my first real vacation in three years

I wanted to tell you so many things before we left. I wanted to tell you about how my glasses broke and about how the woman who helped me at the one-hour glasses place looked like the woman from the TV show Alias, only with a great big butt and a head shaped like a kidney bean. I wanted to tell you about my visit to the Old Country Buffet for lunch the other day and how I saw a table of obese people create their own buffet table, off to the side of the one that everyone else used. They had plates heaping with fried chicken and mashed potatoes sitting on a table next to the one they were eating at. Instead of visiting the regular buffet, like the rest of us, they would just amble a few steps over to their private buffet. Oh, and I wanted to tell you about the dent in the van I rented and how it was all my fault and how I learned a few lessons about not trying to be funny and not assuming that insurance was covered just becasue I was paying with an American Express card. Fuck. There’s so much I want to tell you, but the plane leaves in just a few hours and I need to finish cleaning for our company… You see, when we’re away in Italy, we have a friend staying here in our house. She a friend of ours from Detroit who has a big art show coming up on October 30 and she needed some space to work. We’re letting her stay here. It’s great for us. She can take care of the cats and frighten away the crack heads.

So, here’s the plan. We fly from Detroit to Amsterdam, then we fly from Amsterdam to Milan. We do two nights in Milan and then head up toward the alps. We have a reservation for one night on Lake Cuomo, a town called Varenna. Then it’s on to Florence, then Venice, then Cinque Terre, a series of five (cinque) towns on the western coast of Italy. Then we’re going to backpack around in Tuscany for a little while, visit Sienna, Pompeii and a few other places, and ultimately wind up in Rome where we’ll be pick-pocketed. I’m convinced of that, but it’ll be OK. We won’t have any money by then…. Once we’re done in Rome, we’re on a flight back to good old Detroit.

So, that’s the plan. I hope to be updating here when I get the chance, so stay tuned. Also, I think I’ve convinced Linette to leave her thoughts here as well. We’ll see if it actually happens.

As for all of the other stories, I promise I’ll tell them when I get back.

Hugs and kisses to the people of the world,
Mark