Speaking of real Italians, I've been posting (not so often) for a couple of months, so it seems only appropriate that I should introduce myself.

I grew up in Italy, with a *very* travel-phobic mother (to this day, she hasn't set foot on a plane). I must have got my genes from dad, however, because at 19 I caught the travel bug, and it hasn't left me yet. Problem is, many of the places I visit during my travels end up becoming my home for a time. So in the past 20 years, I've lived in Germany (briefly), Holland (not for long), India (a bit longer), and finally landed in the US (for the last 16 some years).

Here I seem to be gravitating towards the West Coast and beyond. After a good start in the People's Republic of Santa Cruz, I moved for three wet years to the Pacific NW (mainly PDX and SEA), then returned to sunny Santa Cruz in plenty of time for the earthquake and stayed there for more than a decade.

At 32 I decided to go "back" to college (never really had a chance to start sooner with all that moving around), and after getting a BA at UCSC, I found it necessary to continue to an MA at the university of Hawai'i.

And here I am now, living with my husband of two years (and partner of twelve) on the beautiful Windward side of O'ahu. If we keep up this West-moving trend, we'll end up in Japan or Australia sooner or later (not in our current plans, though).

None of my previous jobs ever required me to travel, so I travel almost exclusively for leisure (except for a few conferences as a grad student), and I've never been anything more than Gold on AA. Now that I live in Hawai'i, that's pretty easy to reach...

My husband, however, is a computer consultant/trainer, and especially lately, has had to travel quite a bit (UA Prem-Ex and AA Plat.). Amazingly, he doesn't have the interest (the obsession?) in miles that I have, so I actively oversee all of our accounts. You could say I'm "Premex by proxy".

Besides travelling, I love snorkeling and birdwatching (and nature-watching in general), and I miss mushroom hunting, my main reason for not wanting to travel in the winter when I lived in California (Hawai'i is great for snorkelling, but unfortunaltely has no wild edible mushroom to speak of...)

We have no kids, no dogs, and, I have to admit, cats make me sneeze really bad. Am I still allowed to post on this board after this confession?

I am *extremely* grateful to all the knowledgeable people who post on this board. With all the extra miles we have earned because of your wise advice, we will be flying to Europe at least twice next year, and still have miles to spare if my Italian friends ever want to come visit.

Other travel plans in the distant future include most of the South Pacific, Australia, and Seychelles or Mauritius (anyone been there?)

Muchos mahalos to all of you

:-) honu

p.s.: how do you make those emoticons?

[This message has been edited by honu (edited 12-15-1999).]