sun 10.21.07 Update

Hi all,

It's sunday oct 21 here in florence italy, and I thought I'd provide a quick "out of sequence" update. We've been surfing our way throughout the EEU, and have completed Amsterdam, Munich, Prague, Zurich, Lugano, Como, Milan, Venice, and are currently in Florence. We head off next to Naples, Capri, Rome, then somewhere else for a week or two to wrap up this trip.

Unfortunately, while Internet cafe's have been around, they are either ridiculously expensive (by US standards...upwards of $20/hr in many cases) or have not allowed me to download any pictures to load into the blog. So, I've been slow in updating both the Africa and EEU trips, as I really like to include pics with the text. I promise I'll get in all the stories once I get back to the US. Till then, some quicky stories to keep you amused...

- we're taking the late evening train munich to prague; there's 5 people on the train, us, an older prague women in front of us (older, as in our age...), and an older couple in front of her (older as in late 60's). As we near the prague station (an adventure in and of itself...different language, soviet block era construction...), the older couple starts talking to the prague lady to ask her some directions, and for here assistance in getting a cab ride to their hotel. As they're chatting, she asks where they are from...they say NY, which of course leads to questions about NYC. They tell her, "oh no, we're from Upstate NY not NYC" and go into that whole speel. We of course have to now get into the conversation...turns out that the couple is from Rochester, and live just a few miles from us. So, what are the chances of that...in Prague, 5 people on an evening train, and 4 of them are from Rochester!!!

- Continuing on with that trip, we exit the train, and the lady is going to help us get a cab also (as it's late night and we don't want to screw around with figuring out the tram-subway system with luggage). As we jump off the train, a driver walks up to us with his Marriott Courtyard limo sign, and asks if we are Wally such and such. We say no, then wally appears (a 6'4" gay guy from Dallas of all things....) and offers us a limo ride with him to his hotel, which just happens to be our hotel also. So, midnight in prague, and we get a limo pickup at the airport with a texas gay guy. Life is good!

- story 3...we're waiting on queue for a restaurant in Florence Italy. There's a pretty sizeable crowd (maybe 100 or so) as it's a fabulous restaurant. We start talking with the other queue-mates, do the "where are you from thing" and it turns out that the people in front of us in line (now retired) got married and first lived in Rochester, less than a mile from our current place. Then the gal behind us in line chimes in, and turns out that SHE lived in rochester also, less than a mile from our former house. WE get to swap Pudgie's Pizza stories! So, what are the chances of that!!!!

- And one last story for the morning...we're at the train station in Como Italy (summer home of George Clooney, I'll tell you all about having dinner with him in a later post) sitting on a bench awaiting our train, and alongside us is two of the biggest geeks known to mankind (and THIS is coming from me...). This beautiful Italian woman comes up to us and says "Is train to Milano?". The one geek looks right and here and says "HUUUUH?". Kathy and I totally loose it; this is probably the prettiest woman that has ever even addressed them, and their response is "HUUUUH?". Time to go back to the X-Box guys, you'll never make it in the real world...

Catch up in a few days once we get stationary again.

Lumpy out!