languish meet in Italy : 7 - 11 May

[Richard Hakluyt]

Aye, see you in the hotel bar about 8 - 8.30 pm 

Got an entertaining picture of agent "pedrito" which he sent me, I've printed it off so that we can wander around Mestre station tomorrow asking if anyone has seen him 

Light reading for the trip : The Exploits and Adventures of Brigadier Gerard by Conan Doyle, which I've never read as yet.

[AnchorClanker]

Aye, see you in the hotel bar about 8 - 8.30 pm 

Got an entertaining picture of agent "pedrito" which he sent me, I've printed it off so that we can wander around Mestre station tomorrow asking if anyone has seen him 

Light reading for the trip : The Exploits and Adventures of Brigadier Gerard by Conan Doyle, which I've never read as yet.

I've just started The Noble Revolt, but that's too large to haul around on the trip.  I'll have to grab something smaller,
as I expect to read the Archaeology magazine before I get to Manchester.

[Richard Hakluyt]

OK, I've packed this week's Spectator and The Economist and expect to pick Private Eye up en route.

[Pedrito]

Got an entertaining picture of agent "pedrito" which he sent me, I've printed it off so that we can wander around Mestre station tomorrow asking if anyone has seen him 

After that party I went home totally shitfaced, you can not imagine my wife's reaction...

L.

[AnchorClanker]

OK, I've packed this week's Spectator and The Economist and expect to pick Private Eye up en route.

I'll have British Archaeology and Vanity Fair, so we should be good for reading materials.

[Tamas]

Well everyone will know me except for Pedrito, who, in the unlikely case of being alone in Cortina, should look for a geek in a black Corolla with a Hungarian license plate. Should not be that much of those around the town.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I'm off then, see you guys later.

[Tamas]

I prolly won't log on before I leave tomorrow morning, so see you either at the meet, or when I get back.

[Pedrito]

I survived my first Languish Meet! 

L.

[katmai]

I survived my first Languish Meet! 

L.

If someone wasn't kicked in the nuts I won't be happy

[Pedrito]

If someone wasn't kicked in the nuts I won't be happy

For the time I was there (unfortunately it was only 24 hours) no one was kicked in the groin.
But I bet that, in the remaining time they'll spend together, they'll have plenty of occasions to do it.
I escaped before the irreparable could happen 

L.

[Tamas]

I am back home! A few remarks:

- Pedrito is a cool guy. And no, not only because he gave us awesome "O NOES ITS LANGUISH!!" t-shirts

- My take on northern italy: women are hott, food is very good, wine is excellent, drivers are not THAT bad after you realized they are just crazy enough to do anything. Then you just adopt to the fact that it is impossible to predict the next move of any one vehicle, and go with that.

- Languish people are still excellent company.

- Syt sucks because he did not come and thus could not take pictures of the awesome scenery with my camera while I was driving. So I had to.

I am also so glad I went by car. The freeways had very sparse traffic so I had a blast speeding up and down while listening to loud music, and the mountain roads were simply beautiful with all those little towns, mountains, and forests, with the roads in generally very good condition, making them just as much as a challenge as to become fun.

Short summary of events:

- I arrived first on thursday. Upon checking this fact at the hotel reception, I went back to my car and found 3 suspicious people walking toward me. Turned out it was Pedrito, Ank, and RH. The Barristers soon followed.
Thursday was mild but fun drinking, über-expensive but quite excellent dinner, and good conversations.

- On Friday we did the meet's death march, which was not that long horizontally, but quite deathmarchy vertically. That neighborhood is stunningly beautiful. This was also the day of (somewhat) extensive drinking. Considering my alcohol intake was close to my personal (and somewhat meager) record, I think I did a reasonable job in defending my atheist view against 2 agnostics and a protestant.

- On Saturday we descended on the southern plains with our cars, checked out some towns and ruins, then went back to Cortina on our separate ways. The GPS vs. paper map battle was won by GPS, altough the Italian roads managed to confuse even that piece of computer technology.

- On Sunday I came home, while the rest of the crew went to Venice.

A big thank you goes toward Pedrito for being our de facto host, which altough sadly only lasted for a day, made it possible for this meet so be so much fun. Thank you!

[Pedrito]

I am back home! A few remarks:

<Snipping all flattering comments out>
( Thanks T., I'll buy you a round whenever we'll meet again  )

Yeah, although I was there only for the first day it was really nice to meet all of you IRL: finally I'm able to connect some of your avatars to real people, and this I liked a lot 

Some remarks on your remarks:
Thursday night, you say "mild but fun drinking", I say I went to sleep almost completely drunk! I blame the morning business meeting, the long drive from Bologna and the extra concentration that was needed to keep up with your always interesting but pretty fast conversations 

the t-shirts are really nasty, I only hope you had a good laugh when you saw them!

Where did you go on Saturday? To Asolo, as planned, or to other places, maybe out of discomfort because you couldn't find the right route? Italian Road System

If you got some good pics, please post them, I'd love to see them!

Really happy having met you, and looking forward to another Meet somewhere else, next time I promise I'll stay more than 24 hours (damn allergy that hit the daughter made me go away too soon at all!  )

L.

[Admiral Yi]

Hooray!

[katmai]

Tamas you better have kicked or been kicked in gonads by someone!