A week in la bella Italia...

I am going to quit apologizing for not updating more often and get straight into last week! I dropped Tiva off at the kennels on Friday night and headed back home to pack for my week in Algehro, Sardegna. I didn't do it beforehand because I didn't want to distress the dog (nah, she's not spoiled!)

My baggage allowance was only 15 kilos, so the decisions were not easy. I had 4 days of holiday and 3 days of seminar and no clue what the weather was like! I got up at 3.30 a.m. and the taxi picked me up at 4.30 and off we went to Prestwick for the flight to Stanstead. Straight to the Holiday Inn Express once I arrived there at 8 a.m. and I was so sleepy! They charged me £20 for an early check-in and I went up and back to sleep. Just hung out reading once I woke up and was back to bed early for a 3 3 a.m. check in for my Italy flight.

Arrived in Algehro at about 10 a.m. and it was already 30 C.!!! I did manage to buy a camera (Canon 40D)at the airport, so spent a couple hours winding down and playing with that a bit before putting the battery on to charge and going back to sleep!

The next few days were spent wandering around town and lying on the beach and (duh) shopping. Nice and relaxing and finished 3 books! Wednesday night there was a welcoming party for the conference. I wore a pair of pink pedal pushers and a nice top and my pretty pink and yellow heels that just have the band across the toe.

I met a couple of nice young men from the states who are ready to graduate and want to practice in Italy and one of the speakers, Jane Cook, and we chatted and decided to go for our dinner together. I made it through the entire evening without mishap (yeah ankles) and was on my way out and there was a stupid, TINY, little step in the doorstep (only about 4 inches) and I didnt see it. Stepped on it with my right foot and my heel caught on the door and stopped as my left foot swung through. As I fell forward my right foot slipped backwards out of my shoe and my left pointy little heel landed on the side of my right big toe and I gouged a great chunk of my toe out and it started bleeding like a head lac! What an idiot I felt, treading on my own foot and blood everywhere! But hey...I didn't turn my ankle! In fact, I'll put you all out of misery right now and tell you...I didn't turn my ankle the entire weekend!!!

Anyway, the conference was great the rest of the week. I did a lot of neurology stuff with Dr. John D'onofrio and other neuro speakers. I did pediatrics and philosophy and even a session of quantum physics; now that was neat! Made new friends and hung out with some old ones and learned a lot.

On the way home I was 6 K overweight and they charged me for only 4, at £15/K. It really is highway robbery. It was all camera weight, oh, and 2 pair of shoes! so that was a bit of a blow to the pocket book, £60 x 2 flights...yikes. But still, I saved more than that on the camera...

That will do for now, tune in later for what happened on Monday!