Thumbs Up!

This summarizes what I think of my Europe travel term as I reach the halfway point... and it also comments upon a painful reality.

I was chopping some Romaine lettuce for supper yesterday (we made a wonderful chicken caesar salad) when my over-sharpened knife chopped through a very small corner of my thumb. It's right off. The piece was stuck to the side of the knife and looked remarkably like the garlic we were chopping up earlier. It was about the size of a pinkie nail or so. Lots of blood led to lots of bandage. It feels pretty good, all things considered. We also have two first-aid certified lads on the trip who helped me out a lot.

But onto better things than me being a lesser man than I once was. We just arrived in Ravenna yesterday after a lovely time in Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast. I'm being preempted by Jac right now who is about to take over on the typing....

matt is a bit drunk right now, plus his thumb makes it hard to type. so.

the amalfi coast in southern italy marks the most tropical and luxurious part of our journey.
its on the bay of naples in the mediterranean and lemon trees grow abundant on the streets. its really mountainous and i cant believe some of the 'roads' we had to drive on. intense.
so we sat on the beaches and lazed around the coastal towns, taking boats, buses, swimming, walking, and exploring caves.

the site was also right by mount vesuvious and the ancient town of pompeii. pompeii was really cool.. it was buried by the volcano's explosion in 79 AD and 7 metres of volcanic ash left the roman town immaculately preserved. we spent an entire morning exploring the villas, theatres, and public baths of the romans. fascinating the level of technology they had for 2000 years ago.

now i am writing this on a beautiful evening in a lovely central italian town near ravenna. its not touristy at all here cause nobodys heard of it. the beer and wine are very very cheap and matt is taking advantage of this. he had 2 660ml bottles of euro-beer in the last hour as we walked around town. wine is as low as 2 bucks a bottle here.

one last thing: world cup soccer. or football as they call it here.
its really crazy. world cup only happens every 4 years and its all about national pride. people eat sleep and drink soccer. in sorrento the italians won their first game and there were fireworks and festivities going way into the night. couldnt sleep for all the horn-honking.
personally i would rather talk to people than watch the games. but all the excitement is fun.
(germany will be extreme to the point of dangerous. its where the games are held, and mobs are known to break out, so naturally our profs are nervous).