Hello all! I finally made it back to good old Chi-town! Getting home is always the worst because let's face it. Who wants to come home from vacation? Not I. I had a 7 hour train ride from Florence to Zurich. Not bad. much better than that 1940s style junket I rode from Zurich to Milan. I thought some woman named Natasha was going to enter my compartment and hand me the secret codes to defeat the Nazis. All thanks and praise be to my friend Kevin's former girlfriend Andrea! Andrea, you are the bomb. I stayed at her place in Zurich since my flight didn't leave until the next day. OK, Zurich is expensive! We arranged to meet at the McDonald's (easy landmark for both of us). I noticed the Happy meals were selling for a cool 10 Swiss Francs. That's about $6.00 American. Expensive! The next day I got to the airport quite refreshed. Thank God because that was truly the flight from hell. Security from Zurich to the US is tight. They even made us take of our shoes. I shit you not. The flight from Zurich to Dallas-Ft. Worth was over 11 hours. Personally, I recommend taking a little thing of baby powder for those long flights. You start sweating in some uncomfortable places if you know what I mean!

There were about four of us from the Zurich flight that missed our 5PM flight to Chicago. Every time I connect through Dallas it's like a marathon. This is the first time I actually missed a flight. No problem. We were on the next hourly flight to Chicago. OK, some fool checked his luggage but didn't check himself on the plane. We had a 1/2 hour wait while they found and removed his bag. Finally got to Chicago a little before 9PM last night. I was going to take the train but I said fuck that and paid for a cab. The best decision I've made in a long time because I was truly tired. I have plenty of pictures and I want to put a select group of them on my site with comments. If you want to see them "raw" without comments feel free to go to the following site: http://briefcase.yahoo.com/casper_boo_96. This is just a raw dump. The only thing I really did was rotate some of the pictures so you don't look at them cockeyed! Have fun!

Well, the big adventure is almost over. I almost didn't update my journal because it's just too painful to think that I am leaving Florence. But I know I have so many crazy fans out there who just wouldn't be able to get to sleep unless they had a dose of Pauly's big mis-adventures. Yes, I'm going to miss the long (LONG) walks all over Florence with no true direction in mind. I will miss all of the hot (HOT!) men all over the damn place. I will miss the historical treasure that truly is Florence. But I won't miss guessing what time the stores will re-open after lunch. Will they re-open after lunch?! I won't miss dodging dog shit all over the place. I won't miss the tourists that just seem to mob around the Duomo (Big ass church). Oh, did I mention the fact that I will miss all of the hot men?

I must thank my good friend and great host, Jim. Jim you are truly the best. Anyone who puts up with me crawling in at all hours of the night (morning) is gold! Anyway, This will be my last entry until I return to the US. Make sure you all keep an eye on the picture gallery.

Ciao!