italy, not puking (maybe) - update

Our Italy or puke colleague actually did fly to Italy last Friday. I've been following his chronicles quite avidly. Our little friend took a laptop and much camera equipment with him on his backpacking trip and every night he goes in search of an insecure Wi-Fi hotspot and downloads photos to his computer, then uploads the photos and some long commentary to his blog. Yes, he's an engineer.

The photos are beautiful, but the commentary is why I keep going back. Here are just a few choice tidbits from his posts:

- (my fave, the first line from his day 1 post) "There is a moment of abject fear when one travels usually on the first day of a trip." Abject fear?! Dude is in ITALY, not exactly a war-torn region or a complete break from his Western world reality, and he's on a TOUR. Honestly, I could read this a billion times and it would still crack me up.

- The ATM saga: Before he left, he came by to ask whether he should get Euros before leaving. Sunny and I told him emphatically that that was stupid, and that he should just make sure his bank card would work in Europe so that he could use the ATMs. Well, our little friend followed our advice, but then couldn't figure out that the Union Jack on screen means English. A huge chunk of his first day was spent trying to figure out how to make the ATM speak to him in a language he'd be able to understand. In his words: "So I find myself trying to navigate the ATM in Italian while fearing pickpockets and gypsies about to nab my 24-70mm." Thank goodness he eventually figured it out.

- "I apparently scared the tour leader when I hopped off the train for a minute to grab a shot of the incoming locomotive." Only an engineer, really.

- And apparently a brief encounter with a member of the opposite sex (oooh): "At the Duomo, I spotted a girl shooting with a familiar lens: A 24-70mm f2.8L just like mine. I thanked her for making me feel less stupid carrying it around the world, because she'd gone up the 464 steps lugging it too. She said it was her favourite lens, which makes sense when mounted on 5D full frame camera body." Sadly, there is no mention of this girl after this.

One week is done and he's got another week to go. I'm expecting more good stuff. Somehow I think he'll oblige.

RainyBow