So lookout for updates.
-Jibreel
Monday, August 31, 2009
ok so we are re-starting this shit.
Hey all my readers. As I am once again studying at UNC chapel hill you can expect regular updates on things that I find important. Maybe Max, my roomate will even let me use a camera to add photos to this stuff.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
a HUGE update.
Finally I can write the blog again. My current position is a laundromat in Weaverville, NC. I really needed to do some laundry because I have been working very diligently in the humid mountain weather up here in Madison county.
After I got off the plane in italy I had one day to spend in Greensboro. Those lucky few who saw me, congratulations. To Gwendolyn Barlow, thanks for the ride and for taking me to get some smithfields.
After a tiny stint in my hometown, I made off for the mountains to work at a camp called Glory ridge. The first week I was there I got trained in what it means to be a staff person and we did various things to get the camp ready for habitation such as cutting a whole lot of grass and moving a pile of mud with a tractor that didn't exactly work.
For those of you that don't know, Glory Ridge is a Christian camp in the mountains that provides mission opportunities to youth groups during the summers and ministers to local impoverished or disabled people. It's pretty cool.
The ridge is wild. We have seen a total of four snakes. Two of which were copperheads. Also the place is practically a rain forest. It rains at least every other day here. Which is not so good if you are living in a tent in the forest on the side of a mountain. It's pretty spooky at night where I sleep.
This past monday we received our first group of campers. They were from the coast. Wilmington to be exact. It was a good time. I am going to have to tell you about them in the next post however. Keep reading and hopefully the posts will be more frequent once i get my library card.
Also I'll have to write about my excursion to Asheville with Erin Keeffe.
Goodbye.
-Jibreel
My first assignment
Saturday, June 6, 2009
A Disembodied HEAD!
Today, me, mycousin and I, visited some church in Siena and saw that the head of some local saint was actually on display in a glass case. Upon seeing it you would think it was fake but then you notice that part of the lip has rotted away to reveal some tooth and jawbone. Jesus. This italian religious morbidity thing has really made an impression on me.
Besides all the severed heads, Siena is a really cool town. It is especially unique because each neighborhood has its own standard and they fly them on flags all around town. Also there is an anual horse race where the neighborhoods each bless a horse in their neighborhood curch and send it off with a jockey to race against the horses of the other neighborhoods. The neighborhood that wins gets to talk shit to the rest of town. That would be pretty cool if you ask me.
While in Siena we also climbed a huge tower. I recommend climbing towers in general. The tower we climbed was a bell tower. I had read about the tower in Rick Steve's guide to Italy (which is a sort of bible for dirty backpackers in Europe. Something I am not, but wish I was...). The guide made a point of explaining that the tower was actually not very structurally sound. This freaked me out pretty bad but I climbed the tower anyway. I can see myself chickening out though in a situation where I was not with other people who would have thought I was a huge pussy.
I wonder why the Italian tourist industry lets people like Rick Steve get away with writting that shit. I imagine they could just hire scary Sicilian thugs to kill anyone who would discourage any sort of sightseeing, seeing as how it is in their interest to do so. Watch the fuck out Rick Steve. With your two first-names they could find you anywhere. Or perhaps even more tragically, they would kill two innocent guys named Rick and Steve. Maybe a gay couple. Tis' possible! Don't fuck with the mob (i.e the Sienese chamber of commerce).
When sightseeing in Siena it is good to have a tour guide. Some shit i saw today I was not able to understand. There was a carving on the floor of a cathedral we visited of a bunch of guys stabbing babies with swords. No explanation for this carving could I devise except for this baby stabbing must have actually happened at some point. Wish a tour guide could have been there to prevent my imagination from constructing possible scenarios:
1. Babies talkin shit! gotta get stabbed...
2. Sorry babies, we're pretty hungry...
3. A sort of revolt against child support...
We may never know. Unless we actually put forth some effort to try to find out.
(Completely unrelated) I recomend Carla Bruni to anyone who thinks French talking is sexy or anyone who wants to keep in on a playlist designed to facilitate the wooing of women.
I think that's all I've got for now. Just want to mention that anyone who thinks they can write my blog better than me to go right ahead and tell me so. That is advice such as "Jibreel, I think that jumping from the topic of baby stabbing to Carla Bruni could be disconcering for your readers" is completely welcome. Please help me write better blogs. Just don't use my real name.
Do Not. Use my real name if you know it.
A pen name is really sexy anyway. so more people comment. and comment constructively. also, comment hilariously.
thanks!
-Jibreel
Besides all the severed heads, Siena is a really cool town. It is especially unique because each neighborhood has its own standard and they fly them on flags all around town. Also there is an anual horse race where the neighborhoods each bless a horse in their neighborhood curch and send it off with a jockey to race against the horses of the other neighborhoods. The neighborhood that wins gets to talk shit to the rest of town. That would be pretty cool if you ask me.
While in Siena we also climbed a huge tower. I recommend climbing towers in general. The tower we climbed was a bell tower. I had read about the tower in Rick Steve's guide to Italy (which is a sort of bible for dirty backpackers in Europe. Something I am not, but wish I was...). The guide made a point of explaining that the tower was actually not very structurally sound. This freaked me out pretty bad but I climbed the tower anyway. I can see myself chickening out though in a situation where I was not with other people who would have thought I was a huge pussy.
I wonder why the Italian tourist industry lets people like Rick Steve get away with writting that shit. I imagine they could just hire scary Sicilian thugs to kill anyone who would discourage any sort of sightseeing, seeing as how it is in their interest to do so. Watch the fuck out Rick Steve. With your two first-names they could find you anywhere. Or perhaps even more tragically, they would kill two innocent guys named Rick and Steve. Maybe a gay couple. Tis' possible! Don't fuck with the mob (i.e the Sienese chamber of commerce).
When sightseeing in Siena it is good to have a tour guide. Some shit i saw today I was not able to understand. There was a carving on the floor of a cathedral we visited of a bunch of guys stabbing babies with swords. No explanation for this carving could I devise except for this baby stabbing must have actually happened at some point. Wish a tour guide could have been there to prevent my imagination from constructing possible scenarios:
1. Babies talkin shit! gotta get stabbed...
2. Sorry babies, we're pretty hungry...
3. A sort of revolt against child support...
We may never know. Unless we actually put forth some effort to try to find out.
(Completely unrelated) I recomend Carla Bruni to anyone who thinks French talking is sexy or anyone who wants to keep in on a playlist designed to facilitate the wooing of women.
I think that's all I've got for now. Just want to mention that anyone who thinks they can write my blog better than me to go right ahead and tell me so. That is advice such as "Jibreel, I think that jumping from the topic of baby stabbing to Carla Bruni could be disconcering for your readers" is completely welcome. Please help me write better blogs. Just don't use my real name.
Do Not. Use my real name if you know it.
A pen name is really sexy anyway. so more people comment. and comment constructively. also, comment hilariously.
thanks!
-Jibreel
Friday, June 5, 2009
A disembodied BRAIN!
Before I begin to describe my voyage to san Gimingano, I would like to say that I do not appreciate facebook for treating me like a different person while I am abroad. how does making me type "postulate vinyl" or "loaded anomaly" help them know that I am not a hacker or something? I feel small, facebook, when you oblige me to type these words that are so humiliatingly unrelated.
Now that that's out there, Tuscany:
No homo, but has anyone else seen the movie "under the tuscan sun"? I have, and Tuscany is really like that. It is beautiful and sexy at the same time. The whole place just glows with greenery and rows of vineyard vines (registered trademark) as well as a ton of olive orchards. The houses are yellow and have dusty red roofs and in a simple way they are undescribably gorgeous. I saw this all from a bus window as we headed through the country up into the town of san gimingano (pronounced jimmin'-yawno). S. G. is a beautiful place and has a pretty cool museum loaded with creepy artifacts which include tombstones and horribly graphic carvings of the crusifixion of Christ. Makes you think about how much getting crucified would hurt... Also majorly cool were some fourteenth century musical texts. Gorgeous. Back then they had a pretty weird (different) way to write music. To say the least though, the museum was inspiring in that you really get a grasp of how ancient the local history is.
The basilica of SG was even cooler though. There was an alter dedicated to a woman saint inside the basilica and the remains of the saint were incapsulated in the altar. However, in the upper part of the altar, through a glass window inside a little box, the brain of the saint was preserved independently of the body. It was really creepy and you have to wonder why that was even necessary. If the whole saint was right there in the altar, why did the brain need to be stored in a separate location? Maybe they need the brain in an easy-to-reach location just so they can grab it when they need it. OR... maybe after they had sealed the saint in the altar, they realized they had accidentaly left her brain lying on the floor, so, rather than re-open the tomb and put the brain in with the rest of her, they just made a cool box for it and put it in another part of the altar. Who knows?
Anyway, that was pretty much the trip in a nutshell. I left some unblogworthy parts out, but the take-home message here is that San Gimingnano is cool and worth visiting.
- Jibreel
p.s I think an altar dedicated to my brain would be nice too.
Now that that's out there, Tuscany:
No homo, but has anyone else seen the movie "under the tuscan sun"? I have, and Tuscany is really like that. It is beautiful and sexy at the same time. The whole place just glows with greenery and rows of vineyard vines (registered trademark) as well as a ton of olive orchards. The houses are yellow and have dusty red roofs and in a simple way they are undescribably gorgeous. I saw this all from a bus window as we headed through the country up into the town of san gimingano (pronounced jimmin'-yawno). S. G. is a beautiful place and has a pretty cool museum loaded with creepy artifacts which include tombstones and horribly graphic carvings of the crusifixion of Christ. Makes you think about how much getting crucified would hurt... Also majorly cool were some fourteenth century musical texts. Gorgeous. Back then they had a pretty weird (different) way to write music. To say the least though, the museum was inspiring in that you really get a grasp of how ancient the local history is.
The basilica of SG was even cooler though. There was an alter dedicated to a woman saint inside the basilica and the remains of the saint were incapsulated in the altar. However, in the upper part of the altar, through a glass window inside a little box, the brain of the saint was preserved independently of the body. It was really creepy and you have to wonder why that was even necessary. If the whole saint was right there in the altar, why did the brain need to be stored in a separate location? Maybe they need the brain in an easy-to-reach location just so they can grab it when they need it. OR... maybe after they had sealed the saint in the altar, they realized they had accidentaly left her brain lying on the floor, so, rather than re-open the tomb and put the brain in with the rest of her, they just made a cool box for it and put it in another part of the altar. Who knows?
Anyway, that was pretty much the trip in a nutshell. I left some unblogworthy parts out, but the take-home message here is that San Gimingnano is cool and worth visiting.
- Jibreel
p.s I think an altar dedicated to my brain would be nice too.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Brain is Fried in Firenze
I don't really have that much to write about right now. my mind is scattered. All I know is that we did not do SHIT today. I woke up at twelve and we sat around the apartment a lot and we started to cook some beans. (The beans are going to be wonderful though.) Our original plan was to go to Santa Maria de la Novella and il duomo (these are churches) and then try to snag a nice view of florence from across the river Arno. That did not happen. When we finally got our asses moving the churches were closed and by the time we'd climbed the hill on the other side of the river the fortress we were planning on seeing the view from was also closed.
It's okay though because we walked down this really serene street that was covered in olive groves on a hill high above florence. plus it was turning into evening and the whole countryside was becoming beautiful.
We got home after that and cooked a chicken and ate it with rice. it was succulent.
I was taking the trash out after dinner and some guys from new york asked me where space was. I thought it was a pretty ridiculous question until they explained that "space" was a nightclub they had been looking for. I told them to fuck off.
just kidding. I told them I did not know where the nightclub was.
On the morrow, my band of merry men will board the bus that will take us to san giamigniano, a medieval town where we are sure to find etertainment. Probably in the form of really old buildings.
read on readers.
-Jibreel
It's okay though because we walked down this really serene street that was covered in olive groves on a hill high above florence. plus it was turning into evening and the whole countryside was becoming beautiful.
We got home after that and cooked a chicken and ate it with rice. it was succulent.
I was taking the trash out after dinner and some guys from new york asked me where space was. I thought it was a pretty ridiculous question until they explained that "space" was a nightclub they had been looking for. I told them to fuck off.
just kidding. I told them I did not know where the nightclub was.
On the morrow, my band of merry men will board the bus that will take us to san giamigniano, a medieval town where we are sure to find etertainment. Probably in the form of really old buildings.
read on readers.
-Jibreel
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Makin' dough in Florence
Now I'm not actually making any "dough". In fact i'm spending it at an alarming rate. Now only 150$ in the bank account and still plenty of shit to buy here. The dough I am referring to in the title of this post refers to the literal dough I baked into yeast rolls only hours ago in this apartment. Emily, I and Emily's best friend's mom, Cheryl Wood (who currently resides in Kosovo) are staying here. Making bread is incredibly satisfying as anyone who has actually done it can tell you. I am going to start doing it regularly.
Cheryl and I actually went on a cooking frenzy tonight. We made a spicy pasta sauce from onions, garlic and italian sausage that we will later serve over pasta. However, I had a pretty weird encounter with one of our neighbors at the apartment complex when I was sent out to borrow a can opener we needed to open a can of tomatoes for the sauce.
I was wandering the hallway when I heard a noise down the flight of stairs. This guy, who sort of looked like crazy horse (only he was wearing a soccer jersey) was walking up the stairs towards me. I asked him for a can opener in Italian and he murmured some sort of uninteligible comment, which seemed pretty positive to me so I waited for him to climb up towards me on the stairs. When the guy finaly reached me, I realized he was really, really drunk. So much so, in fact, that he would have fallen backwards down the stairs had I not been there to catch him. He was constantly loosing his right flip-flop which I would quickly grab and put back near his foot so he could slide into it. All the while we are making our way up the stairs to his appartment.
We get to the appartment and he goes inside (to get a can opener I guess) and I wait outside his door for a while. His appartment is pretty weird. It has a big couch facing the front door and a huge vase of fake tropical flowers. Around the corner I can see this really weird picture of an eyeball with a tongue coming out of it and a dagger through the tongue. Freaky pirate shit. Anyway. The guy comes back with a wine-uncorker. I am astonished now at his drunkeness. How can he mistake the quart-sized can I have in both my hands for a bottle of wine? I ask him if he can speak spanish because there is spanish music playing loudly in the background of the appartment and he says that he can! So I then explain that I what I have in my hands is a can that needs opening and for this task I require the use of a CAN OPENER. The man retreats into the darkness of his appartment and returns with another version of a wine-uncorker. Looking back on these events it seems to me like this guy was ironically drunk by only giving me devices that would lead to further alcohol consumption. The guy, however, finally realizes what needs to be done and sets my can on the ground and says in Spanish he is going to go get a knife. This freaks me out. He is way to drunk for a knife. To my suprise and relief the dude puts the knife on the can and strikes the hilt with the flat of his hand and then proceeds to open the can hard-core style by cutting the sonofabitch open. I thank him and am really glad that I met someone who could speak Spanish. Plus, we really needed those tomatoes.
I realize that I have not elaborated at all about my transition from Rome to Florence. Emily and I took the train and I sadly departed from my friends at the hostel. (A special shoutout to Roger and Stephanie!) On the train in itlaly you are not allowed to put your feet up on the chair opposite you as I was told twice by this Art Garfunkel lookin' Italian dude who I liked a lot, in spite of our conflict.
Once in florence whe kind of kicked around and I wrote my latest blog post. This morning we got up early to see the museum dell'accademia which has a ton of Michelangelo in it. That includes the famous David. No homo but I am physically attracted to that statue.
The museum also had a ton of lame shit. ie every tryptich and dyptych the world has ever seen. (I don't think I spelled that right.)
Whatever. Florence awesome.
-Jibreel
Cheryl and I actually went on a cooking frenzy tonight. We made a spicy pasta sauce from onions, garlic and italian sausage that we will later serve over pasta. However, I had a pretty weird encounter with one of our neighbors at the apartment complex when I was sent out to borrow a can opener we needed to open a can of tomatoes for the sauce.
I was wandering the hallway when I heard a noise down the flight of stairs. This guy, who sort of looked like crazy horse (only he was wearing a soccer jersey) was walking up the stairs towards me. I asked him for a can opener in Italian and he murmured some sort of uninteligible comment, which seemed pretty positive to me so I waited for him to climb up towards me on the stairs. When the guy finaly reached me, I realized he was really, really drunk. So much so, in fact, that he would have fallen backwards down the stairs had I not been there to catch him. He was constantly loosing his right flip-flop which I would quickly grab and put back near his foot so he could slide into it. All the while we are making our way up the stairs to his appartment.
We get to the appartment and he goes inside (to get a can opener I guess) and I wait outside his door for a while. His appartment is pretty weird. It has a big couch facing the front door and a huge vase of fake tropical flowers. Around the corner I can see this really weird picture of an eyeball with a tongue coming out of it and a dagger through the tongue. Freaky pirate shit. Anyway. The guy comes back with a wine-uncorker. I am astonished now at his drunkeness. How can he mistake the quart-sized can I have in both my hands for a bottle of wine? I ask him if he can speak spanish because there is spanish music playing loudly in the background of the appartment and he says that he can! So I then explain that I what I have in my hands is a can that needs opening and for this task I require the use of a CAN OPENER. The man retreats into the darkness of his appartment and returns with another version of a wine-uncorker. Looking back on these events it seems to me like this guy was ironically drunk by only giving me devices that would lead to further alcohol consumption. The guy, however, finally realizes what needs to be done and sets my can on the ground and says in Spanish he is going to go get a knife. This freaks me out. He is way to drunk for a knife. To my suprise and relief the dude puts the knife on the can and strikes the hilt with the flat of his hand and then proceeds to open the can hard-core style by cutting the sonofabitch open. I thank him and am really glad that I met someone who could speak Spanish. Plus, we really needed those tomatoes.
I realize that I have not elaborated at all about my transition from Rome to Florence. Emily and I took the train and I sadly departed from my friends at the hostel. (A special shoutout to Roger and Stephanie!) On the train in itlaly you are not allowed to put your feet up on the chair opposite you as I was told twice by this Art Garfunkel lookin' Italian dude who I liked a lot, in spite of our conflict.
Once in florence whe kind of kicked around and I wrote my latest blog post. This morning we got up early to see the museum dell'accademia which has a ton of Michelangelo in it. That includes the famous David. No homo but I am physically attracted to that statue.
The museum also had a ton of lame shit. ie every tryptich and dyptych the world has ever seen. (I don't think I spelled that right.)
Whatever. Florence awesome.
-Jibreel
Monday, June 1, 2009
TIRED
Just got to Florence. It is much more calmer here than in Rome. I actually like the vibe better. Emily and I have been united and it is glorious. The place we are staying is really nice. I am super tired though. I'll give everyone the full Florence update later.
-Jibreel
-Jibreel
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