Barcelona

for thanksgiving kevin and i went to barcelona with some friends. emily butler, allison wyman, and kevin's roommate brian gauthier. we flew from pisa, yes the pisa with that leaning tower. we flew into a town about an hour away from barcelona, this was a surprise to me and so instead of taking a train that cost 2 euro to get to our apartment we had to take a bus that cost 12 euro each way :( but hey at least we made it. (my roomates missed their plane to london because they went to the wrong airport in bologna. so they missed seeing the phantom of the operah too). so really i have very little to complain about. we got to the street i thought our apartment was off of, and i had two different directions to find it. a map and an address. well everyone knows i love maps so i followed it well it led us to the correct street but we realized that we had walked about 5 blocks past our apartment(this was at about 12 pm). so we found our apartment and contacted our "agent". he came and led us into a foyer that was fairly dark and all i could see was some mailboxes that had been bashed in. as we walked up the stairs there was no lighting and he told us that they would be fixed by tomorrow. well if you know latin countries we figured that meant maybe they would be done when we returned to barcelona with our children. finally we arrived at the apartment door. all of us were quite nervous to go inside. everyone told me later that they were questioning the fact that they had trusted me to book our apartment.
we walked inside and were met by a beautiful sight. the apartment was fully furnished. great lighting. very clean. and even had some very creative art pieces.
we all went to bed exhausted and happy that we were safe in our nice apartment. next morning we all woke up late and then went in search of food. we had gotten up too early so we wandered the harbour area(did i mention we were only a few blockes from the beach?) there were yachts from all over the world and even a ship that looked like it was from "pirates of the carribean". later that day we wandered around barcelona and discovered that it was full of cute little boutiques.
our greatest discoveries of the weekend were: starbucks on practically every corner(there are none! in all of italy), there was a subway, and i had my first dunkin donut just because it was something from home.
because we had an apartment we were able to make our very own thanksgiving dinner! which was wonderful. there was chicken, stuffing, garlic green beans, mashed potatoes, carrots, and for dessert we had icecream.
coming back from barcelona was uneventful until we arrived at pisa. we went to grab a train from the airport to the main trainstation but there were no trains running until 7 am the next morning. but we saw that there was a train from the main trainstation to florence. so we followed another group of florentine students on a 20 minute walk to the main trainstation(it was about midnight now). we arrived at the train station and ran around trying to get tickets from the automatic machines. eventually found out that the "train" that left at 1 am was actually a bus. so we waited for the bus. it came about twenty minutes late so very italian of the driver even more italian of him was that he left the bus for about 5 minutes before we were able to board. we took that bus for about and hour and arrived downtown florence at 2:30 am. we then had to walk a few miles to villa aurora because no buses run until 6 am. we arrived at 3:30 am and fell into bed exhausted. all in all a wonderful vacation with many memories made.

Pirates!

Apparently it is tradition at Villa Aurora for the girls to throw the boys a party every year and vice versa. so this year the girls theme was 'Pirates'. We ate Kabobs, a version of fondue, and had banana splits for dessert. everyone came dressed in their best pirate garb. after dinner there were games, pillaging, etc. i'm intrigued to see what the guys come up with when it's their turn!

dying.

here is kevin. he has blue hair. he is also writing this in 3rd person, because it hasn't yet struck him that the picture he's writing next to is in fact him.
the search around firenze for means of making "capelli celesti" (blue hair) was quite an experience. we were sent on several wild goose chases by strange... excessively strange italian hairdressers. finally we found a shop with blue hair dye, but alas, it was closed. we dawdled around for a day or 2, and returned to pick it up. for a mere 7 euros, plus some more for the bleach, i now have blue hair. The dying process was quite interesting. Actually scary at times... and by scary i mean mortifying. The blue dye was barely used on my hair in this picture, and my hair was much darker than i'd formerly imagined. i had to keep telling myself that it'd wash out. well after 3 washes, some conditioner, and some painful scrubbing, i managed to leave only a slight blue stain on villa aurora's white towel. the part before the mortifying blue dye step was nearly as stressful. seeing my hair go from it's natural blondish color to an unnatural yellow was a bit rough, as we'd planned on adding a tint of celestial blue to a simple white. alas, the blue was laid upon a bed of straw, and the straw hath been covered, as was the custom in the day. allora...
the hope that the yellow would be easily covered was confirmed by the deep blue stages, but it really seemed like it was out of the frying pan and into the fire at that point. thankfully i'm ok with fried kevin. the stage before the bed of straw was quite relaxing. i even got in some meditation time on dag's toilet. it wasn't the most enjoyable place for meditation, but i did get to work on my dag imitation, while mindy ran to get the camera that we'd forgotten. so really, thanks to mindy, i have light blue hair. i've already been called superhero by a couple of people, hopefully i won't be forced to take the role seriously. that statement may hold true more for the distressees than for il capitano dei blu capelli.
we definitely had a fun time making my hair another color. hopefully this will open new doors for me, as... ok ok. so it'll be harder to get a decent job. but hey. i work on the internet, so who needs to see me?
also, for a slightly less illustrated story (at this point in time)... i got a coat for this winter, which mindy and i are beginning to embroider and edit to the desired perfection. there are pictures on the way, but really, who wants to see something in all the steps? why wouldn't you just want to see the end product? whatever kind of weasel would make you see every step of a project really needs to find something better to do with his/her life... like... painting yellow lines down the middle of peoples' one-lane driveways (watch out ma and pa!)
well, until next time... "next time, gadget... next time!

leonardo doesn't have a last name

da vinci means from vinci which is the town that leonardo "DA VINCI" came from so yea. you can follow that logic i'm sure.
so here are a few pics of kev and i playing in vinci.

pox?

so i got something. something like chicken pox is what the lady at the clinic told dag, who then translated to me. the lady probably thinks i'm a miracle, as last week i visited her and after one look in my throat, and some facial expressions i didn't know were possible, she declared that i had the plague. she then said something to the extent of "there's something growing in the back of your throat", which was kindly translated as "there are trees in your throat." she probably thinks i'm just back from the grave this week. anyway, i didn't get pictures of the strep throat, consider yourselves lucky. i did, however get pictures of my "chicken pox", which i'm pretty sure is actually just a reaction to the antibiotics i was on last week for strep. here's my hand. :) so i've been itching away for the last few days in my room, but fortunately i've been able to be working on a website while in my room. http://gaernin.net/~kevin/at is a site for Dr. Alden Thompson at walla walla college. (which, i hear, will soon be walla walla university... WWU!) dag, the guys' dean, has been nice enough to let mindy come up and visit me. since she's already had the chicken pox, she was allowed at first, and now we figure since it's a reaction it's not contagious. luckily she's still allowed to come up and bring me meals and such. i'm not going to lie, it's pretty kush for being sick. last night my roommates even found a killer of a deal (FREE!) on a couch for our room. granted, the orange doesn't match our killer of a deal rug, but hey. for a killer of a deal, who can complain? anyway, hope all's going well for everyone who might chance upon this blog. feel free to email either of us for a mailing address, or a phone number, or just to say hello! blindgorgon@gmail.com - kevin, and minemosyne@gmail.com - mindy.

pirates: ye be warned

This is Buddy: the two dimensional mosquito.
Pirates: ye be warned!

Olive Days

Apparently picking olives will make you go crazy.



























This is Brian,
Kevins roomate. He likes olives!

















This is me happily picking olives. This was the first day which was warm and was before we were sick and tired of olives. (actually i could go for a black olive right now but that is beside the point).








These are jars of newly pressed olive oil. it's really yellow and is like a taste explosion when you eat it. it is incredibly different from that stuff we have in the states.