It was brought to my attention by old friend and horror buff Jeff, that Hannibal Lecter has a fond appreciation for my current city of Florence. It even quelled his murderous temperament (Lecter's, not Jeff's) briefly, I recall, though it does not have that effect on all. Florence has quite an interesting history that I am learning a bit about, with amazing characters, and at times, spectacular violence. Michelangelo, Donatello, and Galileo all lived here (though I don't recall which colour the Galileo ninja turtle wore), as well as Dante, Machiavelli and Lorenzo de' Medici (of The Simpsons fame - Mr. Burns reacts angrily to Homer's request for double cheese on the pizza, asking if Homer took him for Lorenzo de' Medici), to name a few. Rereading Hannibal gave me a greater appreciation for the book ... read more

The number of readers of the blog seems to be dramatically decreasing. I would somehow like to blame this on the financial crisis, and get some kind of government payout, and this actually seems like a possibility. Anyhow, perhaps I have misjudged my audience and no one wants to read about idiotic wooden lawn ornaments (see "Fantastic Wooden Heroes") and other obscurities of my addled mind. Who would have known? So today I am going to try something different and write about a trip we took. We went out to Carrara in Tuscany (a couple of hours on the train from Florence) to Marble Mountain (note: may not be real name). It was, truthfully, pretty amazing. There are many marble mines here, and this is apparently where Michelangelo got the stone for David. The air was ... read more

The first two photos here are again of our beloved "good-bye, meat". We can see the enormous jugs of beer that my companions and I are "prost"-ing with. Each is 1L. of fermented delight and I can usually put back two of them before my arm gets too tired from lifting (and I am dead). The second shows Stu and I comparing the lengths of our feuerwuerst, or "firesausage", sometimes called "teufelwuerst" or "devilsausage". Each is 1/2 metre long (seriously). Not to brag, but I am sure I could take more than a metre of devil sausage before succumbing to the pain. We move on to Barcelona, where we were told that we had to try the city's specialty, patatas bravas. (brave potatoes? I don't speak Spanish. But that would be awesome. I picture a potato ... read more

A recent trip to a "karneval" (translation: carnival) led to some very interesting spottings of things I found hilarious. Not that you will, of course. Meh. The carnival was much more exciting than that introduction. Apparently the origin of the word "carnival" comes from "meat, good-bye", which is an awesome idea - a going-away party for meat. I imagine a few carrots and celeries sitting around a table comforting each other while a hamburger puts on a big backpack at the door and waves to his friends, sad to leave them behind, but looking forward to the trip ahead. The carnival in Augsburg, Bayern is called the Plaerrer, which, believe it or not, translates as "drunken yelling", or something along those lines. Remarkably appropriate. Take a look at some pics! We can see some friends of ... read more

The first picture is a photo from the "Floh Markt" (flea market) I recently attended and took part in in Augsburg. We can see that our fine neighbour is selling his favourite old record, "Wiener Blut", and I am sure he is devastated to part with it. Somewhat translated, it means "Wiener Blood", which almost sounds like a kiddie death metal band. But "Wiener" of course is the translation of "Viennese", that is, from Vienna. And the people on the cover certainly do appear to be distinguished Viennese, the "Viennese Blood", through and through. Which got me thinking: why did I take so offence when I was taunted as a "wiener" so often by my childhood classmates (well, childhood, teenagehood and early-to-midadulthood)? I took it to be the vulgar interpretation of the word, or, at best, ... read more