I'm back.

It was an utterly wonderful life experience.

Five weeks.

Six countries (Italy, Greece, France, Turkey, Egypt, Switzerland)

10,000Km driven (note I said “driven” - this doesn't include flights)

LOTS of cities (Sabaudia / Terracina / Ponza / Capri / Sorento / Pompeii / Como / Milan / Venice / Rome / Lugano / Cairo / Ephesus / athens / Rhodes / Mikonos / Delos / Paris)

AND...

...The Villa Of George Clooney!! (an inside joke about the visit to Como – don't ask).

Over 3000 photos shot (with a Nikon D90 and thank GOD we had the 320Gb portable drive).

Lots of utterly wonderful people.

Amazing food.

Blissfully hot weather (it hit 46C in Italy and I just ADORED it (that's not sarcasm people – I truly do love hot weather and the Italian sun LOVES me – I just keep turning more and more brown with out even using sunscreen, something I dare not do in my native Caribbean).

Cameos from the trip:

The most bizarre sight of an Arab in full traditional costume playing the bagpipes (very well I might add) at a Five Star restaurant in Egypt.

Hearling an old live Bob Marley rendition of “No Woman no Cry” on Italian radio and being told (in Italian) by a 50+ year old former waiter that he was a HUGE fan (which immediately made Italy feel right at home to this Jamaican).

Going out on to the Cupola at St. Pter's in Rome and becoming immediately aware that I'm REALLY scared of heights (funny – when I was a student pilot, those heights never bothered me at all).

Noticing that the most popular sports car in Europe is the Mini Cooper S.

Wishing that Europe would standardize on where the flusher is on toilets.

Being amazed that EVERY country in Europe that I visited has an impossible parking problem (I swear I saw SmartCars parked in trees in Milan).

The volcano Stomboli belching gas as the ship crised a mile offshore.

The Eiffel Tower gone disco (the five minutes at the top of each hour when it flashes with strobes).

The amazing precision of the pyramids

Rome at night from the hightest point in the city.

Falling completely and irrecovably in love with Italy and knowing, beyind the remotest shadow of a doubt that this is where I'll end up when all is said and done.

North America has it utterly wrong, people. Y'all live to work here. In Europe they work to live. Here there's packaged garbage in supermarkets masquerading as food, filth pretending to be fast food, stress from the artificially inflated “American Dream” which is actually a nightmare in disguise. Oh, and there's football over there. Not some ridiculous take-off on rugby played by steroid junkies who CARRY the ball and lumber down the playuing field like some ancient out-of-date advancing army but REAL football, played with the FEET, a FAST game of style, grace, speed and skill.

For me it's ironic that a kid from a small island in the Caribbean should find the same cultural mindset and norms half a planet away from his origins, almost half a century after he shuffled into this mortal coil.

There will be many more trips to Italy, as often as I can engineer them.

And one day I won't be coming back.

But until then, I'm here.

And soon there will be wallpaper.

It's gonna take me a while to go through all those pics and select the best of the best but as time passes, they'll start to trickle up.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go practice my Italian.