Quick, name three beers from Italy…
I got you, didn’t I? Maybe you came up with Peroni, or Moretti if you’re really good. And why have we not heard of the fantastic beers that just have to be pouring out of this country and into our living rooms? It’s because they don’t really drink beer in Italy, that’s why. Why would anyone other than an uncultured swine (i.e. me) want to drink beer in a place where wine is cheaper than bottled water? I don’t know, but I haven’t given up yet, and that’s why I bought this beer today. That, and the fact that its name exactly describes my feelings about the beer here… slightly better than eternal damnation, but a bit worse than not very good.
On another beer-related note, Hannah and I were planning a trip to Belgium for some bar hopping over her Spring break when we discovered that renting a villa on the Amalfi Coast for a week was $500 cheaper than slumming it in the cheapest hotel in Brussels. So, I guess I’ll suffer through more wine. Life is not hard here.
And just for fun, here’s a picture of the Hell Bier with his friend Mr. Dunkel, which I’ve taken to calling Skunkel… but I drink it anyway.
We’re in the middle of packing all of our stuff up for Venice this afternoon. In a way it feels like it’s been packing since last October, a length of time that has probably been made worse by my oh-so-slight need to overprepare for everything. But anyway, here it is, and since we’re leaving tomorrow I guess it’s finally time to put the piles of things into bags and walk out the door. I don’t know why I think I can remember everything when I’ve never left the house for more than 24 hours without forgetting my toothbrush.
It’s also time for the high and low-level discussions about what makes the cut for bringing with us. Fearing that I can’t get good beer in Italy, I was going to bring a few cases, but Hannah put a stop to that… I think she wants to bring shoes or some other craziness. In the end, whatever fits in the bags is going to make the cut, and I just hope there’s nothing too important left behind.
It’s really unpleasant in Boston today. Yesterday it snowed a few inches and then proceeded to rain. Today it’s miserably cold, which has the effect of turning all of that wet snow into a sheet of ice, and the bad part is that we’ll need a real thaw before it’s going to go anywhere. Here’s a picture of the bike path that I take to work… not so good for biking today.
