We only had one day in Hanoi, but when you do it at a break-neck speed, it turns out that's all you need. This was one of my first experiences with hard-core communism and it turns out I love it (as a tourist).

The start of our trip through Indochina began with Laos. I knew next to nothing about Laos before we got there other than the fact that a good friend had recommended it. The country is known as a vacation spot to locals, but it is largely off the tourist path.

After a grand time in Rome, fate decided that we could deal with a little travel misfortune and decided to re-route us to Chicago for a few days.

It's Christmas in Rome. A little damp. A little empty. A wonderful day to stroll the city and visit churches.

At some point, David and I found ourselves in the neighborhood called Trastevere. It's full of winding streets and tiny shops and at least one unexpected powerhouse of a church.

If I had to pick one building as the single most awe-inspiring work of humanity, it would have to be St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. I've been to a lot of famous churches in the world, but even St. Peter's worst completely outshines just about everyone's best. David and I visited St. Peter's on Christmas Eve.

Our second full day in Rome, we took a morning tour of the Villa Borghese and then strolled through the gardens.

After our tour with Marco, we decided to go back and tour some of our favorite spots that we didn't have quite enough time to see with Marco.

Our first full day in Rome consisted of a morning walking tour of the center of Rome. I had found a private tour guide online, named Marco, who walked us through the center of town.

David was short of making Executive Platinum on American Airlines by just a couple of thousand miles. The end result was a trip to Rome for the week of Christmas, and I could not have been happier.

So...David and I had a nice flight to China. It went by really quickly for some reason. I'm sure that being in business class helped. And now it's 1am, we're settled into our hotel, and we're wide awake. We're staying the Hilton Beijing Wangfujing. We had some problems getting here. Specifically, the taxi driver had no idea where it was and didn't speak English. The Google maps that we had printed up helped marginally. Pointing and shouting "zhe ge" also helped.

I'm packing for China now. Well, at least I should be packing instead of writing blog posts. David had bought tickets in coach flying non-stop from Chicago to Beijing. I was not looking forward to that flight. The good news is that we got upgraded from coach to business! Yippee! And I have 28 hours of video on my iPad and enough Ambien to remain serene, sleepy, and entertained. So now...what am I doing in China? I was on my won for five days in Beijing last year and I went over board as a tourist.

After taking a leisurely stroll down the west side of Lake Maggiore, we were ready to get out of the car. The afternoon rain had passed. We arrived at Orta San Giulio, managed to find parking, and trekked down the hill. There are no cars allowed in the heart of town. Or more precisely, the town could not fit any cars. It's a labyrinth of tiny little cobbled streets. There's one main drag that most people use to meander through town. First things first, we stopped for a cappucinos. Ah...

On our second day, I was a bit more coherent when I woke up. I still didn't have it together to have breakfast with David. He went off to the conference for a bit and I tried to find the Etro store. It was a total bust. The main store was completely intimidating: bizarro fashions in the window with enormous prices. I didn't even bother going in. Then I tried to find their outlet store. It was a very frustrating experience. I think I found it, but I didn't bother ringing the buzzer to go in because I found no evidence of it being an actual store. Oh well.

Well, it was the last day in Milan. Part of this trip was an effort to escape the madness of the renovation, and in that sense, the trip was a total winner. I feel like I've "done" Milan, though I would never pass up any chance to visit Italy again. But I feel like there was a lot of the surrounding area that I would love to come back and explore: Lake Como and Verona are two biggies. I could imagine spending at least a week, casually bopping from one small town to the next.

I've tagged this entry with "Italy" even though Bellinzona is in Switzerland. However, you would really never be able to tell that you left Italy in this part of Switzerland. David and I got an early start and hit the road to a town called Bellinzona. The ride there was pretty great, too. We drove past Lake Como and all sorts of other lakes. I could see that if you lived in northern Italy, it would be quite nice to have a summer condo on the lake.

Every time we go to Italy, I say that we don't go to Italy enough. Why does it only happen once every few years? We had dinner with one of David's colleagues in Milan that tells us she goes to Rome twice a year. Granted, she's a hell of a lot closer, but still...we should be going ot Italy more. I haven't been to Rome in over 10 years! What's wrong with me?

I flew to Milan by myself. David was coming in from England. So even though I got there ahead of time, David had not taken red-eye flight to get to Milan and he had already adjusted to the time change. I got ot the hotel first and took a nap for a few hours. There is nothing like that first nap when you arrive in Europe from an overnight flight. Eventually, he prompted me to get up. The whole thing was helped by the fact that he had got some pastries to help me ease into consciousness. After I pulled myself together, we went to the Piazza del Duomo to see the center of Milan.

In May of 2009, Mom and Dad flew to New Jersey, spent a night with me, and then we all drove up to Ithaca for a family weekend. It was billed as a “Pre-Mother’s Day” event - since the timing did not work out for Mom and Dad to visit on actual Mother’s Day. I was only there for a couple of days before driving home. Mom and Dad stayed for longer and flew back from Ithaca. We had no hard and fast plans for what to do while we were there. Sis and had come up with plenty of options, but we kept it pretty open, since you never know what you’re going to be in the mood for.

After Kenya, we headed to Tanzania for one night in Arusha. The flight to Tanzania was fairly uneventful. On the flight, there was a small contingency of young frat-style guys with a ton of outdoor gear. They were clearly off to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. David and I christened them “Kilimanjarheads”. At the airport, we were met by Urassa - one of the drivers for our trip. We later learned that his real name is “Goodluck Urassa”. We figured that he went by the name of Urassa because he was tired of all the Americans being confused or making jokes about a name of Goodluck.