Landfills and large dinners

I still don't really understand how to order food at restaurants still. I am picking up more and more words that make me sound less like a caveman when I order food, but I still find myself ordering foods and being surprised when they arrive at the table. I’ve gone from just pointing and mumbling the different dishes the first few days, and now I try and ask the waiters how to say the words and then struggle to repeat them back. It’s a slightly painful process, for both parties involved I would guess, but I am getting better at it, I swear. The other day would be a perfect example of this type of dinnertime confusion; I went to a restaurant in the main square by our dorm with Mike, Dylan and Eli. We were starving and ready to eat our weight in pizzas or pasta dishes. We sat down and ordered wine and decided what we wanted to eat; orders that would change as soon as the waitress came over. The server asked if we wanted to start with an appetizer, and of course we said yes but didn't know what the appetizers consisted of, which, as you can imagine, was problematic. We asked the waitress to pick for us and then she walked away leaving us at our table awaiting our mystery meal. What we received was absolutely amazing and the largest appetizer I have ever seen (pictures below). The dishes, too many to count consisted of squids, clams, mussels, liver of some kind, cartilage, peppers, olives, assorted meats, breads, cheeses, and the list goes on. Clearly not knowing what you are ordering can sometimes lead to some pretty interesting dinners and experiences overall.

Switching to the academic side of the week thus far, we traveled to a nearby landfill that is still in use and were given a tour of the facility. After learning about landfilling in class as well as learning how to design a landfill, I thought I knew what I would be in for on our trip, but I was definitely wrong. The shear size of the landfill (6 smaller landfills in total) was amazing. The fact that something of that size could be engineered is incredible.  Some of the landfill couldn't even seen because it was already capped and covered in vegetation, or being built upon and thus, covered up. After taking the tour and seeing where they placed all of the special waste in the landfill, we made our way over to their generator facility. This landfill is able to capture the methane gas (bio-gas) that is produced from the waste and convert it to electricity and heat that can be used to generate the plant itself and then sell the electricity back to the grid; this is a pretty incredible process to see first hand and learn more about in both class and in the field.