First Post

I just got your email, it can be difficult to get emails here since there are only 2 plugs for the power, and the battery life is not so good on this thing. I've done some things to it, and I think I can make it work longer. Technically I could play games on it, but why sit inside and play WoW when I can go outside and play it for real? Also, the laptop doesn't like games very much. I saw that the Astros won last night so maybe things will turn around. It's amazing how similar this season is to last season when you consider how many players we gained and lost. Is Sean coming home for good? If so, that's too bad. I heard from Justin that the stuff Sean had to do was really hard, though, so maybe he was having trouble with it. I imagine moving to a new state with nobody that you know and no friends to ask for help could be difficult if they jump right into the material. Lucky for me all of the people here are really friendly because it is a lot of reading (150 pages today).

Brunenburg is German for "Fountain Mountain." As such, the tap water is excellent. I don't know if you remember, but Italy, and Europe in general, is famous for its highly available, excellent quality bottled water. This stuff puts all of the bottled water to shame. The town of Dorf Tirol (which I must take pictures of sometime) is higher up on the mountain than the castle, to completely destroy your ideal of a castle town, and the town is full of fountains. I found out the other day that the water coming out of the fountains is perfectly drinkable, like the fountains of ancient Rome. I see hikers and Nordic walkers fill their bottles in the fountains all the time. (Remember the old Nordic Trac? Nordic walking is like that, but without the skis and you go places) Not that free water is absolutely necessary, since the bottled water here is dirt cheap by comparison. Imagine, though, filling your canteen at the fountains near Herman Park. You wouldn't dream of it, but there they are; I bet they think its strange to have fountains that are not good for drinking.

Shelly (the one with the son), Christina and Caitlin just got back from Venice last night; according to them, they would be perfectly fine failing the course and never leaving there ever again. So it seems to be exactly as we remembered it. This weekend there is a huge, biannual, international art festival there so the place is going to be packed with tourists, but I remember the festivals being the best part of the place. Caitlin is a strange being. On the outside, she appears to be the typical skinny bitch, but there is quite a bit more to her than that. She has a quick wit and often sees the sarcasm in everything. Strangely enough, she visits the same odd websites me and Alice visit, namely cracked.com and 4chan. Cracked is vulgar, but funny; 4chan, on the other hand, is like some strange psychological experiment. You can post anything you want for anyone to see and everyone is completely anonymous. Rather than do something useful with this freedom, however, most people manage to find the most aweful, disgusting, despicable things that you would not believe to be in existence, and publish them for the whole world to see. They follow what they call, Rule 34: if it exists, there is porn of it. Descriptions of websites that should not be visited by anyone aside, I am surprised when any girls have ever even heard of 4chan, much less that they have been there. I'm looking forward to getting to know her, and everyone else better.

This past weekend we went to Bolzano, also known as Bolzen, for a day trip. The town is about an hour by bus, and then train from the castle, and if you want to go anywhere from the castle, you must get a train to Bolzen first. The train ride was particularly interesting because this kid, who couldn't be older than 20, accosted us in the train station, and would not let us out on to the platform. It seems he wanted to get to know us better before he let us pass into his domain. All he wanted was for us to try to talk to him and share his beer with (it was 7:30AM!!!), but it was creepy at the time. When we got back, it turned out that we were not the first to meet him, Christina saw him in the station another day. Apparently he checks out the station every morning to see what kind of fun he can have. Anyway, I digress.

Bolzano is the picture of a northern Italian town; narrow streets, lots of picturesque shops and arcades up and down the roads. Alice bought a dress in one of the shops that only sold that dress in different colors. We also went to an open air food market with bakers and fruit and nut vendors, and meat and cheese purveyers with all sorts of sausages, frankfurters and something akin to bacon called spek. We got these balls, similar to falafels, with cheese and meats inside; I have no idea what they are called. After that, we went to a strange department store; they had toys, games, art supplies, purses, scarves and such accessories. Everything was a bit on the pricey side, but it was strange to see Italian luggage in the same store as legos. After that we went to the Archeological museum; apparently in Italian, Archeology means dead people. Sure there were ancient artifacts, clothing and weapons and the like, but mostly it was mummified dead people. Mummies from South America, mummies from Egypt, mummies from Europe, natural mummies, artificial mummies, all housed in this one building. It was worth it, though, digging through the skeletons and dead heads to see the crown jewel of Alpine Anthropology: The Iceman. A complete skeleton, preserved with his tools, weapons and clothing intact. It made Alice's day.

Today is the feast of the Pentacost so few shops were open. Tomorrow, a new federal holliday has been announced, as part of this country's plan to save itself from economic oblivion. I am unfortunately not all that well researched on Italy's plan for survival so I cannot comment on the effectiveness of closing businesses for a day. As a side note, their Prime Minister is named Berlusconi so the locals are calling it Berlusconi day. Wednesday we will probably catch a bus to Merano, see what that city's like, and Thursday, it's off to the old Republic. Sometime this week I ought to tell a bit of the history of the Republic of Venice that stood for 1000 years before Napoleon knocked it down, and of the reason why Bolzano is sometimes called Bolzen and Merano is called Meran and when you go into shops here they say Grussgott (Greet God) in stores here instead of bonjourno, but I have written enough for today.
----- Original Message -----
From: Tamara Bates
To: Josh
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 9:25 PM
Subject: Re: I got here
Hi Josh,

I did get the pictures and they are all just beautiful!!! It sounds like ya'll are having the time of your life. I'm sure Alice will love Venice. I wish we could come visit where you are. The wood carvers and all of it sound like you are having so much fun. I am so happy for you. Take notes and be sure to write and tell me all of your favorite things. Sure you can use the emails for your journal project. What wonderful memories to have.

Sounds like you had fun watching the soccer match too. I was listening to the Astros/Pirates game earlier and the Stros were winning 3-0. I took Ziva out for a good while and now the game is over. Hope we won to end the terrible 7 game losing streak. It's funny that you saw Manchester United play because when we went to Disney World Jeremy bought a Manchester United t-shirt at Epcot. I don't know if you had a chance to see it or not.

Yes, please keep talking about a few people at a time. It's really interesting. I think I will start a new folder and keep all of the emails there. It will be fun to go back and read them a long time from now.

I will take pictures of the lakehouse, but I might need Jeremy's help getting them onto my computer and then emailed to you. I know I've learned to do that a bunch of times, but then I always forget from one time to the next. Speaking of Jeremy, he and and Stephen left for Dallas today. I think they are going to the Anime Convention with Justin and Will. Jeremy said he would rather stay at your apartment than with those guys. I told him you probably would not mind, but that he'd better ask you. Ziva and I are here all by ourselves tonight. I'm not sure that has ever happened since we moved into this house. It's really strange thinking back about the gobs of people that used to be here every night. Dad went with me to Salt Grass for dinner, so that was nice. And tomorrow morning we're going to the lakehouse. Ziva is going with us.

Can you still play the computer games at night there? From what I hear, Sean is coming home from Florida. Seems he really did not like it there at all. But I told Jeremy that when he starts school at Wharton it is going to be serious and he can't be staying up and having people over every night. Of course that probably is a bunch of hot air since he can schedule classes at whatever time of day he wants to. Since he drove the Mustang to Dallas, we took it to be serviced and checked out today. He should be getting there pretty soon. (Gee, my days do not sound nearly as interesting as yours!!)

Well, write back very soon and keep me in touch.

I love you,
Mom

----- Original Message -----
From: Josh
To: Tamara Bates
Sent: Friday, May 29, 2009 3:31 PM
Subject: Re: I got here
I hope you get the pictures, this laptop really hates dealing with pictures. Also, we plan on going to Venice next weekend, with Florence the weekend after that, and Munich and Milan somewhere in there. It is 7 hours later here so it's 10 right now. It is just one class so me and Alice are in it, and we seem to be doing well. We have to do a journal type project, so I think I'm just going to show him my emails to you, if that's okay.

The past two days we have been going up the hill to Dorf Tirol, the town outside the castle. There are two wood carving shops and a doll shop that Alice has taken a shine to. One of the wood carvers does the really traditional German looking stuff, and his shop is a fire hazzard; the other wood carver does some of that as well, although he also does some abstract carving and he does human carvings that look like they could come alive. The major grocery store chain around here is called deSpar; Alice and I went there to get the ingredients for Welsh Cakes and their attendant spoke excellent English. He was able to explain to us that in Italy, they do not have self-rising flour and that you have to buy a different powder to mix into the flour to make it work.

The other night, the Champions League finals in soccer was on. One of the people in the class is really into soccer and her favorite team, FC Barcelona, was in the final. I had never watched soccer before so I decided to give it a try. We went to a bar in Dorf Tirol called the Treff, that had it on a big screen. This is definitely the neatest looking bar I've ever seen. It's in the basement, like Cheers, but the roof was hardwood supported by stone arches. Being in the heart of Lager country I ordered the house special, which was a huge beer called the Hefe. This was the best tasting lager I'd ever tried, but it still got to be overly biter by the last part of the glass. As for the game, I found out that soccer games last 90 minutes with a 15 minute half-time at the 45 minute mark; the clock is never stopped for any reason. It does not matter if they have to get the trainers on the field, if there are penalty kicks or anything, the clock always moves. Therefore, the game devolves into a game of keep-away with the goals being scored whenever the opportunity arrises. Some say that this makes the game boring, but it does keep it intense, knowing that the lead could change at any moment. For the record, FC Barcelona beat Manchester United 2-0.

Two of the people in the class did not arrive on time since they were on another trip. One showed up Wednesday but one only showed up last night at midnight. She ended up getting a ride from the train station at 11PM from total strangers up to Dorf Tirol, where we ended up stumbling into her by accident. She's very lucky she made it here at all. Altogether there are 9 of us; 7 girls and 2 guys. I don't know how old one of the women is, but she has a son who graduated from college this semester; honestly, she doesn't look a day over 30. She's quite handy to have around, though, since she has a lot of common sense, and more importantly, speaks fluent Italian. I think I'm going to talk about one or two people an email until you know everything about everyone.

This weekend, I'm headed to Bolzano. It's only an hour from the castle and they are supposed to have a neat museum. Also, somewhere in there, I think we are going to try to go horseback riding. Send me pictures of the new and improved lake house.

Man it's a hard life
Josh
----- Original Message -----
From: Tamara Bates
To: Josh
Sent: Thursday, May 28, 2009 10:34 PMdoll
Subject: Re: I got here
Hello Josh,

Oh, it sounds absolutely fabulous where you are. Be sure to send some pictures. Where all have you been so far? And where do you plan to go? Are you going to show Alice Venice? It was my favorite place on our short Italy tour. I know you can't travel too much until school is over. Are you enjoying your classes there? Is Alice in the same class?

Yes, I do remember learning some poems by Ezra Pound when I was in high school, but that was a long, long time ago. I think he was born about 100 years before you were.

Dad and I are going to the lakehouse this weekend. Hopefully we are going to pick out some furniture. It really looks different after getting the new makeover. It is so much prettier. Jer mentioned that he told you they are going to Dallas. We went to Japaniero's for dinner tonight (Jer, Stephen and me). I'm not sure that Stephen's parents ever see him anymore.

My surgery is still healing. So far I am really happy about it and glad I had it done. Jann came over Saturday for a little while to check it out. She said that it really took about six months for hers to completely heal, so I guess I have quite a while to go.

Other than that, it has just been work as usual here. Jason told me to tell you "hi" when I wrote to you. I told him about your email and how beautiful it sounds there.

Is it seven hours later there than here? If so, it must be about 5:30 a.m. there.

Well, write me back as soon as you get a chance and send those pictures, ok?

I love you son,
Mom
----- Original Message -----
From: Josh
To: Tamara Bates
Sent: Wednesday, May 27, 2009 12:05 PM
Subject: Re: I got here
To think after 3 airplanes, 4 trains and a bus, over 32 hours of actual travel time, I have arrived in a tourist trap; apparently all of the hikers, skiers and mountain loving peoples of four countries come to Dorf Tirol to vacation. Looking out the window, I can see why. The town is populated with Cucoo clocks people live in, wood carvers, meat and cheese vendors, wine sellers and as many restaurants in this little town than in all of Sugar Land, surrounded by acres upon acres of vinyards. The castle is everything you wish for in a castle; tall towers, a beautiful courtyard, and everywhere you look, there's a commanding view of the Alps. As for myself, I am one of the clock dwellers, living in a farmhouse whose newest construction came thirty years before the Revolutionary War; the stone parts date back to the 13th century.

I don't know if you had to read anything by Ezra Pound in highschool (I didn't but they tell me he is one of America's greatest poets) but the castle belongs to his daughter, Mary. She's in her eighties now, but her son Cizzel runs things here, and at Schloss Tirol, up the hill. His wife, Briggeta, does most of the day to day stuff, raising the pigs, sheep, chickens, geese, cats, dog and donkey. Her son Nicky is a vinter, making wine out of the grapes grown on site. I'll bring back a bottle or two of his stuff, it's really good. In addition, the castle serves as an agricultural museum, and a museum dedicated to Ezra Pound. Apparently Germans see the "Privat" sign on the door as a challenge and our class has been walked in on often. I don't mind them, though, I've done the same thing at other castles in Wales.

The next email I send will have pictures; I haven't taken any yet.

Love you mom
Josh
----- Original Message -----
From: Tamara Bates
To: Josh
Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2009 2:04 PM
Subject: Re: I got here
Thank you for letting me know you got there ok. Yesterday I was tracking the planes on the internet all the way to Amsterdam, then I couldn't anymore, but it was neat. I know you are very tired and have jet lag on top of it, but when you get a chance write again and let me know what it is like there. How are the dorms and have you seen the castle yet?

I am so glad ya'll are getting to do this. What a wonderful experience!

Well, write soon. I love you so very much,

Mom
----- Original Message -----
From: Josh
To: tjbates@nstci.com
Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2009 1:40 PM
Subject: I got here
and I'm too tired to write. I'll email you later.

love you