Folks, that was a great DO! I could only attend the dinner but it was so much fun. It was nice to see some great flyertalkers again and nice to meet with some for the first time.

Will there be a Venice DO II next year? :)

Let me add that even my wife as a non-flyertalker enjoyed it despite fear that all those flyertalkers would be the same braindead, mad people than me. :D
O.K., she was right, but still it was a nice evening... :p

Next time I will try to stay longer. There were so many people that I would have loved to have time for some personal chat...

And Thanks Dov and o2k for organizing all this! -^

Any photos online yet?

to those who didn't attend: YOU MISSED A TREAT
 

Home from the Venice meet and missing you all! What a great experience and I am sorry to have missed saying "arriverderci" yesterday morning......but our last minute post prandial party in "my" sitting room was fun and I felt I got to say "ciao, ce vediamo" which I will....

For all who did not attend, it was absolutely FABULOUS and surely still is for those who could stay longer....

Saturday night at the Osteria Bea Vita was soooo much fun as was our boat ride during the day in the crisp and sunny day.......and also the historic walk with Dovster which some of us did in an abbreviated version.......

Mrs. Cholula is cool.......when Cholula was with a big food company, she helped out by making 4000 egg rolls in a day at a huge convention. Cholula's handle in those days would have been Beatrice Lo Choy, I think.....

Ciao to all from Vero Beach and si, Ven-ice the next do, Canarsie? Ital-be highly anticipated.. ;) Aww, can't do it like you! No one is punnier than Canarsie!

Ralf, I am shocked by your wife! She should know I am the only brain-dead FlyerTalker!

I am currently in Milan waiting to hear at what time tomorrow I should meet the remaining F/Ters in Verona. I am also planning the next Meet and, at great personal sacrifice, have decided that in order to allow the rest of you to get large hunks of miles, it will be in Tel Aviv.

Hopefully, it will be a great party but not a blast.

Hey, Dovster.....will Cholula have to get all the sauce blessed by a Rabbi to be acceptable in Tel Aviv?

Hmm, mystery!

Boo of the weekend: American Express (those who heard my story will know why)

Cheers of the weekend: Dovster, O2K and everyone else who contributed to a fantastic evening.

Cholula's sauce comes pre-blessed. It carries the mark of approval of the Mexican rabbinical authorities.

(I have no idea of where he managed to find rabbis in Mexico.)

Thanks for the heads up ^ , Fortunately we are departing on the 28th.

Tel Aviv? Why not! It sure is one of the places that is of great interest but where I would only travel with someone who knows the local stuff or together with a group and guide.

So: yes, that would be interesting!

Tel Aviv? How about the Railroad Station?
 

A meet projected for Tel Aviv would become very dangerous ground for one of our company despite the fact that he would have some knowledge of the customs and procedures.

This would be our most geographically challenged friend, Canarsie, who caught up to us on our way to the Railroad Station in Venice and firmly informed us that the turn that we were going to make was the wrong way, because he had come this other way only a few days before and this was a shorter route. Altho I am not really good speaking Italian, I sure read it well and I know that the arrow pointing to Ferrovia was definitely showing an OK route, but the certainty with which Canarsie proposed his alternate swayed all of our thinking, so Dorlee & Leonard, Wahoo Flyer, and Franny & I just followed along, me figuring "How far out of the way can we go because this seemed to be generally leading in the right direction?"

The answer to that question was "Very far." It turned out to be very not good, for altho we had left a 20 minute pad in our route to allow for such contingencies as long ticket lines, broken ticket machines (this is of course, Italy), etc., we had our tour guide for the day (a distinguished Italianate gentlemen known as "Il Dovsterino"), waiting for us at the station in Verona. We certainly had not figured on about a ten minute walk in the wrong direction (requiring a ten minute return walk because there is no easy way of correcting a mistake in this town if you are on the wrong side of a canal) following our leader, Canarsie.

But all ended well and we just made the train, after Wahoo Flyer had grabbed a ticket machine and bought us first class tickets, which was a giant waste because we never found any cars but 2d class. We also had very little trouble finding our guide at the other end, due to a certain leather hat (which at this stage may better belong in the trash than protecting the baldo described above as Bianca's joy), which remained precariously perched above the faux Michael Jordan looking scalp (remember that this is an equal insult thread and how can one insult Canarsie for leading you astray when you have an appointment with the Dovster without insulting the Dovster just as well?).

Anyhow, we ended up having a very nice time in Verona and we hope that Canarsie was able to find the airport (I don't think that we'll ever know about him until he lets us know) and that his route home was not something like changing at Warsaw and stopping over in Helsinki (like the Prague-Cyprus quinela that he played coming over).

Moral of the story is "Never let Canarsie lead the way", because altho he is a great guy, if you did you might get into serous trouble in a place like Israel, where you really can get into a mess if you go too far wrong.

There would be no problem in Tel Aviv. Firstly, it is set up like Manhattan with streets running north-south and east-west. Secondly, if you go too far north you wind up being stopped by the Army protecting the Lebanese border. Too far south and you are in the Dead Sea. Too far east and you run into roadblocks and too far west and you go swimming in the Med.

While I'm thinking about it, for those who were wondering what the hell the 'sgroppino' on the menu at the Osteria Bea Vita was - yes, it is a sort of thin, lemon sorbet - but it is vodka-based. Very characteristic on the Veneto, according to my colleague Fabio.

The root may or may not be the verb 'sgroppare' which means something like 'to buck' (as in a horse).

We all liked the sgroppino, but this evening we're busy with seven of us having dstroyed three bottles of Prosecco, another of chianti, and Gianni the bartender having brought out the chocolate chip cake before any of us have gone to dinner. Therefore, we took a pass on the cake, not at all. We're thinking of ordering some of the novello (a close relative of the nouveau that has come out this week in France).

As far as the Dovster posting about the ease of navigating Israel, it is clear from that post that he has never traveled anywhere with Canarsie, who is sure to lead him directly into the sea, nor with Wahoo Flyer who will be busy sitting down on every stoop running his spy program in an effort to find a hotspot so that he can get himself checked in so that the ridiculous US upgrade procedure can get him to the top of the queue.

Cholula and Laura have gone up to bed because of the 430AM taxi taking them to the airport tomorrow, but there are still five of us left, and we will drink into the night, after having canceled an impossible to get reservation at the restaurant in Venice that has the rep of being the hardest to get into. Maybe Gianni will bring out some more chocolate chip cake and we won't need to go to dinner.

:D :D :D .....I can just see you now!!! Bet Monitor Moll's (aka Frannie)
are a bright pink.......

I am, apparently, leaving Italy tomorrow.

Bianca just told me that she made up my mind and I decided to spend the rest of the week (until I fly out on Saturday) at her home in Lugano. (it is about 1 hour's drive north of Milan in Switzerland.)

It is fortunate that Canarsie is not navigating as I prefer Switzerland to Sicily.