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I met with Prof Vecchio on Monday, an hour and a half late after the world's longest bus ride. WLBR, I say? Yes, I do. let me take you back a bit to explain...
Currently Bart and I are staying with our fabulous new friends, Melanie and Donovan, who live in a little town about twenty or thirty minutes outside of Naples, depending on the driver. Instead of making them drive us into town all of the time, we all decided it would be better if we took the bus to the metro and the metro into town. We didn't know exactly which bus to take, but we knew of at least three from which we could choose. Mel has a friend who used to do it all of the time. We thought it would be best if we had a trial run before the day, so we set out on Sunday for our first Neaplotian bus ride. Mel took us to the place where these three busses stop and waited with us to make sure that the buses even run on a Sunday (this is Italy, remember). We were delighted to find that they do run on Sundays! We got on the one that has the longest route. It was a very windy, yet quick ride to a metro station, about thirty minutes. Determining where the bus would stop wasn't so easy. We actually jumped out when the driver was letting some folks on at an unofficial stop. This day was very easy: Get on the bus, get on the metro and in less than an hour, viola! We were anywhere in the city we want to be!!
.
Monday was not as good. I was supposed to be at the university at 10:30 AM to meet with Prof Vecchio, so we left the house at 7:55 AM to do the approximately twenty minute walk to the bus stop. No problem. We catch the 8:30 bus, but this is not the same bus that we took yesterday. This is a bus that should be faster because it takes the main highway. But it is raining out and there is tons of traffic on the the "tange" as it is called, and there was no indication that the driver was going to get off of the tange at any time. Bart and I were a little disturbed when we realized that we did not recognize anything and that this bus was going way past where we had gotten off the other bus. Eeeek. Okay, so the bus takes us all the way to the other side of Naples to the Central Station. It is now 10:15 and I have already phoned Giuliana to let her know that I am going to be late. We can get on the metro at this place no problem, except that apparently there were some police with a dog searching people on the train, so we could not get on. That is another 20 minutes. When we finally arrive at the university, it is 11:30, but I don't know where I am going, so we have to wait for Giuliana to come get me. That takes another half hour. sigh
The meeting went mostly well. The project that I will be working on sounds very cool: A proteomic approach to assessing the effects of DNA methylation on protein interactions in complexes (that sounds redundant and I think it is, but I'm leaving it anyway). Neat. The only thing that is bad is that my stipend is probably going to have to be decreased. It seems that Prof Vecchio is not the best at math and didn't realize that I would be here for three years, not two, and promised me more than his budget can handle. Again, sigh.
It will all work out. It always does.
Other good news: We will be moving into our apartment on Sunday!!! Woohoo!!
Currently Bart and I are staying with our fabulous new friends, Melanie and Donovan, who live in a little town about twenty or thirty minutes outside of Naples, depending on the driver. Instead of making them drive us into town all of the time, we all decided it would be better if we took the bus to the metro and the metro into town. We didn't know exactly which bus to take, but we knew of at least three from which we could choose. Mel has a friend who used to do it all of the time. We thought it would be best if we had a trial run before the day, so we set out on Sunday for our first Neaplotian bus ride. Mel took us to the place where these three busses stop and waited with us to make sure that the buses even run on a Sunday (this is Italy, remember). We were delighted to find that they do run on Sundays! We got on the one that has the longest route. It was a very windy, yet quick ride to a metro station, about thirty minutes. Determining where the bus would stop wasn't so easy. We actually jumped out when the driver was letting some folks on at an unofficial stop. This day was very easy: Get on the bus, get on the metro and in less than an hour, viola! We were anywhere in the city we want to be!!
.
Monday was not as good. I was supposed to be at the university at 10:30 AM to meet with Prof Vecchio, so we left the house at 7:55 AM to do the approximately twenty minute walk to the bus stop. No problem. We catch the 8:30 bus, but this is not the same bus that we took yesterday. This is a bus that should be faster because it takes the main highway. But it is raining out and there is tons of traffic on the the "tange" as it is called, and there was no indication that the driver was going to get off of the tange at any time. Bart and I were a little disturbed when we realized that we did not recognize anything and that this bus was going way past where we had gotten off the other bus. Eeeek. Okay, so the bus takes us all the way to the other side of Naples to the Central Station. It is now 10:15 and I have already phoned Giuliana to let her know that I am going to be late. We can get on the metro at this place no problem, except that apparently there were some police with a dog searching people on the train, so we could not get on. That is another 20 minutes. When we finally arrive at the university, it is 11:30, but I don't know where I am going, so we have to wait for Giuliana to come get me. That takes another half hour. sigh
The meeting went mostly well. The project that I will be working on sounds very cool: A proteomic approach to assessing the effects of DNA methylation on protein interactions in complexes (that sounds redundant and I think it is, but I'm leaving it anyway). Neat. The only thing that is bad is that my stipend is probably going to have to be decreased. It seems that Prof Vecchio is not the best at math and didn't realize that I would be here for three years, not two, and promised me more than his budget can handle. Again, sigh.
It will all work out. It always does.
Other good news: We will be moving into our apartment on Sunday!!! Woohoo!!