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| I ran 26 miles through Rome on Sunday with about 15,000 other people. Its the 5th biggest marathon in the world. A few observations: (1) 26 miles is a long way to run. (2) People stop to go to the bathroom all along the course. Its not uncommon to see people taking a pee throughout Rome on any given day, but yesterday topped them all. I was really amused by it. (3) The lead runners run really, really fast. They passed us going the oppositte direction a few miles into the race. (4) I have a sweet farmer's tan (sun burn, really) (5) Energy drinks were very, very helpful at miles 13 and 20 (6) A lot of people walked, that made me feel better since I walked a lot at the end (7) Running on cobblestones is a little dangerous. I tripped and nearly fell about 2 miles from the finish. That would have been miserable to not have finished. (8) I don't think that I could run a marathon in a city that I don't know well. It helped me to know the course and know what was coming up next - it was motivating. (9) I forgot to charge my mp3 player before the race, and so the battery was drained. So, I took an extra one in our house that was loaded with Veggie Tales. I couldn't handle the VT, though, so I just listened to the radio on the FM tuner. (10) McDonalds was a corporate sponsor, so I was really hoping for free Big Mac's at the end, but alas, there were not any there. | | |
| A few observations on the world... The gas bill for our apartment came yesterday covering four months. I was thinking that it would be the equivalent of $400. No, no it wasn't $400. It was $100. That made my day. Our apartment is for sale for $1,100,000. Its not that big or nice. The landlord asked us if we want to buy it. I was thinking that maybe we could buy the guest bathroom from him. That's about all we could afford. Everett wants everything big. He wants big cereal, big juice, big movie, etc... He can't say the word 'people.' Instead, he says 'poopie.' Yesterday, he stood on our balcony and yelled for the girls in the building next door: "Poopie...Poopie...Poopie." I'm trying to learn to eat vegetbables and fish. Yesterday for dinner I had artichokes and fried cod for my appetizer. Both are Roman specialities. We had dinner in the Jewish Ghetto, a rather uber-chic part of Rome. The beautiful team (Roma) is playing in the quarterfinals of the European Champions League. The draw is today. I'm hoping for Manchester United or Chelsea. Those would be great teams to see at the stadium. I'm going to try to run the Rome Marathon next Sunday (18th). I missed a lot of training when I went home to Ohio in February because of the stinking snow. I figure that since I've already paid the registration fee, that I might as well go for it. Two days ago, I ran 13 miles just to make sure that I wasn't crazy for trying to do this. And finally, the weather forecast for the next 10 days is mostly sunny and 65. | | |
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Just a quick observation from Rome here on Christmas Eve: Rome ruled the world at the time that Jesus was born. In Luke 2 it says that a decree went out from Caesar Augusus, he was the emperor at the time. Augustus was the most powerful man in all of the world. During his reign in a tiny little village in an unimportant part of the world, Jesus was born. While Jesus was born in a manager, Augustus was living in a palace that overlooked the city. What of these two men now? Who had a more significant influence on the world? If you want to find where Jesus' body is burried, you can't do it. If you want to find where Augustus is burried, its just east of the Tevere River, north of the Pantheon. You really can't even till what it is, unless you read the sign. Its an ancient looking structure that is mostly overgrown with weeds. | | |
| Tuesday morning I went out to jog for 90 minutes. I came home and stepped out of the elevator (I was too tired to take the steps) and saw ear rings on the ground. I thought that they were my neighbors. I opened the door and walked into the apartment and saw that the drawer of the dresser at the end of the hall was open and that my comptuter bag was completely unzipped on top of it. I thought that it was strange that the cat did that. So, I turned the corner into the other hallway and noticed a bag on the ground. I couldn't figure out how the cat did that. Then, I turned the corner into our bedroom and saw every door open, every drawer open, and stuff thrown all over the bed and floor. So, the theives stole my wallet with all of my credit cards, Ohio drivers' license (just about impossible to replace without going back to Ohio), Italian ID card, etc... They also stole my keys. The stinkiest part though is that they stole some of Laura's jewelry including her pearl necklace that her brother gave her on our wedding day and her mom's engagement ring. We won't really know what else they stole until Laura gets here. What is interesting is that they didn't steal my laptop, mp3 player, dvd player, passport, or any other electronic device. So, our best guess is that it was gypsies. Luckily, they didn't find the envelope with 700 euro ($900) on the bottom of my nightstand. So, I had to change the door locks, file a police report, cancel the credit cards, etc.. Lots of fun! At first I was really stinking angry about it. I still feel frustrated, but the anger has subsided. One of my Italian friends came over yesterday and helped me with all kinds of different things I needed to do to clean up the mess. Its too bad that my cat isn't an attack beast who could have chased them away. Instead she probably looked at them and meowed and went along her merry way. | | |
| Today (Saturday) I turned on my television at 2 PM to see if there was anything worth watching on tv. There was not. I have 18 channels. Here is the breakdown of what was on those channels: 3 channels had American movies dubbed into Italian 1 channel had Porky Pig dubbed into Italian (which reminds me that Tom and Jerry is on RAI 2 (a nationa channel) almost every weeknight at 8PM dubbed into Italian) 3 channels were carrying the news (Local News, National News, and Catholic News) 1 channel had music videos (It wasn't MTV - even here MTV doesn't plaly videos!) 1 channel had a Japanese cartoon (MTV) 1 channel had live musical performances 1 channel had a telethon 1 channel had a document on artic animals 1 channel had a soccer preview (this is what I actually watched) 1 channel is in French 2 channels were TV sales people 2 more channels were dubbed American TV sales people including... Tony Little's Gazelle 
I kid you not, both Tony and his lady-friend were dubbed into Italian: Their talking, laughing, gasping for breath after a workout. Everything. There you have it! 18 channels and really nothing worth watching at all. Italian TV is so bad that all of the professional soccer matches in the Italian league are pay-per-view. But if you want to buy the pay-per-view there are 3 channels that show people watching the game and talking about the game. On one of them they even have players recreate (to the best of their abilities) the goals. One last completely unrelated note... I mentioned in the previous post that Telecom Italia turned my internet on the day before I left for the USA. Now that I'm back in Italy, I've discovered that they turned it back off. They turned my phone off as well. I called on Wednesday, and they assured me that it would be on by Friday. I called today (Saturday), and they assured me that it would be on by Monday. When will it actually be turned on? I'm gong to predcit...February 7th. | | |
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