Back with who knows what.

Yes, I was on vacation in Italy for two weeks. Rome, Florence, and Venice to be precise. There were interesting sites to visit and I am glad that I got to see them but it has left me rather exhausted to say the least. I think that my digestive system is getting back to normal after eating too much bland and/or greasy food. Italian chefs should go back to culinary school but in France. It wasn't soo much what was served as it was the presentation and they need to learn to incorporate green vegetables into their menus. Greasy friend potatoes just don't get it.

Rome is a fascinating city but the traffic and the way some people drive, especially taxi drivers, was too much. I did not know if we would make from the airport into the hotel in one piece or not. Rome's two subway lines are overly crowded and the trains look like NYC in the sixties with their graffiti. Graffiti, however, seems to rampant in the big cities.

Florence is smaller and easily walkable if you stay at a hotel in the central part of the city. The Duomo is very impressive as is its campanile. We climbed its 400+ stairs without any apparent cardiovascular problems other than getting a little winded.

Pisa, an hour train ride from Florence, is well worth the time to see its cathedral and its campanile, popularly known as the "Leaning Tower of Pisa". That church was one of the most spectacular and beautiful we visited.

Venice is a magical city and one which we felt might disappear if we closed our eyes but Brigadoon or the Flying Dutchman it is not. The central city is very user friendly. That is, you walk and you walk and you walk, but without the hassles of cars, buses, trucks, scooters, and motorcyles getting in your way. There is the water bus system (vaporetto) which traverses a number of routes up and down the Grand Canal and other waterways connecting floating dock "bus stops" with many points of interest around the city and outlying islands. Since we had taken the train up from Rome via Florence we arrived at the Venezia Santa Lucia terminal where we took the #82 boat to the San Marco vaporetto stop which was the closest to our hotel. Upon departure we took the Alilaguna boat from the same stop to the airport which involved a very relaxed ride of an hours duration. Soon I hope to have some photos posted at my photo website.

Returning to work on Monday was easy until I saw how much was leftover from the previous two weeks of hell. My co-worker welcomed me back to hell also. October 15th produced it usual flurry of tax department activity but then other matters came down which only made matters worse for her. With any luck we might get back to normal by the end of the week or early next week.

A friend in the U.K. complained about the way the baseball playoffs went and that the people of California elected a retarded chimp for governor. I agree. Yah...!