Traveling (and Other Observations)

About a month ago, I returned from my trip to Italy.  Although most of you reading this have heard about the trip, for the sake of completeness, I'll post the high- (or low-) lights here:

• I still don't eat a whole lot when I'm nervous.  And I get nervous traveling alone.  As such, by the time I arrived back in the United States, my belt was fastened at the last hole and was still loose.
• I missed the derecho on June 29th.  Fortunately, it appeared that my apartment didn't lose power.
• The city of Padova does not have many English speakers outside the university or train station.  However, Venice is practically bilingual.
• I was glad that I decided to book a hotel next to the airport the night before returning as the organizers did not call me to let me know when the airport shuttle was supposed to pick me up the next morning.
• One gets a lot of food with a meal in Italy.
• My adviser found out about Victoria and me, and is very happy about it.  I think she may have been happier for Victoria than she was for me.
• I had to give my talk in front of one of the experts in compressible fluids.  Yeah, my first talk at a conference--no pressure.  But, my adviser says it went well, and was extremely excited about it until, well, see the previous point.

In other travel news, my parents and sister went to Hawaii for about two weeks.  I didn't go, and am glad I did not since I would have just gotten back from Italy and I need to save up for a couple of upcoming trips.  First, I have to go back to San Diego for the AMS/MAA Joint Meeting in January (and hopefully will get to take Victoria with me, but probably not), and then next spring or summer after I defend, I am planning to go to Greece.  You can probably guess why.  So for someone who didn't fly at all after the summer of 1994 until November 2011, I have and will have done a fair bit of flying from November 2011 through the summer of 2013.

Oh, and for those of you who missed the Facebook update, this post has been typed on my new computer (thank you Nick for getting it ordered).  Yes, after nine years, I have retired the Gateway.  I still have it as a backup, but it has earned a bit of a rest. Thanks to Jon, the computer is properly equipped in the way of software (i.e., Portal and Portal 2).  Now if I can find a nice LaTex editor and compiler, I will really be set.