Nicole called to tell me I have a letter from Fulbright telling me I received an award. If I can work out the details with Ball State, Kim and I will be in Athens, Greece, Feb. through May 2009.

I need to clear out some old pictures. Today's entry will be a hodge-podge.



I neglected to get this grafitti shot posted in my last entry. I have no clue what it says, means or represents but it was colorful and obviously done with some degree of precision.







This is pretty interesting. When my brother was here last week, he told us of pay toilets (in Paris, I believe) where the entire room is sprayed and sanitized as the occupant leaves. Lo and behold when Kim went to San Marino with Jim and Linda, they found the same thing. Very clean - and discourages anyone from sneaking in while the
previous patron is using it (or they
will get sprayed).

We had a chocolate fair in Piazza della Liberta here March 8/9. There were about 15 tents set up, each with small, exclusive chocolatiers (none of the major brand sorts of things - all small shops that hand-make). Stuff was not cheap but as you might imagine it was
quite good. We sampled chocolates
with a wide variety of fillings,
including grappa and hot pepper.











Kim wanted to make sure to get this picture for Megan.

















These two pictures are the same "street" in Macerata. Obviously we're inside the city walls here, but we're actually just outside what were the old walls. In this picture, the wall to the right is the old city wall. The houses on the left are "new construction."








































You probably can't tell, but this is a bus shelter. Obviously it's covered with writing. As with the other graffiti entry, some is political, some personal, some just nonsense.











I took this picture of Hansel & Gretel's gingerbread house at the mall. The street sign above is pointing the way to them, and another arrow to Red Riding Hood.









You don't get to see much in this video, but we had a portion of a cross-country bike race here Sunday. Tirreno-Adriatico left Macerata at noon and went "only" about 17 miles, but it's pretty severe hills. The Swiss guy who won this leg did it in just under 34 minutes.