So, Italy still rules.  Waves of homesickness still surfaces, but I'm seeing so much incredible stuff that I am easily disstracted from home.  I went to Venice last weekend, it was nuts; rain every direction harsh, cold winds and waves in the canals.  You can't look more like a tourist when you're in a croud of 30 college kids treking down the Grand Canal with umbrellas crumbling in the wind left and right. But it was still damn cool.  We went to the Peggy Guggenhiem Mueseum, which was amazing, (see   http://www.guggenheim-venice.it/english/05_collections/07_Permanent_Large.htm).  We got a quick preview of the Venice Biennale 2005, (a huge art collection of up and coming artists, each representing a different country http://www.labiennale.org/en/ ) in the end of June; Caleb and I are checking out.  I can't even begin to talk about the artwork I've seen already, frescoes are everywhere in Siena, normal buildings are usually castles, sculptures ranging from different eras are around (literally) every corner, and churches are loaded with illuminated manuscripts, relics, more frescoes and more paintings.  Oh yeah, we stumbled into "il Duomo" yesterday and found one of Michelangelo's first sculptures! It gets to be more than my eyes and brain can handle.  

Suggested listening:  Thrones - "Sperm Whale" (for triumph and repent), Animal Collective - "Sung Songs" (while on the suicidal bus rides through the streets of Siena), Hella - "Hold Your Horse Is" (to forget foreign isolation), Bjork - "Medula" (for joy), Converge - "You Fail Me" (when the college kids start talking about how much they love Dave-fucking-Mathews).

ciao