a scatterbrained post- apologies!

update- made it to munich, were all reunited and didnt lose our luggage. sweet!



other notes- we have now taken to speaking to people in english completely apologetically and gauging their reactions. often it is hilarious, they give us this baffled look and point somewhere.

also, whenever people are trying to communicate us and they dont understand what we are saying, we will mime as we usually would and say something completely random. for example someone asked how to get to the bathroom, and we pointed them around the corner while telling us them "we have red cats in our bedroom."

after that we went to a tiny town called santa'agata, home of lamborghini. we enjoyed a really pretty bus ride on the way there, passing through the italian countryside.

other notes- we have now taken to speaking to people in english completely apologetically and gauging their reactions. often it is hilarious, they give us this baffled look and point somewhere.

also, whenever people are trying to communicate us and they dont understand what we are saying, we will mime as we usually would and say something completely random. for example someone asked how to get to the bathroom, and we pointed them around the corner while telling us them "we have red cats in our bedroom."
'
infortunately that all ends now that we go to germany, where from what we can tell, everyone speaks great english.

my facial hair is becoming a serious problem. its damn gross and i havent had a chance to shave. end note.

we watched the end of the USA-Algeria game in a little cafe on the border of italy and switzerland. wearing our american flag we were super stoked when we scored that goal to end it, and the italians and there congratulated us. hopefully we dont play germany in the round of 16.... just kidding. i hope we do.

right now we are on our way to munich. originally i thought it would be a day wasted but i wouldnt have wanted to slepe through this. th scenery and snow capped mountains are some of the most beautiful things i have ever seen. summers and andrew- we are coming here to ski, soon. period.

so. lets see, stuff we have been up to...

san'agata was a beautiful little city. it seems that everyone knew each other, and half of the town worked at lamborghini. we went to the museum and were greeted with some really beatiful stuff.... the murcielago gtr was particularly lovely.

jim and i's clothes were getting particularly rancid so we walked off to east jersulem to find a washeteria. (by the way dad, your idea of soaking clothes and drying them by hanging them has just resulted in moldy shirts... they smell like hell). there we met possibly the nicest italian weve ever met. he hung out and watched our clothes while we ate and actually walked with us to a place to eat. gave us change and was in general super awesome. our whole conversation was in mime and broken italian/spanish. we bought him a beer but he kindly refused, and we finished our laundry and headed back to the hotel. that night we went out to experience the local college nightlife. we brough david's instant italian book. hilarity ensued. around 3 am we were walking around asking random people "how much for the day" and other completely random phrases... none of which occur to me now.

the next morning we woke up with the dreadful knowledge that we had to be somewhere that the locals havent even heard of by 2pm for a rather exclusive tour we had set up of the pagani factory. after failing to find a bus we got a train to modena and got a taxi from modena... the poor taxi driver led us to an industrial park in san cesario, but he kicked ass and made a bunch of calls and eventually got us there just in time to meet our tour guide. we were lost on a street in the middle of nowhere, and around the corner we heard a mercedes v12 growling and a zonda going past... so we figured there would be a good place to turn.

the pagani tour was really cool. its a small family business essentially. one of horacio paganis kids actually fetched the stupid, stupid purchase that i made there for me. they produce 14 cars a year, each worth well over a million euros. there were 3 rooms, one where they were literally putting the car together by hand, one dedicated to laying carbon fiber, and another with autoclaves and some research and development... which we were very much not allowed anywhere near. they did have their test zonda R there sitting there on corner balances, and an AMG v12 sitting on a stand in one room. really beautiful stuff.

afterwards we were contemplating how we were going to get from the middle of nowhere in italy to maranello. unforutnately it got too late so we never got to see the home of ferrari. another trip for another trip i suppose.

we had a very cool conversation with our tour guide. she had been educated in saudi and been all over the place. she lived in italy for 19 years and was less than satisfied with it. she apparently families still have feuds and hte rich ones still run the small towns like the very one we were in, and unless youre connected, finding a job isnt going to easy. apparently the locals were very intellectually inbred and if you had money, most people wound up leaving, many to the US.

on the other hand, on the train today jim and i talked to a woman who was born and raised in italy but had been all around the world doing humanitarian work. she seemed pretty keen on italy, felt like she was biting her tongue a bit on her feelings towards the US though!

anyways, so we caught a taxi back to the town of Modena, where we got lost and wound up stumbling onto some pretty cool sights and local backstreets. unfortunately every restaurant was closed so for the second time this trip... we hit up mcdonalds.

so now im off to nap... for alot of baggage carrying and uncertainy awaits us in munich. wish us luck... ive only got about a week left. damn. ill bug jim to write a post and give a better account of whats been going on... my crappy quick blogging has got to be getting old by now.