Italy gallery is up

The Italy picture gallery is up on the site - http://www.bears-pa.com

Munich layover

[Writing from the Lufthansa lounge, Munich, Germany]

I was correct yesterday when I said that would likely be my last blog posting from Italy. Nothing else spectacular happened yesterday afternoon. Sue and I worked through until about seven, and then our hosts drove us back to the hotel. Sue and I sat at a table on the patio, talked about work, and watched the sun set in the mountains. Then we went to eat, and had our last pizza (I had pizza napolitan - just bread, sauce, and garlic). After we talked for a while, we said goodbye, since the taxi was going to arrive at six to take me to the airport.

The taxi arrived right on schedule, and I had a fast ride to the airport. Unfortunately, the stores in the airport were closed, which meant I was not able to do any last minute shopping for the kids. Ah, well. The Napoli airport was notvery busy, but everyone seemed to show up 10 minutes before the flight. Then they delayed the flight a half hour because there are minimum crew rest times, and the crew wasn't sufficiently rested to make the flight on time. I dozed and listened to music on the way to Munich.

Now I'm in the Lufthansa lounge in the Munich airort, and it turns out my flight to Philadelphia is delayed, too. It was supposed to leave at 12:35 for Philly, but now it leaves at 13:45. This puts me into Philly at almost five o'clock.I assume it will take at least a half an hour to collect luggage and get through customs, then another half hour to get to my car. This means I'll be leaving the airport around six. Not a good time to be on Southbound I-95 on Friday. Again, not much I can do about it. I hope my family has collected a few ingredients for a good Italian dinner.

Last day in Italy (for now)

I haven't blogged for a while, because work has been so hectic. We are staying in a tiny town, surrounded by national park, called Sorina. Across the driveway from my room is a cow pasture; I had to get up in the middle of the night to close the door to the balcony because the cowbells woke me up. It is much cooler here than in Napoli, so we are not sweating by the time we get to the office.

Sunday night, our first night in Sorina, we ate at the hotel restaraunt. Eric (who we call Enrico now), ordered two bottles of wine. We were feeling very happy when we left. I had bruschetta, mixed grill (lamb, sausage, pork chop, and veal) and mixed grilled veggies. Very tasty. Then I had this rum-soaked chocolate torte for dessert.

Last night, though, the directors from the office wanted to take us "to see a show and have dinner." I left my camera in the office. If I had known what we were going to do, I wouldn't have done that. They drove us up onto the mountains above Naples, where we stopped to watch the sun set over the Med. The stops looked down over the city, and they were absolutely gorgeous. I really wish I had had my camera.

We ate in a small neighborhood restaraunt that was outdoors under an awning. While we ate, we watched the ships come and go from Napoli, and then the moon rose over Mt. Vesuvius and reflected on the water of the bay. I really wish I had had my camera.

They served a house white wine, and tons of appetizers, including mozzarella bufala, mixed seafood (which i didn't try, of course), and wonderful bruchetta and fried sea kelp (no, really, you need to try it). Dinner was pasta with tomato sauce and eggplant. Dessert was a lemon pound cake with a light lemon icing, along with a lemon liquer that really packed a wallop. To make it, you take pure alcohol, or vodka, and peel lemons into it. Then you store it in the dark for 9 or 10 days. After that, you make a syrup of sugar and water (cooked), and strain the lemon-alcohol into it. Store in the fridge for a couple of weeks, if it lasts that long.

As Sue said, in a fake drunken slur, "we had shish niiiice lemon thing - stuff - drink, an' it awl gess fushy after that...."

After lunch today, they took us into town for baba (imagine a rum-soaked lemon cupcake) and rocket fuel. I mean coffee, not rocket fuel. It's, um, strong, though. I leave at five tomorrow morning, so unless something spectacular happens, this will be the last log from Italy until my next trip.

Pompeii

[Writing from Naples, Italy - Saturday, 18 June 2005]

Sue found the train station, and the train from Naples to Pompeii. We walked down to the train station from the hotel, which was about 1/2 mile. The train ticket to Pompeii, round trip, was 3.90 Euro (about 5 bucks). Between the two of us, with our limited Italian, and other people's limited English, we managed to get on the right train. We arrived at the station at 10:37. The train left at 10:39. We never thought we'd make it, so we were prepared to wait for the next train, but we got tickets very quickly, went downstairs, and walked onto the train. There were even two seats next to each other. Try that at New York's Penn Station.

The ride out was very easy, but we could tell it was going to be a hot day. I forgot to take the water bottle out of the mini-bar in the room, but Sue had hers. 1/2 liter was not going to be enough water.

We got to the Pompeii in about 35 minutes, and made our way past the street vendors and food shops towards the entrance. I took my camera out, and Sue bought a 2 liter water bottle to drop in the bag in its place. It was a good thing, too, because it was hot today - about 95. There weren't many Italians there, compared to Americans, Brits, and Germans. I suppose the locals know better than to go to Pompeii on the weekend. It cost 10 Euro each to get in, but it was well worth it!

We made our way up past the suburban baths and through the Porto Marina into the city itself. Pompeii started out as a small villiage in about 80 B.C., and grew steadily because of its favorable location. By the time of its destruction in 79 A.D., it had become a thriving walled city under Roman rule. If it weren't for the August 24 eruption of Vesuvius, it probably would have passed un-noticed into history, like hundreds of other Roman towns. There are a number of entrances to the city, but the tourists enter through Porto Marina. We looked at a few houses and a bakery on the
way in, but we figured we'd have ample time to see similar things.

I never realized the extent of the city of Pompeii. It's huge. We ended up spending over 5 hours there, and didn't see half of it. Actually, I'd be surprised if we saw 1/3 of it.

The first place we explored in any detail was the Basilica.




The Basilica is the headquarters of the court, and was also the center of business activity. It had a heavy gabled roof, which was supported by thick central columns. The arrangement was a cental nave with two narrow aisles at the sides.



Across the street from the Basilica is the Temple of Apollo. The Temple was built in about 2 B.C. It was badly damaged in the earthquake of 62 A.D. (which foreshadowed the eruption of 79), and much of the original architecture was changed when it was rebuilt.



In this image you can see the sacrificial alter in front of the steps, and the steps to the raised dias that held the actual temple. The temple, though was thoroughly destroyed by the eruption. Only a few columns remain, and the base of Apollo's statue inside. The white column to the left holds a sundial.



This is a better view of the steps, the sacrifical alter, and the bottom parts of the original temple. You can also see Vesuvius in the background. It was originally a single cone that was 2,200 meters high. This summit is only 1,270 meters high. The top half was blown off during the 79 A.D. eruption, and it rained down on Pompeii and the surrounding area. Pompeii itself was buried under 7 meters of ash and rock. By comparision, 20 centimeters of ash is sufficient to collapse a modern roof (10 if it rains on the ash).

After we looked at the Temple of Apollo we snuck down the south end of the Forum:



It was very crowded with tour groups, so Sue and I decided to just randomly wander around the city. This is really the way to see it if you know something about Roman architecture and urban planning.

We went across the south end of the forum and turned right on the Via Delle Scuole (that's Sue walking along on the left).



Here's a nice view from the other end, looking past the forum to Vesuvius. You can imagine the panic in the city when the mountain exploded, given how close it is (and that's only the remaining half).



We could look in the gates at one of the house restoration projects. Obviously, they can't let the tourists into the house, since touching the paintings will damage them. We can see some great detail in here, though.



We walked down these side streets until we came to the theater district. I know Mouse will want to know about the theaters, so we spent a great deal of time here. The entrance to the theater district is a triangular forum of Hellenic design. The portico consists of these columns:



The outside of the theater doesn't look like much, though it is interesting.



The inside, though, is spectacular! I couldn't belive it when I stepped out into this sunken building. It can seat 5,000 people.





Directly behind the large theater is the quadriporticus, where the gladiators had their quarters. I was very impressed with how well this structure has withstood time.



On our way down to the quadriporticus, we passed the Temple of Isis.



There was a long set of stairs down to the quadriporticus, and we could look down into the gladiator's quarters.



Then we could walk around inside.





Just East of the large theater is the small theater.





When they first began excavating Pompeii, they found hollow places in the rock. They quickly realized that these were the cavities left over when a body encased in ash would decay away. The researchers were able to pour plaster into these hollow spaces, then excavate around them to see the shape of the bodies.



One of the major roads in Pompeii is the via dell'abbondanza. It runs east from the forum.



I wanted to pick up the virtual geocache that's at the northwestern edge of the city, so Sue and i walked back through the forum and headed in that direction.



Along the west side of the forum is a storehouse with antiquities recovered from the site, along with more body casts.









Looking South from the steps next to the Temple of Jupiter.



On the way to the cache, we passed a bakery.



In the back is, pretty obviously, an oven. The other two objects in the foreground are flour mills. The one in front is missing the grinding stone; that's the hourglass-shapped object on top of the other cone. The grinding stones are hollow. You would pour grain in top, then use a piece of wood as a handle to turn the stones. They would grind the grain into flour, which would pour out the bottom onto the ledges. Roman bread was unleavened flatbread, which they would bake like pancakes in the ovens behind. The ovens were heated by a fire in the lower compartment.

One of the houses (the House of the Tragic Poets) has a "beware of dog" mosaic in tile at the entrance to the house.



We were getting very tired and sunburned at this point, so we headed back out through the forum. Here's a view of the Temple of Jupiter with Vesuvius in the background.

Ah, finally, a few pictures from Italy

[Writing from Naples, Italy - Saturday, June 18, 2005]

Finally, I had some time and uploaded some pictures. These are from Milan.

The glass pavillion at the office:



The outer defenses at the Castle Sforenzia:



A garden inside the castle:



The mall next to the cathedral (Duomo):



The cathedral, from the outside:



I have a bunch more, from Pompeii, but that's the next entry.

Travel to Naples

[Writing from Naples, Italy - Friday, June 17]

We went for dinner last night at the local pizza shop, where I had the same kind of calzone that I had earlier in the week. It was a long, long day at work, and I needed something fast and easy. After that, we went back to our rooms and packed up for today's trip to Naples.

We worked this morning, and skipped lunch. Then we checked out of the hotel and took the cab to the Malpensa airport outside Milan. We caught the Alitalia flight to Naples from there.

In America, when you go the the airport you go to your airline's ticket counter to check in. In many other places in the world, Italy being one of them, you go to a ticketing hall and check the departures board. On the board, it will have a ticketing queue number next to your flight. In some places, like Shanghai, there is one queue per flight - you just have to get the right number so you can check in for your flight. Here, Alitalia has about four different queues. So you get your number, and go queue up. You check your bags, and then head for security (just like everywhere else).

The flight was fine, I guess. I fell asleep. So did Eric (one of the other guys I work with, who has come for part of the time to help out). That's ok, because it was a very short flight. When we got here, there was a taxi waiting for us. The driver was pretty funny, but he charged us a bit too much for the trip. He offered to drive us around tomorrow - to Pompeii and some of the costal towns, for 90 Euro each (about 125 dollars). That's a pretty expensive tour around, so Sue and I decided to go to Pompeii on the train, which is much cheaper.

We dropped off our things in the room and went around the corner to have a bite. We split a bottle of house white wine (no label, but it was good). I had prosccutio and mozarella bufala for starters, then bolognese fettucini, which is fetuccini with a beef and creamed tomato sauce. Very good, but I couldn't finish all of it. Then we waddled back to the hotel to turn in early.

The Internet in my room isn't working. If they fix it while I'm at Pompeii, I'll post this tomorrow night. Otherwise, it will be Monday when I'm at the office.

Oh, Naples is going to go away someday. It's very, very close to Vesuvius. I don't think the volcano is more than 10 or 15 miles from downtown Naples. I always thought Pompeii was some distance away, but it's right at the foot of the mountain. I'll try to post some pictures, since the volcano and the entire area are quite beautiful.

*happy sigh* Another lunch in Milan

Fabulous. Two hours to eat, but fabulous.

* Fresh bread
* Pickled onions (really, trust me, you have no idea how good these are!)
* Dried ham, like a prosccutto (sp?)
* Genoa salami
* Lardo - basically a very fatty shaved ham
* Fresh olives
* Bruschetta with sliced tomato and fresh basil
* Bruschetta with melted cheese
* Pastry with melted cheese and shaved ham
* Meatballs
* Hand-made tortellini with spinach and cheese, drizzled with olive oil and cheese
* Small hand-made spinach pasta in a cream-tomato-basil sauce
* Pork, gnocchi, and beans in a butter-tomato sauce
* Chestnut ice cream with hot chocolate sauce
* Tiny vanilla merangues (sp?)

It's almost six thirty, and none of us are hungry yet.....

Working and Eating in Milan

Yesterday was another busy day at work, followed by dinner at La Tradizionale (sp?). The food here is incredible. We started with beer and fried mashed potato balls (think deep fried gnocchi). In Italy, they have antipasta (starters), followed by first plate or second plate, and if you're hungry, third plate, then dessert. The dinner menus are split into those sections. For antipasta, I had a plate of shaved ham and marinated mozzarella balls. Then they brought the wine and water (acqua naturale is still, as opposed to sparkling, mineral water). Then I had pasta with steamed spinach, "rabe," and sausage slices. For dessert I had a chocolate and amaretto torte with shaved coconut on top.

After dinner, they gave us a ride back to the hotel in a taxi, since they said we really shouldn't be walking around at midnight.

This morning we were tired, so we skipped breakfast at the hotel and came right to work. Sue and I just got back from the cafe on the corner, where we got some breakfast. Fresh pannini with chopped lettuce, tomato, and a very spicy ham that tastes a lot like pepperoni, but doesn't have the same taste or texture.

We'll see what we have for lunch....

Another day in Milan

Not a ton to report since my last posting. Sue and I were in the office until midnight, so there was no running around to talk about. We even missed dinner, and ended up eating chocolate and croutons from the vending machine. Walking home was interesting. I was concerned about wandering around Milan with all computers and cameras and whatnot, particularly on ill-lit streets in what looks like a pretty dodgy neighborhood, but we didn't have any troubles at all. There are a lot of people on the streets of Milan at midnight.

This morning we got up and met at eight to walk around and do some geocaching and sightseeing. We headed for the castle Sforenzsa (sp?), partly because the cathedral is nearby and partly because there's a cache on the grounds. It was overcast and sprinkling, so the pictures probably aren't the best, but I don't know if we'll get back there. Maybe, maybe not. Nonetheless, it was a great hike, and now I have an Italy cache in my list.

After the walk, it was time for a quick shower, grab the computer, and head to the office. Other than work, not much to report. Oh, we ran across the street for lunch at the cafe, and got take-away sandwiches. Mine is smoked ham and mozzarella on focaccia. Mmmmmmmm, yummy! Now the rain has cleared and it's partly sunny. Maybe I'll get up early tomorrow and go caching again. I'll probably sleep well, since we're going to dinner at 8:30 tonight with Important People.

Lunch... Oh, my.

I just got back from lunch. We had risotto milanese (recipe here). This is a bright yellow rice with sauce, and it's magnifico! For dessert, we had torte e mele - think traditional apple pie, with a thinner, less-flaky crust. Oh, my goodness. That was fabulous....

Travel to Milan

[Writing from Milano, Italy]

Time flies when you have too much to do. I'll try to keep up with the blog in a slightly more timely fashion than I have recently.

I left Saturday evening during Bear's dance recital and drove up to Philadelphia to catch my flight. I was flying US Air from PHL to Munich, Germany, then Lufthansa from Munich to Milano. When I went to Hong Kong I flew United, and their business class was awesome. The US Air business class leaves a bit to be desired. The seats are only 2-way adjustable, which is somewhat lacking (United's 747-400 business class seats are 17-way adjustable). The biggest problem was that they had no power outlets on the seats. Excuse me? Business class with no seat power? Some of us have work to do. Unfortunately, this means I arrived in Europe 9 hours behind schedule, from
a work perspective.

The second problem was that they didn't load any filet mignon on the flight. It's the little things....

We arrived in Munich a bit late, possibly because of ground delays in Philly. Unfortunately, this means I had a 9 minute connection in Munich, with a stop in immigration. Now, the officer in immigration (Bundeswehr maybe?) was extremely polite. Possibly the nicest immigration officer I've encountered. He patiently smiled at my attempt to speak German (was ist nicht zehr gut).

Ok, well, even with running through the terminals, I still missed my flight from Munich to Milano. The very courteous young lady at the Lufthansa counter rebooked me, and at least I could hang out in the Business Class lounge, drink free drinks, and take advantage of the business services to charge my iPod and catch up on my e-mail. It was slightly irritating that Vodafone charges for high-bandwidth Internet in the lounge.... I mean, come on Lufthansa, we can do better than that, can't we? Besides 12,95 Euro for 2 hours of Internet is kind of steep, even if it's expensible.

I finally got down to the gate, after a four hour hangout in the Munich airport.

It was fun to be in Munich and listening to the announcements in German. I was surprised to find I understood most of the German. Maybe that's the one language that I'd be good at (other than English :-) The put us on a bus to take us out to the plane, which wasn't big enough to pull up to a jetway. It actually had jet engines, but it was parked next to planes with props, and I really wasn't sure until we pulled up. As we got off the bus to walk over to the plane (Canadair 100, in case you're wondering - I just know you are), the gent behind me noted to his friend, "hey, I feel good; I can see my bag on the truck there." I looked over and saw my bag, so I said, "I'm in good shape, too; my bag's on the truck next to yours." We laughed and got on the plane. Remember this material. You will see it again.

We flew south from Munich, over the Austrian Alps. I know the flight path because I had my GPS up against the window where I had satellite coverage. The handy GPSr said our top speed was 518.4 mph. Pretty cool. Anyway, I tried to take pictures of the Alps, but it was very hazy, and I was shooting into sun, so it just wouldn't work out.

When we arrived in Milano, the bus drove us to the terminal and in we walked. Before I even got to the luggage claim belt, I heard on the loudspeakers, "Italian Italian Italian Roberts Italian Moyer Italian Italian." Hmmmm. Not good. I went over to the information counter to inquire, where they politely told me that Munich had called and my bag was still there. Remember the Roberts name? He's the other guy who saw his luggage. WTF. Ok, so they promised to deliver my luggage in the middle of the night, direct to the hotel. When everything is outside of your control, there's just no point getting your tutu in a knot over it, so I said, "Grazzi," and headed for immigration.

Now, I know Italy is relaxed. I know I was arriving on a flight from another EU country. But I was somewhat surprised that the doors at immigration were proped open to the arrivals hall, and the area was totally unmanned. Everyone else was just walking out, so I followed them. I entered Italy without any official every glancing at my passport. Bummer - no Italy stamp in the Visas section.

At that point, there was nothing to do, so I wandered off to wait for my co-worker, Sue. She was flying in from the UK, and my delay made my arrival sufficiently close to hers that I could just hang out and we'd ride the train into Milano together. Her flight was delayed about 1/2 hour, so I had about an hour wait. "Hmmm," I thought to myself, "I wonder if there's any geocaches close by?"

I powered on the GPSr again, and walked out the front of the terminal to see where the nearest cache was hiding. 1.48 miles. Quick calculation - a reasonable pace is 3 miles per hour, that puts me at the cache in 1/2 hour. Half hour out, half hour back. If it happened to be an easy cache, it might work. Unfortunately, I didn't want Sue sitting there wondering what the heck had happened, so I went back inside, listened to my iPod, and read my handy little Italian pocket phrase book, looking for all the world like a tourist.

It amazed me how many Italians were walking around with "England" football shirts, given that Liverpool beat AC Milan in the Championship finals.

Sue arrived, and we went downstairs to the train station, where we caught the next Malpensa Express train to central Milan. It was a fun ride in, and I did manage to take a few pictures. Not too many, though. It was an easy ride, since I didn't have any real luggage to deal with. Then we caught a taxi to the hotel.

Milan is interesting. Very, very old architecture. The city is also pretty dirty, even with attempts to pick up the litter. Imagine grafitti on every vertical surface, from sidewalk to about eight feet up. It's a little odd. The sidewalks are narrow. Well, about a car's width. The buildings go right up to the sidewalk, and then there's the street. Sometimes, when there aren't parking spots available, people will drive up on the sidewalk and just park there.

Traffic can be a problem, so motorbikes and scooters are very popular, and they're chained up all over the place (to prevent theft). More on that later.

After we checked in, Sue and I decided to walk to the office to check out where it is, then get something to eat. She had a map, I had the GPSr, so we figured we were in good shape. We wandered down the street in generally the right direction, and we'd stop every so often to compare street names (which, like Madrid, are on plates on the corners of the buildings) to the map. We found our way around the canal, and then over a pedestrian footbridge at the railroad station. When we got to the other side of the tracks, we looked around. We were in a dingy residential neighborhood. All the stores had steel gates closed over the fronts. It was not looking like the kind of neighborhood where we'd find our offices. We started walking, because over
here things can change pretty quickly. As we walked, the street changed from residential to warehouse-style industrial, and then we came around a corner to see an eight story glass wall ahead. That looked really promising, and, sure enough, that was our office. It's an eight story city block, with orange, yellow, black, and beige buildings, with a huge courtyard in the center, all covered by a curving glass pavillion structure. Beautiful modern construction. (It turns out that half of the block is Georgio Armani's offices - yeah, Mr. Armani works there.)

Having proudly found our offices after only 15 minutes of walking, we headed back towards the hotel. Along the way was a pizzaria. Now, understand, this is Italy. As I write this, I've had three meals here - pizza, calzone, and spaghetti. I wil not be able to order poor Papa John's or Dominos when I get home. The pizzas here are just incredible! But the first night I had a calzone with house tomato sauce, mozzarella, ricotta, and genoa salami. It was almost indescribably good. Sue and I split a bottle of red wine. We ordered a glass, really, but no parlo Italiane.... At least not much! Fortunately, between a really fun waiter who spoke a few words of English, our few words of Italian, and pointing at the menu, we got by, other than getting a bottle of wine instead of a glass of wine. A calzone, a pizza, two bottles of mineral water, and a bottle of nice wine (really nice) came to only 33 Euros, which is roughly 40 bucks. This is a very reasonable price considering how much food you get for that!

After a long day of travel, a walk, and dinner with wine, Sue and I decided it was time to turn in, so we headed back to the hotel.

The room is an economy room in a neighborhood hotel, so it's not Americanized at all. It's 10 feet wide and 25 feet long (with the door and window at opposite ends, along the narrow sides), includin the bathroom. Shower only. Not a lot of room, but we're not spending much time in our rooms. It's clean and has good environmental controls. And the shower's good (those of you who know me know how important this is).

I had a bad dream, right before my alarm went off. It was a horrible dream, and I woke up in a cold sweat, shaking, only to have the alarm go off. There was no going back to sleep to get rid of the dream, and it stuck with me most of the day, which put me in a homesick, cranky mood. In the dream, it was snowing hard, and the family was supposed to go somewhere with Loretta's grandma. They were all climbing into a golf cart/pickup combination (don't ask me - it was a dream), and my son climbed in back. As they backed up, he fell out on the road and was run over by the next car.
I ran out onto the road screaming for help and for someone to call 911. I can still see him lying in the snow with a pool of blood under his head, and writing about it is making me sick to my stomach. I guess the emotion of the dream is still with me. Needless to say, this did not make for the best day.

Absolutely 100 percent awake, and still shaking, I pulled on my dirty clothes from yesterday and went down to the desk. Thankfully, there was my bag. Inside the bag was a nice note from the TSA, saying they'd randomly selected my bag for searching, and if it was locked they'd have to break the locks, sorry, but they're not liable for any damage, but have a nice day anyway. Fortunately, I don't bother to lock my
luggage, since you never know when our police state will need to search your belongings. They weren't very neat about it. Note to self - start packing in individual clear plastic travel bags in the suitcase, so they don't have to rummage around and mess up everything.

After unpacking and a really good-feeling shower, we were back off to the office.

As usual, I won't say anything about work, other than to note that the people we're working with are very fun and pleasant.

Mid-way through the morning, our host, Adriano, suggested we go for coffee. He took us across the street to the cafe, where there are no tables. Everyone stands at an elbow-high marble counter. They make the coffee, or, in my case, cappuchino, and bring it over to you. People stand and chat while drinking their midmorning coffee. And it was quite good.

At lunch, we went with Adriano to a "kind of touristy" place. It was very comfortable. I had a pizza with ham, mozzarella, and a soft-cooked egg in the middle. It wasn't as good as the calzone from last night, but it was very, very tasty. I didn't quite finish it, because I didn't want to have a nap in the middle of the afternoon!

We worked until about 7:15, then walked back to the hotel. We changed into jeans and went back to the pizzaria we found last night. This time we skipped the wine. We both had spaghetti, made with fresh cherry tomatoes. Very good, but next time I'll take the phrase book and spend some more time translating the menu. We also had dessert. Sue had Tiramisu and I had a chocolate walnut torte. That was just a bit too much.

We headed back to the hotel, and Sue noticed a store across the canal. It said "Triumph" on the side. She said, "I bet that's a motorbike store." Needing the walk, we went down a few blocks, crossed the canal, and came back up to see. Along the way, I found a cool-looking clothing store. I'll drop in Wednesday morning and pick up some socks (which I cleverly forgot to pack). When we got to the Triumph store, sure enough, it was a motorbike store. Oh my. There was this beautiful blue Triumph Sprint bike. It was gorgeous. I was immediately in lust with it. 1050cc. Unfortunately, it's 11.000,00 Euro (about 16,000 US dollars). I may have a no-limit credit card in my pocket, but I can't figure out a way to justify the expense.
Sigh. It's still a beautiful bike. Maybe I'll find a link and post it so you all can see.

Now it's almost midnight. I won't get this loaded up until tomorrow, since I don't have Internet access in the hotel. I have an alarm set on my phone, with the intention of getting up and going geocaching in the morning before work. We'll see. I'm pretty tired. I should get more pictures tomorrow, since tomorrow's task list involves, well, taking some pictures. I wonder what kind of wonderful food I'll find tomorrow.....

Williamsburg

A handful of Williamsburg pictures are up.

PCCS Graduation Pictures

The gallery from last night's graduation is up....

Photos from Chernobyl

Archangel's excellent photo galleries from the areas around Chernobyl.

KiddOfSpeed's gallery from the same site. Elena is a girl who's father is a government official in Kiev, so she can get permits to ride into the exclusion zones around the reactor site and Pripyat,the nearby ghost town. See her whole site. Haunting....

The D2H is dead...

Aaaaaaaaaaaarrgh! My camera is dead! It has the dreaded metering-circuit-board-death problem. Now I have to send my beloved D2H back to Nikon for repairs. Expect a decrease in posting frequency here..... :-(