Fluffy

Two weekends ago, I went with 8 coworkers to Cortina, a lovely ski resort city practically in the southern Alps, for a ropes course.  I really wanted to do the advanced course and got as far as a rope-swing in which I was expected to zoom Tarzan style thru the air and let go in time to catch onto a cargo net, Spider-man style.  For about 30 minutes, I stood up there trying to work up the nerve to go across with no luck.  I headed back the way I came only to discover that I could have bypassed the stupid thing and gone straight to the rest of the advanced course which included some long ziplines.  I went ahead with the ziplines but didn’t enjoy it much because it was kind of embarrassing to have chickened out of something.  Probably didn’t score me any cool points with my coworkers, but then again I was the DD for the entire weekend, so hopefully they were drunk enough not to notice.

We drove to the lovely Lake Garda and set up our tents to camp overnight.  Europeans don’t really rough it while camping.  We saw fancy-schmancy trailers with mopeds, bicycles, and a freaking SATELLITE DISH.  Really goofy.  Next on the agenda was Medieval Times dinner show in Verona.  The guy that played the king had really hot body piercing but didn’t exactly look like the year of our Lord 1250.  I thought it was stupid to cheer for our knight simply because he was the blue knight and we were given blue paper crowns to wear.  But after about 20 minutes, I was joining in the heckling and our group was yelling “You suck” to the yellow, red, and green knights.  The yellow knight actually looked up at us and thumbed his nose!  Hilarious.  We didn’t exactly do much to help America’s image that night but we were having fun.  Good thing I brought earplugs; it gets painfully noisy.  One point of contention: they brought out ice cream for dessert.  It looked white so I expected vanilla.  NO.  It was a horrible tasting banana ice cream.  Disgusting.  Something about a banana pisses me off, but to turn perfectly good ice cream into a banana flavor is unforgiveable.

We headed back to camp and the folks shared typical pervert stories.  Stupid me, I didn’t own a sleeping bag and was too grossed out at the thought of renting one.  So I brought a pillow and blanket.  It was so freaking cold.  I wore every article of clothing, wrapped up like a cocoon, and still woke up every 20 minutes or so from the pain of the cold.  Earplugs helped a little to drown out of sounds of the boys’ tent.  Bad snoring over there.

The following day, I drove the crew to Monza, a town near Milan.  The motorcycle race was fun, loud, smelly, and kind of neat when they had crashes.  But it got old after a while, probably because I was exhausted.  We ate dinner in Verona, then everyone else fell asleep for a nice long nap while I drove back with my eyes barely capable of staying open.  Finally got home around 1am, took a shower, said hi to Dad, and crashed only to wake up a few hours later for work, then got on a plane for Germany.

After I got back from Germany, Dad and I went to Florence.  It was a very nice trip and things went quite well.  The first night, we walked up to the famous hill (whatever it’s called, never heard of it before we got there) and watched the sunset.  Day two, we hit the Academie museum to see the statue of David and other artsy crap there.  I guess I wasn’t as impressed with David as all of the other tourists were.  Granted, these were the same blockheads who loudly shared with all English-speaking people (90% of Europe) the very important fact that they had been unable to go #2 for 8 days.  But I digress.

You’re supposed to look at David from a certain angle to fully appreciate Michealangelo’s sculpting talent.  However, no matter what direction I looked at it, David looked like a scared little boy, reaching his hand to his mouth to either suck his thumb or bite his fingernails, with very big hands and a very small Mr. Johnson.  I found the rest of the art more interesting, including the upstairs, which most people miss.  They had a large collection of icons and beautiful illuminated manuscript Bibles.

We went to Fiorese (?), a small village on the outskirts of Florence, to a lovely little monastery and viewed some Roman ruins from a distance.  Another stunning Florentine sunset.

Day three, we went to Pisa.  And yes, we climbed the tower.  It really is leaning and feels a bit weird while climbing.  The cathedral was also very nice and we had fun joining many other tourists in taking our “leaning” poses.  Dad and I took some of us “running” away from the tower as if it was going to fall on us.  A museum employee started to chase us away but lightened up when she saw we were just being harmless tourists.

I forgot what we did the morning of day 4, but I did buy a shirt with embroidered butterflies.  Very nice and Dad was stunned that I actually purchased an article of clothing.  Train ride back was nice and the scenery is lovely to watch.

Not much else to report.  People in New Orleans are still stupid, as we can see by the results of their mayor election.  The immigration stuff is getting annoying.  I think I’ll stay overseas as long as possible simply to avoid paying taxes until they get that mess sorted out.  The exchange rate crashed again.  My rent is getting close to $1,000 every month.

So, there I was at lunch with Jim #3 at an Indian restaurant.  A male specimen of crotchfruit was running around the tables wearing a t-shirt and pamper.  A rather saggy pamper if I may politely add.  He was banging on a locked door in an attempt to open it, then picked up a fork from an unoccupied table and brought it back to his mother.  Jim #3 seemed amused; I was a bit horrified.  He then said:

“I think I’m ready for kids.  It would be fun and I would be good at it.  But I’m not ready for a wife.”

That’s all for today folks.  Fluffy out.

So I am back in Germany for a few days for a TDY.  A very pleasant German couple sat next to me on the flight down here and it gave me a chance to practice my language skills again.  Apparently, I spoke better German than I thought.

Anyway, all was going well until the road to the autobahn was closed with absolutely no umleitung (detour) sign anywhere.  Typical.  3 U-turns, 1 minute of shouting out curse words, and a brief snowstorm later, I’d wormed my way on an alternate route to the autobahn.  Normally, it would not have been so bad but I had been seriously sleep deprived for the past few days.  Still groggy today. 

But it’s kind of cool being back here because it helps me realize how much I enjoy life in Italy.

Maybe I am an idiot like all of the people who post hatemail in response to my Lance Armstrong sucks post from many moons ago.  Consider this scenario:

My dad has been in town for a week and will be until the last week of May.  Sunday, we went driving thru the mountains to scope out a few Michelin one-star restaurants of which he is so fond.  I suggested that we take the “scenic” route back, alas not knowing that it required climbing back up the mountain for an  hour before descending.  Needless to say, by the time I got my little Peugeot back down to the highway, I was a nervous wreck.  Pretty dang hungry too.

So we went to a very good restaurant just a stone’s throw from my apartment.  We’d eaten there for lunch a few days earlier, and I had eaten there with a coworker prior to that.  Both times, we had the same waiter, a very pleasant and eye-appealing Italian gentleman.  We came in and he said “Same table?”, refering to the place my dad & I had eaten.  He chatted with us a bit and said “I remember you came here before”.  I thought he was talking about coming here with my coworker and started babbling about that.  He looked confused and a little embarrassed.  After he left to get our drinks, Dad said “No, he remembers YOU.  He likes you”.

Never thought any daughter would hear that from her father, funny.  Turned out to be a nice treat though.  Our service was excellent and he helped me with my language skills.  Then he brought over some complementary slushy dessert drinks (you rarely get something free in Europe, so it’s a big deal).  One was lemon, the other apple.  I chugged them both and they were excellent.  A few minutes later though, I had a head rush and stuff got a bit blurry.  He came back to see if I liked them.  I affirmed this and politely asked their contents.

I forgot what he said after vodka.

Oops.  I coudn’t even detect the alcohol and it hit me like a sledgehammer.  Dad ordered a cappuchino for me to counteract the effects.

I love it here!!!