August and Beginning of September

I started my journey to the ISSIS (International Symposium and Scale Insect Studies) in Padua (Padova) Italy. This trip was my incentive and gift from UC Davis and my mentor during the recruitment process. Erik drops me off at the airport and I meet up with my professor, Penny Gullan, and her partner Peter Cranston. We say our hellos and I say my good byes and we head up onto the plane.

The plane ride was a good 11 hours with screaming children and the like. I flew Lufthansa, which is one of my favorite airlines because they have good booze. After a few drinks I was pretty much snoozing. When we got to Milan, we got our bags and rented a car to drive to Padua, which was about 150 to 200 KM away.

We decided to first stop at Garda Lake, a pristine alpine lake, in Northern Italy.

(Desensanzo - Garda Lake)

We drive the beautiful Italian countryside and find our Hotel. The food in Italy is so awesome. The next morning Peter decides to go for a swim in the lake. Penny and I thought he was crazy considering the alpine nature of the lake. But, off he went. When he came back though, he only had his bathing trunks on. We asked him where the rest of his stuff went. He didn't know.. the only explanation.. someone knicked-em! Day 2 in Italy and Peter's sandals, shirt and towel were stolen. The funny thing is that they were all old and hole ridden articles of clothing. The Gelato in Italy is everywhere, cheap, and oh so good.

(Gelato Sundae)

We checked out of the hotel and started driving up the Italian Alps. We were taking the long way to Padua since we had some extra time. The Alps were awesome and the air was so clean. We went from village to village and ate and this quiet community up in the Mountains.

(Italian Alps)

(I got to see Edelwies!)

Side Note: Italy is peculiar in the times that shops are open. For instance, most shops open at 8:30 in the morning, then close for a long lunch at noon. They then open again and 3:30 and then close sometime between 8:00 and 9:00 PM. This changes if it happens to be Sunday or Monday when they either do not open at all, or only open during the evening opening hours.

We arrived in Padua and found the most complicated one way road system I had ever encountered. It was terrible! We finally found the Guesthouse I was staying in by pure luck.

There, Giuseppina the ISSIS coordinator greeted me and gave me my room key. She then had to help Peter and Penny find their guesthouse. I told Peter and Penny that I would try to meet up with them for dinner. So I go upstairs and meet some of the people at the conference and decide to walk over to the other Guesthouse. Well I get lost and end up going south instead of east and end up in some random part of town. The person I was with wanted to give up looking cause he was hungry, so we wondered back to the downtown area and ate at this café. As noted previously, this was Sunday which meant everything was closed. The café was ok and the food was ok, I had a pizza which I thought was terrible though. We then headed back to the Guesthouse to get ready to walk to the University of Padua the next morning. One of the people who was supposed to say at our Guesthouse hadn't arrived yet. His name was Kondo something or other, we call him Damien.

(Duomo of Padua)

Well, on our way to the University of Padua the next morning we see Damien walking down the street toward the university as well. The poor guy had been in the city for two days but couldn't find the guesthouse.

Anywho, the symposium registration was taken care of and some of the talks began. Lots of morpholical information on scale insects etc. Pretty interesting stuff. We then took a lunch break and were able to take a tour of the facilities. This was what I was waiting for. The University of Padua was one of the oldest universities in Europe. Countless monarchies sent their future kings and queens to this school. The School also held the chairs of Copernicus and Galileo.

(Galileo's Podium at the University of Padova)

We got to see Galileo's lecture hall and podium. We also got to see the first anatomical theater in Europe. An anatomical theater, is a small oval theater with a pit in the center where a body was dissected to help students learn anatomy and such.

What else did we do? Hmmm… Well aside from studying Scale insect stuff, I shopped at all the wonderful boutiques, visited the local gay scene, ate like a pig, tried every gelato place in town, went to the Castiglio Forest,

(Our tour bus atop a cliff on the Italian Dolimite-Alps)

visited the historic town of Bassano

(Bassano)

known for its high class shopping, say the first botanical gardens in the Europe, say an opera and the Duomo, walked most of the streets, and drank a lot of expresso. On the Saturday September 8 (My Birthday…wink wink) Penny, Peter and I head over to Venice for the day. We drive to a coastal town where we take this bus ferry tour along the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It was awesome! We got to enter Venice from the Sea side and dock right into San Marcos square.

(View from the ferry toward San Marcos Square)

Veince was a flop in my opinion though. Too touristy and too expensive. The food was good though and I had fun running through the small streets and see how the city was actually sinking. Poor Ventians… they'll be underwater any day now…. The next day I had to pack up my bags and leave for Milan. Damien and I decided to head to Milan together because he needed to the American Visa service office to renew his US visa. He was a graduate student in the states and his Visa had expired so he had to get a new one to enter the states again.

We get to Milan and find a hotel and head out to the city.

(Shopping was orgasmic in Milan. I was going to die or shopping bliss. )

We plan Monday for a Milan site seeing tour. Big Mistake. We go to the Visa Service office and get his Visa done. We then head out into the city to see all the wonderful art and churches and such. Well they were all closed cause it was Monday. Instead of seeing actual things, we ended up seeing the sign of the things saying that it was closed on Mondays. Who the hell closes on Mondays?

(This is the underground subway system in Milan... on Monday.. Completely Empty!!!)

Well the Italians I guess. We did have a good time in Milan though. We looked up asian restaurants in the phone book and found the most delicious Japanese Restaurant for one night and the best Korean restaurant for the other night.

(Sushi Hiro, awesome japanese restaurant in Milan, Italy)

We ate like kings. Oh, our hotel room was really screwed up but awesome at the same time. It has a nice balcony and was very clean and well appointed. However the bathroom wasn't quite a room, it was a bath wall. The shower was open to the room with no curtain and the sink and toilet was just in the room with the beds and everything.. It was sorta cool.

(Bathwall?)

We had to take turns getting an expresso and taking showers so that we could get the room to ourselves to shower. The next morning I call a taxi and head the 60km to the Malpensa International Airport. I leave Italy on Tuesday, September 11 at 7:00 in the morning. The flight was very smooth. We had finally reached American airspace when the unspeakable happened.

KABOOM!!!

I was reading the fourth book of the Harry Potter series over again and was just at the part when Harry was trying to complete the Third Task. The intercom then turned on and an announcement in German started. I had no idea what it was saying. Then, the English translation kicked in and stated that there were terrorist related problems in the states and that we had to turn back to Germany. Now, terrorist related problems could mean anything! People were whispering and wondering if we had been nuked or something. We had already flew eight hours and now we have to go back… oh no.

We then landed in Iceland to refuel. Fortunately I have international cell phone service and immediately called home. My sister in law picked up the phone and I told her that I was in Iceland headed back to Germany. She said that she was glad to hear that I was safe and told me that two commercial planes crashed into the World Trade Center, one plane into the Pentagon and One plane crashed in Pennsylvania. Everyone in the plane was listening to my conversation cause they had no idea either. We were all freaked! We then headed back to Frankfurt. Four hours later we landed and I got my stuff and walked out of the plane. Midnight in Germany. I looked around again…. Wait a minute.. this isn't Frankfurt. It seems that Frankfurt had turned us away so we had to fly to Liepzig, in old East Germany instead.

(View from Hotel in Liepzig, Germany)

Lufthansa booked us all hotels and were told we had to get up at 9:00 am so we can catch another flight to Frankfurt. I took a nice hot bath and tried to sleep.

(Refugee Buses :))

The next thing I know its 9:00 am and the buses were outside to take us to the airport again. At 11:00 we take off to Frankfurt and when we get there we were told that we should go back to our place of origin. I told them my place of origin is America…. They said they can send me back to Italy and that I could stay with my family in Italy… Do I look like I have family in Italy? Anyway, I had to get an overpriced hotel in Frankfurt. The next day Lufthansa had volunteer families that would take people in. So, I stayed with a nice family for a day. It was great. Their names were Manfred and Ute and they were retired biologists. They overfed me and we talked about lots of stuff… It was sorta fun. The next day I go to the airport to see if I can get a confirmed flight somewhere. I wait a good few hours in line when a lady announced that their were seats on the Toronto flight leaving in an hour. Well.. Toronto is better than Frankfurt so I took the chance. I had to drive back to Manfred and Ute's place which was about 40 KM away and back again before the plane took off. Fortunately I made it and was off to Canada.

We arrive in Canada at midnight eastern time. All flights to the US were cancelled again. The ticket agent said she would be able to put me on standby for a flight to SF the next morning. So, I accepted. She then said that Lufthansa could put me up in a hotel that night. The group that were to get hotel rooms waited for this mystery bus to arrive. It was about 1:00 in the morning when the bus finally came. From there we had to stand in another line at the hotel to get my room. Now the standby flight was at 7:00 in the morning and I needed to be there 3 hours before to get through security, so I was contemplating the point of actually getting this hotel room. I finally got into my room at about 2:00 in the morning and took a nice long bath. I then dried off, packed up again and headed to the airport. I then get into another line to check in as a standby for the 7:00 0'clock flight. After an arduous hour or so getting through security and about an hour getting through US customs, I finally was in the boarding area hoping they would call my name for standby. When they did call my name I was so happy. I was off to SF on September 15. We landed with little circumstance, but it deserved cheers from the cabin inhabitants.

I got off the plane and called Erik to see where he was. He was waiting in the entrance area since he was not a ticketed person. I exchange my foreign currency and greet him. He had some wonderful lilies for me and I give him a big hug and kiss. We then spend about an hour finding my baggage cause we had disembarked in the international terminal, but because we had already gone through customs in Toronto, our baggage was sent to the domestic terminal. We get a cart and find Erik's car. Erik goes, "do you have my keys?" and I'm like, why the hell would I have your keys? He lost the keys to the car. For the next two hours we roamed the airport looking for his keys and waiting for his dad to come with an extra pair. His dad finally came and Erik finally took me home.

I'm home….. Yah.

August , 2001
Look… So I haven't been updating things like I used to update things.. but you gotta give me a break.. especially with all the crap I've had to do. So what happened in August? Hmmm.. Frankly I don't remember all too well but here it goes... Sometime within this month Lori, Matt, Lori's sister Renee, Erik, Laura, Tevin and I head down to go to Disneyland for a few days. I pretty much had to drag Laura cause she was complaining since she was poor. So am I goddamn it, but we're talking about Disneyland here. Anywho, we drive down to Lori and Matt's place in San Jose to pick to meet up with the caravan. They had made these awesome cookies and zucchini muffins for the trip which Erik and I were all to happy to get. From there we headed down the interstate 5 toward Gilroy to pick up Laura and Tevin and we finally get to head down to LA. Laura had not booked a hotel so when we got to Anaheim we had to find a hotel for her to stay in. We finally found one for relatively cheap and dropped her and Tevin off. Erik and I then head over to the Grand Californian Hotel and checked in. The Bell Captain recognized me from my last visit… We got a room next to Lori and Matt's with an awesome view of the California Adventure Park. We then did the good ol' park thing. We met up with Richard and Elicia the second day and we did more Disney related things. Erik and I got Season passes to Disneyland. Hmm.. I think we need to go again soon. Oh, Laura and Tevin traded their four day passes for restricted season passes as well. They aren't allowed to go every day with the restricted passes but that really doesn't matter cause the cost to upgrade from the four day passes wasn't that much anyway. Well, Laura waits in line at the Main Street Bank and goes in to do the paperwork. When, she came out though, she had the look of pure failure. It seems that the lady at the counter allowed her to get a season pass but didn't allow her son Tevin to get one. Well, I was pissed, since I bought both of their passes and didn't want to see my money wasted. So I went back in there and asked for a manager. Afterward, everything came out fine and she ended up with two season passes as well. We then drove home and I went to sleep. What else happened in August? Elicia's Birthday happened and she came back up the bay area for the weekend with Richard. Oh, those Japanese people from Milpitas's sister city of Kukizaki came again sometime this month. Erik and I went to there welcome dinner and on their wine train trip. The wine train was cool because all the wine ended up on our table. Erik got crazy drunk. Luckily I was driving. Then somewhere toward the end of August Dorothy had a Birthday Party for herself and I. It was a pool party type thing which was really cool. I got a Pinpal Mr. Burns from Kai and Kenny. That night we were supposed to go clubbing with Kai, Anh and Dorothy at some place called jungle. Unfortunately they didn't allow anyone with a tank top to enter because of some stupid dress code. How are you supposed to dance with a shirt on? Obviously straight people don't dance or something. They probably just stand around and look at each other or something. In any case, Erik and I leave and head up to the city to a nice wholesome gay club where tank tops are not just allowed they are required. There we meet up with Bryan and we dance and dance. We then go get a bite to eat at the Baghdad Café where Erik gets a parking ticket. But, no matter, we had a good time and went home.
Stupid Law of the Month:	New York, New York: Citizens may not greet each other by "putting one's thumb to the nose and wiggling the fingers". It is illegal for a woman to be on the street wearing "body hugging clothing." You may not smoke within 100 feet of the entrance to a public building. Women may go topless in public, providing it is not being used as a business.

September 1, 2001 to September 15, 2001
I started my journey to the ISSIS (International Symposium and Scale Insect Studies) in Padua (Padova) Italy. This trip was my incentive and gift from UC Davis and my mentor during the recruitment process. Erik drops me off at the airport and I meet up with my professor, Penny Gullan, and her partner Peter Cranston. We say our hellos and I say my good byes and we head up onto the plane. The plane ride was a good 11 hours with screaming children and the like. I flew Lufthansa, which is one of my favorite airlines because they have good booze. After a few drinks I was pretty much snoozing. When we got to Milan, we got our bags and rented a car to drive to Padua, which was about 150 to 200 KM away. We decided to first stop at Garda Lake, a pristine alpine lake, in Northern Italy. (Desensanzo - Garda Lake) We drive the beautiful Italian countryside and find our Hotel. The food in Italy is so awesome. The next morning Peter decides to go for a swim in the lake. Penny and I thought he was crazy considering the alpine nature of the lake. But, off he went. When he came back though, he only had his bathing trunks on. We asked him where the rest of his stuff went. He didn't know.. the only explanation.. someone knicked-em! Day 2 in Italy and Peter's sandals, shirt and towel were stolen. The funny thing is that they were all old and hole ridden articles of clothing. The Gelato in Italy is everywhere, cheap, and oh so good. (Gelato Sundae) We checked out of the hotel and started driving up the Italian Alps. We were taking the long way to Padua since we had some extra time. The Alps were awesome and the air was so clean. We went from village to village and ate and this quiet community up in the Mountains. (Italian Alps) (I got to see Edelwies!) Side Note: Italy is peculiar in the times that shops are open. For instance, most shops open at 8:30 in the morning, then close for a long lunch at noon. They then open again and 3:30 and then close sometime between 8:00 and 9:00 PM. This changes if it happens to be Sunday or Monday when they either do not open at all, or only open during the evening opening hours. We arrived in Padua and found the most complicated one way road system I had ever encountered. It was terrible! We finally found the Guesthouse I was staying in by pure luck. There, Giuseppina the ISSIS coordinator greeted me and gave me my room key. She then had to help Peter and Penny find their guesthouse. I told Peter and Penny that I would try to meet up with them for dinner. So I go upstairs and meet some of the people at the conference and decide to walk over to the other Guesthouse. Well I get lost and end up going south instead of east and end up in some random part of town. The person I was with wanted to give up looking cause he was hungry, so we wondered back to the downtown area and ate at this café. As noted previously, this was Sunday which meant everything was closed. The café was ok and the food was ok, I had a pizza which I thought was terrible though. We then headed back to the Guesthouse to get ready to walk to the University of Padua the next morning. One of the people who was supposed to say at our Guesthouse hadn't arrived yet. His name was Kondo something or other, we call him Damien. (Duomo of Padua) Well, on our way to the University of Padua the next morning we see Damien walking down the street toward the university as well. The poor guy had been in the city for two days but couldn't find the guesthouse. Anywho, the symposium registration was taken care of and some of the talks began. Lots of morpholical information on scale insects etc. Pretty interesting stuff. We then took a lunch break and were able to take a tour of the facilities. This was what I was waiting for. The University of Padua was one of the oldest universities in Europe. Countless monarchies sent their future kings and queens to this school. The School also held the chairs of Copernicus and Galileo. (Galileo's Podium at the University of Padova) We got to see Galileo's lecture hall and podium. We also got to see the first anatomical theater in Europe. An anatomical theater, is a small oval theater with a pit in the center where a body was dissected to help students learn anatomy and such. What else did we do? Hmmm… Well aside from studying Scale insect stuff, I shopped at all the wonderful boutiques, visited the local gay scene, ate like a pig, tried every gelato place in town, went to the Castiglio Forest, (Our tour bus atop a cliff on the Italian Dolimite-Alps) visited the historic town of Bassano (Bassano) known for its high class shopping, say the first botanical gardens in the Europe, say an opera and the Duomo, walked most of the streets, and drank a lot of expresso. On the Saturday September 8 (My Birthday…wink wink) Penny, Peter and I head over to Venice for the day. We drive to a coastal town where we take this bus ferry tour along the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It was awesome! We got to enter Venice from the Sea side and dock right into San Marcos square. (View from the ferry toward San Marcos Square) Veince was a flop in my opinion though. Too touristy and too expensive. The food was good though and I had fun running through the small streets and see how the city was actually sinking. Poor Ventians… they'll be underwater any day now…. The next day I had to pack up my bags and leave for Milan. Damien and I decided to head to Milan together because he needed to the American Visa service office to renew his US visa. He was a graduate student in the states and his Visa had expired so he had to get a new one to enter the states again. We get to Milan and find a hotel and head out to the city. (Shopping was orgasmic in Milan. I was going to die or shopping bliss. ) We plan Monday for a Milan site seeing tour. Big Mistake. We go to the Visa Service office and get his Visa done. We then head out into the city to see all the wonderful art and churches and such. Well they were all closed cause it was Monday. Instead of seeing actual things, we ended up seeing the sign of the things saying that it was closed on Mondays. Who the hell closes on Mondays? (This is the underground subway system in Milan... on Monday.. Completely Empty!!!) Well the Italians I guess. We did have a good time in Milan though. We looked up asian restaurants in the phone book and found the most delicious Japanese Restaurant for one night and the best Korean restaurant for the other night. (Sushi Hiro, awesome japanese restaurant in Milan, Italy) We ate like kings. Oh, our hotel room was really screwed up but awesome at the same time. It has a nice balcony and was very clean and well appointed. However the bathroom wasn't quite a room, it was a bath wall. The shower was open to the room with no curtain and the sink and toilet was just in the room with the beds and everything.. It was sorta cool. (Bathwall?) We had to take turns getting an expresso and taking showers so that we could get the room to ourselves to shower. The next morning I call a taxi and head the 60km to the Malpensa International Airport. I leave Italy on Tuesday, September 11 at 7:00 in the morning. The flight was very smooth. We had finally reached American airspace when the unspeakable happened. `KABOOM!!!` I was reading the fourth book of the Harry Potter series over again and was just at the part when Harry was trying to complete the Third Task. The intercom then turned on and an announcement in German started. I had no idea what it was saying. Then, the English translation kicked in and stated that there were terrorist related problems in the states and that we had to turn back to Germany. Now, terrorist related problems could mean anything! People were whispering and wondering if we had been nuked or something. We had already flew eight hours and now we have to go back… oh no. We then landed in Iceland to refuel. Fortunately I have international cell phone service and immediately called home. My sister in law picked up the phone and I told her that I was in Iceland headed back to Germany. She said that she was glad to hear that I was safe and told me that two commercial planes crashed into the World Trade Center, one plane into the Pentagon and One plane crashed in Pennsylvania. Everyone in the plane was listening to my conversation cause they had no idea either. We were all freaked! We then headed back to Frankfurt. Four hours later we landed and I got my stuff and walked out of the plane. Midnight in Germany. I looked around again…. Wait a minute.. this isn't Frankfurt. It seems that Frankfurt had turned us away so we had to fly to Liepzig, in old East Germany instead. (View from Hotel in Liepzig, Germany) Lufthansa booked us all hotels and were told we had to get up at 9:00 am so we can catch another flight to Frankfurt. I took a nice hot bath and tried to sleep. (Refugee Buses :)) The next thing I know its 9:00 am and the buses were outside to take us to the airport again. At 11:00 we take off to Frankfurt and when we get there we were told that we should go back to our place of origin. I told them my place of origin is America…. They said they can send me back to Italy and that I could stay with my family in Italy… Do I look like I have family in Italy? Anyway, I had to get an overpriced hotel in Frankfurt. The next day Lufthansa had volunteer families that would take people in. So, I stayed with a nice family for a day. It was great. Their names were Manfred and Ute and they were retired biologists. They overfed me and we talked about lots of stuff… It was sorta fun. The next day I go to the airport to see if I can get a confirmed flight somewhere. I wait a good few hours in line when a lady announced that their were seats on the Toronto flight leaving in an hour. Well.. Toronto is better than Frankfurt so I took the chance. I had to drive back to Manfred and Ute's place which was about 40 KM away and back again before the plane took off. Fortunately I made it and was off to Canada. We arrive in Canada at midnight eastern time. All flights to the US were cancelled again. The ticket agent said she would be able to put me on standby for a flight to SF the next morning. So, I accepted. She then said that Lufthansa could put me up in a hotel that night. The group that were to get hotel rooms waited for this mystery bus to arrive. It was about 1:00 in the morning when the bus finally came. From there we had to stand in another line at the hotel to get my room. Now the standby flight was at 7:00 in the morning and I needed to be there 3 hours before to get through security, so I was contemplating the point of actually getting this hotel room. I finally got into my room at about 2:00 in the morning and took a nice long bath. I then dried off, packed up again and headed to the airport. I then get into another line to check in as a standby for the 7:00 0'clock flight. After an arduous hour or so getting through security and about an hour getting through US customs, I finally was in the boarding area hoping they would call my name for standby. When they did call my name I was so happy. I was off to SF on September 15. We landed with little circumstance, but it deserved cheers from the cabin inhabitants. I got off the plane and called Erik to see where he was. He was waiting in the entrance area since he was not a ticketed person. I exchange my foreign currency and greet him. He had some wonderful lilies for me and I give him a big hug and kiss. We then spend about an hour finding my baggage cause we had disembarked in the international terminal, but because we had already gone through customs in Toronto, our baggage was sent to the domestic terminal. We get a cart and find Erik's car. Erik goes, "do you have my keys?" and I'm like, why the hell would I have your keys? He lost the keys to the car. For the next two hours we roamed the airport looking for his keys and waiting for his dad to come with an extra pair. His dad finally came and Erik finally took me home. I'm home….. Yah.
Stupid Law of the Day:	Toronto, Canada: You can't drag a dead horse down Yonge St. on a Sunday.