1.) when you go to St. Malo, France, make sure that the regional "Ambulance Association"
isn't having a convention (this took us about 80-90 minutes and asking at 9
different hotels, until we found a guy in the 10th hotel who let us rent a room
(and it was 'warm' here - so it wasn't a 'big' problem..._
 

2.) when you go to London - make sure it's not the weekend of the rugby
world cup (and you're not staying in the same hotel with the "Sprinboks"
from SouthAfrica) - the world-cup makes reservations very hard, and the
Springboks - not unlike any generic football team on any continent, and any
type of football make a hell of a lot of noise, on a 24 x 7 basis (maybe we could
train these people to be network support people???) - oh - but sorry that takes
brains, not brawn?
 

3.) when you go to Florence, Italy, make sure President Clinton & Tony Blair
are not around - it took 20 minutes in the freezing rain at 0545 am (after 10
hours on trains & in train-stations over night) to find the "Golf Hotel".
We were both so cold that we couldn't have cared less what it was like, as
long as it wasn't outside with the wind & the rain.   The "Golf Hotel"
has, intereestingly enough, ISDN - but of course my Mac PowerBook doesn't have
an ISDN adapter, so we couldn't dial-up from here...
 

4.) Make sure you travel when it's not COLDER THAN SIN here in South of France
and Northern Italy, make SURE you bring really WARM CLOTHES, - which of course
we didn't do...

5.) McDonalds - You wouldn't BELIEVE how prolific these things are - even in
Venice, Italy - on the 'islands' there's McDonalds. -  WOW - they're like pigeons,
there when you don't want them, not there when you do want them, a scourge on
the eye, and a objection to the environment... - ON THE OTHER HAND, it is, frequently,
the only place one can find an 'egg' for breakfast - and especially in Krakow, the
only place you can find any breakfast at 0705 a.m. - if you want to be in the
office by 0800...  Additionally, I guess, they do serve a purpose - and they are
a quintessential representation of American Society.  BUT _ Unless you have a
book or two and a stool, you probably want to say out of the one in the "Commercial
Centre" in Nice France - where it took us 20 minutes to get breakfast one morning.
"Fast Food" is something that seems to have been lost in the translation from English
to French!

6.) COLD - IT IS COLD - it was 2degrees C in Florence and just as cold in Venice.
However, there are 'some' advantages to travelling when it is cold:

 a.) Mr. Bill doesn't sweat much

 b.) you get to wear lots of baggy / bulky clothes - which means that you can hide
your wallet, money, etc. in your inside layers, so there's a significantly lower chance
of getting pick-pocketed (which didn't happen this trip (it did on Mr. Bill's previous
two business trips), (but -we're not done yet - one more night in "Lecco", Italy (near
Milan, we'll visit Emma Endicott - one of Bill's past Windsurfing & 505 Dinghy friends
from Hong Kong.  She's living here with her beau, Lello, and learning Italian....

  c.) you get to wear all these baggy clothes - so you can load your pockets with cameras,
sunglasses, hats, Kleenex, etc. etc. etc. - and so you don't need to carry your back
pack or shoulder bag around all day - a very 'freeing' feeling while sightseeing...

 d.) Ms. Huggly needs more hugs when it's cold and Mr. Bill REALLY likes that.

7.) good weather - for the most part - it's been fairly good - there has been the cold
& the rain

8.) Japanese tourists: - I suspect that there's some degree of Government planning, by the Japanese government that sends 100's of thousands of tourists out around the world each month, simply because Japan is so crowded (especially Tokyo) just so that the islands of Japan don't sink under their weight...  BUT _ it seems like everywhere we go - there's these hordes (literally - 100's at a time) of Japanese tourists? - Perhaps it's because we look lonely & feral and lost - that they think we need to be taken-in & taken-care-of so that we are not lonely.  But it's not true - we may be lost - but we'll find ourselves someday (yes you can EASILY get lost in Venice!)...

Ms. May seems to have some trouble with these tour groups, but I kind of like listening to their voices, and sometimes there's these whole crowds of Japanese schoolgirls ??