Woke up this morning very early due to cowling cats and dogs, crying babies, machinery, and people talking, and screaming outside. Just one of the many luxuries that await you when you have to leave your windows open all night in a big city for fear of dying from heat prostration. Is this a word? I wonder. But I still fear that I may die from it here. there is no end to the sheer horror that is sleeping in a house with no central air flow of any kind. It is hot and stuffy. You lay there all night staring at the ceiling in a pool of muggy sweat, your only hope is that you pass out from sheer exhaustion. Can you imagine that we lived for thousands of years without air conditioning? I cannot and refuse to think about it. at the new school I am at they are offended by my demands to have ac. They say they don't need it here in Italy. I remind them that it is 40 degrees Celsius inside and outside. They say they are used to it. she tells me that it is too expensive. Never heard of a wall unit? Home depot? Things like that do not exist in Italy. Seriously. I went to a hardware store once here to buy some spray paint to paint my new bike which had just been stolen from me the day before and then painted and resold to me the following day—another story---and this store was about the size of your average McDonalds. And of course they didn't accept credit cards. Seriously. An entire hardware store. You could buy a thousand dollars worth of stuff and they only took cash. And none of the houses or apartments have electric outlets. Maybe they have two. Or three at the most in the whole place. so say you want to plug in your cell phone, laptop, and Palm to charge for the night. You’re fucked. And don't forget your batteries for your camcorder or digital camera. You will have to unplug your clock, your regular phone, your TV, your hot water heater.... Little things like this that we take for granted in the states, and really a lot of other places too. just here I don't know man. I don't get them. 

Italy is very funny in this dichotomy they have set up. on the one hand they are really advanced in style and fashion and just the way things look and taste. Things like their food which is so delicious. Or the glass from murano or the leather from Florence or anything from Milan. But in other ways they are like a hundred years behind America. In so many ways just totally behind. It is not a want it now get it now society. Cell phones here don't even have voicemail. Just on and on. Pay phones that don't accept change. I know that may seem advanced to have a phone that only accepts a card but it is just plain stupid. What if you don't have a card? You’re fucked. You do nothing. There is no way for you to make a call. Things like this are just common place here. at a restaurant tonight the waiter just came to the table and said 39. he didn't even bother to give us a check.  

[The Italians don't form lines. I seriously read this in my travel book. And thought it was a generalization. But no matter what city you are in, they will not form a line anywhere. As in the states for the movies or for the train or for the restaurant. It is just a very egotistical type of a thing where everyone just kind of huddles and pushes each other and hopes to get to the front first. I have never seen anything like this before from grown adults. No freaking lines. They just all stand there huddled together pushing each other. Now if you aren't used to it and you are used to letting people go and being polite and all of that, you will be the last person to get served even if you are in the front. They have this way of kind of pushing their way past each other but pretending they are not doing it. it is uncannily rude. I have to say that the longer I stay here the more I long for English or American manners and etiquette.] 

O.k. so this morning I wake up perspiring something disgusting in this strange lady’s bed. I get up to take a shower and the bathroom is so dirty that I swear to fucking God I almost threw up. I had to stop myself from just yakking right there in the bathroom. The carpets are so gross and the bathtub so disgusting that I just felt like screaming. I go to turn on the shower and only cold water. So I do one of these cold showers briefly. Why I am staying here I don't know. it is beneath me. but it is a great price. I will move after the weekend. 

I could not understand a fucking thing my teacher said today. the other students as well. I don't know what accent she has. And she speaks no English so I'm fucked in this class. I took the entrance test though and did tremendously I was told by the administrator there. So that was cool. I am actually learning to speak the language. More people on the street now ask me if I am here to teach English rather than as a student of Italian which means I am sounding pretty good out there.  

Have I mentioned that I found hell? I seriously never really believed it existed. I know, maybe you knew it all along, but secretly I just thought it was a legend. Well little did I know that it disguises itself by the name of Rome. Right here in Italy. Hot, loud, dirty, noisy, traffic, just a big mess of a city with none of the charm of new York or Paris but all the big buildings and traffic and graffiti walls and crippled people on every corner begging for change. I received several emails today from friends who said they thought the same thing about Rome but thought it was just them so they kept quiet about it. well not me. this place is just really lacking in beauty. I saw the coliseum today. just really bumped right into it. 

but our stadiums are much nicer. O.k. whatever so this one is two thousand years old. Well fuck then why not knock it down and build something a bit nicer huh? For God sakes. It really is falling apart. Hasn’t anyone noticed that yet?

I rented a scooter today. I think I'm ready for the scooter action now in Italy after having a bicycle for so long in Florence. Only problem is that now the battery is dead and it won't start. So I left it at the school . chances are it will be stolen tonight and I will have to pay like thousands of dollars for some lost fuckin scooter that I got to drive all of ten minutes. There is no such thing as emergency roadside assistance here. you just wait till morning. So we’ll see what happens. but it was fun driving it around the city. 

Saw a movie tonight at the outdoor cinema. What an idea. An outdoor cinema in the hottest summer in over one hundred years. but it was nice. Il Coure Altrove. A nice Italian film. More later. Now I must go try to sleep in the strange ladies bed. She has pictures of herself up all over the house. It is very weird when peeps do this. just her by herself. It seems pretty egomaniacal. I mean, we know what we look like already. But in her room there are like ten pictures of her up on the walls. I stare at them and I imagine her lying in bed and staring at them and I theorize that this has got be some sort of way to confirm one’s own existence or something. There aren't any mirrors in her room and I wonder if she may get the same effect with one big mirror instead....

It is so weird staying in someone's house and you don't even know them. I decided to stay here until Monday at least because this weekend I want to travel and this is so cheap to leave all my stuff here. I just heard six gunshots. And now six more. Fucking Rome man. Where the hell are we?