I’ve had the privilege of visiting both Pompeiiand Herculaneum. They are remarkable sites (and sights). A touring Pompeii exhibit — not, I think, the one mentioned in Chicago — came through Denver a few years back.
If you have the chance to go to such an exhibit (if not the places themselves), I highly recommend it. The lesson of life interrupted, of a glimpse of disaster overcoming people who had no clue it was coming, and just the plain old richness of understanding of Roman life that both these cities provide is well worth the effort.
Resurrecting Pompeii
A new exhibition brings the doomed residents of Pompeii and Herculaneum vividly to life
So I've upgrade my Picasa for Windows, which now offers to backup your photos to Google+, which makes them available for all sorts of keen purposes, which also means that sets of similar photos will be AutoAwesomed into semi-moving pictures.
So I have to share this set from Mary and Stan's wedding in Florence, just because it lets us sort of grin and move around a bit.
So long about 2:02 into this broadcast of Rock Center with Brian Williams on NBC, there’s an interesting story about cliches, which segues into a discussion of a Mashable article, which … well, you should look at it first, paying special attention around 2:30ff:
The vehicle I was one of the official drivers of was a Fiat Doblo — nicknamed by us “The Toaster”. It’s a fun essentially-mini-van vehicle, seating five, with huge cargo space. It was comfy, pleasant to drive, 6-gear manual with good performance, a diesel engine, sliding rear doors, and a nice stop-and-go feature (when you are at a stop and in Neutral, the engine turns off, then turns back on automatically when you shift into gear).
I admit, one of the cool things about traveling abroad is exposure to brands and models of stuff we just don’t see back home (sometimes for good reason, but often out of commercial fear or consumer pigheadedness). Cars rate right up there, and while there are a lot of cars I’d just as soon not see in the US (Fiat Panda, I’m shaking my fist at you from behind as you putter up the autostrade at 50 kph), there are a lot of others that would work perfectly well in the US market. The Doblo is one; the Peugeot 5008 (the other vehicle in our expedition) is another. (And the plethora of Smart cars around Italy is another sign to me that it’s a brand that should be getting far more attention in the US, too.)
Portable WiFi hotspot with an unlimited Italian data plan. Makes for easy
tweeting and picture posting, for the whole group. Not an inexpensive
rental, but better than an overseas data plan.
Volterra is a remarkable walled Medieval hill city, renowned for its
Etruscan artifacts and alabaster craftwork. Also, apparently, they filmed
some bit of some US movie here, and the place is full of posters, shirts,
books. *sigh*
For dinner tonight, we are spoiled by using as napkins special embossed
Tuscan-region paper, carefully separated and folded by an authentic Italian
grandmother! Such luxurious treatment!
