Okay, so what seems like several months ago, Rick went to the International Conference on Anaerobic Protists and I tagged along. Here are the first few days. Some day, when I get some free time, you might get the rest.

Day 1 and 1.5: Longest. Flight. Ever.

It bored me, so it would bore you. The complete highlights were in the Milan airport:
* Discovering for ourselves that Italian beer is for shit
* The airport chapel and its amusingly-translated English handout noting that the chapel was also open to Hindus and "Hebrews"

When we finally arrived in Alghero, we found ourselves in a deserted airport at midnight with no cabs in sight. Thanks to a kindly AirOne employee, we got a cab to the hotel, but not before being eyeballed by Italian soldiers driving around and around in a Jeep, and befriending the Alghero airport's stray cat.

Day 2: Kickin' it backpacker style

Nothing like bankrupting yourself to fly to the Mediterranean, then waking up to pouring rain a la Hamburg.

S'alright. Alghero is now one more thing LA is not: rainy. It is also small, walkable, clean, smog-free, and old. Medieval old. Little cobbled back alleys which would all be very quaint and calming but for the lunatic Italian drivers barreling down them like they're the 10 freeway. Okay, so maybe this place isn't the exact opposite of LA...

After wandering in the rain a bit, we go to a pizzaria (this seems the thing to do for lunch) and I have a crepe and more shitty Italian beer (I keep hoping...)

It turns out the English are the Ugly Americans of Sardinia. Our first example was the couple who walked into the pizzaria and demanded, loudly, "D'YA HAVE TEA?" When the counterlady looked confused, the British woman continued, "TEA? THE? No? CAFFE?"

Also lost in translation was the clothing store named "Tequila Bum Bum."

After lunch, we attempted to go to the only museum in town, but found it closed. As it turns out, the entire town (island? Country?) except for resaurants and cafes, closes for lunch and reopens at 4 or 5pm -- after, presumably, a siesta. This is inconvenient yet cute. We do find a supermaket that's open and I stock up on backpacker chow (bread, cheese, cheap wine, etc.) Then, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em...I had a nap.

At 5ish, we set out again. We stopped for ice cream and Rick, accessing the wrong foreign language, answered an Italian question with "Ja." The ice cream girl then spoke to us in German for the rest of the transaction.

Rick went off to the conference registration/dinner, and I tried the musem again. It was a none-too-too thrilling collection of sacred art/artifacts, and I can only appreciate so much God Stuff. Still, as Lonely Planet promised, one of the saintly relics contained a baby skull, and I got to sign the guestbook "Los Angeles, Stati Uniti."

Stray dogs, by the way, are everywhere in old Alghero. Or, at least, outdoor dogs with no collar. Stray cats, too, who apparently get regularly fed by old ladies. I once saw a dog protecting a bunch of feeding cats -- he barked when I inched foward to investigate.

The rain had let up, so I wandered south along the coast for a while. Even overcast, the Mediterranean coast is nothing to sneeze at. I eventually ducked inland to head back to the hotel, got lost due to Lonely Planet's notoriously lackluster maps, passed some Sardinian housing projects (I swear, this shit finds me...)

Two blocks from the hotel, it started pissing down rain again. Singing "I want to get dry, so dry..." to the tune of a certain Cypress Hill song, I arrived at the hotel to a lovely evening of bread and fixins, Italian TV, and dry feet! A music festival downtown did a fireworks display at around 10pm, and then played folk-ish music all night.

Does the $2 Chianti get better the more it breathes, or the more I drink?

Day 3: Alghero rolls up its sidewalks

Did I mention "clean air?" It's nice to get a good night's sleep, uninterrupted by sneezing and noseblowing.

After a hostel-like free breakfast at the hotel, I took advantage of the nicer weather and walked up the coast again, north this time. In about 40 minutes, I was way off the beaten tourist track. I saw a carload of shirtless guys blaring "One More Time" by Daft Punk in a parking lot, whooping and ass-grabbing the way only drunken straight guys can. The rest of the morning was uneventful, but pleasant. I stuck my toes in the Mediterranean! Then I went back to town and saw a middle aged, professor-type dude in dress slacks and a navy sweater smoking a pipe with his right hand and carrying a skateboard with his left.

This is Sunday, which means everything is even more closed. Even restaurants at lunchtime, cafes, bars, etc. I amused myself reading menus for signs of weird pizza toppings (tuna, mini sausages...are they pandering to German tourists or do Italians really eat this stuff?)

My hotel room, I must mention, had a bidet. While I have used Canada's only female urinal in my travels (don't ask), I'd never used a bidet, so I decided it was necessary. (Nothing else to do on Sunday...) I'll spare you the details.

Lunched with Rick, drank mirto (evil Italian myrtleberry moonshine) as a sleep aid, took my siesta, and went back out at 7pm to find a totally different city. Everything was open, vendors were set up in the park, buskers were out in the city center playing accordian and juggling fire. That's more like it.

Since I'd found out a pizza place in town had döner kebap (Turkish schwarma, favorite of mine from Germany), I'd stalked the place compulsively as it had neither posted business hours, nor rhyme nor reason. We finally found it open Saturday night and, it wasn't the great German stuff, but it was good enough. This pizza place, incidentally, specialized in pizza with french fries on it.

We finished the night out at a very un-Jamaican place called Jamaica Inn, which served me seadas (a local desert with fried cheese and honey) and filu e feru, the local firewater. Hoo damn! One jigger was enough.

To be continued...

Ah, Italy. I ate horse, used a bidet, got bus-sick, and was denied service by an uppity cafe worker. More later.

Nothing here until next Thursday, unless I find free Internet in Sardinia to use while i drink my espresso...and trust me, I won't be looking too hard...

If you email me at my Wesleyan address, stop. I'm about to let the spam take over and overrun my quota. 12-year-old email addresses gather a lot of crap!

A million people have left their homes.

Even the conservative Boston Herald reported that the head of FEMA had no qualifications for the job. As Lying Media Bastards put it:
"A man who couldn’t hold down a job supervising horse shows is in charge of disaster relief for millions...This guy got the job because he’s a faithful Republican operative, and now thousands of people will die because of that corruption."

And now John Roberts -- who is only 50 or so, and thus we're stuck with him for multiple decades -- is going to be chief justice. True, he's not AS conservative (or underqualified) as some of the dinks Bush could have picked, but is that really saying much?

It's always interesting to see What other countries think of us at times like this:

"But what the devastating consequences of Katrina have shown - along with the response to it - is that for too long now, the fabric of this complex and overstretched country, especially in states like Louisiana and Mississippi, has been neglected and ignored....The neglect that meant it took five days to get water, food, and medical care to thousands of mainly orderly African-American citizens desperately sheltering in huge downtown buildings of their native city, has been going on historically, for as long as the inadequate levees have been there...

"The uneasy paradox which so many live with in this country - of being first-and-foremost rugged individuals, out to plunder what they can and paying as little tax as they can get away with, while at the same time believing that America is a robust, model society - has reached a crisis point this week."

Incompetence or racism or both, it's shameful.

"Sure like to feel some pride, but this place just makes me feel sad inside."

FEMA bullshit vs. reality, as compiled by CNN, acting like a real news outlet for once.

And the on-air media losing it.

My own commentary has, at times, been too crackpot even for a blog. (This blog, anyway). But I'll put it out there that I think this is worse than 9/11. And proof that civilization is two missed meals away from barbarism.

Ray Nagin for President.

If you want some good outrage about the federal fumbling of this tragedy, turn on CNN and listen to Cafferty go ballistic. It's happening pretty regularly.

What are the chances Louisiana and Mississippi will still be red states when all is said and done? Then again, black people already vote Democratic, and it's obvious from all photos and video that's the population really getting screwed. Maybe that's why the federal government is twiddling its thumbs, more worried about looting than saving lives.

That being said, why not suspend media coverage and use news helicopters to get people out? Why not pull the troops out of Iraq (which, arguably, we should have done a long time ago) and get them here? Woulda, coulda, shoulda. It's probably too late now.

This is some dystopian shit.