3III years old today.

As you can see from the picture, Andrea has slightly over-estimated my age. Either that, or he's going Roman Numeral on me. I hope it's the second.

These past few weeks have been very unusual. Andrea and I left for our winter holiday/honeymoon in Vienna and Prague on December 24th and had an amazing time.

Vienna is elegant, rich, stoic with luxurious castles, exaggerated Barocco and endlessly naughty pastries (viva the Sacher!). We stayed in the best hotel with an outrageous suite right smack in the center of the city and some of the highlights of the visit were the Schonbrun Castle, the Royal Castle in the city and the Hunterwasser house just outside town. The people were, well, Austrian, but I found them polite, and the city was on the quiet side, so there was something incredibly intimate about stopping at one of the many kiosks along the foggy Stephansplatz to eat a frankfurter with my gloves on in 0-degree temperature.

Prague, as a stark opposite to Vienna, is pure energy and color and inspiration (or, for you witty ones, inSpiration for all its amazing spired views). Prague still is very Eastern European and so there's definitely an air of unpredictability to it, which was actually near frightening when the sun went down - especially on New Year's Eve. Here the unanimous favorites were the view from the top of the municipal building in the Old Square and Karluv Most bridge and tower. But the *real* winner goes to my new favorite: Pilsner Urquell beer! The downside to Prague was our hotel, as it was in the New Town, which meant we walked over 20 kilometers (about 13 miles) every day on uneven, cobbled streets. It was tiring, and I literally spent the last 3 days limping (as quickly as I could) through the days.

At the end of it all, on New Year's Eve, unfortunately we got the call that my Grandma Natalie had passed away. We were able to finish off our last day of the trip and then instead of returning to Perugia from Rome, we continued back to New Jersey where we stayed for the funeral and shiva until we got back yesterday. It was good to see the family, even if it was for an unhappy occasion. It seems like when I don't have any concrete plans to visit, something happens (good or bad) that makes the plan for me, divine intervention.

Which leads us to today, January 8th, my birthday. I am 33 years old today and, while last night the thought of having a birthday in the midst of such confusion was making me unhappy, today I'm feeling good. I like the symmetry of the number 33. I like the roundness of the year 2008, and I feel good about what it has to offer me, though most of it still, of course, remains to be seen.