Greetings, mine ever-growing list. Not much exciting has happened of late, the semester is winding down and I’m… not at all stressed though I should be. I’m two papers, two days of class, and a set of finals away from being done here. I plan to depart Thursday May 11 (That is a Thursday, right?) from Due Santi. Dad sent me a one month Eurail pass which I received in the mail yesterday, and I hope to activate it and head off to Scandinavia with Anne Johnson. (“Who are these women?” I keep getting asked. I don’t travel with RANDOM women, but almost. I don’t know Anne very well, though we were in a freshman literature class together our first semester. She hung out with Dustin, my roommate freshman year, quite a bit. She’s a good little Catholic girl, maybe even better than average, which probably means we’ll have to find mass on Sundays. I can’t remember where she’s from though I’m sure she’s told me. It so happened that she was staying in Europe this summer, going somewhere I wanted to go, and seems to be the sort of person I can travel with and maybe even the sort of person that is patient enough to deal with me and my whims. She’s also willing to camp, and seems to be interested in the same sort of travel I am. It has come to my attention that I probably should have included a “Who is Robin?” section with my ten-day travels since I’ve gotten so many questions. I didn’t know Robin very well either before I traveled with her, but she too seemed like someone I could travel with. Heck, if she’d agree to go to Tunisia with me… She’s from Indiana, a non-Catholic though Christian of some sort (Non-catholics are rare at this school) and quite intelligent. I probably wouldn’t travel with her again, even though we had a decent trip. She and I have somewhat clashing personalities, and I wouldn’t really want to spend that much time with her again, though I’m sure we’ll remain friends. I was quite impressed that she put up with me as well as she did, though she seemed pretty glad to part my company at the end. Traveling with someone is tough for both parties involved, and I knew it would be from the start. Traveling with Robin was much more enjoyable than traveling by myself would have been, and I don’t regret it at all. Robin was even more sore than I was about not getting to go to Tunisia, and I’m not sure if she regrets sticking with me anyway. Anyway, as a final note, I’m not at all “romantically involved” with either Robin or Anne, for those of you nosy folks.) Anne has a flight to Israel from Roma on the 22nd of May, and so we shall part company sometime before then. I imagine that I will then proceed south through Europe on my own, unless I happen to find someone else I’d like to travel with. Anne will return from Israel before too long, and be plowing about Europe as well. Assuming Scandanavia goes well, I’ll probably meet her in Switzerland where she has friends that have offered us a place to stay for a bit. If I do that, I’ll probably spend a few days there, making day trips and coming back to a free place to sleep. She’s also got friends in other places near Switzerland, and I may stick with her for some time. At some point her mother is coming, and I’ll probably leave her then, if not before. My Eurail pass should expire the 11th of June, at which point I hope to be in England and meet friends of my parents who have offered me a place to stay… Jim Gresser in London, and a friend of Lloyd Parsons’ in Summerset. My return plane ticket should be the 4th of July from London to Atlanta. But the fun doesn’t end there… I hope to drive the Miata to Boston and meet Jon Bird on July 12th or so. Bird’s flying back to the states for a month or so, and wants to go to the Grand Canyon, which sounded swell to me. So I should pick him up in Boston, and head down to New Orleans with him where he grew up and has friends. After a weekend there, we plan to head through southern Texas and then up to the Grand Canyon. Back to Dallas by the 23rd or so. He’ll probably fly back to Boston and I hope to find an apartment. I don’t know if I’ll try to find a place and move in right away though. If I’m not dead from exhaustion, I plan to go to Florida and visit my mother for awhile. I would love to stop and visit those of you on this list in Mobile sometime toward the end of July or beginning of August. I plan to make it to Knoxville at some point this summer as well, probably in conjunction with spending more time with Dad in Atlanta. If I’ve got any time, money or energy left after I find an apartment and move in, I may try to make it to Colorado and visit Neal Brugman, a UD friend that lives there and go camping for a weekend or something. I still haven’t gone to Seattle and I’m just itching to get over there as well… One of these days I really am going to drive down the left coast, at least part of it, but going to LA doesn’t really appeal to me. So, I almost sort of have a plan for this summer. Exciting, eh?

At the moment, I’m in my little net cafe with a bottle of water from a Bernini fountain (much better than that sulfurous crap we drink on campus, though I doubt Bernini has much to do with it) because another Walking Tour with Professor Gish dragged me into Rome. Not that I mind being in Rome at all, but it takes an hour to get here, and an hour to get back, and I really should be writing one of those papers…. Er, both of them. The walking tour wasn’t much of a tour, as we hovered about the French (Spanish) Steps and Piazza de Spagna all afternoon. The lecture was good despite its wretched location.

Piazza de Spagna isn’t really wretched, but I try to avoid it. It’s always PACKED with tourists, people trying to sell you things, string guys, and other random gypsies. Amazingly, I actually got through the afternoon without feeling compelled to threaten someone’s life, something that can happen after enough guys with string ask for my finger and other guys try to sell me flowers, often while trying unsuccessfully to pickpocket me.

I doubt I’ll be back to the Spanish…er French Steps any time this trip, but I keep thinking that and I’ve been there many a time since. Nonetheless, I have a better appreciation for their importance after hearing the lecture.

It was really pretty night last night, so I dragged a blanket off my bed along with my pillow and slept in the soccer field. Save the dog barking at 3am, (Well, there were dogs barking all night since all the Italians within miles of us have both a dog and a vineyard…) I enjoyed such a pleasant night I think I’ll sleep out there again tonight. My classmates seemed amused as I dragged myself from the field to class this morning.

There’s a talent show tonight, in Neal and I are supposed to take part in vicious impersonations of our beloved faculty, so I should probably be heading back to campus.

It’s almost summer here in Rome. The women have shed their poofy coats, and the men smell worse than ever. The tourists are here in full force–I avoided Rome during Easter as there were so many people that there were LINES to get on the PLATFORM of the metro at times.

It’s a bit sad to see the semester coming to a close, I’m going to miss this place.