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Published: August 26th 2005
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Hey everyone!
Welcome to my little travel-blog thing (that's right, Mom, I just said 'blog'). I needed something 'appropriate' for the family, and, after watching Brent and Gordon toy around with this site for the past month, I decided to get one. So, if the boys are reading this, you were my inspiration. Anyway, current situation is: Firenze, Italia.
If you want to get technical, the current situation is a little internet cafè across the street from the galleria Accademia--if that's not ringing any bells (alright, it probably isn't), then think Michelangelo (and then think, David, and the galleria is where Michelangelo's statue of David is housed). The flight over was actually one of the best long, economy-class flights I've ever been on, Alitalia having at least two more inches of space per passenger and much better food. The only drawback was that, for regular fliers the max luggage limit is two bags, 20 kilos TOTAL. And, if you're--as we were--flying from Narita, in Tokyo, Japan, the overweight charge is 5600y per kilo. That's about 25 dollars per pound, and since I am going to college...let's just say the situation got complicated. That was sorted out, and after a
brief layover in Milan, we arrived in Florence.
The first glimpse of Florence was of a thousand orange lights dotting the horizon. I remember thinking, "Wow...that city is really orange." Afterwards, of course, I realized that it was probably only orange because I was wearing my red-tinted sunglasses on the plane...er, yes, I was wearing sunglasses at ten-thirty at night. Later, we got out of the airport (after passing at least sixteen Ferrari stores) and into a taxi, and finally up to the Villa La Sosta, which is a convenient fifty meters from the Villa Natalia entrance to the NYU campus. Immediately, we (being my mother and I) fell asleep.
Around six am, I awoke to the crowing of a rooster and the ringing of church bells. How very...country. There is a beautiful view of a lot of trees and hills and stuff from the window of our room. Florence is officially completely unlike Tokyo--though there is a rooster at home that crows every so often. Also unlike Tokyo are the buildings--all stone-and-plaster, and painted the same pastel orange-yellow. A very...soothing and picturesquè town-city, one might say.
After breakfast in the gardens, under what must have been
a ton and a half of ivy, and playing with the Villa's part-Siamese kitty (makes me miss my kitty), we set off to find the University. Turns out, it really is about fifty meters down the road, so we didn't have to walk very far. Since we weren't really allowed to be on campus and all, we walked back to the front of La Sosta and caught the 25A bus downtown. Walked around a bit looking for a cellphone shop, a place to buy pants, and an internet cafè. Found several cellphone places, but we were looking for Vodafone. No pants stores as of yet, and this is of course the cafè. We actually ended up getting off the bus in the middle of nowhere, and after following a tour group ended up in the middle of the most beautiful tourist-trap.
Galleria Accademia. Naturally, the line to get in is a block and a half long, so we continued on to see the Duoma of the...er...let's call it the Cathedral of Florence, for right now. Very, very beautiful...and very, very unrestored. Well, they're in the middle of restoring it as we speak...as I write...whatever. We bought an English guidebook,
so hold on a second...oh wait, it really is just called the Cathedral of Florence. There's a line to get in there, too, but I wonder if they do services. Perhaps I'll become Catholic for a year, if only to worship in such a gorgeous building. We're still slightly lost, but we did find a Vodafone shop. So, I need to get my cellphone later today, and then buy pants. And perhaps eat, in the middle of all that.
Figured out something as we wandered, as well: No, they do not speak English here. Fortunately, signs are more manageable than, say, Japan. Luckily, in this tourist area there are more English-speakers. I keep searching through my mental-dictionary and coming up with phrases in English, Japanese, and, of all languages, Spanish and Portuguese. Thanks for that, Lisa and Leandro...
Anyway, internet cafè time is running out, and this keyboard is annoying to type on. Full of cool little symbols that I might perhaps use were I writing in, say, Italian...like the cafè "e". You'll note I keep saying that. Cafè. Cafè. Cafè.
The money is more than slightly confusing...I keep calling it Euro-lira-pound-cents. I'm serious.
Sarah: Look,
Mom, this camera is only six euro-lira-pound-cents.
A true quote, I admit. Anyway, I've of course gone picture-crazy with my digital camera, but, not having internet, I can't exactly upload. So we're just going to have to wait for pictures until Sarah gets connected. This lack of wireless-ness, I admit, is kind of getting to me. We talked to one of the NYU student-life directors today, and he admitted that the reason there are so many internet cafè's around is that people don't tend to have it in their homes. Thus, my hope for stealing wireless just went out the door. I was getting desperate this morning.
Sarah: What was that?!
Mom: What?
Sarah: Someone just turned on a computer.
Mom: How do you know?
Sarah: I recognized the startup sound.
Mom: ...
Yeah, yeah, tales of a geek. Anyway, I'm going to need to get off of this for now, because Italia is more expensive than one might expect. Especially since I just came from Tokyo...
Hope everyone is doing well,
Ciao!
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Lisa
non-member comment
miss you!
..but I am glad to see an update! I definitely hope you are doing better than I am, but I'm pretty sure you are..haha i miss tokyo so much, i miss everything so much! I guess tahts why its been hard adjusting - I left my mind in Tokyo hahaha. well i want you to updatemore, but i'm sure you had plans to without me telling you to! love you!!