Adjustments, Adjustments

Hello hello!

The jet lag has finally filed for divorce. Stayed up late talking to the wife on Skype every night, but my class schedule enabled me to sleep in a bit so I'm good. Things are starting to kind seem like normal, can't believe it's been over a week already. Still no homesickness. I think the more I stay here, the more I realize how truly jacked up America is. There's no tipping waiters in Europe, unless you want to or really enjoyed the restaurant, because tips are included in the wages here. They have minimum wage, but it actually benefits them. Stupid Americans.....

Anyway, guess I'll start with school. Started on Monday. I'm in Italian 101, European Societies (sociology), and Crusades of the Holy Land. I was also enrolled in Origins and Birth, but the lady talked entire too much about absolutely nothing lol, and there was like a midterm, a final, and a 1000 word paper due every week. She must not know me lol, so to spare her feelings and my own sanity as the only dude in the class, I dropped it and picked up Western European history. I wanted this class called Italy and the Invention of America but I didn't guess I signed up too late, or maybe "The Man" wasn't ready for a black man to know the truth about the formation of America and how we got there. Who knows.

Holy Crusades and Western European history are taught by the same professor. This old man is like 429 years old and talks with an accent at .0007 miles per hour if you can imagine that. No finals or homework, just a midterm and a paper so he can count me in that mug! He's nice and pretty funny. I'm even more interested in Holy Crusades because it's a combination of history and philosophy it seems, and he's kind of challenged religion. I'm always down for defending Jesus! Long as I can stay awake.....

European Societies is cool too. He talks a little bit faster so I can at least stay awake and be interested. We spend most of the time discussing issues that affect Europe economically, judicially, socially, and politically. Only have it twice a week so that's fine with me.

Italian 1 is by far my favorite. Not just because of my interest in the language, but because of how easy it is to learn. Knowing Spanish I thought would help me, but it actually hurts me because I get numbers and phrases mixed up a lot. But we move at a decent pace and I'm able to understand my professor who's really nice.

Marcus, Faith's uncle and my employer the past couple summers because Compuware (ahem) kept dissing me (louder ahem), thought I did such a good job that we worked out a way for me to work for him while I'm over here lol. He does like a billion things within a thousand businesses by himself, and he has me as an appraiser doing Broker Price Opinion (BPO) reports online. Hustling from overseas yo!!! I'm glad we worked that out. U of M's Office of Financial Aid continues to screw me over every semester. It's like they never get tired and are actually angry that I'm going there for free. Not my fault. So after finding out they had the gall to charge me tuition though I'm other side of the frickin world and had to pay for this program, they delayed my refund check until Monday the 13th, which means I've been living off the cash I brought with me. (sigh) I just gotta keep reminding myself I'm in this situation so my kids won't have to be.......

Haven't had gelato every day, but I'm still addicted to it. I haven't liked everything I've tried, like some of the cheeses and eggplant, but I'll say 90% of the food I've had so far is delicious. And surprisingly healthy. We have soup every day with lunch, and today we had potatoes, spinach, and salmon. The salmon was absolutely frickin delicious lol, literally the best I've had. I've been running and doing push-ups and stuff because I don't wanna come home a little piggy. Oh and everyone here drinks wine and alcohol! I've tried so hard to get into wine but it's nasty! So bitter! I heard the older the bottle the better it is, and Asti is sweeter than bitter Brut wine. Water for me please!

A lot of travel opportunities ahead too. Going to Siene tomorrow, Venice the 1st week in October and Rome sometime next month. Oktoberfest (European beer fest) is going on in a couple weeks in Munich, Germany and I got talked into going. It's cheap, and I don't drink so I want pics galore as the only sober man there lol! Might be hitting up Switzerland next month too, depending on how money looks. Time is flying though! I'll be home in no time!

Until next time, ciao!