Europe Travel: From Beaded Curtains to Busted Baggage

Italian Beaded Curtains: You may notice as you go into Italian establishments in the summer that you'll have to push through a plastic beaded curtain to get inside. Know why? It's to keep out flies. As I understand it, flies have these hundreds of little compound lenses in their eyes, and when you throw a colorful, shimmering mass of color at them, they perceive it as a solid wall and don't try getting in. Yet the curtains allow air to flow. Interesting, no? The picture over there is of a curtain made of pasta--penne to be exact--found in Portovenere.

Driving the Autobahn: Yes, these strips of asphalt are legendary for speed and, surprisingly enough to Americans, safety. Much of the joy of driving them comes from adherence to the rules of the road (drive in the right, don't dawdle in the left lane like you do in the US!) Here are some resources from Michele Hartley and I: Driving in Germany.

Boeing Exits In-flight Broadband: Yep, it's gone. They say there was a lack of interest. You know, I always wanted to try it out, but you never knew if they had it on the plane you were riding in--so I never struggled to get out the laptop. Anyone ever used it?

You Can Claim Your Busted PC at Carousel #2: Nice article that outlines the problem of checking in your delicate electronics, pointing out where government regulation is neccessary: "One of the reasons that laptop and luggage makers don’t know about the survivability of computers in checked baggage is that they don’t have any incentive. It’s the perfect code-sharing scenario: It seems a busted computer is no one’s responsibility." Hard Case anyone?

^{Portovenere picture © 2006 by Martha Bakerjian, Italy for Visitors, licensed to About}