Saturday was quite the day - not so much for sightseeing, but for spectating. And it was an all-Kansas day: I woke up in Kansas, drove around Kansas, and spent the night in Kansas. As I mentioned at the start of this trip, one of the primary reasons to go was to see my TCU Horned Frogs play some football in person. Last night was the first of those games. But before I left home, I found tickets to the Baylor-Kansas football game for $9 online, and I couldn't pass that up. One of my life-goals (because I hate the phrase "bucket list") is to visit all of the FBS football stadiums; what better way to visit than to attend a game? Plus, Baylor is reputed to be a good school (ranked #3 as of this ... read more

It was a rather uneventful journey, as far as car trips go. I only had my GPS and my new (old) Wales air freshener to accompany me. Oh, and the ants still in my car from the trip I took to Tifton a week ago. I left Athens, GA, this morning about 11:30 AM EDT and arrive here in O'Fallon, IL, around 7:30 PM CDT. So, that's just about 9 hours to make the trip. I stopped once, somewhere in the middle of Kentucky, to fuel up and get some food. If you read my blog from this morning, you'll notice that I posted in the midst of an oil change; they told me I needed 2 new tires, but they said it would take 2 hours and cost too much, so I went next door ... read more

Back in America, but not quite finished with all my travels yet. I'm visiting my family in south Georgia until Monday, when I'm returning to Athens and my current "home." They picked me up at the Orlando airport on Thursday night, and my first food back in the country was Waffle House! And my first drink was some sweet tea! I don't know if it could get more southern than that, at least for a late night stop. I would also like to add that I can, under no circumstances, recommend flying into the Orlando airport - the first thing you face when coming back into the country (or entering it for the first time) is a massive wall of inefficiency at the passport and border controls. Ugh. It also didn't help that it felt like ... read more

At least, it's the final FULL day in those places. I'll be flying to Orlando tomorrow afternoon, via Oslo. But this morning I spent in St. Peter's Square for a "general audience" with the Pope, and that was a pretty decent way to cap off this Eurotrip. Eno left on Tuesday morning - early. So that made my day a little more subdued than otherwise. I mean, we did travel around Italy for 10 days together, so now I'm just passing my time, really. There isn't any other sight (tourist or else) that has attracted my interest, so I've just been sitting back and soaking in the atmosphere. It's been more enjoyable for me than I would've thought, but then I have been running ragged for the past couple of weeks. After Eno left, I spent ... read more

We've walked through the Vatican several times since we got to Rome, but we've scheduled a tour for tomorrow morning, so I'll save all my Vatican adventures for tomorrow's post. But we did stand around in St. Peter's Square this morning for part of the Pentecost Mass. We even got to see il Papa on the big screens. Our hotel is basically attached to the wall surrounding Vatican City, so it's going to be great for getting an early start tomorrow. It's not that great for when you want to see all the sights of Ancient and Renaissance Rome. But we had a mostly enjoyable time walking between here and the ancient monuments. We started out walking towards the Tevere River (known as the Tiber River in ancient times) and crossed over that on our way ... read more