Bella Italia

Well we survived popping the pond. We flew US Airways from Philly to Frankfurt and then picked up a Lufthansa flight to Venice. I must say the US companies are getting more annoying everyday. First of all the weight limit is now 50 lbs rather than 70, they charge you 5 bucks for a little bottle of wine at dinner now and not just vodka…, and they also charge 5 bucks for the headset to watch movies (which they graciously offer you to keep and reuse on your next flight). I hope our flight on the way back is operated by Lufthansa. Of course, I shouldn't complain too much. It would be worth reaching Italy in a makeshift raft.

The dollar is pretty weak right now, so I was surprised to find the Venice airport crawling with that “clangy” American accent, but it was everywhere. It always feels a bit strange to land in another country and find that just as many people are speaking your own language as the local language – another sure sign of empire/hegemony.

O by the way, one cool thing about posting in another country is that all the blog commands are translated into another language automatically. Kind of cool to see "Visualizza blog" or "Pubblica post".

Well I must run. I see TMcD’s parental units are trekking around Greece in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul. I imagine they will at least see Phillipi, Thessaloniki, Corinth and Athens. My best advice to them would be to break away from Thessaloniki and see Meteora no matter the cost. Also after seeing the Acropolis, Agora, Areopagus and National Museum in Athens, I would follow the good apostle’s advice and shake the dust off my feet and retrace that part of the journey where his boat capsized and he washed up on some island – I don’t remember which island it was, but he could have done no better than to land on Santorini. Skip the part about building a fire on the beach, well, because you know what happened next.