King of Etruria

31 July 2004

Welcome to the picture-phone episode of my blog.

Corolla was beach-ilicious this past week (except for Wednesday when it rained, so I had to buy sooper-sexy pumps from Nine West) -- I am officially Disturbingly Tan, the Metropolis restaurant gets an award for Bizarrely Anthropomorphic Tapas Presentation of the Year, and Juline shall heretofore be known as a Ballsy Female for leaving the cute waiter her digits. :)

My new iPod had better show up by 8pm. Stupid FedEx teasing me with their overly detailed information on where my toy is.

 

Posted at 1819.

26 July 2004

Yesterday, we went to the Gilroy Garlic Festival in lovely little Gilroy, California. As I type this, the beesting I received on my finger while waiting in a 45-minute line for the ATM has swollen to epic proportions. Really, though, this entry is just to brag about how many different garlic-flavored delicacies we enjoyed: garlic sausage, garlic bread, bruschetta, garlic popcorn, garlic nuts, garlic fries (scrumdiddliumptious!), and -- oh, yes -- garlic ice cream. And here's Patrick enjoying said dairy delight lovingly ensconced in a cantaloupe.

 

Posted at 1819.

22 July 2004

I was reading People magazine on the plane on the way back from Italy and came across a blurb about Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart, who were vacationing in Tuscany. Reading further, I discovered that they were staying at the "exclusive" Marina di Castagneto Carducci on July 10. I just know that Indiana Jones was there to visit the Torre and our excavation. :)

 

Posted at 1133.

19 July 2004

I was in Target today, which was a little bit of culture-shock after five weeks abroad, and went to buy the few things that I had. After getting my credit card back from the little machine, the cashier asked me to leave it out, and I did. I wasn't paying much attention to what she was saying, as she was speaking quietly and I was a little jet-lagged still, but then she said to me, "...I'm still itching like crazy. But I'm sure it's all in my head." That's just not a conversation fragment you ever want to hear from a stranger.

 

Posted at 2345.

18 July 2004

So here I am back in the States, no thanks to the evilness that takes the form of Air France. Our flight from Rome to Paris was vaguely on time, but all the security checks caused our flight from Paris to leave over 90 minutes late. 90 minutes just happened to be the length of our layover in Cincinnati, so Hilary and I already realized we would have to catch another flight. About 90 minutes into our intercontinental flight, as we were just west of Great Britain getting ready to head out over the Atlantic, the pursar (don't ask me what it is - I swear that's what the AF guy called himself) told us that an engine was dead/dying and we had to turn back to Paris. Of course, we had too much jet fuel still to land so we flew to the English Channel and proceeded to fly in circles over it in annoying turbulence for over 2 hours before we could land in Paris (lunch was cooked and ready, but since we were in an emergency situation they weren't allowed to feed us). Two hours later, we got on another jet, which only left about 45 minutes late, but which caused us to miss the last flight that night from Cincinnati to Raleigh. Delta put us up in the Holiday Inn overnight, but didn't seem to care that there were only 2 hotel shuttles and, like, a few dozen people from the flight going to that hotel. Hilary and I caught a cab, and got in at 10:55 to the hotel; the restaurant was closed, and we had a bunch of meal vouchers to use, so we ordered room service. The food wasn't too bad -- better than the meat with meat side dish they eventually served on the plane.

At any rate, more bloggery to come in the future, in addition to the literally hundreds of pics I took in Tuscany. Right now, all I have to say is screw Air France. And a big screw you to US Customs, which confiscated my dried, packaged tortelloni on account of the potential for the meat inside to transmit several deadly diseases. :p

 

Posted at 1125.