Ok, let's recap the last two weeks...

I left for a one-week vacation in Sorrento/Italy on Monday last week, and before that, I finally brought my computer back to the shop so that they'd be able to exchange the C:\ hard drive and the graphics card. The computer used to recognize the monitor only about every fifth time I booted it, and that drove me absolutely crazy. Plus, I hope that the evidently defective graphics card was the reason it didn't recognize the TV, either.

Furthermore, I finally admitted defeat and decided to pay the experts to establish my laptop's WLAN connection. Wasting about three days on that shit was way more time than I ever wanted to spend on that topic. Gah.

So, vacation.

It was definitely warmer in Italy than here, and historic Roman sites like Pompeii and the Herculaneum were simply awe-inspiring. The murals, the statues, the mosaics... wow. And looking into the Vesuvius' crater was as mythical an experience as the travel guide said.

Napoli, though, is as loud, dirty and crowded as everyone says, and I wouldn't want to return there for love or money.

Capri is pretty. The Blue Cave wasn't in the cards, however, since we narrowly missed the time margin in which we could have visited it -- the waves grew too big shortly before noon, and entry was no longer possible. The tourist office said that there was no hope for the next few days, either, since the weather forecast was disappointing in the extreme.

Damn. I really wanted to experience the filtering blue light, the water, the cave, everything.

Italian museums and historic sites show a distressingly tendency to be only marked in Italian; even the National Archeology Museum in Napoli had no descriptions in any other language, and that is simply idiotic. Almost no one speaks German, and only a few people have a sufficient grasp of English to actually understand simple questions. I guess I'm kind of spoilt from Germany where English as a second language is pretty much established.

The friend I went to Italy with spent the week interrogating me about my slash hobby, and I think I succeeded in shocking her sufficiently. *eg*

She still can't imagine reading/writing it herself, but she's asked me to give her a few of my stories so she can read them (despite the fact that they're in English and, uh, pornographic, hehe).

During the week in Italy, my slight cold developed into a pretty much full-blown cold, and my right ear hurts a little. So far it doesn't seem to be an inflammation of the middle ear, but I'll better see a doctor soon. Gah. Antibiotics. Hate them.

I came back via FRA yesterday, and mamoru22 waited at the gate. She'd also volunteered to do the check-in on my outbound flight, and that was the most enjoyable pre-flight wait I've ever experienced -- she sat behind the check-in counter, and I leant over it and peeked at the monitor and unashamedly listened in on all her conversations with her colleagues and the passengers. *nudges mamoru22* Loved it! :-)))

As for the computer thing, I just came back from the shop, the computer, laptop and router in tow. But I think I'll better leave that fun for tomorrow... installing everything anew inexplicably always deteriorates my mood. Wonder why.

*hearts old computer she's using at the moment*

Then I read today that Joseph Ratzinger is our new pope. Even my mother agreed when I said that I had one sentence to describe the man: That if there still were an Inquisition, Ratzinger would be its head.

Let's hope he dies soon enough that his impact on the world at large remains barely noticeable. Bush in the US, Ratzinger in the Vatican. God has a strange sense of humor.

Why, oh why couldn't the stupid cardinals not have voted for one of their Latin American or third-world members?! The Catholic Church is in urgent need of some catching-up to let it rejoin the modern world. Barring the use of condoms among AIDS-infected catholics in Africa is tantamount to assisted murder. Things like that make me hope there is indeed a heavenly judgment after death for dear John Paul II and later Benedict VI. How much more Middle Ages and intolerant can you get without trying?!

Ratzinger's view on homosexuality should be enough to drive me out of the Church one not so far-off day; I already see it coming.

But enough of such morbid thoughts.

My eBook died on my again. Either someone from the hotel staff in Italy dropped it accidentally, or it takes some perverse delight in deleting its bookshelf only when I'm on vacation. It did the same thing to me last year in Egypt, and. I. Hate. It.

I so needed a few glimpses of astolat's "Oblivious" to keep me going, but I had to do without.

I read het romances in the hotel instead -- a pile of books, evidently leftovers, from English and American guests, waited near the elevator. I was once again reminded why I turned to slash because the whole "me innocent, helpless maid, you hulking, sexually aggressive, experienced piece of man-flesh, you!" really turned my stomach. Urgh.

Ok, I think I'm running out of steam for now. Enough of me babbling.

*stares at new computer*

*shudders*