Blog 5!

church, horse races and tango

ZUMBBAAAAAAAAA

finding a jerb as a blogger

This is just something that I wrote for the office of study abroad at UQ. If I get chosen to be one of the students who get the maintain one of the blogs for UQ about travel and stuff I will be able to go around Australia for free. So here is the email that i sent to the coordinator:

Subject: Writing Sample for Student Blogging

Dear David,

I am contacted Julie about student blogging and she told me to send you a short writing sample in order to be considered. Here it is:

Today marks the 15th day of my arrival to Brisbane, Australia. I didnt really know what to expect when I got here because I have never been to Australia before. I studied abroad last semester in Florence, Italy and had the time of my life so I knew that this semester would not be any different. In addition to my own aboard experience, I have two friends who studied at UQ before and they were absolutely ecstatic when I told them I was following in their footsteps. Each of them gave me their two cents on the things I should do here but Lisa typed out a travelers guide for me titled, “LonLon’s Must Do’s In Brizzy”.

When I first looked at my Must Do’s, I decided that going to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary was top priority. I was told that you could feed kangaroos hold and take a picture with a koala. I was sold when the words: feed, kangaroo, hold, picture and koala were used the same sentence. When I actually got to the Sanctuary (which takes about 45 minutes on a public transport from UQ), i discovered that there were far more animals and activities than I expected. Lorikeet feeding, sheep shearing, sheep dog rally and a bird of prey presentation are a few of other entertainment options that are included in the $22 student ticket. I would highly recommend the sheep dog rally because the ability of the dogs to be able to move the herd of sheep is phenomenal. You will be amazed at how well the Shepard and the dogs interact.

Strolling around the park, I was able to see most of the animals native to Australia, namely Dingos, Wombats, Tasmanian Devils, Emus and so many more. Reptiles can also be found at the tails and scales section of the park. Unfortunately I was unable to see the platypus because it was hiding behind some plants. The birds were all brilliant in their display of colors and two birds had outstanding personalities. There was a black bird that could make a mohawk with the feathers on top of its head that kept following me when I paced back and forth. Also, it would sometimes engage in a head rocking motion while forming his mohawk (head rocking motion means he was resembling those people who move their heads up and down rapidly at a metal concert). I can only imagine what he was thinking when he did that. The other bird as a cockatoo that supposedly responds when one of the six phrases on his cage were said. My friends and I tried all the phrases multiple times for 10 minutes and received only blank stares. When we realized that we becoming disruptive to the other visitors, we decided to let the cockatoo be. Once we started walking away, he began chirp what i made out as “hahahaha”. Smart bird.

Anyway, I hope you find your way to Lone Pine because it will be a memorable experience. I know it was for me.

Lonnie

Blog #2

I have some more interesting stuff that I will write about later this weekend.

cheers,
Lonnie

Welcome to Brisbane, Australia

Roaming in Rome

Hello!

I am currently in Rome and everything is goo at the moment. Geting here was hard though. Getting all my luggage from my homestay to the train station, which is 10 minutes away) was a TREK. My two suitcases are definitely overweight.

By then time I got to Rome, Tracy was there waiting for me. Tracy said that we should just take a taxi because it is easier (me being cheap was hesitant but just went with it) Tracy stays at Campo Dei Fiori. This campo is a small square that monday through saturday has a farmers market. All the fruit and meats and everything are cheap and delicious. The tomatoes in Italy never fail to meet expectations.

My living accommodations at Campo dei Fiori consists of a couch! A somewhat uncomfortable couch but I have been so tried since last week that it doesnt really matter. I have been getting a good amount of sleep and with all these girls walking around and cooking every morning, i get woken up. But it is ok, because there is not a lot of sun that gets into the living room and i dont know when i should wake it. I guess i really like sunshine when i wake up because it makes you feel good.

Now lets bring it back to what happened in my actual study abroad program and my vacation now in Rome. The days after the weekend of April 16th were sad but fun times. Everyone started realizing that the end was near. No longer will i be having Pandal corn flakes and  fette biscotti for breakfast with strawberry jam. Fruit and coffee after dinner is no longer a normal thing. Not having pasta with tomato sauce every night will definitely be a change of atmosphere. My host mom, Gabriella, will no longer have to listen to an asian kid trying to speak italian to her.  It doesnt seem to  be all downhill though, considering I have been deprived of chinese food. There is nothing that I want more than a bowl of rice. just a bowl.

even got them vitamins

hi gabriella!

In the last week of the program, there was an awards ceremony. I got the 1st prize for this Lecturer for a Day. Kit got an award for being an awesome intern at her internship. Josh won this writing contest. Sarah and Cristina won the 1st prize for their video! I wish i had a link to it so you can watch the video

congrats Kit!

we are the champions

After the ceremony, there was a dinner for the students where everyone sat around and had a chance to take pictures with each other. It is fun and the gardner was also a DJ! his name was DJ Geloso.

Of course everyone jammed out but the party began at Savonarola. It was really poppin’ at Savonarola but we wanted to make sure hit up the bars.

1st stop: Rex Cafe. Everyone went in, Coral, Emily and I didnt go into Rex because i still had a almost full tall beer and Emily and Coral had a fifth of a fifth of vodka. We suspiciously make a left on a street adjacent to Rex and we attempt to just pound our drinks. I dont remember specifically how the conversation came about. but it went something like this “Dude, lets just finish the bottle! Just us three” “No we cant, I’m already really fucked up” “Dude, we got this”. I end up taking a monster shot, Coral fills her cup again and as she goes to pass the bottle to Emily, the bottle falls. wtf.

goodbye vodka

As usual, I want to be a million places at once. Unfortunately, a city is not the same as a Fraternity party, and walking from one bar to another takes at least 10 minutes… upwards to even 30 minutes. Being drunk and not realizing this, I tell people that I will meet them where ever they will go. Bad idea.

After breaking of the bottle, Naina, Dave, Elle, Julia and others join us at Rex. I end up going into Rex, only to find ou that Brooke’s friend got puked on by this random girl. So they leave and go to a bar in Oltrano (la dolce vita – which is far as fuck from Rex). I tell Sarah that I will meet her there later so we can walk home together(stupid idea). I get out of Rex and Elle tells me she is going to Bigalow. Not being able to leave Emily (because she is really wasted) tells anyone that wants to go to another bar to just go. Eventually we make our way to a Kebab place by Vestri. Emily had a falafel and I had a good amount of it. From then on, I had onion breath. Elle tells me that Bigalow is not poppin’ and everyone is making their way to William. William was fun and we were dancing to live music!

i think the blue thing is a floaty

So did i forget about Sarah? – yes. But she called me to make sure i didnt forget to meet up with her. So i told her i would go meet her at Ponte Vecchio. I passed out there for a bit and then in a large group we went to San Gallo secret bakery. Ricotta cheese ftw! On our way to the secret bakery, we pass the street painters. so we HAD to take pictures.

and as for my italian class. I will miss my italian professor a lot. Her name is Donatella. She took the class out for drink and then she saw that i got tipsy off of mine and so she brought me home.

dave was an honored guest

ITAL 202 at 1pm!

on the 28th we had a crazy night too and i will try to post that later. see ya!

my video!

here is my video!! watch it in 720 HD otherwise the pictures suck. im doing homework now so i cant post anything. but i got a lot of views on my video and it hasnt even been up for a week! comment on it!! and full screen it!!!

Damn.

Dear Everyone,

I am really sorry to have not posted something in about 20 days. I promise you it was not because I was lazy. I have been busy. A lot has happened since march 27th and I want to share it all with you. but before everything i start, I want to just say that I have been working on this video for about a week. it started off as a small thing that i wanted to do because my sleep cycle was really messed up from the Masterpieces of Art trip to Urbino. Anyway, I am pretty much done with it now so please go and watch it. I worked really hard on it so i hope you all like it.

So lets go backwards. This weekend, I went to this region in the middle of Italy called Abruzzo. It is a region that is known for the unfortunate earthquakes a year ago. We stayed in the Guardia di Finanzia. It was first built for the G8 summit of 2009 and now it is a military training facility as well as housing for the victims of earthquakes.

I was told that we were staying in the buildings that country leaders stayed in. I felt very privileged because I signed up only to do storytellings and now I get to stay at such an amazing place. This lady, I forgot her name, bought the rooms for us (Vittoria (director of the volunteer program as well as italian professor), her assistant, Caterina (Taxi Driver of Milano 25), Joe, Zoe, and Kai (3 students from my program)) out of her own pocket. Her generosity definitely reinforces my philosophy in life.

Trieste Hotel in the Guardia di Finanzia

G8!

everyone had their own room.

The region of Abruzzo is decently far away from Tuscany so we took a car. This WONDERFUL woman named, Zia Caterina (Aunt Cat), drove us in her taxi. She started driving a taxi when her husband died of cancer. His death had a huge impact on her life and so she quit her job at the time and began working as a taxi driver. Her taxi, however, is no regular taxi. She pimped out her ride. In the headrests of the front seats, there are mini-televisions and the leather on the seats are all sorts of different colors. In addition to having a car that Xibit would approve of, Zia Caterina’s mission is to bring joy into everyone’s life. But more specifically she wants to bring joy to the lives of cancer patients. She knows the pain that cancer causes to all those it effects and this is the reason she does what she does. The picture that you see below is not just for special occasions. For her, it is everyday attire. Her story is truly life-changing and i would highly recommend you guys go to her website and at least reading her bio. She is the cutest woman ever. wwww.milano25.com

oh yea. shes famous throughout Italy.

As i mentioned before, the reason that we were to Abruzzo was to do storytellings to kids. We wanted to go to L’Aquila and the surrounding towns because we wanted to show the victims that they are not forgotten about. The earthquake happened a year ago and the city is still not functioning. There is a lot of work that needs to be done and they are slowly trying to rebuild. I wanted to show my support to the city’s economy and I bought some world famous chocolate from L’Aquila. When i get back to the states do ask me to try it. I had a sample of it and it tasted like BOMB gelato but in candy form. words dont do it justice.

we did a storytelling with the students of this school at another location because this building was severely damaged by the earthquake.

kids we did storytellings to

This weekend was definitely life-changing. I am now extremely happy that I chose my major of International Relations. I know that I want to help people. My international organizations class was talking the other day about terrorism. I realized that I am not really that excited about terrorism (meaning im not interested). I am definitely more interested about humanitarian issues, economics and business.  Personally, I do not ever really notice the severity of these natural disasters until this trip. I see the pictures on the internet and TV but when I was in the ruins of the city and was being given a tour of how life USED to be, it broke my heart. I was thinking that natural disasters dont care about who anyone is. They will destroy anything that they want.

a monument to remember those that were victims to the earthquakes

In addition to L’Aquila, we went to Paganica. Paganica is in even worse condition that L’Aquila because it was the center of one of the earthquakes and it is a small town. The comune of Abruzzo is trying to get the city back on its feet but is taking a long time. There is not much that the city can do with the recession and the amount of damage that was caused by the earthquakes. Good thing I knew Italian too because it allowed me to talk to the people that were giving us a tour. When we were in Paganica, we were just going to walk around but a guy grew up there his entire life came with us and showed us around. He showed us the main street where everyone used to just hang out and socialize but now it lays in ruins. It is truly a shame that people dont even come back and get their stuff. Maybe its because they dont want to remember the horrible things that happened.

they just left everything.

====================================

Now, enough about sad things. lets backtrack one day and talk about last weekend! my birthday! So for the day, I went to cinque terre and then made it back to back to florence to party. I went to Cinque Terre with Sarah, Tristan, Brianna and Robert. The trains were all really delayed that day and we didnt get into Cinque Terre until 1pm. We wanted to get there by noon but because we were in Italy, we should have expected that would not have happened. Anyway, the delays seemed to be a semi-blessing in disguise because i saw Emily Nadal and Bryant Wu at the station of La Spezia! How random right…

Anyway, we hiked from Riomaggio (the first terra) to Vernazza (the 4th terra). It took us about 3 hours. We hauled ass because Tracy and Amanda were coming into Florence to visit! Cinque Terre is probably one of the most beautiful places i have ever been. I want to take my dad here once because I know that he enjoys hiking. I could not have asked for a better group of people to hike with. Good company always makes for a good time.

the hiking team!

italians are all about their locks

vernazza!

Sarah and I headed back to Florence at 5. We were lucky that the train back to florence was delayed and it was direct (which was also cheaper). When we got back to Florence, I had already told Tracy that we were going to have pizza. As usual, we rolled 9 deep to Spera. (Later, when i told my host family that i went to get pizza for my 21st birthday, they laughed and said that i should have gone to a real restaurant). I got the calzone Bombao. Once again, Pizzeria Spera does not disappoint.

After dinner everyone went to get ready for a good night. We started the night at midnight at the Shot Cafe. I had a Fuck Me Up and a Hiroshima. Did i mention that I had a few glasses of wine at dinner? Tracy brought another bottle of wine and we drank it on the way to Space. Space was not that poppin’ but i had a lot of fun. I had 2 extra drink cards because Robert hooked it up but I ended up too drunk and lost them. Somehow i lost my prepaid debit card as well but when i told my mom she called the company and they said i only had 4 euros on it. I had to pay 30 euros to get out of the club because i got drinks but it was alright – it was my 21st and i had to have some kind of fun. Anyway, there is a video of me being completely ridiculous that i refuse to post online. but if you find me one day and ask me i will show it to you. it is truly the most embarrassing video I have of myself. Of course Amanda and Tracy had to carry me back to Amanda’s hotel room. Oh man. what a night. The day after, I gave a tour of Florence. I think I should start some sort of tour group here – maybe make some spending cash.

space!

Anyway, all in all a good 2 weekends. I will do Trance Energy soon. I have a lot of videos for that so when i get back to the states I will show you all the sensation and trance energy videos. just a heads up. Trance Energy was  similar to sensation but with a younger crowd. Trance Energy was in Utrecht (the city where they signed the famous Treaty of Utrecht).

enter!

ciao!

Anyone can teach you something…

For practically the entire week of my journal entries I have put my mood as tiring and unmotivated. As you know I got about 2 hours of sleep for Saturday night and surprisingly didn’t sleep when I got home. I stayed up until 1 or 2 and went to bed. Of course I have class at 9 on Monday which means I wake up at 7:30. Fml. This was not only for Sunday night, I seemed to have gone on this sleep schedule for the rest of the week. Of course Wednesday march 17th was st. Patricks day and so I was obligated to go out.

I first made it out to kikuya (the usual english bar) but they were giving out free guinness hats so we were got one for free! Not everyone got one so were lucky. I never buy beer because i don’t want to pay but in honor of st. Patrick I had a get a drink. I have to confess that I did not get a Guinness because it was the same price as a Dragoon (which has 9% alc). Drank that and then moved to Moyo. Moyo wasn’t really popping but these two Spanish girls started dancing up on Robert trying to steal his hat from him. I tried to help Robert and they tried to steal mine. I made it very clear that nobody is going to have my hat and so we just talked. One of the girls spoke english very well but the other one didnt want to speak English so I spoke Italian to her. Yay I got to practice again.

ALL FOR FREE

our spanish friends - they really just wanted our hats

Both sarahs and Brooke and David, Tristan, Elle, kit and Coby and basically everyone who was anyone was there. This girl named Julia got puked on by her sister . They ended up taking a taxi home. Finally everyone decided that they wanted to dance so we went to 21. We were met up by Jenn and coral and kari and Katie so we were rolling pretty deep. Made it to 21 and then just danced our faces off. My job as a cockblock was successful as I dettered many italian men from dancing with the girls. Sarah and I decided to leave 21 at 3 because we wanted to hit up the secret bakery. Let it be known that my plans for that night was to have a beer and just chill and go home around 1 at the latest (I have learned that it never works). I got myself a pastry but it was got that good. Having unsatisfactory drunk food is unacceptable!!

coby's the man

Got to sleep around 4 but good thing I have class at 11 on tuesdays and thrusdays so I needed to wake up at 9:30. Yay for five and half hours of sleep!

Thrusday night however I was very good at staying in because I had to go to Pistoia the next day at 9am. Pistoia is about 40 minutes away by train.

There really is not much in Pistoia (I was told that their main industry was train and bus building). I went with Bianca and Joe. Stefania, the lady who ended up being the nicest lady in the world, met us at the train station. She drove us to her school and bought us each a pastry and cappucino. Did I forgot to mention that we were going for storytelling? So Bianca and Joe have never done storytelling before so good thing I did it once! We went through the story once and the teacher wanted us to do conversation with the kids. I wanted to better my Italian so I spoke to them in italian. Stefania had to keep telling me to speak English. Haha. We did this for 2 classes after we went into downtown pistoia. When we were on our way to the center we saw one of the spanish girls that I met on st. Patricks Day. It was the most random thing ever. We were going to have dinner but she wanted to meet at 10pm and I could not stay in pistoia until that late. We met up with one of Stefania’s collegues and she told us more of the history of pistoia

us outside the school. doesnt really look much like a school though

.

Throughout our walk of pistoia, stefania has been giving us a tour the entire time. We stopped for pizza and she bought us all a drinks. Of course lunch was not done without a coffee (and she bought that too) Then she drove us to this other city, montercelini. There we walked around a bit more and then she bought us gelato. She then dropped us off at the train station and gave each of us a thank you/gift bag with snacks. She made sure we got onto the train and then she left.

what happened...

This is yet another example of people being nice to me when they did not need to. I want to go back to read to the kids again because she has made such an awesome impression on me. Her actions have reinforced my belief that it is important to try to make someone’s day a little bit better because that’s what life is all about. Because you see, now I will never forget about pistoia or her.

stefania!