who's with me?

http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/02/20/travel/20frugal-paris.html?hpw

three days

What is a journey but a collection of days?  One spent in Luxembourg City:

Another took me back to Brugge:

and another to Strasbourg:

homesick

These are the kinds of pictures you take when you're homesick in a foreign country and taking a long walk:

Leuven, Belgium, Fall 2002

northward

Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi:

St. Mark's Basilica (seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Venice and a gorgeous example of Byzantine architecture):

Piazza San Marco:

Rialto Bridge (someday I'll be able to afford a meal at that restaurant):

One canal of many:

Famed and pricey gondolas (seriously, a ride will set you back $400):

Trying to make sense of Venice is like trying to figure out how spaghetti lies in a bowl.  For a good time check it out in Google Earth:

Addio, Italia.  See you again in 2003.

Stairway to Seven: A Love Story

Steelers love, Pittsburgh Glass Center-style:

tailgating and grilling on molten glass

The Lombardi Trophy takes shape. Also, how scary is Brett Keisel's face?

The Lombardi Trophy and a glass Steeler's logo presented to the theme from Football Night in America.
It was epic.

One of the Mansions on Fifth can't resist: 

Dippy (Diplodocus carnegiei) shows his Steelers love:

The Strip District:

Mancini's Bread 

Mecca

Meet me at the corner of 18th and Penn.  I'll be wearing black and gold

 Pittsburgh Public Market:

Yum

Beer-flavored marshmallows from the Pittsburgh Marshmallow Factory.
Not as terrible as you might think.

No Steelers Super Bowl is complete with pierogies.

The Western Pennsylvania Sports Museum at the Heinz History Center:

Franco Harris welcomes you.

Of course, no sports museum is complete without an exhibit on tailgating

2010 AFC Champions!

no words necessary

Ladies and gentlemen, The Colosseum:

The Forum (with the Senate building on the far left and Il Vittoriano in the background):

arena atop Palatine Hill:

my favorite kind of Rome...

is simply awesome.  It finds you and your friends first in line at Vatican Museum and then booking it to the Sistine Chapel just so you can enjoy one of the world's greatest works of art, however briefly, in peace and solitude;  it draws you out of bed before dawn to watch the sun rise from a cafe in the Piazza Navona;  it takes you to the necropolis beneath St. Peter's Basilica; it finds you and twenty-five other twenty-something Americans sharing a lively and amazing meal with twenty-something Italians in the home of a friend you met in Leuven.

It's also the view from the Castle Sant'Angelo:

Castle Sant'Angelo

The Spanish Steps:

Trevi Fountain:

and it's a Sunday in April spent in this place...

St. Peter's Basilica

with these people...

and this man...

Full disclosure: I did not take this picture, but I was there, I promise!
Thank you to whomever gave me this copy!

To be continued...