It was Hot in Italy.

I know that I mention the heat a lot but, seriously, that is thing that is most seared (HA!) in my memory about that trip to Italy and Albania.  Also, in my little travel notebook, where I took notes about what happened and what I saw, I mostly just have pages of notes that said things like: 

"train. sooo hot" 

"hot hot hot hot hot" 

"Rome. hot." 

"Bari.  very, very hot." 

"Bari. 104 degrees.  In the shade. AT 10 O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING!" 

"It is so hot." 

"How did these people take over the world when it is SO HOT!?"  

"I bet it was because they were all trying to find some place to live that wasn't SO HOT!!!"

So, to set the record straight, it was very, very, extremely hot in Italy, in an objective sense.  

I was not acclimated to the heat at all, which made it worse, in a subjective sense.  

And this is an accurate reflection of my personal experiences in Italy.  Which were primarily characterized by super, unrelenting, unbelievable heat.

(For a slightly more positive view of Italy, along with some pretty spiffy pictures of some creepy secret-church artwork, check out this blog post here.)