Pisa: This town sucks

'Why all the hate?' I hear you say.

OK. Well in Rome I found this:

It's a weird statue of Batman and Superman. My only interpretation is based on what one can draw from the similarities to The Creation of Adam; in that it suggests that Superman is the creator of Batman. It is possible, while drunk no doubt, to get into a deep discussion of the parallels that can be made here. This modern piece of art is in no way the best thing in Rome; yet there is more cool in it, than in the entirety of Pisa.

I thought I'd give Pisa a chance today, since I've been here five times and have only really seen the inside of the dipartimento di scienze archaeologiche and, naturally, the tower.

The leaning tower

Yes. Pisa is famous for the result of a bad piece of geological survey and poor architectural design. Oh and Superman III which, lets be honest, is the main reason people know of the place.

To be fair, the tower is decent; though it is much more fun to watch tourists posing (nothing wrong with that mind you).

(I stole this pic btw Credit Martin Parr)

The cathedral next to it isn't bad either. In fact lets face it, for all its crappery, the one good thing that religion has given us is some nice looking things. I mentioned Michelangelo's fresco in the Sistine chapel earlier, and the duomo in florence is another spectacular example of this:

but I digress.

Pisa is a dump.

From the train station to the tower requires walking down one long street. It's full of the typical high street shops you'll find anywhere and a few coffee places. You could be anywhere. Today I went in search for the nice things in Pisa off this beaten track, and I used a map with places of excitement marked.

The one cool looking thing that I saw was the water wheel and terminus of the aquaduct. I thought there'd be some cool fountain or whatever:

...not exactly the Trevi fountain is it. And that about sums it up. Other places are less spectacular.

It's not all bad though. This trattoria serves the FASTEST food I have EVER received. And I eat at McDonnalds! It was pretty damn good too. Seriously, they have a time machine or something. Somebody should check that out.

One week to go

My last post was a little downbeat. As I said before, recently these trips to Italy have been less than stellar. However, things are going really well.

There is a whole load of stuff to do in Rome. Number one of which is things to see. Coupled with the size of the place and the less than well designed subway system, it's impossible to run out of stuff to see. Every corner of this city has something new and interesting.

I've met people. Two things have contributed to this. The first is Reddit; These guys hail from the Internet. The second is the yellow bar. It's over the road from where I'm working and full of travelling Europeans, Americans, and Australians. Just show up and it isn't long before I'm having a laugh. So I'm not on my own.

Oh yeah and the stuff I'm working on is good. Without being too technical, sometimes these old tools aren't so well preserved once you start really looking at them. The stuff here in Rome, from Grotta di Pozzo, is in very good condition.

A return to the blogsphere

10% of my posts on blogs have been about how I'm starting back up again after abandoning them or forgetting to post for ages. Here I go again! Will I get back into the swing of it? I don't know. But I'm up for giving it a shot.

Fun fact: I abhor starting sentences with a B. I did it above and while I would usually reword things I'm going to stick it out. I challenge you to find a sentence starting with a B in any of my publications. There are none.

Reason for starting up again

Five things: 1) the social web is getting big, it expects contribution and insight into the lives of people; 2) I enjoy thinking about something that might be interesting to write about; 3) My family and friends are dispersed around the globe, as am I from time to time, and it is a great way of updating them on stuff; 4) I have a ton of other stuff to do and this helps me avoid it; and 5) I'm in Italy on my own for the next 20 days

This last one has quite an impact. This is the third year of my first post-doc, throughout which I have found myself in unusual fieldwork situations. The ones I have been used to, involve working with people and fun. The experience from this post-doc has been somewhat different.

On my own a lot

I do not find myself surrounded by an array of interesting characters as usual. Instead, I find myself sitting in a hotel room with myself and the internet for company. In past fieldwork situations I have been guilty of forgetting Louise wanted me to call to say hi, or even that there was anything to miss at home at all. Previously, I've been out in the Sri Lankan jungle with seriously suspect food and no sign of alcohol for weeks, but camaraderie somehow turned that into the best experience of my life.

On this project I most often find myself surrounded by the stagnancy of solitude; enhanced by a serious lack of local language fluency and my introverted nature. The last couple of years I've found myself lost in translation - and with no Scarlett Johansson; the world can seem a dark, dark place, when you feel/are totally alone.

It's the nature of this specific job. I don't want you to think I'm complaining too hard. This is a very, very good job. It's just this small aspect of it. I'm a one man band most of the time. Some people who don't know me that well might think that that is how I like it. It is not.

The good news is that this time I have WIFI in my room, it isn't a dump, and there's a McDonald's less than five minutes away. McDonald's you say!?! Yes, I am in Italy, the supposed home of good food - why in gods name am I even considering eating at McDonald's? I think the familiarity will keep me feeling close to home and it is one of the few places where I can guarantee there will be some people speaking a language I can keep up with.

I have Skype, Facebook, Google+ (was that an echo), and Twitter to keep me entertained. Louise has managed to get Skype on her phone and this means the previously prohibitive costs of long distance communication are gone.

So, at the start of this trip I feel fairly positive that I will remain healthy throughout. Let's see how it turns out.