Subject: Bob's Travelogue: Life in a Sweltering Stinkhole

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present for your edification and amazement,
the Italian Window Blind.  This is an amazing device that makes my
life here much more pleasant.  It's not like any window blind you're
thinking of.  In the first place, it's constructed as part of the
house, and the slats are outside the house, controlled by a cord on
the inside.  And when they are totally closed, the slats all slot into
one another in a marvelous way, shutting out all light.  This is what
allowed my Greek housemate Motorhead to sleep for 16 hours one recent
Sunday.

I set my blinds to medium low, so they don't let in much light but at
least I can tell whether it is day or night.  The unpleasant part is
opening the blinds in the morning, averting my gaze so as not to be
blinded by the contrast.  When I'm not on shift (unfortunately, it
seems like I'm always on shift) right after my shower I walk 10
minutes to the center of Paganica for a cappucino and some kind of
dry, tasteless pastry.  This takes place in a bar, one of those Euro
things where you can get coffee or sandwiches or candy bars -- or a
shot of Jack Daniels.  In the morning a bar is a boisterous place
where I stand elbow to elbow with old farmers (as far as I can tell,
all farmers in Italy are old) and middle-aged workers and beautiful
young lovers.  In less time than it takes to walk there, I have
gulped my coffee and gobbled my pastry and left.

On my walk back, if I need groceries I stop at Ciufitelli, which tries
to be a proper supermarket with aisles, even though it is so cramped
it is difficult to maneuver the mini-shopping carts they provide.
They have a little of everything but not much of anything, except a
fully-stocked butcher and cheese bar (and of course 40 or 50 shapes of
pasta).  The cashier is known for throwing your change at you; it is
said she has disliked Americans ever since a MACRO student saw down
her dress one hot summer day in 1992.

On the way back to the apartment, I start noticing how unpleasant
Paganica can be.  A few years ago the Caltech apartment was another
five miles from the lab, in L'Aquila, the hustling, bustling,
cosmopolitan but still quaint regional capital.  When Dogbert was
asked about relocating it to Paganica, he made his now-famous retort,
"Paganica is a sweltering stinkhole."  At that time I thought this was
excessive cosmopolitanism on Dogbert's part.  Paganica is a little
more rural, a little more agricultural, a little more mid-America, but
basically OK I thought.

But now that I live there I am noticing things I didn't notice before
-- that looking in almost any direction you see piles of junk and
debris; that there is not a single sidewalk in the whole town [[[Last
week's travelogue worried some of you about my safety.  For your peace
of mind, I won't expand on the lack of sidewalks.]]]; that it is
populated with stray dogs so unfriendly they don't even like each
other.  The more aggressive bark at you, then cower or run away as you
approach.  The less aggressive skip the barking part.

But there is decent cappucino and a good pizzeria ("Pizzeria The Wolf"
-- not Il Lupo -- The Wolf) so when I don't analyze it it's actually
fine.

I stop back at the apartment before work to collect my things, and if
Motorhead is already gone I turn off the water to the radiators.
It's nice to leave them on all the time, because if the place gets
cold it takes them about 2 hours to heat it back up.  However,
Motorhead's share of the heating bill for the first month of winter
was $600, so we (as if we were the IMF) have imposed austerity
measures.  Then I drive to work, as detailed in last week's
travelogue.

I work all day and go home shortly before bedtime.  Now, I realize I
criticized Rome in my first travelogue for having a drive-through
McDonald's (McDrive, they call it).  But there have been nights when I
would give 20 bucks for some fast food.  All they have in Paganica is
slow food.  So if I'm in a big hurry, it's just as quick (or quicker)
to cook something at home.  

If I get home before Motorhead, I walk into a stone cold apartment.
With my coat still on and my bags still in my hand, I make a beeline
to the controls where I set the radiators to maximum.  Then I shed my
coat and wear a bed blanket around the house for the next hour.  The
first business is dinner.  What to cook?  Italian.  It takes a lot of
effort to get together enough stuff to cook American or anything else.
The cooking facilities in the Caltech apartment are barely adequate,
with the exception of one amazing item: Motorhead has a power
Parmegian grater.  (Remember, he's not Italian, he's a Greek
engineer.)  This whirring gizmo (sounds like a power screwdriver)
saved me literally minutes of work last night on my Spaghetti
Amatriciano.

Some nights I need to do laundry.  Many nights.  As far as the
Italians are ahead of us in Window Blind Technology (as George
C. Scott would say, there is a Window Blind Gap), so do they trail us
in Washing Machine Technology.  Our washing machine has a cavity about
the size of a poodle.  So I decide what absolutely must be done to
wear day after tomorrow, throw in that and maybe one more sock, turn
it on and go to bed while it runs for the next two hours.  The next
day I'll lay them out on some drying racks in the apartment, and hope
they don't freeze while the heat is off.

I take my bed blanket off my body and put it back on my bed.  I adjust
my window blinds to the medium low setting.  I fall asleep, dreaming
of McDonald's drive-throughs.