Italy - Finito

I have now passed about the halfway point in my trip. Everything has been great so far. I've really enjoyed every city but my favorite is still Cape Town. This past weekend, I surprised my english family and showed up for Easter with my Italian family. We arrived in the wee hours of the morning on saturday and just went to bed. Saturday, we woke up and watched some rugby. Then my uncle, 3 cousins and myself went to a pub to have a few beers, biltong (like jerkey) and watch the liverpool vs. blackburn soccer match. liverpool won 2-0 and my english family was happy. Personally, I don't really care who wins but it's fun to watch the games. That evening, I cooked fajitas for the entire family and it was a really chill dinner. I spent the night at my grandmother's place and the following day, we returned to my aunt and uncle's house. I honestly can't remember what we did on sunday afternoon, I think probably just watched more rugby and cricket. However, that evening, we all went out for Indian food. I, of course, ordered a lamb vindaloo as I had been craving a good one ever since Birmingham with my cousin, michelle. I tasted a little bite and decided it was not spicy enough. So I called the waiter over and asked for them to kick it up a level. They most certainly did! I was perspiring and tearing quite a bit and my family was thouroughly enjoying watching me suffer. Much to their surprise however, I was also really enjoying myself. It was spicy as all hell but so damn good at the same time. The only problem was the following day, it put me intheloo with a little ring of fire going on...plus, everything tasted so bland. That night, all the cousins went out for a drink at a pub and then we went to bed. We celebrated Easter on monday with a bar-b-q consisting of 3 legs of lab (2 normal and 1 curry flavor), 2 types of potatoes and a myriad of vegetables. The weather was great too. In Dallas, the sun is not a rare occurance, but in England, they were acting like God himself was smiling down on everyone. We all went outside, threw the rugby ball around and talked about a bunch of stuff including the meaning of the words: clever, smart and intelligent. I said smart and intelligent are innate and clever is when you do something intelligent. They disagreed so I said America perfected the english language and we're the best. Now I'm back in Florence until Friday and then I leave for central europe for the next 3 weeks. I start in Lucerne (Switzerland) then to Innsbruck and Salzburg (Austria) then Munich, Dresden and Berlin (Germany). From Berlin, I take a 12 day guided tour which I will talk about closer to the date.

P.S. Pictures are up (see below)