northampton, ma

100 degree heat with 85% humidity is simply wonderful when you haven't got air conditioning! What a wonderful heat wave these last few days. At least yesterday we had a very nice lightning storm complete with big wind to kick out some of the humidity. And I'm not sure what it is about Italians, but they seem to be the least sweaty people on earth. They will go out on the hottest of days dressed in slacks and a polo shirt and not have a single bead of sweat on their foreheads. It's like they have built in A/C, either that or the Italians have invented some sort of shampoo with anti-persperant and kept it their little secret. It does help, I imagine, that Italians are probably the slowest walking people you'll ever see. One day in Orvieto, Dad and I noticed how fast we were walking in comparison to the rest of the passeggiata crowd and decided we would slow down to their pace. The lazy person I am, I quickly adapted. Dad on the other hand couldn't, remarking with a laugh, "this is absolutely impossible." I'd love to take a group of 20 Italians, plunk them down somewhere in lower Manhattan right at the close of the business day, tell 'em to go for a stroll, and see how many New Yorkers they'd piss off.

So I went off to Lucca for a few days. There I managed to lose my passport for the second time on my trip. This time I left it at Borgo a Mozzano next to their famous bridge. It fell out of my pocket, and I didn't realize it until I had walked all the way back to the train station. I sprint-walked (you know what I mean right? When you need to get somewhere in a hurry but you are way too cool to run, so you do this crazy walk where you're trying to move your feet as quickly as possible but do it in a very inconspicuous don't notice me manner) back to the bridge, luckily someone had found it and turned it into the restaurant there. Relief. I then sprint walked back to the station, through of course a wedding with people dressed to the nines. I was sweaty as hell and walking like an idiot, I'm sure they noticed me and thought to themselves, "Look at that American, just like all the rest, always in a hurry." Anyway, I caught my train with literally 0 seconds to spare, so my sprint-walk paid dividends. Also in Lucca I left my gum on top of a ticket machine at the train station, and my deodorant mysteriously disappeared. In addition, I left my phone charger at the hostel in Certaldo. So to sum that up, that's one passport, gum, deodorant, and phone charger all in a span of four days. Impressive feat.

Also impressive are the number of mosquito bites I have managed to accrue. I imagine the count currently stands around 30. Mosquitos in Italy are absolutely fucking vicious. Here they have the lovely tiger mosquito, which happens to be a super aggressive brand of mosquito from Asia. They leave larger bumps on you than your typical bite, and absolutely will not leave you alone. In a burst of inspriration, a few cities here in Tuscany are implementing "bat-boxes" or mini-habitats for bats in order to control the bloodsucker population. Apparently they can eat a few thousand insects a night, so in theory a good idea.