You've traveled half way around the world to see someplace new and amazing... not some sticky kid. Hey kid! Get out of the picture!

On the other side of this fountain, today, my punks and I settled down to eat a couple slices of pizza. The best pizza in fact that you can find in Trento, from Pizza da Andrea. All the other pizza is crap. I kid you not. Come to Trentino for strudel, cannederli, or mushrooms with polenta... not pizza. How does Pizza da Andrea pull it off? Well, he's from Naples. That's how. Yea, I have no qualms giving these guys a free plug. I know I'm a powerful influence over where travelers to northern Italy are going to spend their euros.

Anyhooo... I got a funny feeling that my punks and I had become a giant eye sore, sprawled out in front of this incredible fountain, topped off by Neptune himself (because, you know, Neptune, the king of the sea, has a lot to do with the mountainous region we live in).

While we routinely eat pizza from Pizza da Andrea on Wednesdays, we don't normally plop ourselves down at the fountain to do so... it's just that today, Pizza da Andrea was packed to the gills, and since it was nice and sunny outside, we decided the fountain was the better place to dine.

So we plop ourselves down and as napkins and coke cans, straws and a big greasy pizza box are being juggled about, I look up to see a couple dismounting their bikes and taking in the view.

It is at this point that I get the feeling that we might not be adding in a positive way to the scene. Maybe if my kids wore lederhosen and pointy woolen hats, but, no, that is not the case. This lovely couple arrives here, from across the world (I don't know how I can tell, but they are US Americans), making their bike tour of the sights of beautiful Trentino, only to be met with the sight of me and my punks, and their backpacks, and bikes sprawled all over the steps of what otherwise is a stunning fountain.

Well, I try to forgive myself and soothe my worries by cutting into a fresh slice of pizza, when I hear a sweet little voice addressing me. I look up and see that it's the woman from the biking couple. She timidly asks... "Dove' Pizzeria?"

Ah my dear... this is your lucky day!

after all, she's a foreigner!

Yesterday was the first day of my Italian language class. It's hard to describe the sense of release that happens when you enter a room filled with people that understand where you're coming from. Even if, in fact, none of you actually comes from the same place.


I was the only US citizen there. The world opened up as we start to introduce ourselves to each other. We are from Romania, Ukraine, Lithuania, Russia, Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia, Japan, Peru, Cuba, Brazil, the United States... but here we were, connected, and becoming friends with each other.

This reminds me that there are unifiers that apply between myself and even the most inaccessible "local" that draws back from someone a bit too different from them. That there are circumstances under which we would find comfort in each other's company. We could even be friends. This is a good thing to remember.

wedding photos sterograms

I have the social skills of a scientist, well, probably because I am a scientist. What is it about scientists that makes us feel so out of place around other people? It's almost as if we are trying to entertain a pack of chimps. We don't know whether to shake hands or kiss their cheeks, at what time to serve the soup, and whether or not it's okay to break out the wedding photos.



Well, I learned that it's NEVER okay to break out the wedding photos. Not ever. No matter how cool you think they are. Even if they are 3-D sterograms (sorry, couldn't resist... aka View Master slides), they are still, at the abrupt end of the day, wedding photos. And nothing says good-night like some other chimp's wedding photos.


It doesn't matter that I'm not joking about these being sterograms. HOW COOL is THAT I ask you?!? Who else has wedding sterograms (doesn't that just scream geek)?!? But the taboo on wedding photos still applies. It doesn't matter that we have three little view master thingys and it always seems to me like a fabulous idea to show them to our guests. And I don't think I'll ever learn...