don't drink the tapwater... and other things i learned in europa

well, let's all just take a moment to laugh at courtney. rick steves says its okay to drink tap water in western european countries. it didn't taste bad to me and it wasn't mexico, so... if i was out of bottled water, i'd refill the trusty nalgene with the stuff from the sink. nope, i didn't just swallow a few sips. i drank buckets of the stuff.

apparently experts will tell you that drinking tap water in a foriegn country isn't smart unless you're going to be there for very extended periods of time and your body will adjust to the new bacteria. if you have a weird thyroid disease like me, however, you should just never drink unfiltered tap water because your body won't fight any infectious bacteria.

did i forget i had this thyroid condition? no, i'm just not the brightest crayon in the box. but i'm paying for it now! i won't give you any details, but in addition to a hacking cough, i'm pretty much existing on crackers and gatorade. and avoiding tap water at all costs.

they say this could continue on for a week or more, you just have to let the bugs run their course. but i'm going to thank my lucky stars (and the good man upstairs) that this happened at a point in my life when i'm not rushing back to a real job immediately. and living at home under the care of nurse cathy ain't too shabby.

if it didn't hurt so much, i'd laugh out loud at myself right now. so feel free to join in. gosh! what an idiot.

in other news, i wrote a nice recap of my time with renza in my handydandy (who really says handydandy anymore these days? its time we brought it back) journal on the airplane from roma to paris. but i think ill save that for later. all in all, we had a wonderful, awesome, supercalifragilistic time and can't believe the whole thing happened! pics & more stories to come!