So, my darling Duke has come up with an idea for a small offshoot of this blog involving our travels to Italy this summer.

The first time we (well, I, Duke was a repeat visitor) went to Italy we went whole hog. I cross-referenced every bit of architecture, sculpture, cathedrals, and work of art I could find between my college art history book and the travel guides. We threw coins in the Trevi Fountain; we took the train from Rome to Florence to Venice. We saw the pope's summer home; the Pantheon; the Piazza della Rotonda; the Vatican; the Sistine Chapel; St. Peter's Basilica; the aqueducts;the fields of sunflowers; the Duomo; the Uffizi; we climber the 414 steps to see the view from the top of the Campanile;we lit candles in the cathedrals and watched rats swimming in the canals; we saw the Bridge of Sighs; the Appian Way. We received four parking tickets in six days and swam in the Mediterranean Sea.We ate at restaurants that were recommended in the fancy part of the travel guides. We went to an Italian birthday party and delighted everyone with the singing candle we had brought from Target.It was the best darn vacation anyone could ever have.

(On a side note, I learned that American fashion does not translate to Italian fashion because those women are clearly another species. People took one look at my jean shorts and Diesel slides and immediately addressed me in English. I gaped in admiration as I watched gorgeous creature after gorgeous creature walk by on an average morning, teetering in stilettos on the cobblestones, pushing baby carriages, all while wearing outfits I would only wear to a wedding. And they looked as casual and comfortable as if they were wearing flip-flops and cut-offs and an Old Navy tank top. )

The next time we went to Italy, I felt a small personal triumph when someone spoke to me in Italian. By wearing full-length white pants in 102 degree heat and every piece of jewelry I owned, I managed to pass for a native for one brief, glorious moment. We chilled in Rome and went to the beach. However, we then flew to Paris and did all the sights there. All of them. Paris is darn big. And cold. And not the friendliest. And we witnessed the biggest scam of all time: a steak house that only Parisians knew about. (We were with a Parisian.) We waited in line for an hour watching car after car pull-up to drop-off insanely chic people who all seemed fine to glamour around waiting in this absurd line. And when we sat down to eat, there was no menu. The server brought us each a steak and some french fries. Duke and I were positive our friends were pulling one over on us. But they asked eagerly, "It is fantastic, no?" It was steak. With french fries. That was all. I was eavesdropping my head off, but I didn't hear any language other than French. I even went to the restroom to try and see if this was some kind of tourist joke, but as I passed table after table of well-preserved older women dripping in diamonds and cooing to small dogs in expensive bags, I had to accept that for some reason, this was The Hot Spot in Paris. Go figure.

Anyway, so we are returning to Italy this summer and we are doing nothing. I am going to blog about a typical Italian experience through the eyes of an American. Like the coffee table books that were popular in the 80s "A Day in The Life of America, Ireland, etc" Except I'll be in one region and I'll be blogging more than coffee-table book making. We are staying with Italians who will be on that month-long vacation that all of Europe seems to enjoy in August and we are just living Italian life. We aren't eating at chic places or seeing any sights. We are just going to the grocery store and using a garden hose to rinse off sand from the beach. We will drink espresso in the obscene heat and marvel at how much better an actor Keanu Reeves is when he has an Italian voice-over. We will get to be frustrated by shopkeepers who won't make sandwiches because they don't feel like slicing the bread. It will be lovely. And much different from our previous experiences. I mean, that's the idea now. But if I happen to open an art history book between now and then...