Loblogomy

We are presently relaxing at a very lush hotel at Lake Maggiore near the border of Italy and Switzerland. After leaving Florence this morning, we drove north, stopping in Genoa and Milan on the way here. Unfortunately, Genoa was kind of boring… who cares whether Christopher Columbus is from there. Even worse, we didn’t get to stay in Milan very long. Oh well. Any disappointments from today’s visits were immediately forgotten when we arrived at Lake Maggiore this evening. It’s quite beautiful and peaceful here, and we get to spend two days here, which will be a nice respite from the hectic schedule of touring that we have experienced so far on this trip. They really like to pack in a LOT of site-seeing, which is fine… after all that’s part of the reason we are here. ;) Anyways, time on this terminal is running out. Ciao!

I guess I haven’t sacrificed enough bulls to the gods, because they continue to hate me. Our honeymoon got off to a bit of a bumpy start, as one of our pieces of luggage was lost temporarily by the airline. For two days, Natalie and I didn’t really have fresh clothing… eewww! Fortunately, they found our bag and delivered it to us late last night. Neither of us have ever been so happy to see a piece of luggage. Everything is going well now. Yesterday, we had a rather exhausting tour of Rome, and today we stopped in Pisa on the way to Florence. Natalie really likes Florence, because they have a reputation for having the best gelato in all of Italy. I must admit, it’s quite tasty, and we may just be helping ourselves to a few servings a day. Also, this is the first place Natalie’s had time to shop, and I think that contributes to her liking it here. :)

Well, we survived our own wedding, which seems like quite a feat, given all the surprises during the last few days of planning. From unanticipated family health problems to the limousine company cancelling on us two days before the wedding to stupid Mapquest getting all our guests for the rehearsal dinner lost to the LCD projector for our slide show not working at the last minute, we had our fair share of stresses last week. Amazingly, though, from the moment the ceremony began up to the conclusion of the evening with the last dance, everything went absolutely perfectly. It would not have been so had it not been for all the help we received from family and friends, and Natalie and I are very thankful to everyone. Also, it was really great to see everyone. We are extremely grateful that we have such great friends who will travel across country to come to our little event. Much to Natalie’s surprise, I didn’t bring a camera of my own to our wedding. :) For the time being, I’ve posted here a few photos from our wedding ceremony taken by one of Natalie’s uncles. When all the photos and video from the day are available, I have plans for telling the whole story on an overhauled version of our wedding website.

We leave for our honeymoon early tomorrow morning. I think we definitely made the right decision by not leaving for the honeymoon directly after the wedding. We needed the last couple days to clean up the mess we created at Natalie’s parents’ house, and to recollect ourselves and rest a little. Tomorrow, we fly to New York to catch our flight to Rome, Italy. We are looking forward a glorious two week tour of Gelato-land. Ciao!

One week left until our wedding (!) and still many chores for Aaron to do. I find it mindboggling how much planning needs to go into a five hour event. No planning this weekend, though–some friends are coming into town to party like when we were younger. I hope my liver is up to the challenge. :)

My site was probed by the spooks at the Department of Defense today. Not sure why. Based on the access logs, though, it looks like they didn’t snoop around too much. I guess they didn’t find the secret button on this page which leads to my plan to comprehensively destroy the US government and install myself as dictator for life. Phew!