a new record

For once, a short blog -- for me, that is.

Met my friends Dave and Melynn here in Bologna yesterday. I am getting to the point where I can't sleep too well on planes, since you are pretty much sitting upright. So flying east gives me some pretty good jetlag.

Coming this way, you have to try to stay up as late as you can on the 1st day you get here. If you go to bed at 4 pm, like you want to, you'll wake up a midnight and be screwed up for days. You've got to try to make it to 8 pm or so, so when you wake up at 4 or 5 am, you are pretty much back on schedule.

So we walked around town from about noon till 4 or so. Took some pictures. Drank a glass of wine. Caught up on news and gossip. Then Melynn, who is pregnant, wanted to head back to the hotel and catch about an hour nap. So we walked back to the hotel.

I know better at this point then to lie down or even sit down. Dave wanted to go buy some wine at a liquor store, so we'd have some wine to drink in the apartment when we got to Rome in a couple days. Sounded like a good plan to me. He asked the front desk guy at the hotel the directions to the nearest store that had a good wine selection -- I wasn't part of this discussion.

Dave comes back to me and says that we can walk on over and get some wine to keep me awake. I'm exhausted, but agree its a good idea to keep moving.

One of the big, big differences in Europe is that you walk everywhere. Back home, I've been known to drive the 4 blocks from my office to a bar on Dickson Street for happy hour (and everyone else from the office would each drive their own seperate cars - what a waste).

But I've never walked this far for alcohol. It was a LONG way. Probably longer, because I was so exhausted, but damn. After we got there, I told Dave I was counting the number of city blocks back to the hotel. I told him it was at least 12 -- Dave thought less than 10. I won.

It was 13.

I think I've seen before that a mile is usually about 8 city blocks. Let's assume that's about right. We went 26 blocks (with a child in a stroller and then back pushing the stroller and carrying a box with four wine bottles in it) roundtrip.

That's more than three miles for wine. Now, I love wine. But seriously. . .