How quickly we adapt. On arrival in Venice, Italy, I found myself clasping my hands together in a Thai wai and bowing deeply as I said "grazie..." The transition from Southeast Asia to Europe has been a little surreal. To come from a place where everyone bargains intensely over one dollar to the land of Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, and Prada makes Italy seem either a fairy tale or a farce.
There really is no other place like Venice on Earth. Well, except for The Venetian in Vegas, which looks incredibly like the real thing minus the grafitti on every building. It has such a rich history as the trading center of the mideval world and the temporary home to so many famous artists such as Vivaldi, Wagner, Byron, Shelley, Browning, and Henry James. Today it seems to exist soley for tourists and the prices show it! I think it would be possible to live in Venice for years and never really penetrate a deeply closed-off Venetian society in which the same families have owned the same mansions for hundreds of years.
Spent a week in the sinking city and then headed east to meet up with some friends in a Lucca.
I'm pretty sure the name Lucca translates into "the city of extremely well-dressed ederly men riding bycicles." My favorite Lucca story occured when asking an employee of a prominent cell phone company the location of a good local wine bar. He began to explain, then paused, sighed deeply, and gravely replied, "I will show you." He then came with us, left the store unattended, and sat for a half hour at the wine bar nursing a capucino. This illustrates both the friendliness of the Italians and their attitude that work comes second to life. My theory is that they can survive because the competition has the same attitude. Two of my best friends from home were married in a beautiful ceremony at the Villa Denise in Monsagrati, a tiny village nestled in the vineyard-covered hills of Tuscany 13 km north of Lucca. 
The beautiful villa was complete with a swimming pool, a grass tennis court, the obligatory classical nude statues, and locally produced wine. We were lucky enough to stay at the villa for a full week. On the train from Venice to Lucca I met two wonderful women from Minnesota who ended up coming to the wedding. One of them turned out to be a floral designer who is featured on the local Minnesota news and has written a floral design book. On the day of the wedding she spontaneously fashioned a beautiful bridal boquet and adding some floral decorations to the villa using flowers from the garden. Its incredible how things always work out. The owners of the villa cooked the multi-course wedding feast and ate with us, constantly raising their glasses (full of the wine they made) and cheering to the happy couple, "Viva gli sposi!"
From Monsagrati we took some day trips back to Lucca and to Pisa. Its true. The tower leans. Now if I could only figure out how to spin my engineering mistakes into lucrative tourist destinations...
