Jedno pivo prosim

I'm in Prague! Hooray! It's the last day of my travels! Damn!

Since I last checked in. . .

Italy won the world cup! Courtney and I were in Sorrento for the finale, watching a massive screen in the town square. As the world all knows by now, Italy won on penalty kicks, an incredibly anti-climactic finish. Zindane is a head-butting neanderthal!

The aftermath of the finale was insane. As in Rome for the semi-final, all of Sorrento took to the streets, honking horns, singing songs (a curious rendition of a Smashing Pumpkins song which I can't quite remember the name of), waving flags, lighting fire crackers, and experiencing a city-wide euphoria.

Courtney and I ducked into a wine bar for a little vino rosso and a break from the madness, where we were met with a nice bar tender and what seemed to be a bar regular. They both said the Italian team didn't play well at all and didn't deserve to win, and that Zidane showed his true colors, and that overall they were happy with the outcome.

An hour later we went back to our hotel which overlooked the main street in Sorrento. Two hours after the match there seemed to be zero noise abatement and therefore zero sleep for the American travelers. Thankfully I had some night-time cold medicine which knocked both me and Courtney right out (thanks for the supply Molly!).

The other highlight from our southern Italy adventure was Pompeii. The whole world knows the story of Pompeii, the city that was buried by a Volcanic explosion of nearby Mt. Vesuvius. But what I didn't know was how well preserved the city is. It feels like a ghost-town; a 2000 year-old ghost-town. The streets, frescos, art, buildings, brothels, theaters, villas and forums are so well in-tact that it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to see what the place looked like. You don't get the smells and sounds of ancient Rome, but you definitely get the sights. Highly reccommended for anyone that likes to do things that are interesting and fun. If you don't like interesting and fun activities, I know a good psychologist named Adam that can help you out with this terrible state-of-mind.

Since Sorrento I went back to Rome, ate some pizza, bought some organic olive oil, and went to my present destination, Prague.

Prague is awesome. Land of 1000 spires, a crazy jewish cemetery (mom and dad, after the 100s of churches I've seen on this trip, I actually went to some synogogues. Not one but three! Don't worry, it wasn't for services but instead for sight-seeing), great beer, bread dumplings (which seems like a boiled cylindars of dough to me), and winding streets that have incredible buildings around every corner.

Of note so far:
1) There was the Bohemia Jazz Festival in the old town square. Pretty good music from folks I haven't heard of, and interesting stuff from guitarist Bill Frisell. Curiously, the festival ended with the "Punk Funk All-Stars" who were neither Punk nor Funk and really just shit. One of the worst bands I've ever seen headline a music festival.

2) After the Jazz Festival I went to a cool Jazz club in Old-Town Prague. A fantastic club, great band, great experience all around.

3) Much of the core tourist destinations are nice (Prague Castle, St. Nick's church, etc.) but pale in comparison to the overall city atmosphere.

4) My hosts Eva and Petr have been incredibly gracious. Thanks to them!

5) The beer. Oh my the beer. You get a ton of it for about $1. And the best part is you can go for another. Pilsner Urquell, the only Czech beer I had heard of before coming here is, surprisingly, the beer of choice for greater the Czech Republic. There are micro brews of course, but Pilsner Urquell gets a lot of respect here. And for good reason. It is delicious. In fact, I had two before sitting down to write this update. Which may explain my rambling. But anyway.

Tomorrow I will be flying back to the United States and jumping in a car for a cross country trip from New York to San Francisco (okay, really just Berkeley). If I can update the blog with some of these mis-adventures I will, but otherwise I will have a post-mortem, and then probably post-post-mortem within the next few weeks. But since this is the last "real" day of my travels, for those of you on my email update list, this will be the last blog post I will alert you to. If I can figure it out I may send out a link to a picture site (like ofoto or something) to show some of the finer points of our travels. But henceforth just check back to the ol' blog if you are curious if I've come up with more bull shit to put down here.

So, a quick little Harpers style list:

This trip saw
8 Train rides (not counting metros and air port shuttles)
9 Flights
30 Cities
49 Days
1 Car Accident (literally 5 minutes after Courtney drove out of the rental car lot)
Actually, this deserves its own story. . .

So Courtney and I rent a car in Florence to drive around Tuscany. For reasons unkown, Courtney was the only registered driver for the car, so I was (thankfully) relegated to navigator.

Five minutes after we pull out of the lot we merge into the wrong lane, try to go back into the correct lane and BAM! We smash into the side of a small Italian car. The Italian man inside did NOT look happy. It was definitely Courtney's--um, I mean our--fault, and while we had a little scratch on our rental, this guy had some damage to the length of his car.

He comes out of the car, looks at us, shakes his head and walks toward us. Courtney rolls down the window and the following exchange takes place:

Courtney: Mi scusi! Mi scusi! Sono Americano!
Italian Man: (says nothing, turns on his heel, runs back to his car and speeds away)

Courtney and her ethcial nature thought the guy wanted to handle this off of the busy street so she started following him. He clearly didn't want to be followed. So that was our car accident in Florence. We later buffed the scratch out at a gas station and the rental company didn't notice anything and has yet to say a word about it. So there you go. Now back to the list:

14 Tiramisus (a rough estimate)
30 Scoops of gelato (another rough estimate)
10 Pounds Gained (yet one more rough estimate)
3 Loads of laundry done
6 Languages Spoken (English, French, Catalan, Spanish, Italian, Czech)
641 Photos Taken (despite what you may see on this here blog)

Of course in addition to all of this there are countless memories and experiences that are impossible to list, which is why I went on the "holiday" to begin with. Now off to business school.

Fireworks on the Fourth of July!

Oh man, where to begin?! I've got some pictures, some new travels to relate, a great football (i.e. soccer) experience. . . I'm going to start with the football.

On the July 4th, Italy was matched against Germany in a semi-final match for the World Cup. The World Cup, as the whole world knows (yes even us oblivious Americans) is a very big deal. In Europe especially, the World Cup is bigger than the Olympics, the elections, the Economy, it's everything. And Italy is no exception to this. As Winston Churchill said, the Italians lose wars like football matches and football matches like wars.

Luckily, I found myself in Rome for this match. Rome takes its football very seriously. Courtney and I trekked down to the "Circo Massimo" the ancient chariot racing stadium, where the city had set up a giant screen. We were joined by thousands of Italians (10,000? 20,000? I have no idea the exact number) and I have never witnessed a sports spectacle quite like this.

Everyone stood for the entire game: men, women, children, old folks, were focused completely on the match. The collective groans and cheers shook the ground. Halftime was a demonstration of incredible pride, with flag waving, singing, and cheering throughout the fifteen minutes (I think it was a combination of real pride and showing off for the TV cameras). The thing was, nothing was really happening! Italy would try to score, then lose the ball, ditto with Germany, a few close calls, and poof, just like that 90 minutes of play went by and overtime was upon us. (As I have learned with football over the past few weeks is that there isn't a whole lot of scoring. Despite this, it is an incredibly exciting sport.)

The tension in the air was palpable. First 15 minute overtime: nothing. More tension. Second 15 minute overtime: GOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL (this is how they say it in Europe). Not just one, but two! Italy won! Amazing.

Courtney and I were both thrilled. The crowd was giving mass hugs, high fives, shouts and songs. Of particular interest to my innate Americanism were the fireworks that went off shortly after the game ended: an American in Rome got fireworks on the fourth of July.

As we walked home from the game past the Colosseum, the celebration spilled onto the streets. Italian flags everywhere, car horns honking, and people running every which way. Here is a neat picture (that I got from Flickr. Like an idiot I didn't bring my camera.)


I have been trying to find pictures from the Circus Maximus but without luck. If anyone out there has seen any, forward them my way.

Aside from the World Cup, we've seen plenty of action on this trip. Pictures are worth a thousand words, so here are a few:

The view from our room in Cinque Terre:

On the hike in Cinque Terre:

The Ancient Roman Theatre (c. 10 B.C.) in Volterra (a quaint little hilltop town in Tuscany): Sunflowers on the side of the road in Tuscany:

Okay, quick narrative -- On our trip through Tuscany, Courtney and I stayed in two different farm houses. The first was run by Max and owned by Tony. Tony was a dentist who made wine on his farm and was pretty much a nice guy. Max is a lawyer who quit the practice to run this farm house. He loves jazz, latin, food, wine and people. Max was a great guy who hung out with us during breakfast and dinner, talking about the region and the aforementioned passions. He was awesome.

The next farm house we stayed in was owned and operated by The Valeris, an organic farmer, Stefano; his gourmet chef wife, Grazia; thier 19-year-old daughter, Chiara; and 23-year-old son Michele. We stayed in a guest house in their farm, had dinner with the family (an incredible meal, with fried zucchini flowers, ricotta wrapped in tuna, fried chicken and rabbit, roast steak, greens, home made wine, gelato, and finished with an incredibly delicious grappa), and was treated to a fine breakfast the morning of our departure. Yes, I'm brining a bottle of wine and grappa home with me.

As Courtney and I prepared ourselves to return our rental car in Florence, we asked if Grazia would call the rental car place to get good directions for us, since our italian wasn't any good. Chiara was her scribe. Here is a photo montage (pay particular attention to Chiara):
There was something about this exchange that felt so italian. I don't know why exactly, but it seemed authentic. And no, I'm not exactly sure how the cat got involved.

There are a ton more pictures, stories, and experiences to relate (Siena, Lucca, Firenze, Roma, and the rest of Tuscany), but I think they'll have to wait till I get home. Besides, they are better served by pictures anyway. As always, more to come.