Friday afternoon and BOTI World HQ is a ghost town. I'd love nothing more than to pop open a couple of beers and watch the Cubs' game on the lobby TV. I like my career too much to do that though. Maybe I'll just go 'run an errand' for an unspecified amount of time. However there is a plus side to a deserted office: I have actual bandwidth to work with. Ahhh.....
On what will likely be my last ramblings on my trip (probably not actually, it's too deep a well not to drink from every now and then), I'd like to touch on Italians and their affinity for booze. Please let me know what I'm forgetting in the comments.
- You can never, ever go wrong with the phrase "litro di vino di casa per favore"
- Besides peanut butter soup, Campari is absolutely one of the foulest things I've ever put into my mouth. After being seduced by the omnipresent advertisements in Roma's Termini, I decided that I'd try one at the middling 'trattoria' (quotes intentional) we stopped at in Sienna. I could have saved myself some Euros by simply mixing Vicks 44D and some tonic water. I forced myself to drink half of it before I gave up. This is probably the only time I've (intentionally) left a drink on the table. At least it was only 3E
- Don't order beer in a restaurant/cafe. You will get anally raped. Do seek out the local grocery / kwik-e-mart and stock up there. 666ml bottles of Moretti/Peroni could be found for as little as 1E each. Horray for cheap beer.
- Ditto the above for water. A .5L bottle of water at the cafes would cost anywhere up to 2E. Later we found a 6 pack of 1.5L bottles for 2E. We thought this was a coup until we went to a grocery in Venice and found 1.5L bottles for .16E each. SIXTEEN CENTS!
The below vehicle was our transportation for a couple of days. I want.
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