there and back here again

I dunno, but I'm starting to get this nagging feeling that when I get back to the office on Thursday (Lord have mercy on me, coincidentally), a bunch of coworkers are going to jump out at me from behind Star-Trekked doors and say SURPRISE, WE'VE BEEN TRAINING YOU TO ENTER THE AMAZING RACE!!!

For

Since October 5th, a mere 20 days ago, I have hopped from:

blessed home of the free to

Germany (home of the amazingly adept robots and dang good sausages)

Austria (ALPS.  nuff said)

Verona Italy (you know that part of Lord have mercy?  Avoid driving in Italy.  Because it is full of Italians).

Venice

Murano (oooo sparkly pretty)

Austria again

Munich again

London (hi, layover in Terminal 5!  We meet again!  Maybe one day I'll actually step foot onto the land outside of you!  What's, it's only been 8 times, right?)

Rome/home

Assisi

Venice.  Again.

20 days.  6 hotels.

Tomorrow is the last full today.  Pictures and updates from the past week to come.  Stellar Rome shots to share.

Rome was the best. 

Rome let me be still and listen and be.  

But more on that later.

Now I'm in Venice again and it's been raining.  

Really raining.

As in, happy little rivers of water leap over the stoney low canal walls and gush merrily through the streets before rejoining their big happy canal water family on the other side.  I thought I was being all suave and smart by noticing that one street was bare of water.  I proudly avoided the raised walking platforms that all the other tourists were jumping onto, the platforms that Venetians promptly erect when blue wavey nature invades their city.  The platforms that are 2 feet wide and clogged by picture-taking tourists.  UGH - those tourists.  :)

All smug, I moved over sliiiiiiiightly to the left to avoid a crowd of similarly minded platform-avoiding folks headed full force and streaming dead towards me. Look at those Venetians avoiding the platforms too.  Oh, I am SO SMART. Look at me looking at all the pretty things in the city.  

I promptly land left-foot first into a cool 4 inches of water.  Oh OH.

I yelped very loudly in front of Prada.  I scowled very decisively past 3 insanely feathered Valentino gowns.  And by the time Louis Vuitton was reached, I can tell you that I was ON that dang platform staring at the six inches flowing merrily under me and wondering WHAT possesses a tribe to build on a marsh.

In other news, I got to do something incredibly dorky but REALLY fun today.  The kind of thing you can tell your grandkids about one day sort of thing.  More on that later too.  It involves a million dollars times twenty.

(Basically, I'm too lazy to upload photos.  Why use a thousand words).

Before I turn in, I would like to state for the record that Truman Capote short stories are the bomb. 

But more on that tomorrow.

:)