June 26th, 2006
I just got back from Lake Como, Italy, where I attended a transatlantic conference cosponsored by the German Marshall Fund and Bertelsmann. And yes, while the international implications of our ongoing War on Terror are profound (and which I will write about at some later date), let me comment ever so briefly on the cultural aspects of my trip:
1. All the female tourists to the area ask the same thing: Where does George Clooney live?
2. The town of Bellagio has surprisingly fewer fountains than one might think (and none are synchronized to Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”).
3. Summerland is just as easy to understand in Italian as it is in English (and I don’t really speak Italian).
On our way back to the Milan airport, an American girl asked our Italian driver, who spoke very little English, the inevitable question of where George Clooney lived. He smiled, made some gesture with his right hand, and continued driving. Half an hour later, he quickly pulls the car over to the side of the road, along the coast of Lake Como. He points to the town before us (Laglio) and says one word: “George.”
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