The word “euphoric” comes to mind when I write or update the site and think about the clunky, near-command line manipulation that was required with my last design to make even the smallest change. I can write half a post then save it as a draft to finish at some later date, which may be la-dee-da to you all, but to me is luxury beyond imagination. I finished my photo gallery last weekend and wrote it so that to add photos to the site I just upload a single-sized image to my image directory, and all of the resizing, caching and photo borders are handled automagically by the server. To add an image to a post with the photo borders and popup code requires just a single command: addPhoto(filename). That is just too sexy.

I tweaked the design a little today so that it doesn’t look so barren, and for the most part I’m happier with the overall look. If the site doesn’t look any different, hold down “Shift” while clicking the refresh button and it should redownload everything. I still have this left column that needs some love, but that can come another day. I’ve decided against importing all of the old posts from the last 4 years and only selectively picking some of the more interesting travel stories and adding them back in. No one needs to be reminded of my emo rantings of days past.

In the real world, I was pleased to read today that Americans are the second best tourists in the world while simultaneously holding the distinction of being the worst dressed tourists in the world according to 15,000 European hoteliers. This might be why. To be honest, the only people I hear talking badly about American tourists in general are other Americans, but that’s from my experience with Italians in this region. French tourists, on the other hand, seem to be the target of resentments that cross cultural, geographical, and metaphysical boundaries.

I’m willing to admit that I’ve cringed when hearing an American order gelato by slowly describing the flavors in a loud mid-western accent, “CHOCK-OH-LAHT AND VUH-NIL-AH,” but I have no malice towards those types of people. Expecting a person to learn a foreign language that will only serve them for their week-long family vacation to Rome is a bit much. As long as you’re polite and smile all the time, you can get by well enough to where you won’t find your tortelli di zucca served up with a side of loogie at your next dining engagement.