Ciao,

In case you didn’t know, “ciao” can mean either hello or goodbye in Italian. Why French (salut!), Hawaiian (aloha), German (servus), Hebrew (shalom!) and many other languages have single words that can be used for both greetings and farewells while English doesn’t is a question I will leave to others. [Suddenly, Kevin Williamson laid down his gun and the 10-gallon jug of acid and felt a compulsion to opine…]

I like using “ciao” here because I’m starting this in Italy but by the time you read this I will be in London, so it’s sort of like I’m using the linguistic version of Schrödinger’s cat and naming it “Ciao,” which is a good name for a cat. Maybe Purina can do something with that? 

I’m going to save the big story from this trip for another day, maybe for The Remnant. Suffice it to say, crossing the alps from Austria to Italy was more exciting than we planned.