Safely back ashore after my less-than-exciting sea voyage last week. It was a nice homecoming; my landlord and his family had come back from vacation and they were very happy to see me. I guess the landlord's mom had told them that I had been doing yardwork, so while I was gone, they came over and finished sprucing up the garden for me. Which I thought was very nice of them. It's actually a lot of fun living there with all these people around; I didn't realize there were quite so many people living in my building, so it gets noisy, but they're all very friendly. The landlord's sister, who lives upstairs from me, gave me a bottle of wine they had picked up in Sardinia. I guess I'll have to pick up some nice Chianti for them while I'm in Florence this weekend.

Got home at about 7 last night and there was music coming up from somewhere in the town at the bottom of the hill. Then at about 10, whatever was going on was capped by a spectacular fireworks display practically in my backyard. I asked my landlord what was going on, assuming it was some kind of festival or something. Turns out it was somebody's wedding. I wonder how much it costs to get your own personal fireworks display for our wedding. Because I'm so having fireworks when I get around to it.

Speaking of getting around to things, I've dropped 9 lbs in the last week and a half. I could probably lose more faster if I tried, say, South Beach. But let's face it...who wants to do the South Beach Diet in Italy? Practically impossible, I would think. And I'm not about to start cooking up some crappy whole wheat pasta with a German name on the label.

And speaking of German names, I'm going to Vienna for Columbus Day weekend. Turned out to be easier and (surprisingly) slightly cheaper than Prague.

Anyway, I'm heading off to Florence this afternoon. I promised my landlord I'd have a drink for him, so I'd better get going if I'm going to drink wine for him and me.