continental recap

Tomorrow is the end of my first continental visit, and I've decided to tell you about it speed style since I'm unlikely to find any more time for recapping after I get back to London than I have during my visit.

Here goes....

Where
1 - various locations in Italy's Tuscan region, mostly in the vicinity of Pisa and Florence
2- Slovakia, primarily in Bratislava, the capital

Impressions
1 - Like everyone else in the world, I like Italy. I'm trying to figure out if a cute little apartment in Florence should be my next writer-base-du-jour (or month or three or six). The exchange rate between the dollar and the euro is better than it is with the pound and surely I could pick up enough Italian to get by, right? :-)
2 - I'm not adding Bratislava to my list of possible writer-base-du-jour spots, though it does have some charming old-Europe parts of town and though I do think the manhole statue is very clever. Unfortunately, it doesn't help that I just don't find Slovak to be a pretty language in how it sounds or how it looks. So Slovak has not made it onto my list-of-languages-I-want-to-learn.
1- In general, people are friendlier in Italy.
2- In general, people on the streets are less friendly in Slovakia than in Italy.

Highlights
1 - Eating lunch with the Ammirabile family (spelling?) and Jessica and a couple other guests. The Tuscan countryside was in view, and the olive oil and wine were born and bred on the land surrounding our table. I also quite enjoyed participating in the real post-meal Italian espresso tradition.
2 - Going to Vienna (yep, that would be Austria) for a few hours and meandering around town instead of being in consume-everything-you-can-in-a-day tourist mode.
1 - Going on a walk with Jessica and Stephanie in the Tuscan countryside around their house and visiting San Gimignano, an old and still lived-in city built of towers and warm-colored rocks.
2 - Today's 3 or so hour hike to Devin castle, somewhere west of Bratislava near the Austrian border. The hike through the woods was gorgeous, the company was fun, and the village we finally found was nice. The castle was mostly a pile of falling down rocks too high up to see much of at dusk. :-)
1 - Reconnecting with college friend Jessica.
2 - Hanging out in Europe with my old friend Julie while we both contemplate where God's directing us next.
1 - Meeting a new culture and its people.
2 - Meeting a new culture and its people.

So there you go. Hopefully, photos will follow before long.