day 3

first day at the university,

so today i met Andrea at the musuem across the street from my residence. we did the introduction thing, and headed over to alla fermata del bus (bus stop), and caught the 44 bus to the Piazza Raffaele De Ferrari. yes there is an entire square named after the car, hehe. and then i changed over my $$ to euros at the national bank.





then we took the 18 bus over to the university and stopped by the lab, where i was introduced to the equipment, and Dr. Marco Bove, my preceptor for the summer. he is a pretty cool dude, especially since he rocks docksiders and a cardigan. def has style. :)

i ate a rushed lunch after writing some e-mails, and headed over to the Ospedale (hospital) to watch some patients get injected with botulinum toxin, also known as Botox. But before you start jumping to conclusions, let me explain how it is used. in this repect the botox wasnt used to alleviate the slow death of age precenting itself as wrinkles on the forehead of some ancient mummy.

the botox here was used to help alleviate the symptoms of those suffering from muscular dystrophy. these people often have involuntary ticks, or muscle spasms, or chorea (abnormal involuntary dance-like moves). so here the toxin prevents the muscles from contracting and therefore, allows these people to live a little more normal life. interesting huh...


then i met Laura A, and Laura B, and saw the magnetic resonance laboratory, where hopefully i will be doing some experiements. a very long day indeed.




then after work i went to via XX settembre or the 20th of september, that is a street that is like the pseudo-jamaica ave of italy, except

much more upscale.

Italian word of the day that means something totally different in English:
piano = level/floor

day 2

the plot thickens,

i awoke this morning with a stretch and some european juice, and gazed about to realize that yes i was still on this fookin' plane. "what time is it?" i thought to myself. i would ask somebody, but no one spoke english, i glanced at my watch, and shook my head in disbelief, i definitely was 3 hours late. probably missed my connecting flight. but since there was nothing else to do, i ate my cheddar jack cheeze-its, stared out the window and awaited my sure fate.

arriving at the ROME airport, i walked for what seemed an eternity to reach gate A21. i had to take a 3 minute shuttle, to the actual airport, then i took 3 escalator and 2 flights of steps, and 5 tunnel ways to the gate. just to find out that i had to go back to get another ticket for another flight since i missed my flight to genoa. UUGGHH!!

clearly was getting over the fun of it all. then when i got my other ticket i meandered my way to gate A27, which was in the of st. elsewhere. then got on the mini-jet plane thingy?? and took off once more.

the boot=italy

when i reached genoa, Alessandro and his girlfriend were there with signs that read PAUL-ANN GREEN. i was surprised that they remembered i would be here because i was indeed 4 hours late. then we drove in their little audi to the place where i would spend my summer the student abroad residence hall of the University of Genoa.

that night i had my first real italian pizza, four cheese, none of which included cheddar or any other normal cheese. lovely!! i ate the whole pizza by myself. and had a wierd sprite. not only does the can look wierd but it taste like seltzer water (lime flavored). but it is sprite, rightt????

that night i saw the city of genoa, by the moonlight it was indeed beautiful. this just might be fun.

day 1

off to JFK i go...clearly my first time traveling abroad by my lonesome....tears :( but whatevs, i'll survive. my bestie and moms dropped me off at the airport, and of course just my luck it had to rain. while checking in the bags, the dude that loads the luggage, ( you know the one with the doo-doo brown uniform) tried to holla at me and my bestie. my moms attempted be cool and say that we were sisters (which we pratically are) and that we were not interested. she affirmed us that by turning him down softly my luggage wouldn't get damaged. i'm not so sure about that.

so i took Alitalia, btw never take that airline, especially if you are not italian. you WILL get stared at as if you have 3 eyes. so i waited at gate 10 for 4 hours because of the fookin' thunderstorm, and then at 11p.m. we boarded the plane after a complimentary dinner with my $12 voucher to apologize for the delay. then after almost throwing out my back while trying to put my luggage in the overhead compartment, i realized i had a whole row to myself NICE!!! and then i slept until 1a.m. i awoke to realize that we hadnt left JFK YET!! omg!!

so...i feel back asleep, it is gonna be a long trip.

benvenuti

Ciao.
mi chiamo grn[pea], and i will be letting you into my summer vacation to genoa, italy. yes, you wish you were here but guess what, i got a surprise, you can be here with this blog so come along for the ride.

benvenuti la mia vita!