Dear Reader: Sorry for my absence. Today I have some generalizations and observations on my trip to italy.

I've been away both physically and mentally from my post here. I was all dried up like a rotten walnut. But today I have some thoughts to share...

Excuses from the author: below are rough notes...the spelling and syntax is chaotic.

Rome: Great. Beautiful. Wonderous City. Romans smoke like it is the cure for something. In between courses of their meals, while they are getting their hair done, and i assume, possibly during intercourse. The city is walkable and easy to get around. People are friendly and animated.

Roman men: Deeply, seriously gorgeous men. The long lashed blue-eyed girly ones and the rougher bigger square jawed, hard-nosed ones--all very, very handsome. It was, in fact shocking, at the magnitude of their varied and stunning good looks.

Roman women: More orange around the skin than their male counterparts and not as pretty. Great bodies though. Crazy good bodies, doesn't matter how old 18 or 45 - hot bods. But orange skin and rough around the face.

Food in Rome: Tonnerelli pasta in a cinnamon sauce with marscapone and chick pea puree...what can i say, it was truly divine. Da Francesco's, a small and hopping local eatery also made kick ass pesto...totally fresh.

Punchbuggy nun & Punchbuggy priest: Now you may think this game too easy in the city that is the seat of the Holy Roman Empire...and yet, it never got old. We marked a two block radius around the Vatican in which we did not play the game because it was simply too easy. But, once away from the Vatican the game was on. We saw nuns and priests of every stripe; Loretto's (Mother Theresa's order), Franciscans, Cappucines, blue nuns, grey nuns and so on. This proved to be a deeply satisifying and entertaining game, gaining extra points for claiming sisters and brothers in the more unusual and rare orders.

Florence: TOO MANY PEOPLE! Too many. Too too many. Oi. Yes Art. Oh Art with a capital A...and yet, I'm all renaissanced-out.

Fiesole (in the mountains above Florence): Beautiful, peaceful, quiet. Heaven.

Venice: Ummmm, possibly the coolest city ever. I feel sorry for the Venetians having their streets, canals and everything else clogged up with the touristas. But then that is what happens when you live in a totally unique place. And they get their even...We went to some fancy restaurants which were not that great. Food on the whole was twice as expensive as Rome and not as good.

Venice - Home to the Biennalle: The perfect antidote to Renaissance Italy...contemporary art from around the world. The British and French pavillions were particularily engaging. There was much wonderful art, days and days of viewing and i know i only saw a fraction of it. This is reason enough to return again and again to Venice.