Saturday, August 2, 2008

What I've Been Doing

If you're wondering what I've been doing for the past 2 months (aside from the items about which Ben posts), here, without regard for parallel structure, is a list. If you weren't wondering, this list will probably bore you to tears, so just stop reading now. I included anything that was productive and/or (e/o) took more than 5 minutes.

wash dishes; do laundry; read; do sudoku and crossword puzzles; look at Italian daily newspaper you get at bus stops; grocery shopping (at supermarkets and Lidl); go to the market; water plants; cook (or start cooking, because I'm so slow at it); argue with telecommunications companies; buy a bike; buy a fan; surf the net (at internet cafes and at the apartment); watch the Simpsons, Monty Python, 30 Rock, various moovies*; sort music on ipod; listen to music on ipod; listen to radio; clean the apartment; get codice fiscale; sign up and pay for language course; find out about health insurance; get accurate visa application and instructions; sightsee; get passport-sized photos; find out about permesso di soggiorno; keep mosquito netting up; get bus tickets/passes; make cell phone work here; recharge cell phone minutes/money; realize how stupid and stingy Bank of America is; go through Italian book; figured out why external hard drive wasn't working; see where Ben works; put the awnings and roller shutters up and down; take out trash; read about other cities in guidebooks; try to figure out cheapest way to withdraw Euros (still working on that); go to Cascine market; hunt mosquitoes; look for cheap books in English; put on sunscreen; figure out which busses to take; pay bills in VA and otherwise try to deal with online banking issues (trying to resolve an issue via email is futile. The responses you get are completely worthless.); watch a cooking show in German; listen to and watch the European Cup; look for magnets; proofread article; tried to find non-skinny-leg, non-bellbottom jeans; answered phone calls from people who had the wrong number; learn how to use the appliances in this apartment (our washing machine can't be operated without an instruction manual. See photo below.); think of blog entries



*do you get it?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm glad you got a bike and hope you enjoy riding it. Your washing machine does look interesting. Are you finding free music? We were so lucky in Italy last fall, finding wonderful live music in the medieval cities to watch/listen to while we ate gelato--which, by the way, has much less fat and fewer calories than ice cream! Mike and Sarah arrived middle of the night (2 a.m.) Thursday/Friday with a huge truck that occupies the entire driveway. This morning he and Daddy and I went to a rehearsal of the National Symphony Orchestra at Wolf Trap--for tonight's show of live music to Alfred Hitchcock movies, which they show on a huge screen.

Kristen said...

Other than the concert Ben posted on, we saw the last concert in the International Festival of European Youth Orchestras.