Before I leave on any trip, it is my tradition, when planning the immediate future, to examine the present and the recent past.

Specifically, I like to think of my last trip. I had not posted a detailed account of the journey to Italy principally because it would have read like the journal of a very fat person. Also, this was the trip where Ace proposed to ZMama, and I was told to embargo the information for at least a few weeks, until it was disseminated through proper channels.

Here is a typical scene from that trip:

After saying bye to Semirabai, who had to get back Stateside for her job (can't remember what that was like), we hopped on the autostrade to Parma, a city I've passed through many times, which has one of my favourite restaurants in the world. There, we sat for an hour-long sumptuous three course lunch, washed down by a little lambrusco rosso.

That night we arrived in Bologna, figured out where we would stay, then sat at a bar and watched the Canadian hockey team get eliminated from the tournament. The next afternoon we found a little trattoria where the waitress brought the wine, water and bread, and we had a leisurely wait for the first course. Presently, this arrived: an enormous spaghetti bolognaise (in Bologna they call it ragu, just like in China they call Chinese food "food"). I thought to myself, "there's no way I'm gonna finish this and still have the second course". But after blinking a couple of times, suddenly the food was gone and I was aching for the next chapter. The veal arrived, delicately sauteed in lemon and white wine, and I polished it off in short order. After dessert, coffee, and some ice cream, all was well with the world.

So that was Italy.