If I were to think of a single word to describe me, “scholar” wouldn’t be it. Throughout my school years, studying mathematics or writing a long thesis would require a level of focus that, at the time, I never believed I possessed. Lectures would waff in through one ear and rocket out of the other like oxygen being sucked out through a hole in the space station. My classroom notes contained more drawings than words and I had so many zeros in the grade books that it was presumed that I was partially comatose.

Somehow, I managed to graduate.

I wasn’t completely brain dead, though. By the age of 15 I had discovered that subjects such as architecture, astronomy, computers, and business lit a fire inside of me. I started a web design business at 15, a software company at 18, and now do web development full time, which allowed me to move over here. I finished a book on LLC/Corporate law in a day and it was one of the best reads I’d had in a while. Who knew lawyers could be funny? I just had to find what interested me and go after it.

But nothing has prepared me for the level of hell I’ve stumbled into now. What could be another canto in the Divine Comedy if it hadn’t given Dante such nightmares that it couldn’t be scribbled to paper is now my vacation spot within the inferno. You guessed it, I’m studying for my Italian driver’s license.

DUM DUM DUUUUUUUUUM

Not since sitting in Ol’ Lauderdale’s Algebra II class on exam day have I felt like such a moron. A foolish assumption that after having driven for a decade that learning the road laws over here would be a piece of cake, but I have been proven wrong. Compared to the US equivalent, the driving test here reads more like an entrance exam for MIT.

Allow me to elaborate with some examples of the more choice questions:

1) What might a sign mean? Not what does it mean, there is a huge difference.
2) What sign might be accompanied with another sign?
3) Does one sign appear before or after another sign? For instance, does a yield sign appear before or after a railroad crossing sign at a track crossing?

And then there are the infamous intersection questions:

Who goes first?

What’s on second?

I don’t know’s on third.

Pray for me.

Note: This was a post from September of 2006 that I just found in a random text file. I can’t remember if I ever published it, but if not, here it is.

Driving through Tuscany gave me an almost deja-vu feeling as the rolling hills and tall cyprus trees have become so familiar from the countless movies and books about Italy that I’d felt I’d been there many times before. It’s a 2½ hour drive from Casina to San Gimignano and our Bed & Breakfast was just outside of town, down a dirt road lined with other Bed & Breakfasts. Simo had only hear the name of the town a few times and it was completely new to me, so we were both a little surprised to find it as touristy as Firenze or Siena. In fact, one of the few touristy cities I’d been to that had more Americans than Brits or other Europeans. Maybe Americans only start showing up in September.

Before checking into our B&B, we took a little time to see San Gimignano and passed through the large gate of the city’s surrounding protective wall — original wooden doors still in place. The town has a long history with its inception dating around the 3rd century BCE and laster became a major trading post on an ancient highway stretching from Canterbury to Rome. The wealthy, like in many towns in Italy, built towers to display their wealth and position and would always try to out-do the others.

Most towers have disappeared with time, but many of San Gimignano’s have remained and is one of the main lures of the town. The town, once more prosperous and bustling than Florence, died out in the 14th century when the Plague swept through Italy and, aside from the numerous Bed & Breakfasts and tourist shops, it seems hardly changed.

We spent Saturday driving through wine country and stopping at the small villages in between. From Colle Val d’Elsa to Monteriggioni,
Buonconvento, San Quirico d’Orcia and Pienza, we spent an hour or two in each wandering through the streets and visiting the historic sites. Colle Val d’Elsa was my favorite town as we seemed to be the only two tourists there, but was just as beautiful as San Gimignano in my opinion.

Simona’s favorite was Monteriggioni, a small village completely sealed in by an imposing 30’ wall around the town. We do agree that the courtyard that you walk into as soon as you pass the gates in Monteriggioni has a certain indescribable allure that isn’t found often, even in the numerous beautiful villages in Italy.

We stopped in an alimentari along the way and bought bread with various types of salame and cheese from the area with the idea of finding a nice place to have a picnic.

We began towards our next planned stop, but eventually tossed the map down and turned down whichever road seemed the most interesting. We passed vineyard after vineyard, as this region is famous for the many types of wine that it produces, in search of a good place to sit and eat. Time passed and the smell of the salame was tempting my hunger pangs and told me to just stop by the side of the road and we’ll eat in the car, but we pressed on. Eventually, we ended up in the small town of Pontignano where a picnic table was sitting under the shade next to a high rock wall and an old church in the distance. Our picnic consisted only of salame sandwiches and Fanta, but to me was the most enjoyable meal of the weekend. I’d later have some stuffed rabbit that I might rank up in my top 10 list of greatest meals ever, but the whole experience of picnic with Simo made it all the more memorable.

After eating, we headed down a path marked as an archaeological site, and had a series of stones stacked upon one another, but nothing to describe what they were. After turning back, we went to see what was on the otherside of the wall next to where we ate and discovered that our quiet little village was actually one of the satellite campuses of the University of Siena. The school looked like it had taken the place of an old monastery with two square courtyards sandwiched together burying everything but the steeple of an old church in the middle. We did our best to look like students wandering around the hallways, but they had more cameras than a bank and we just wanted to check out what was inside.
 

On Sunday, we checked out of our room and drove into Siena where we’d spend the remainder of the day. The weather was sunny and hot and the city was overflowing with tourists bustling through the streets. We visited the Duomo and its “crypt”, which they tell you after they’ve taken your money and pushed you inside that it’s not really a crypt, then wandered through the streets marveling at the architecture of the ancient town. The plan was only to stay a few hours as a side trip on the way back, so we made our way to the car and headed off for the 2½ hour drive back home.

Good to see that politicians are smarmy the world ‘round, and not just limited to any geographical area. I saw this news report from Austin today about how Texas legislators vote in the House.

I also learned that Italian politicians do the same thing, except here they have a name: “pianists.”

Simona, in her infinite kindness, called Telecom for me yesterday to ask in the gentlest tone, “Whar the HELL be ma bofrends DSL?!” Cowering on the other side of the telephone, the operator responds, “But…but…but maam, DSL has been active on that number since September 5th!” It sounded too unbelievable to be true.

Back near the beginning of August, I made the starting discovery that while ADSL still wasn’t available for me personally, it’s available for my landlords downstairs. You see, in Telecom Italia logic, it’s completely normal to say that one person living on the bottom two floors of a house are within the DSL area of service while completely excluding the guy living on the top floor — the guy who works all day and night on the internet. Finally, after over two years, I was closer than ever.

I talked to my landlady and she was happy to have ADSL put on her line and let me use it (best landlady ever). We ordered it around August 4th with the promise that someone would arrive within 10 days with a modem, but with ferragosto the next week, I figured it might take a few weeks.

Ten days turned into a month and I still hadn’t heard anything, so Simona called Telecom again to ask what was going on. The lady at the other end, who didn’t even know was ADSL is or that Telecom even offered it, kindly informed us that the DSL service order had been suspended, without cause or reason. She was able to get the service order resubmitted and told us to wait up to 25 days.

I waited up until yesterday, but I had a feeling that Telecom had done something to suspend the order again and if I waited until the 25th, I’d have to wait another month before getting ADSL. Simona offered to call again, and when she did, the operator told her that I already have ADSL. Nobody showed up because I had opted out of a modem.

I plugged my ADSL modem into the wall and waited for a sign of life. This is the ADSL modem that Telecom had sent me two years prior when they thought that I could get ADSL, but apparently forgot about it because I don’t pay for it and they don’t ask about it. The ADSL light sputtered to life, blinking a steady beat telling me that it was trying to connect to the network. Suddenly, the light was solid. It was connected. Finally, after two years, I have ADSL!

The winner of the ADSL pool and proud recipient of the magical sock of power is SarahG, who beat me by two days! Unfortunately the sock has apparently transported itself back into the future or another dimension because I cannot locate it any longer. Probably for the best.