Io prendo due piccioni con una fava

So naturally, being the gregarious, easy-going Europeans, the Italians, don't "kill two birds with one stone". No, no -- there is even a whiff of seduction in their version of the idiom -- they "lure 2 pigeons with one bean", which really makes ya wonder if whoever came up with that was standing on Venice's St. Mark's square when inspiration struck -- if "inspiration" is what you want to call it (I think others have been known to use the more informative term "bleepity bleep bleep bird poop")...

Anyhow, I too have decided to catch 2 pigeons with one bean (I guess they like fava beans the best?) -- I've been taking a couple online design classes -- 1st one was basically graphic design for the web; now I'm in the 1st week of Introduction to Programming Concepts. Our 1st assignment was to outline a program, so I coordinated it with one of the important missions of living in Italy: choosing your gelato. (Click on the image to get a bigger, hopefully readable version.)



Mind you, it's only called Procuring for oneself The Perfect Gelato for dramatic effect. After a period of adjustment to Italian living, one discovers one can never find the perfect gelato, but you just gotta keep looking. (Sometimes I feel like the same goes for shoes!)