I've made it safely back to bella Napoli after two days in lovely (not) Norfolk, VA and another long, painful Lufthansa flight. No cute Italian archeology student to keep me company this time. And the free drinks really aren't all they're cracked up to be, especially when you have to choose between staying awake for the free drinks, or sleeping so that you can be somewhat human when the plane lands. Except Lufthansa doesn't really make it conducive to sleeping much longer than 3 or 4 hours. Because they don't turn the cabin lights off until after they serve the meal, which is like 2 or 2-1/2 hours into the flight. And then they turn all the lights on again like 2 hours before the plane lands. Because even though it's 2 a.m. on the East Coast, it's 8 a.m. German time, so we're all going to be good Germans and wake up on time. I think I'm going to boycott Germany in any of my recreational travel around Europe. Really, what do they have going for them besides good beer?

I think today might be the last day I can scam out of going into the office. Tomorrow it looks like I'll have to start earning my paycheck again. That's really too bad.