Why don't Germans get as excited about high taxes as Americans? The coalition government in Berlin is increasing the national value-added tax from 16% to 19% on January 1 2007 (imagine paying a hidden sales tax of 19% on nearly everything you buy), gasoline prices, much higher than in the US anyway (how would you like to pay $6 a gallon? We do over here), are going to rise another 6 Euro cents a liter on January 1st (that's $0.27 a gallon), the tax deduction for interest income is being sharply cut - the list goes on and on. And yet no one seems to notice very much. No American politician who voted to increase taxes like that would be re-elected.
This was an amazing vacation. For us terra incognita, in our many Italian vacations we'd never gone farther south than Tuscany. How can I tell about this in a way that's not boring for the majority? I kept daily notes while there, I think I'll use them as a basis and tell the story day by day, making a new post for each day. This may also spawn some extra posts, for example about driving in southern Italy. Background For those not familiar with Italian geography, Puglia is the region in the extreme southeast of the country, the heel of the boot. The terrain is mostly flat, save for the last southern extension of the Appenines running down the middle of the region, the Murgia. It's bordered on the east by the Adriatic Sea; Albania is only about 60 miles away. It's a dry region, but not a desert. Along the coast vegetables are produced, and (as in much of Italy) olive trees and grapes seem to be growing everywhere. It's not a famous wine-growing region, but there
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