And the life marches on

Ciao everyone.

Today is a very nice today. Yesterday, however, was rainy and nasty and as the Italians say "fa brutto," or it's ugly.

But I disagree it was beautiful.

I really enjoyed the break from the muggy, hot, sweaty weather to be honest. I wouldn't mind if the next week was all like that, but it's not going to be. It is, however, going to be only 70 or so for the coming days with a chance of precipitation, which I couldn't be more excited about. I can wear all of my clothes now, not just t-shirts, and they last soooooo much longer this way. I hate doing laundry, so more clothes and less sweaty-ness = less laundry, which is A+.

But yes, yesterday I just got up on my own accord, blogged my big post, and just watched it rain outside for a while. In the 15 minutes after I posted that blog, my view count went to 150 people, and apparently all of India read my blog since there was a huge explosion of views from New Dehli and Calcutta. It's funny, if you go up and push the "next blog" link in the upper corner, you can see blogs that were published chronologically on Blogger, and since I published it at 1am America time, it was perfect reading time in India, apparently.

Who knew?

But it stayed nasty all day yesterday, and Bert and I ventured out around 2:30 into the rainy madness and just took it all in. In seemingly a day, everyone switched to long sleeves and jackets, boots and long pants, and everything looked different, like they'd all been preparing for this inevitability for a while now, which they probably have been. They say Summer has broken, and it's now time for Fall, and I don't doubt it.

We went into a couple toy and book stores, looking at the English stock and trying to find something to read for such a rainy day, and we came across a few books, but they weren't really what I was looking for, and I saw a bunch of puzzles, but they were so outrageously expensive (see 30+ euro for some, like 45 bucks) so I had to abstain. Then we remembered they had some puzzles for relatively cheap at the Vatican, so we went there and I paid the Catholic Church 14 Euro for a panoramic puzzle of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, which is both very difficult and very entertaining.

It's going to look awesome when it's done. I've got it over a third of the way done just working on it in-and-out, but that was the perfect rainy day activity; I just worked away and enjoyed it all wet and smelling fresh, just like home. Kirsten and I also booked our trip to Munich for her birthday and I must say, this is going to be a hell of a stay over here. In 10 days of time, I'll see Cairo, Athens again, London, Munich, and Rome. WOOHOO! Break two is going to be awesome, I can't wait for November now! But after that excitement, I stayed in until last night and just went to bed early and slept in today, but it's much nicer out today.

Today I went to 5 different grocery stores looking at their prices on a variety of things, just seeing where was the cheapest to get certain things and the best value for others. Very worthwhile venture. Tomorrow my break ends and Monday I've got class, so gotta get ready for that excitement I suppose. I am really pretty excited for this to get underway and see it all, it's going to be great, no doubt. I mean, I get to see all of Rome for one class, learn about Roman Culture, and study Science vs. Religion and Politics in Italy. Am I excited? You bet.

And that's about it. Everyone gets back tonight / tomorrow, so that'll be nice to have some more company, and we're thinking about Venice / Cinque Terre on Friday, so I'll let you all know obviously about that, but until next time, as always,

Ciao.