Question Time!

I'm going to keep today's post short, mostly because I have a lot to do before I head out for dinner and a concert tonight (more about the concert tomorrow). So I decided I would answer some questions I've received the past couple days.

The first one pertains to my work at the Vatican. I received an email asking me with all I have going on traveling wise when could I possibly have time to work at my internship and what am I up to?

Well let me go over a Monday to Thursday workday for the past couple weeks. Wake up early for Italian tutoring at 8am with our favorite Italian tutor (how many times can I say this, she really is awesome) Carlotta, which runs until 10am. From there I jump on the number 23 bus, or take a taxi depending on my mood, to St. Paul's Outside the Walls. I meet up with Father Nerino, who is as best as I can describe it the Manager of Operations at St. Paul's Basilica. He knows everything there is to know about the Basilica, and is very passionate about it. He has been writing the scripts for the video project I am doing. Problem is, the only english he knows is Hello and Goodbye. This is a good test for my Italian, but for a lot of it we use the one person in the office that can translate for us. Once we've talked about the progress, I am sent off to photograph the Basilica. It is awesome to be able to get close to all of the different pieces of art and other interesting architecture and take literally hundreds of pictures which will be later put together with the text and voice-overs Father Nerino is writing.

I leave around 1pm, sometimes later depending on my class schedule for the given day. It's always a productive couple hours and I'm really enjoying every shoot.


Another couple of questions I had were about skiing, and seeing how I loved it so much I want to touch on them.

The mountain wasn't crowded at all. There were a decent amount of people there, but since it was so open and spread out, it wasn't like everyone was skiing on top of each-other like in Poconos (again, my only point of reference).

Something I meant to touch on in my original post was the ski lifts. The lines were not long at all, maybe 5 minutes max, and I really mean that. They were a bit different though than lifts I've seen. You walk up to a turnstile which is electronic, and there are large scanners on both sides that are like metal detectors. You can have your ski pass anywhere on you, in your coat pocket, wherever and it will pick up the signal and then let you through the turnstile. From here you move up to the lift and stand behind gates like those for roller coaster boarding platforms. When the gates open you get on a conveyor belt which moves in perfect harmony with the chairs swinging around, meaning that you get on and are moved forward and then literally just sit down when the chair reaches you. It all works in perfect succession, and was really cool. I wish I had video of this whole sequence of events, I hope you can understand what I'm describing.

As for snowboarding, it is very much alive here. Mostly the younger generations just like the US. There wasn't nearly as much of it as in the states, but it was there. Three of the people I went with snowboarded, and you could rent a snowboard just the same as skis, but the price was slightly more, like 5 euro. Not that big of a deal. There was a small park on the mountain, mostly for the snowboarders I suppose, so that culture is starting to creep in as well, though as we saw in the Olympics, we dominate the Snowboard "stunt" culture.

Well I hope that covers what you were interested in, if anyone has any other questions leave them in the comments and I'll be sure to answer.

Also bonus points to whoever can guess who I am going to see tonight (I really hope I didn't give this away in a past post, but I think I might have. And if I've told you specifically outside of this blog where I'm going, don't ruin the surprise for everyone! Well you can if you want to, it doesn't really matter to me I'll enjoy the show nonetheless")