the Matterhorn, ate lots of Swiss chocolate, and was able to see my friends; needless to say I had a blast and am thankful for the opportunity to see my friends. Who's next?

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Pasquetta

2010-04-06T15:41:00.004-07:00

Monday was a good day. I had originally planned on chronicling my love of MLB Opening Day and how I consider it a holiday but a.) you know that already and b.) my beloved Cubs laid a big fat Opening Day egg in Atlanta. Instead I write about a real holiday that occurred here in Italy on Monday called Pasquetta. Pasqua is Easter in Italian and Pasquetta is the Monday following Easter which is also a national holiday. My Pasquetta was great because both the youth Dynos team and the A2 "big league" baseball team had all-day cookouts.

Around noon I arrived at the ballpark and mingled at the A2 party for about an hour until I realized there were two separate parties going on. I made my way over to the Dynos field just in time for lunch which consisted of hot dogs, beef patties, bacon like pig meat, and polenta all cooked on a large brick grill (it was great). We hung around the field all afternoon playing soccer, jamming on guitars, and playing a parents vs. kids baseball game. Just when I thought the party was finished I was told the next round of food was on its way. Holy cow, more grilled meat, how'd they know? The kids party wrapped up around 9:00 and I headed over to the ballpark to hang with the A2 team after they'd been drinking all afternoon. They're a good group and I was happy to volunteer my iPod for a spirited game of "name that tune". Their party was just winding down at 11:00 when I returned home on "The General".

Beyond the food, activities, and sunshine what made Monday extraordinary was being welcomed and embraced by so many people. The Dynos parents treat me so wonderfully, I returned home with a belly full of meat, chocolate, and Fanta and my satchel full of enough chocolate to last a month. The parents are tight knit and have created a strong team community for the kids and themselves. I'm fortunate to be accepted into it and thank everybody for a great holiday.

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Hiking in the Alps: Entry #2, Easter Hike

2010-04-04T14:10:00.014-07:00

Italy being the headquarters of the Catholic Church it should come as no surprise that everything here shuts down for Easter. Earlier this week I purchased a few quality hiking maps and thought what better time to hit the trail than when the city is dormant?

My chosen hike was substantial trek and it was pivotal that I catch the 9:09am train to arrive with sufficient sunlight to complete the trip. Sure enough I again underestimated the walking distance to the train station and arrived just in time to run into the train as the doors closed. Forty-five minutes later we arrived at the town of Avio in the valley of the Adige ten kilometers north and across the valley from my previous hike. The sun was shining as I observed the trail marker indicating three and a half hours to the summit and it felt like a good day. My chosen path was an officially numbered trail and therefore much better marked than that of my previous hike. (map)

Not long after I set off the clouds rolled in and the photography light became lousy. I tried to get some good shots and nothing looked good. Then I remembered a tip either Rich or Huber gave me: the depth and definition of mountains often show up better using black and white. Using this knowledge I rotated my camera's dial to B&W, the shots looked much better, and today became Ansel Adams Day. I am a big fan of Mr. Adam's photographs and on my hike took a few homage photos. I was also lucky to take some photos that Ansel never could have shot in the American West: photographs of mountains with a medieval castle in the foreground.

The imposing Castello di Avio dominates the first half mile of the trail and is featured in many of these photos. On the ascent the castle was illuminated nicely by the morning light, on the overcast descent I ducked my head in only to turn around once I learned they charge for using cameras inside.

Beyond the castle the first third of the trail zigzagged through a dense fir forest. The next half mile followed a forest service road, at the end of which I found some very alien looking construction equipment. Reentering the budding deciduous woods the trail climbed at a steady pace loosely following the rocky path of an avalanche chute. Not knowing exactly where the trail terminated I kept my eye on a summit cross in the hopes that my trail led its way.

The ground was littered with interesting objects along the way. The first were snail shells pictured below and a remnant of a long ago time when this was under the ocean. The second were fields of white rocks which I assume are marble. Pictured here is an interesting one that someone who knows geology can possibly shed some light on. A few of these fascinating rocks made the journey back to the house with me.

Upon reaching the cliffs the forest gave way to a torpid heather meadow speckled by small patches of snow. I traversed the switchbacks ever nearing the summit cross and along the way crossed a small snow patch where the trail seemingly disappeared on the other side. After double-checking to ensure I was not being stupid I forged my own path the short distance to the cross and reached the 1351 meter apex. Normally I enjoy eating lunch on the summit but it was windy, cloudy, and pretty "western" up there so I took a few photos and headed back down. After a picturesque and trepidatious descent through the meadow I returned to the comfort of the forest.

About half way down I saw something that I've never previously encountered on the trail. It began as a high pitched noise that reminded me of a chainsaw motor. Louder and nearer it rapidly moved and as I looked down the switchback I saw a man, in full gear, careening like mad up the trail on a dirt bike. I moved off the to the side and within thirty seconds he rounded a hairpin corner, noticed me, nearly fell off his bike in astonishment, and resumed motoring up. Unlike the congested trails of Washington the trail today was barren of people and dirt bike man was the only other soul I encountered until I reached the town below. I can almost guarantee he didn't plan on encountering anybody and can only imagine what went through his head when he noticed me standing on the side of the trial. It is always wonderful to be completely isolated in nature though in Washington it's also nice knowing help in never more than a few minutes away. I finished the hike by circumventing the castle, strolling through the now bustling town of Sabbionara d'Avio, and hopping a train back to Verona.

This hike is what I would consider pretty substantial and the upper reaches were a little more demanding than what I seek in a fun, recreational hike. It is safe to say my thirst for audacious hikes has been quenched and any trails I hit between now and summer will be much more sedate.

Buena pasqua everybody from your amico in Italy.

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1000 Unique Hits!

2010-04-02T07:35:00.004-07:00

I really enjoy writing this blog and It's validating to hear you guys seem to enjoy reading it. It means a lot to know that you dedicate a small slice of your time to reading about my far off adventures. I am a brazen feedback junkie so please do not hesitate to post comments, thoughts, writing critiques, or general "you're a nerd" jibes. Also, if you have any questions or suggestions for blog posts shoot them my way.

Experiences are better when shared and well, it can get a little lonely over here. Imperfect as it may be, communicating over the blog is a good way for us to share the experience as best we can. Of course the optimal means of experiencing Italy together is to visit and I'm happy to have visitors arriving soon. Mckenna will be here next week for one night, my dad visits soon thereafter, and Sara arrives in the middle of May. I realize it's unfeasible for most of you to just drop life and hop a trans-atlantic flight; if you can swing it great, if not I understand.

After 23 days life over here is still a dream. Thanks for the support, I wish we could share this experience together and until that day I'll keep bloggin', grazie.

As a token of my appreciation here's a panorama I shot of Verona:

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PPD: Rain

2010-03-30T14:52:00.002-07:00

Neil's photo, not mine

Tuesday my schedule calls for two practices; one with the kids at 5 and another with the Seria A2 squad at 7. The 5:00 practice went great. The 7:00 practice was spectacularly rained out by a wonderful thunderstorm. After four years in Seattle I'd forgotten how much I enjoy thunderstorms and tonight we had a good one. Watching from the dugout as the rain poured down and the sky was intermittently illuminated by dramatic lightning bolts I wished I had brought my camera. The stadium lights created trapezoidal shaped pyramids of rain which ringed the field, quite a sight.

It was then I remembered that I was going to have to bike home in this. In the unrelenting rain I hopped on 'The General' and splashed through puddles all the way home. I arrived at my door drenched and grinning from ear to ear; I love thunderstorms.

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Day Trip to Màntova

2010-03-30T04:50:00.006-07:00

After our game Sunday I wasn't feeling up for a Monday hike so I used my day off to explore the nearby town of Mantova. Mantova is on the Po plain about 35km south of Verona and surrounded on three sides by a wide river. Apparently the town had quite a heyday from the 14th to 17th centuries which is reflected today in the architecture and abundant piazzas. Fun fact I learned from Wikipedia, Mantova's American sister city is Madison, WI, how about that.

I stupidly reached the train platform in Verona just in time to see my train departing. Regional trains around here are funny, those I've rode on have been nearly empty, rarely depart on schedule, and in six rides I've only had my ticket checked twice. Upon arrival in Mantova I meandered around without much of a plan. The weather was nice yesterday so much of the population was out and about giving the town a nice, vibrant feel. My favorite aspect of Mantova is the abundance of picturesque piazzas which lead seemingly from one right into the next. Each piazza is ringed by a combination of: huge churches, renaissance palaces, gelato stands, cafes, and obligatory tourist trinket shops. After traversing each piazza my path led to the river bank which to my delight is a park with a jogging trail, fishermen, and fun science demonstrations. Like an outdoor Discovery World they have sound tubes, optical illusions, and a bicycle wheel gyroscope that I played with. There were a lot of families with kids enjoying the afternoon and let's face it, what do kids love more than science?

The rest of the afternoon I aimlessly roamed the charming little central area until hopping my train back to Verona. People around here would probably consider Mantova quite average yet, compared to what is normal back in the states, I consider noteworthy. If you have the time it's worth a short visit, nothing more than an afternoon; I'm glad I went.

Random Thought:
I haven't listened to Dave Matthews Band's Under the Table and Dreaming in years and, combined with perusing camp photos from 1997 on facebook, have been on a memory trip all morning.

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Saturday Night in Verona

2010-03-28T12:44:00.005-07:00

The past two Saturdays I've set out to discover what Saturday night in my new home is like. The most apt description I can think of is it's very Italian, seemingly the entire population is out walking about! This isn't a casual stroll either, they get dressed up. They don't hold back when they get dressed up either, the girls wear fancy shoes and the guys' hair is always perfectly disheveled. It's quite apparent that they put effort into their appearance and they look classy.

When I say everyone is out and about I mean everyone of every age. It's common to see groups of middle school kids just hanging out, unsupervised, on the steps of a church or in the piazza. It's like when we were in middle school and used to hang out in the dark corners of Angel Fest and tried to act as cool as we could. They get to do this every weekend, lucky punks. In Racine we were never out past 10 and could only dream of strolling around sans parents. The kids behave themselves (which we likely would not have) though they all seem to smoke which is unfortunate. Everybody smokes here, have I mentioned that?

The street performers are completely different at night also. During the day there are the usual guys dressed as Roman Legionaries, odd renaissance couple, Julius Cesar, human mummy, and creepy robot lady. At night the musicians come out to play. Tonight there was a four piece jazz band playing for a while on a busy corner. Honestly they weren't very good and the sax always missed his cue but they did play some favorites like "The Girl from Ipanema". Working that same corner not a half hour later was a one man band. One man bands are corny, and this guy wasn't all that great, but so help me I love 'em. May have to add 'perform as a one man band' to the list of things to do in my life. My favorite of the night musicians is the accordion man. He's talented and something seems very right about walking along these picturesque streets with the sound of a lone accordion echoing off the storefronts. I wonder if he knows "I'll Always Love You" by Dean Martin? I'd be happy to croon with him, or the lackluster jazz quartet for that matter.

As for drinking it's clear you're free to drink in the streets here. Walk around the Piazza Erbe anytime after 10:30 and you'll see throngs of people standing around, holding glasses, milling about much like we do within the bar back in the states. Everybody seems pretty happy, I haven't observed the barflies drinking away their sorrows or the guys with anger issues drinking to get in a fight. Then again they probably hang out at different bars than these ones.

My teammates have been telling me about a college bar around the corner from my place so I ducked in Thursday and again tonight to check it out. It's just what they said, a college bar. There's a projection TV with soccer perpetually playing and It seems like a good place to catch the world cup matches once they begin. On Saturday night you'll find students hanging out and the study abroad group drinking and having a grand old time. Just like Where Else? the whole place is ringed by guys (lions) looking to catch that weak antelope once she slips. It's just like college, there's even a Purdue ratio in full effect (>60% fellas). Oddly I miss bars like that and will probably return occasionally.

So, after surveying the scene my conclusion is, whether we listened to musicians, drank in the streets, went to a bar, smoked with middle schoolers, or just strolled around, a group of us could surely have a lot of fun here.

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Oh, of Course

2010-03-27T23:34:00.005-07:00

I haven't posted all week and for that I apologize, here's why. The Dynos provided me with a Vodafone USB internet key and paid for the first bit of credit (very nice of them). Once I used the initial credit I visited the local Vodafone store to recharge my key. Their current promotion is for 25€ you get up to five hours of internet a day for 30 days; seems reasonable. Upon recharging the key I returned home and jumped on the internet. A few days later the internet ceased to work because I was out of credit. I returned to the Vodafone store Friday to attempt to figure out what the problem was. Remember not everybody here speaks English and none of the Vodafone employees spoke the queen's. It took a while and eventually I discovered that I needed to wait up to 48 hours for my recharge to be activated or else my 25€ would only give me five total hours of internet use. Perhaps that was explained to me in a language I barely understand or maybe it was assumed that I knew what to do, either way 50€ later I'm back baby.

Much as I complain I get a bit of a kick out of these 'lost in translation' moments.

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Hiking in the Alps: Entry #1

2010-03-22T15:25:00.004-07:00

As you're probably aware after four years in Washington I'm now hooked on hiking. You're also probably aware than much of Northern Italy is covered by this mountain range called The Alps. Much like Seattle, Verona is situated at the foothills of the Alps and it's not too difficult to get into the mountains (though a car would simplify things tremendously). This summer I plan on chronicling my many trips in the mountains and today was the first.

Hiking in the Alps: Entry #1
Parco Regionale Delle Lessina, near Ossenigo (map)

Hiking in the Haze

Monday is my day off and I've been telling myself all week I'm hiking on Monday, so I did. Of course the weather didn't oblige and was very Seattle-like (50's, overcast, damp, low clouds, limited visibility...). I had my trail picked out so around noon I walked to the train station (~30 minutes), rode the train about 35km north to a town called Peri, then hoofed it about 2 miles to the trailhead. A "trailhead" here is in no way like the ones I'm familiar with in Washington; there's nary a parking lot, map, compost toilet, or ranger to be found. My trailhead today was simply where the paved road ends and there is a tree adorned with a red-white-red stripe. I had my crappy map so I pressed on, somewhat knowing what I was getting myself into.

While hiking in Washington I often wondered what the trail would be like if they abandoned the switchbacks and instead built the trail straight up: today I found out. The grade was super steep, must have been at least 20-30 degrees. The negative of this is I tired quickly, the positive is I ascended rapidly.

Used for?

After about a half hour I reached a meadow with a strange wooden contraption positioned at the edge of a cliff. I tried to figure out it's use and still have no answer, any thoughts?

The meadow continued up and by now I was in the clouds which made it tranquil yet very creepy. To add to the creepiness at the end of the meadow is a house, not abandoned yet not lived in. I half expected a witch to pop out and plop me in her witch stew; hiking alone stimulates my imagination.

Creepy

Beyond the house the trail disappeared and I searched around until I found more trees with the red-white-red trail markers painted on them. They led up an even creepier trail and at this point others might say I was lost (though I would stubbornly say I had an idea of where I was). I had ample daylight remaining so I proceeded up until the trail leveled out. I was relieved to be on flat trail until I noticed not more than 10' to my left was a cliff that, due to the clouds, dropped into infinity. Now trotting cautiously I proceeded along hoping to find either a.) the trail to the village of Coste or b.) the trail down to Borghetto (I found neither).

Built in 1754?

Towards (what I think was) the top was a stone marker which I can only assume was built in 1754 by the Austrians marking the southern border of their Province of Tirolo. From what I know this region has an fascinating history of changing ownership between Italy and Austria over the years. If this marker is indeed Austrian I think that's pretty cool to come across, particularly being so out of the way. By this point I was also worried that this trail was leading either nowhere or off a cliff. When I hike my goal is to push myself while not being stupid. Up to this point I had pushed myself with one or two thoughts of "am I being stupid?" creeping into my head. Once I reached the marker and saw the trail head up into oblivion I decided to press on would indeed be stupid so I reversed course and headed for home. Any of my hiker friends ever have similar thoughts?

Color Accent Photo of the Green Water

The hike down along the same route was relatively unremarkable. The only two points to note from the descent were 1.) it rained and 2.) hiking down such steep grade is tough on the knees. On the descent I was cursing myself for having left my trekking poles in Seattle. Upon reaching the road I returned along the highway in the rain to the train station and surely picked up a few curious glances from the Italians whizzing by. My guess is that I hiked a total of 8-10 miles today and got up to about 3000'. Despite the rain, incline, and lackluster map, it felt great to get back in the mountains and can't wait until next Monday (and sunshine).

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8 Days Worth of Observations

2010-03-18T13:21:00.004-07:00

- Verona is most beautiful at night
- I am out of shape
- People smoke a lot here
- European clothes are not made for an American body type
- I'm not going to wake up at 8am with the church bells like I originally thought
- My body can sustain just fine fueled with only bread, water, wine, salami, cheese, and pasta
- College kids are the same all around the world
- Driving in Italy is much less organized and feels strangely safer
- When immersed in the culture we're never too old to learn a new language
- I don't miss TV
- Wine from a carton isn't bad
- Tuesday I first spotted the Alps, they looked inviting and glorious
- Even if people are inside a shop that doesn't mean it's open
- Our churches are lame in America
- It takes me one day to adjust to jetlag for every two time zones I cross
- I really want to show this town off
- Wherever you go libraries have free internet
- It's best to translate washing machine settings prior to doing laundry
- Wearing green on St. Patrick's day in Italy is not required. Rivers retain their normal hue
- Instead of going to the grocery store here you go to the produce stand for produce, butcher shop for meat, salumeria for salami and cheese, and wine store for wine

I will see none of the NCAA Tourney, go Purdue!

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Fun with Night Photography

2010-03-15T14:09:00.016-07:00

In the spirit of The Andy Aupperlee Explosion 5000 I thought tonight I'd blog about photography. While out shooting Verona at dusk I experimented and learned about shutter speed, aperture, and night photography. Since purchasing my current camera I've enjoyed taking shots with a long shutter speed, I find that to be an easy way to make it appear I know what I'm doing. Overlooking the city tonight I was trying to shoot a few winners by setting the camera dial to Tv (Shutter Speed) mode. After taking some 5-10 second shutter shots I noticed each was too bright. Knowing just enough to be dangerous I bravely rotated my camera's dial to manual mode to manipulate the aperture. In Tv mode the aperture was auto set at f/4.5 so, knowing that aperture controls how open/closed the iris is, I dialed it down to f/6.3. What a difference that made, the tower no longer appears whited out.


5 second shutter, f/4.5	5 second shutter, f/6.3

Next I moved about 20 feet down to shoot two picturesque towers. Reusing the previous settings I shot away only now the towers were too dark. I had been using a 5 second shutter so, to take in more light, I left the aperture alone and doubled the shutter speed to 10 seconds. I really love the detail and depth in the last one, better results through experimentation.


5 second shutter, f/6.3	10 second shutter, f/6.3

Photography is fun and while I'm certainly no pro I get a kick out of learning nerdy stuff like this. I also learned how to use a 2€ coin to prop up my camera and where the teen "makeout point" in Verona is located. Thanks to Andy, Rich, and Huber for allowing your nerdiness passion to rub off on me and to Neil for showing me his informative photography book. One final fun fact, all photos were taken from the Castel San Pietro which is the building in the postiblog banner atop the page.

New Wheels

2010-03-14T11:12:00.004-07:00

"The General"

Good news everyone, the internet works and I can now post updates more regularly. More good news came today when I was given my means of transportation: a sweet green and white 15 speed with super wide tires. She rides well and only needs a few tweaks to run like a champ.

You'll notice I call her she, I do this despite today giving her a man's name. This is the kind of bike that needs a name and one came to me immediately, as of today she shall hereby be known as "General George S. Patton" or simply "General Patton" or "The General". How did I come up with this peculiar name? You'll notice she's mostly green and is adorned with three star decals. Well back in WWII General Patton wore green and had three stars on his general helmet. Plus General Patton led the American invasion of Sicily in 1943 and was instrumental in the allied victory in Europe. Since I'll ride her in Italy which is a part of liberated Europe I thought this a fitting tribute. Additionally calling her "The General" makes me feel like one of the Duke boys from The Dukes of Hazzard and if I can find some sweet jumps I'd happily be Il Postorino di Verona. The film Patton taught me while I can yell and curse at her all I like, I must never, never slap her. I think we'll get along just fine.

Once again my dorkiness is exposed via blog.

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