Have a good holiday

Dear readers,
I haven't forgotten you of course!!!
I haven't blogged anything, basically for two reasons:
- I worked really hard during the last weeks
- When I was free I didn't want to stay at home in front of my pc, therefore when I had time I was at the beach or with other friends.

I was involved in many things, most of them were new to me. Trying to list them:
-I was an assistant professor for an exam
-I'm also a student, it means that I have to take some exams. I passed one of them in July.
-I refined my research better and presented them to my research group
-I was in Rome for a presentation about possible partnership between industry and university
-I went to the sea as soon as I had some free time
-Running and cycling

Well if I explained each point thoroughly I would need to write an endless post...
Going to summarize, as an assistant professor it was quite embarrassing at early time because I wasn't accustomed to be called "professor" (actually at first time I barely dwell upon laughing) and neither to examine another guy. Fortunately, I started gradually, at the beginning I only corrected the written examinations and at the last exam session I also had the viva examinations.
I'm also a student, that is, I have to sit for exams.. weird I'm an assistant professor and a student at same time :)

It is due to the fact that we attend advanced courses that require us to take a final examination.
My research is still at embryonic stage, my adviser told and assured me that I' m doing well, but I'm not convinced and I keep on being quite skeptical.
Rome again, yes! it's officially my second city. I have never left Rome in somehow :) I'm still linked to this city, it is not that bad definitely :)

Since I worked really hard, sometimes at night as well, I needed to get rid of my pc. Some days I spent more than 11 hours (on the whole) in front of my PC,
I wanted to give a relief to my puffy eyes and aching spine-column, thus I deliberately left many tasks to do with my pc pending, like replying to friends, shame on me...
Running and cycling is wonderful!, my body is back in a good shape! I adore these two sports. I practice them on the weekend usually. I cycle to reach out the park where I do jogging for 30 minutes and back on the bicycle for other 15 minutes.

Holidays.. tomorrow I'm going to Munich (Germany) for 5 days I'm hosted by a close friend of mine who I met in Rome. She moved there some months ago. I'm really happy to meet her and to visit Munich at the same time :)
From 21st to 27th August I'm going to Umago, Croatia. It is a different holiday from the previous one, we (some friends of mine and I) will be in a residence for guys.
We will be dancing and sunbathing all the time... not so bad :)
Stay tuned

Day 5: Malmo

45 minutes by train keep us away from Malmö, in the morning we decided to take the train and visit it.
Malmö is quite different from Copenhagen. Firstly the weather was sunny I can't say hot, but good, definitely. The city is more calm and quiet than Copenhagen, there aren't many tourists at least this was my impression by sight. The city centre is very small and in preparation for hosting the next summer events, unfortunately we couldn't take part in them because they started in the weekend we will be leaving for that time :(

I also caught the opportunity to train my poor and basic Swedish with some Swedes, for example with the customer assistant at shop, but I have to work around it really hard...
Again, I can say that Swedes are welcoming and kind. Like it happened two years ago, when a bicycle rider helped us on his own volition, now a woman, gently, pointed us towards the correct direction without we would have asked her any help... I love this Swedish society's aspect :)

Another big difference between Copenhagen and Malmö is the average population age.
Copenhagen citizens look much younger than Swedes.
Comparing the two city centres, Malmö seems more concerned about love for the environment, indeed I notice more parks than there are in Copenhagen and in some cases they are obsessed as you can see in that picture in which some three grow up over a house wall... but it's nice :).

Anyway I was there for a short time, I can't give you a real taste of Malmö :(

day 4 There is no perfect place

Copenhagen has been recently stated as one of most liveable cities according to Monocle's Most Livable index, despite its second place I saw an area near the city centre called Christianshavn in which you can find clear signs of urban blight and decay.
Wall destroyed without a safety protection, or more dangerous, young guys driving their mopes without their crash helmets, crossing gardens at fast pace almost stumbling your shoulder..

About night life, if you visit Copenhagen during the week don't expect a buzzing city at night, actually it was tough to find a good place where to drink and dance.
In a lot of places the admission is free and there is a huge variety of clubs, some dedicated only to techno music other to rock and so on.
I noticed that CPH lacks a place like a "disco club" in Italy. We have places where you can either eat or dance when it gets later .
In Copenhagen, but I reasonably suppose in the entire North Europe, clubs are used exclusively for drinking and dancing..
The prices are quite high as I told you in the former emails and their alcohol did not seem to have any effect on Marco and me... I'll tell you how we get drunk on last night :)

Girls are typically drunk, I haven't seen a girl to drink as much as Danish girls do.. . Chatting with some of them, they told us that the Italians give always a dim-view of themselves
I had to hear always the same complaints.. we can't speak English, we are womaniser, we talk out of loud and so on .. what a crap !!
In Copenhagen I ran into some Norwegian girls, to tell the true I expected that Norwegians go to
hotter places for their holiday rather than going to another quite cold place :)
Yet about CPH, one Norwegian girl told me that Copenhagen is quite expensive even for them and she was going shopping in Gotenborg because it's dirty cheap !!

What else? In club there were also people over 40 among people aged from 22 to 30...
it was weird indeed we were wondering if it was night for over 40 people, but we went to the same club more than once and we noticed again the people over 30.. conclusion there is no age range in the clubs ;) .

I was about to forget another upsetting point.. in the club there were sluts (sorry if I'm rude..)
mostly coming from Africa and Asia. They were there to make someone take the bait
and carry him to the other "colleagues"... disappointing.

At the end of the night we couldn't miss out a wonderful spectacle, some guys throwing glasses bottles to othe each other and someone says Naples is not a safe place....

Day 3 in Copenhagen: Mind the cycles

Strolling again...
The first sentence of the day is:"Domenik, here, we have to mind the bicycles not the cars"

In this phrase I can sum up the Danish (broadly speaking, the North ) way of life. They are accustomed to use bicycles rather than cars. Cycles lanes are widely spread all over the city,
there is also a route dedicated to the tourists in order to make them enjoy the most relevant places of the city by bicycle.
You can rent a bicycle or get one for free, indeed there are some that you can take like you do for a shopping cart. With 10 DKK (Danish coroners) you borrow it from one of well known bicycle points and you can freely ride it. When you park (not necessarily in the park where the cycle was picked ) you 'll get back your 10 DKK.
Unfortunately, the number of bicycles is underestimated and it's not easy at all to find some one that is in a good condition... what a bummer !
Going ahead, we went to the Round tower from which you can enjoy the view of the city.
Then we reached the Kastel Church, here I ran into some mills. Shifting briefly our focus to the mills: In Denmark, I noticed that even on some souvenir are represented or depicted some mills, as far as I know, Netherlands is famous for its mills... I have to ask to Google :)

We went sightseeing the city with a canal tour that takes about one hour.
The city is a mixture of old and new buildings. Residential areas are really nice and
liveable as we could notice by going there on foot, later on. For instance, a lot of houses stretch along a square in whose centre there is a playground for kids.
There are also several benches where you can simply seat on and wind up...
Honestly, a lovely place where I eventually would like to grow up my family. These facilities impress me, because I think that they are expensive to build up and maintain, but they can really enjoy only for a short time due to unaffordable weather conditions.

At 6:00 pm we were back on our way towards our hotel. Generally for the whole holiday, we decided to go back to the hotel at about 6:00 -6:30 pm, in order to have a shower, give relief to our pour aching foot and.. SLEEPING for 2-3 hours before going clubbing :)
In our hotel was also available a swimming pool, well why don't we plunge ?
that 's what I and Marco did, we brought with us a swim-suits, originally we wanted to
go to the Copenhagen shores, but as you can imagine the weather prevented us from doing it :)

A sad and nasty note:
At night we wanted to join the night life in Copenhagen, first of all, we were unlucky because during the working days Copenhagen is not so buzzing.
Second of all, we asked to the reception assistants to show some places where we could enjoy ourselves. One of them pointed us towards a well know night club...
Ok we might have looked like wolfs ready for their buck-hunting, a classic Italian stereotype
but you can suggest to your clients a night club, when they ask you "where can we chill out?,
where can we have a whale of time? "
Anyway we decided on our own where to go... this is another story, stay tuned :)

Second day in Copenhagen

We booked a room and in our package breakfast was included, the only drawback due to this choice was that we had to get up early in the morning, not later than 9:30 a.m.otherwise we should have said goodbye to our "vital" breakfast.
The first morning we had a great idea, why don't we prepare enough sandwiches for our lunch time ? Well, while we were eating croissants, sweet biscuits, jam and everything you can imagine
we packed our sandwiches let me say we made 10 of them ... Stupidly we left them lay on our table... a big hill of sandwiches, two minutes later a waitress, gently, rebuked us by saying: sorry, you can't take them out"... we were running a pony show, Italian stereotype.. I know it's frowned upon...
We were embarrassed, but we didn't want to excuse ourselves from the table with all those sandwiches therefore... we started to eat them, can you believe it? we were already stuffed ... just one word PIGS :)

Ready for our first visit in Copenhagen, a sweater or a windbreak -jacket embraced our chest (it was a bit cold), a map in our hands and we went to the city centre on foot. It's nice, small and most people ride a bike, it reminds me of Stockholm but the latter is better :)

What I didn't expect is the width of the main streets that are larger than the ones we have in Rome (frankly, the avenues in Rome are very large). For example the Andersen boulevard takes 50 seconds to be crossed from one side to another.. how can I know it ?

because they use some traffic lights equipped with an electronic counter that shows how many seconds remain :)
The buildings are quite similar, one to each other with stunning colours but it seems a city without a precise identity, actually. For example I didn't see a square dedicated or in honour of someone. Now I can also reveal what staff is really expensive in CPH.. FOOD !!
A bottle of natural water, half litre 1,5€ !! a chewing-gum packet 1.3€ thus our breakfast turned out to be "vital", because by eating in the morning as much as I could,
I could skip our lunch and this was what we carried on doing...
Next ride, next tale :) follow some pics

First Day in Copenhagen

10-Aug,
I didn't know one of the fellow travellers: Valerio, the other one was my closest friend Marco.
> We were at the train station waiting for our train for the airport, all of a sudden Marco's mobile rang...
I'm Valerio, I'm facing a problem... I don't find my ID card... well

Marco told me that Valerio lives at the edge of this world :) , but I couldn't believe he was able to lose his ID-card...anyway, no panic !! and try to wash away silly prejudices :) before meeting him.
Nevertheless, we decided to go to the airport and talk to the local police station, they suggested to Valerio going to the municipal office and ask for a new ID card, in the meanwhile we, Marco and me stayed in the queue for the check in.

I didn't care about his "problem" because I felt pretty positive about this holiday and confident that Valerio was able to reach us somehow.

Since by nature I'm a sociable animal :), I have started to talk to a guy and a girl..

The latter one surprised me with her story. She was Peruvian and living in Italy, her brother was half Danish and half Peruvian. This world is more and more beautiful and wothy to be discovered. Chatting, getting in touch with people, the time goes at fast pace... I've never told you, but I love queueing if there are some people you can talk to:)

Thanks to God, our airplane was delayed two hours and Valerio
succeededin getting to departures with us

In Copenhagen, a cloudy day was waiting for us, I personally didn't know that it would have been
our closest friend for the entire vacation ... The CPH airport is well connected to the city centre and within a few minutes, we got to it. Public transport are wonderful and efficient, but trust me, damn expensive.. one ride in the city centre is about 2 €... but we still ignored what the most expensive thing was

I'll say it to youlater, in the meantime try to guess ...
Our hotel was DGI Bean, a newly furnished building in a perfect Danish and modern style. A bit cold in my opinion, you know, some places can make you feel some emotions already at first sight...
In the end we unpacked our luggage, had a shower and went out, strolling in the city centre,
teasing and laughing at Valerio for his ID-card and planning our next days...
Intense, tiring, funny, exciting days were on the way :)

Departure eve

Now I'm in Naples, organizing last things before leaving for Copenhagen...
I wish all you "Wonderful holiday"
Kisses and hug !

Last months

Probably, you've wondered how I spent my time recently and why I'm always out of time to write an email...
Well, unfortunately my free time is dramatically decreased due to two sucking deliveries in these last months.
In addition, it's getting hotter and hotter so I don't like to stay at home in front of my PC,
actually I sweat like a pig (we haven't got an air conditioner :( and what I do, mostly, during my weekend is to go to the sea.
I haven't been in the habit of going to the sea for years, I disliked it... now my mind has changed and I like being tanned and have a rest in the sun lounger... maybe because after an entire week spent to slog away I just need to relax...
In the past I was addicted to tanning, someone called me "lizard" because the number of days spent to go sunbathing... it's true, old habit die hard :)
But, definitely I can't say that I'm a sun worshipper :)
About my next holiday, the dice is cast finally ! just another week at work, We are going to go to Copenhagen from 10th Aug to 14th Aug then I'll be back in Italy and plan other things to do, my days off last until 23th Aug.
How have you planned your holiday ? What country or city will you visit ? What is your itinerary ?

What do you look when you choose your apartment?

I want to list what someone should look for when he/she chooses his/her room:

1. The flatmates: they should be old like you're, it helps you to make new friends and to feel in your comfortable zone.
   
2. Students with students, workers with workers: in other words, partying doesn't match with working :)
   
3. The floor: I live in an apartment at the lowest floor of the building and I can barely see the sun light of this wonderful days :(
   
4. The furniture: try to have enough furniture to put your things...
   
5. Number of people: more than three people with one bathroom..it's a bit tough to share it
6. Location. if it is well served by public transport it's better otherwise... car
7. Balcony: I would like to dry my wet clothes easily by taking advantage of sun, above all during summer !
   
8. What am I missing out ?
   

Free admission weekend

As I anticipated I had my tourist tour in Rome a week ago. It was nifty and winding down for my mind but not for my legs :)

I started off on Saturday afternoon with "Il Vittoriano" Palace in which mementos of our history have been collected since the Renaissance. To tell the truth in some show rooms there is a bit of confusion because in the same area were messed up symbols of Futurismo with Risorgimento (Reinaissance).
In the palace, statues and portraits fill all the rooms as you can reasonably expect, but the thing that caught my attention was a post about Futurismo. I have always been attracted by the Futuristi's words and dialectic, even if their speech, sometimes it's harsh and bloody, but on the whole it is vigorous.
In the palace you can also run into some Roman wall paintings!!!, they are just spots !

On the contrary if you want to find out about Roman history, you must visit Foro Romano and
Foro Traiano. Visiting them took me the entire Sunday. You can go through those old ruins and try to imagine how the Roman society lived.
We discovered that the marble with which the pillars and interior house objects are made of varies, some have even a quirk name. For example, there is a marble slab called "Cipollino" little onion, its name is due to the several layers, from the grey to the red colour, that compose it !

I even learnt that Romans used to build up animal shaped statues!!!. As far as I know Egyptian

> were accustomed to it, but I ignored Romans had this habit either.

Unfortunately, I didn't join a guide there and it was needed because I could have gained a deep insight :)

To open an English bank account

Another maddening adventure during my buzzing journey in London was to open a bank account. Actually, I didn't need it because I didn't manage to get a job there and I could withdraw money with my Italian debit card.
In order to open a bank account in London you need your ID, a cover letter by your employer and sometimes your passport (it depends on your nationality and the bank). I reasonably suppose that the same procedure works everywhere in the UK.
Anyway I was asked to help my Spanish friend to open her bank account (she strongly relied on my English ..oh my God). We chose the Lloid bank, where you can get a bank account free of charge. For the first time you get an appointment, generally within one week, you can go to the bank again to open your account definitely. After 3 days we went to the bank and finally we had a complete interview. Here an incredible thing happened to me.
The clerk was speaking in English to us, but she mostly talked to me because I was able to understand her and translate from a quick and "complex" English into a simple and slow English for my Spanish friend....a bit of gloat :)
I was a sort of electronic device which makes a good English broken :)
Anyway only after 20 minutes the clerk realized that I was speaking in English and not in Spanish and she said to me "But you're speaking in English!",
I replied: "Yes of course! I don't know Spanish, if you spoke slowly and easily my friend could understand you without my help" and the fretful clerk continued: "OK, I got it, we don't need you any more!!! " oh my God I hit the roof, the clerk made my blood boil !
I wanted to say: damn maroon you need more than 5 minutes to understand that I was speaking in English !!!! The interview lasted about 25 minutes, they are really thorough and I'd bet they collect enough info about you to have a complete profile of their client for legal and advertisement purposes.
In the end we went out and to celebrate the successful bank account opening.

Thanks, Zsofia for her corrections

LOOK LEFT, LOOK RIGHT

In London there is a huge amount of pedestrian signals all around. Before crossing the street, you should notice from which direction the cars come.

In order to help the people distinguishing the correct way to check they write on the street "look left" or "look right" near the crosswalks.



Above all they help the tourists to settle in, I guess.

What I want to point out, here, is the presence of these indications that I've never seen in other cities. Since in my city I don't have this kind of road signs and I was about to be run over several times, I got used to look at both ways... I know I was a fool:)

Another weird thing occurred to me. When I cross the street, generally, I 'm in habit of looking at the driver's head. I have my theory: you don't need to look at the car but just the driver's head and if they seem absent minded or they are looking at some girl :) you shouldn't cross the street, it's unsafe.
When I was in London I looked at the driver's head but given that I'm European I mistakenly looked at the passenger on the left while I should have looked at the one on the right !!!
Result : in the early time I thought that British people didn't care about the pedestrians and I was utterly confused where to look, you know, they are those kind of actions that you take without reflecting, they are spontaneous.

Now in Italy, l always look at both directions, even though I exactly know from which way the cars are supposed to come. Before my departure for London I didn't do it !

Travelling with hopes

Dears

I apologize that I haven't written anything for a long time, in these days I'm traveling.
Travel with a faint hope (sometimes) to get a job.
As soon as I can I post something about London.

Seiko's pen

When I was in London I met some guys and I stroke up a friendship that I hope will be lasting.
I've never spoke about and now I want to write some lines.
My classmates were mostly Asian people, Koreans, Japanese and with them I spent my time during the lessons, just once I went out with Nyungian to visit the Tate Modern.
Among them there was Seiko (Japanese) who is friendly and she laughed at me a lot of times. I always asked her to lend me her blue pen. I thought it was a special Japanese pen because of the Japanese characters signed on it. She, Seiko, said to me it's not Japanese you can buy it everywhere in London but I replied it's not true and I needed her special pen to do my exercise.
She, kindly, lent it to me but recommended to give her pen back. I always gave her the pen.. day to day we fought like cat and dog for this.
The last day Seiko said to me "I want to give you a present, it is my NOT Japanese pen as a sign of your friendship". I happily took it and I've been keeping it jealously .

In the afternoon I usually went out with my Spanish and Brazilian friends and we had a whale of a time. It was wonderful to wander London and mass around with them or simply to drink a pint of beer.
With the Spanish and Brazilian people I got in touch easily and immediately, it was almost normal to spend our free time together, perhaps it was due to the fact we were arrived all us alone or because we are sunny, shiny, share our history and we have the same behavior.
I still thank to God to let me know these people.
It was funny to speak to M. (Spanish friend) who always said to me "quick", "quick" while we were crossing the street or you're not a good photographer at all !! I'm missing these moments...

On the bus

London is an endless list of new experiences for me, I chose to speak in this topic about the "bus".
The buses are, generally, efficient I mean they go regularly but sometimes they don't make a stop, I don't know why and it's really dreadful. Apparently there are no compelling reasons to avoid stopping, in most cases we weren't packed like sardines or the bus wasn't completely full.
On the bus, in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening in other words the silence always reigns in it.
I took the bus everyday and every hour, during my daily trip I saw many people reading a book or a magazine or a newspaper if you are lucky to have a seat, it's a quiet place where you can even prepare your exams.
If you don't sit you had better hold on the pole because the drivers run quickly from one stop to another and break at once before stopping. Maybe this is the answer to my own question "Why in London do the engines of the buses block all of a sudden and it's necessary a wrecker?"
I'm not kidding, sometimes it happened that the bus had stopped running and we needed to get off and wait for another one!
Generally the people on the bus are quite polite and offer their seat for the ones less able to stand. I honestly recommend you to do this and after, you also will hear "you're really kind"as a form of thanking.
Yet, some buses unfortunately not all them (but it' s better than nothing) are fully equipped to allow people on wheelchair to get on easily without any help, it's simply great and a sign of a civic minded society.
The drivers are rather strict, serious (and pissed off), you must respect the rules: before boarding buy your ticket from the machine near
the shelter; don't ask or beg an additional or extraordinary stop it doesn't
matter if you forget your things near the former stop; touch in your oyster card.
Other silly and unpredictable thing: sometimes during your trip the buses may change their ordinary route, they warn you about this but you can imagine it's not pleasant at all.
Be ready to change the way to get your destination or be patient to get off and wait for another bus!
What else ?
I think there' s nothing more to add.

Advice of the day: never buy socks in Primark.... they are dirt cheap BUT they aren't worth buying

The last weekend

Sorry guy for the long (really long) pause.
I know I`m not a good blogger at all, since I haven`t updated my blog for weeks, but I have had a great time in London and busy in different activities.
For them interested in my experience, I`ve decided to write several posts when I`m back (next week) or at least I hope to do it.
Now I want to resume my last post and complete it.
Where were we? uhm
I talked about we went to the church.
it`s not a church as we (Catholic people) usually think about. The Mass was hosted in a theater, the atmosphere is almost impossible to describe, there are light effects, one band, some preachers and many many guys.
The Mass lasts about 2 hours but it`s not boring or tiring, on the contrary it`s quite relaxing, warm and lively, just to give you an idea, take a look at the intro of their website, it really summaries the atmosphere in the Church and the message they want to deliver.
It was an awesome experience because I thought that something can happen only in the movies. For some aspects it was extraordinary, at the beginning I felt a pent up emotion that came out with a mounting excitement.
At the end I realized that I really enjoined it.
We`ll see

Piccadilly by night

Sorry guys,

I'm short in time as usual and wiped out to write anything.
In the meanwhile enjoy these pictures that I took while I wandered Piccadilly.

Weekend 2

Dear Guys,

I'm so sorry that I haven't posted for a long time but I was very busy.
In the weekend I did a lot of things, or better, I visited some places. First of all on Friday night we couldn't miss our appointment with one of the club in the lively London.
Obviously I didn't do AM on Saturday morning, but in the afternoon I went (along with other Italian girls) to Camden Town.
Actually, I didn't know this borough, but my friends told me that it's a popular area dotted with lots of stands and it was worth visiting so I took their sound advice and joined them.
As you can see from the pictures below, the market is literally over crowed during the weekend.


I think that the main characteristic of this market is to sell hand crafted objects (clothes, paintings, earrings,...) and the atmosphere, which is a contamination from the hard rock to the Jamaica sounds.

On Sunday I had to go with some classmates to Hampton Court Palace (I made a lot of efforts to persuade my friends to go together to this place.)
Unfortunately, some of my classmates stood Hyun-Jung (from Korea) and me up for a long time that we supposed they didn't want to go to the palace so we decided to wander the area that stretches from the London eye to Tate Modern (it's a museum).

Graffiti under one of the bridge that crosses the Thames.

View of Buckingam palace

During our hike, we came across in a Korean celebration, indeed it wat the korean National day and Hyun-Jung told me about their traditions and culture... an excellent event to know something about a popultation that I don't know at all!

When we arrived to the Tate modern, I made the decision to visit only the floor dedicated to the pop art ( I really like it) and Hyun-Jung, once again, was a good guide that gave me some explanations about the paintings.

outside view of the Tate Modern

In the evening, Fernando and me went to.... church!
Maybe you're wondering " Does Puntino remember the meaning of church?" or "it's a typo, they couldn't go to church" but I'm not taking you for a ride... it's true !
Provided that I want to make this post gripping I'll continue it in the next days...

London kisses

....maybe a lot of people know the famous French kiss (actually I have never tried them... I'm teasing you of course !!) , here in London there are the famous London kisses, what do I mean by that ?
That for an unknown reason when I say hallo to someone I never give him/her a kiss on the cheek as I used to do when I was in Italy, it's quite strange because sometimes I tend to kiss someone but I have to stop this natural gesture.
When I say London kiss, simply, I mean those kisses that I never give when I say hallo.

Go sightseeing by bus 88

You can take in London by the bus 88, it's a dirty cheap way of doing sightseeing because it's one of the bus you can get on with your ticket or your Oyster card.



I took it with my friend Fernando, who was my guide for the trip. The bus offers you the views of Tower bridge, Convert Garden and Trafalgar Square. We started our trip from Plimico, a residential area in zone 1 and got off in Trafalgar square where is located the famous National gallery (you can enter for free).
Obviously we entered the National Gallery and we saw the stunning paintings but we want to go back again with another friend of us that will give us some explanations about the paintings.
Then we enjoyed a nice cappuccino, offered by my skinflint (Fernando).
Some pictures...

Excuse me if they aren't very clear because of the rain drops on the glasses of the bus