Stalked by the KGB

Last night, once the Michael Jackson funeral started, all my worked ended. I can honestly say that I didn't watch one second of the funeral. I of course woke up really early the morning of Princess Diana's funeral but Jacko's funeral would never even come close to comparison. The benefit of MJ's funeral was that my workflow immediately stopped on a dime the second that the funeral procession started moving. And for that moment, I can honestly say that I was thankful for Michael Jackson.

So that left me with a dilemma. Go to bed early (we had to be on the bus at 3:00a) or take another walk to Red Square in beautiful weather. I figured that I could sleep later and when else will I have this chance. I wanted to go by myself but my boss insisted that I take one or two of people with me. I tried to get two of my Becky Protective Detail from the Secret Service to go with me but they were very busy smoking cigars. So instead, I found two of my camera guys and the three of us started walking over the bridge to Red Square, which in total was about a five minute walk from my hotel. Well, as we were walking I noticed a guy sort of walking behind us. He was dressed in a suit and carried a briefcase. A perfectly normal looking Russian man. I stopped to turn around to take a picture of the hotel and I noticed that he kind of stopped too. This kept on happening all the way over the bridge and then all across Red Square. I mentioned it to the guys who started to notice this strange behavior. So we would intentionally walk way out of the way and stop to see if this guy would stop too. And for the next 30 minutes, I was completely stalked by this guy. When I went to a souvenir stand, he stopped too and just stared at me. It started freaking out my camera guys to the point that they wanted to go back to the hotel!! I thought they were wimps!! At one point, my friend Tony just ditched us! But in my mind, this guy was from the KGB and was somehow going to kidnap me and I would never be heard from again. So I decided to play it safe and cut short my souvenir shopping spree. I'm pretty disappointed because when I ended up going back a little later with my correspondent, all the souvenir stands were closed. I guess that just means that I will have to come back at a later date (company paid trip of course!)

Now I'm in L'Aquila, Italy for the next couple of days. Getting here was a little brutal. We had to be on the bus by 3a and I didn't go to bed until 1a (didn't get to sleep until about 1:30a local time). So I got an hour and half nap before leaving Moscow and then I took another hour and a half nap on the plane to Rome. Then we had to get on a bus for 2 hours. My original intention was to take yet another hour and a half nap and that would have gotten me 4.5 hours of sleep. However, the scenery going through the Italian countryside and mountains was incredibly beautiful. Literally breathtaking! Our caravan of buses wound through the mountains, literally through a couple of tunnels, and we were just surrounded by beauty. The sun was also streaming through the clouds so you could actually see the sun rays. It just so happened that on my iPod, a remake of the old hymn "This is My Father's World" popped up. It was so moving that I had to listen to the song at least three times. Eventually after about 90 minutes of the bus ride, my eyes decided they had had enough of being opened and I fell asleep for the last little bit. We're in a town that was devastated by a 5.8 earthquake in April. We're working in a tent (a very, very nice tent) and it's quite nice. At first, I thought the only bathroom option was a port-a-potty but once I found that there are real bathrooms, my attitude immediately changed. Then came time for food and I became a different person. The food is absolutely incredible. I had done a bad job eating in Russia but I think I'm going to be making up for lost time in Italy! I can't tell you what time it is or what meal should be served but I can tell you that the lasagna is awesome.

I just got the good news that I get to go back to Rome on the first bus back which means I have my evening free in Rome. So I'm going to explore. Don't worry, Mom, I'll be extra careful and hopefully I'll find the Trevi Fountain!