Italy pix

It's kinda weird that we wound up going to Italy twice in less than a month, since it took us so long to get around to going the first time. If you're interested in seeing pictures of our trip to Tuscany, they're here.

Pessimists aren't always wrong

As someone who's basically pretty optimistic, I often find it hard to understand pessimists. This helps. It's an excerpt from a June 2009 Atlantic Monthly article by Joshua Wolf Shenk entitled "What Makes Us Happy?"

"For 30 years, Denmark has topped international happiness surveys. But Danes are hardly a sanguine bunch. Ask an American how it’s going, and you will usually hear 'Really good.' Ask a Dane, and you will hear 'Det kunne være værre (It could be worse).' 'Danes have consistently low (and indubitably realistic) expectations for the year to come,' a team of Danish scholars concluded. 'Year after year they are pleasantly surprised to find that not everything is getting more rotten in the state of Denmark.'” 

Belgian ragtop

Now that the weather has turned nice, I've noticed several barges cruising with "the top down." The first time I saw this trick, I thought the captain and his wife were sitting on top of the wheelhouse. Mais non, the roof folds back and the sides lower so that you can sail along in a canal-going convertible. The old salt was even driving with one hand, the other arm draped over his gal's shoulder. (I didn't look to see if he was trying to cop a feel.) I suppose if you don't have Shoney's to cruise, but you do have a canal, you take what you can get. 

Poppies

I've grown quite fond of poppies, even though we don't live in Flanders fields. This shot was taken on the approach to the catacombs of St. Callisto on the Appian Way south of Rome. The site is administered by Mickey's order, the Salesians of Don Bosco. Or is it the Sicilians of Don Corleone?

The Crop Report

Last fall we got only one bale of hay out of this field. This time around we got three. The guy who owns this little field apparently has a whole bunch of tiny parcels scattered around the neighborhood because about four or five bits and pieces of land have been hayed this week.

What the...!?

I think it may be a recent addition to the repertory, but lately we've noticed that one of the songs played by the carillon in Saint-Ghislain is "Yankee Doodle." While it is a catchy tune, I'm not sure what the connection is. Maybe it has something to do with the Seven Years' War.

General Observations About Rome

David will get the pictures up eventually but here's some things we noticed about or in Rome:

- Scooters are to Rome what bicycles are to Amsterdam (except they're bigger). There also seems to be a helmet law. Given the way traffic moves in Rome, who would want to ride a scooter without one? (especially since David and Mick saw the remnants of a scooter at an accident scene being investigated by the police. Not a good sign.)

- Everything in Rome is built on a HUGE scale; buildings, fountains, and churches are grand and imposing. In fact, St. Peter's is so big it didn't even feel or look like a church. Eventually we found a Mass in progress but otherwise it just looks like a big museum.

- Priests and nuns abound in Rome, which is really no big surprise. Maybe a little surprising is that they seemed to move about the city in their clerical/nunnical garb, unlike here, where most of them blend in rather well. (But I guess in a city with that many religious, you blend in when you dress the part.)

- All those priests and nuns in religious dress have to shop somewhere. And guess what: Rome must be THE place to shop. We saw numerous stores selling chasubles and other priest gear - including some mighty fancy gold chalices and monstrances. I missed this particular window - I got stuck on some of the gold chalices - but there was even one store selling sweaters for nuns.

- And the best part: we didn't see or hear a single Russian! Amazing what a drop in the price of oil will do...