I do believe in faeries

Ciao tutti! (Hello, everybody!)

Forgive me all, for it has been far too long since my last post. Today, however, is special in two ways. First, it is my birthday and I wish tp ost a hearty thank you to all who sent me personal greetings! Second, there is only one other person here i the lab today and he had to go to anohter building for a bit, so I am here with an intrnet connection all to myself :)

I have been placed in the lab of Professore Lorenzo Chariotti, a very nice man who thinks I sound British. I am currenlty sharing a desk with his wife, Francesca, who is also a teacher and is not in the lab everyday.

Sidenote: The amount of dust and finger ickiness on this keyboard is astounding. It is now 11.17 and another person who works in the lab, Lela, has just arrived.

The people in the lab, Francesco, Tiziana, Lela, Francesca and Lorenzo, are all very nice. On my first day in, Tiziana bought me lunch, which was great because I had no money and no food. Speaking of money, my stipend has been settled for now - €2000 per month, €1591 after taxes. After looking at this amount of money sitting on our sofa last night, I have decided that it is quite a bit of money considering that our rent is €700 including all expenses, so that leaves us with about €900 per month to spend on food, which is very inexpensive.

Today we are buying me a cell phone, we will probably pick one up for Bart, too since he is currently using a loaner from Lana. I think maybe I will buy a new keyboard for the lab too....

Whatelse? There is so much to write about because it has been so long since I posted! Bart has had many adventures out on the town trying to buy things to set up our apartment. There are many small stores with very specific inventories, so you have to go to one shop to get the pressure rod for the shower curtain and somewhere else for the curtain and somewhere else for the heater and somewhere else for the extension cord and somewhere else for the adapter for the extension cord so you can plug it into the wall. Did I mention that there are at least 5 different kinds of wall sockets here? Adapters are important. Or should that be adaptor with an "o"? Either way I write it, it looks wrong. Sigh. You are all smart people, you'll figure it out.

Figure it out...try explaining that to a person learning English. "Figure" means body, you see? "We can bdy it out?" That obviously doesn't make sense. Had to explain that it also means numbers...

Okay, so I'll stop rambling and let you all know that we are well (at least, I am getting better and Bart, of course, was never sick...I think that I am allergic to some mold growing in our apartment) and not starving. We should have internet in our house in about two weeks. We already have a geat TV and DVD player compliments of Lana. Oh yeah, and my computer works again because, as a birthday gift, Donovan was kind enough to replace the power supply after I blew it up by plugging it into the all before flipping the voltage switch. In case you were wondering, this action produces a VERY loud pop and a large poof of blue electrical flame, as well as one completely freaked out Brandie.

Okay, I'm done. Really. I could type a lot more, but I won't. Va bene. Ciao.