Valemememtimes

Time for some slightly more in depth retailing of the Vamlemtimes party at the Bracken estate.

Showed up early because that's how we roll, brought our party supplies to the top floor of the beach-view monolith and then everyone that was present, including ourselves, went to ye olde beach for some good old fashioned sand arting. After several masterpieces were created the other 2/3 of the purple brigade rolled, but unfortunately one of them was not in the proper attire, needless to say, he was temporarily shunned. A few more sand drawrings were completed the whole party shifted back to the Bracken residence for some crafts and on the way up Ryan and Austin had to race the elevator up six floors, it was brutal but we won.

Everyone instinctively congregated in the kitchen for some eats, at which point the candy quantity guessing game begun. I lost every time, end of story. Below you can see the product of the party's craft time, moustache creation.

Ryan with his sammichstache being used for eyewear. We were all supposed to make moustaches for our partners, but I was too proud of mine to let it go and you can see why in the picture directly  beneath Austin Thornberry.

 After moustaches were completed and candy guessed the party shifted once more, to the living room, where we exchanged valentines and wiled away our remaining time with musical duets and Ben Harper.

This is the less awesome version of our farewell picture, you can take it up with Alyssa if you want to see the raw, uncut version.

Last Week's Happ'nings Recap

Right off the bat, Vamlemtimes day party, parkouring around some rocks to get onto the beach, made some sand drawrings, the other member of my purple brigade arrived at the party. Went upstairs, ate some eats, guessed some candy amounts (lost erry-one), made some killer moustache kookies and then ate said kookies. Moved that partay to the living room, busted out the ol' Ovation, jammed out some classic rock, received valentines from all, didn't bring any valentines, like a bwaoss. End Thursday.


Went to Ryan's, lykuhbawsz, played some PS3 for acres, ate some killer sausage soup crafted by Mrs. Faulkner and then hit up the church in Bacoli for some prime ride finding. Rode with Stefano to the bowling alley which happened to be right next to our home, inefficient as (your four letter word of choice here), bowled an 82 or some impossibly high score like that, stood in the weakest hurricane of all time, bought some candy bars and soda. Drove to a kebapp eatery, had some slammin' kebab, drove to Ryan's, almost watched a movie, fell asleep. End Saturday.



Here are some penguins, because penguins kick the pillars in!

Emergenza

The Emergenza concert in Napoli was a great experience, I'm not usually a concert kind of person but it was awesome seeing people I knew up on stage. The other bands were a little bit on the loud side, especially the metal band, but it was all around pretty good music. Not to sound biased at all, but I think that Oak & Willow (Gruppo di Marco e Vincenzo) were the most unique and easy to listen to of the three bands I heard play.

 

The reason why there is a very small portion of a drumset in front of them is because Marco played, sang and did the kick while Vincenzo played bass, did backing vocals and played the cymbal.

 Both of them did magnificently, Marco's singing was wonderful and coupled with clean acoustic sound of both their instruments was a terrific combonation.

All of their music, as far as I know, was written and

composed by the two of them. Although Vincenzo was playing extraordinarily, I don't believe it fully showcases his talent as a bassist. That just my honest opinion and I'm sure others might disagree, but that's how I feel. All in all it was a great time had by all and I would love to see them play again sometime before we leave.

The Cirkus I

Better late thane never, but here is the tale of my first ever experience at a circus of any sort.

I was certain of what to expect, but I went into it with an open mind and turned out alright. The night started with all of us sitting in the tent for a solid hour or so waiting for the show to start and being in Italy, I wasn't expecting the show to start anywhere near the scheduled time, but to my great surprise it started not 5 minutes after it should've.

The opening acts were all fine and dandy, Moira came out in her little Beetle 1100 or 1300, drove around for a spell and proceeded to retreat back into the bowels of the big top, not to be seen again for the remainder of the night. I don't perfectly recall all of the acts or which order they were in, (pixtures eventually) but the acts that presently stand out in mind I will share in moderate to below average detail.

Act 1≈ A phenomenal juggler took the ring and did some rather incredible feats with spheres, smaller spheres, bowling pins and some weird boomerangs. The spheres were quite entertaining because while he juggled 3 or 4 he had two others that he "juggled" by popping them out of his mouth (tis difficult to explain). The bowling pins had their own set of challenges that seemed very difficult but were made to look easy by this juggling connesieur. Sadly, there were no chainsaws being juggled. The boomerangs were tossed about in very lengthy fashions that I won't explain because it would ruin the magic! Also, I want to fit in more than one act on this blog.

Act 2≈ The giant spinning thing. This object and act cannot even bee described in words, you'll just have to wait for pictures.

Act 3≈ The big cats, everyone's favorite every time. All these tigers start sauntering in the ring and they all slowly take their positions on their respective chairs arranged around the ring. For the most part the trainer just made them do basic stuff, like stand up, run around, things like that, which is a feat in itself, just getting those tigers to get up on the chairs was enough for me. The show continued, the trainer kept getting after the young, white tiger for being a lazy cat and eventually all the tigers were sent back to their cages, save for two of them. The two remaining animals were required to sit upon a modified Moto Guzzi with a sidecar and ride around on it. This took a lot of coaxing on the part of the trainer, he had to keep riding around the ring and stopping to try and get these lumbering beasts to join him on the Guzzi for the final portion of the act. Approximately 5 or so minutes passed of him baiting the tigers before they would sit on the bike so he could end the show. The tigers did eventually ride a couple laps around the ring on the Guzzi so the trainer was able to send them back to their cages with their "friends."

There are still plenty of acts I didn't put on here, but rest assured, I will once I have acquired sufficient pictures.