Retreat from the Rain

we are having a little thunderstorm, so we are in a very warm internet cafe run by and occupied by a lot of friendly north africans. Relearning things like how to create an °at° sign with alt'6'4. stuff like that.

Craig is writing classy details about our nice first day and our first meals and our nice B/B the Badia. Meanwhile Im thinking about details about how the first animal we saw in munich in the airport was, naturlich, a dachsund, and about how much nicer italian sounds to my uncouth ears, than german or english. And about how I have seen Barbaras mother, Gelsea, 3 times today, sweet kind ladies who suddenly break into a gentle smile just when I need it most. Also how much fun it was to fly over the alps in a 30 seat prop plane where we had to hand over all our hand luggage before climbing up the 4 steps into the plan. Air Dolomite. AIr Dolomite gives away free squares of tasty semi'bitter italian chocolate at their front desk. A big favorite in my view.

we really had a nice flight over from SFO to Munich on Lufthansa. Have you ever been on a plane where the restrooms were classy full sink corian type deals, in their own little downstairs location, with real carpet while you wait, and individual little movie screens just like singapore... watched Angels and Demons on the way over just to get in that italy mode.


So, first impressions of italy. well first I have to say I would like to cement into my mind, some of the very cool art we have seen all in the first day. We got to see six michelangelos so far.... the last Pieta that he did, which is at the Duomo Museum, and Dawn, Dusk, Day and Night at the Medici Chapel, and a Madonnnna holding a toddler child. Also one of the cool things... in the medici chapel, that he built, on the walls b ehind the altar, there are Michelangelo doodles! In the white plaster, barely visible, are Michelangelo drawings of figures, and scratches on the wall for how many days have gone by, and pencil sketches of the geometries of what is soaring above you in walls and recesses and domes. The best thing about seeing the florence statues, is how very alive they seem when you see them from a new angle. Seeing these reclining day and dawn figures is all ok in a photo, but in the chapel you can stand at their feet and look back at their waists and you notice the curling of the big toe and the arch of the foot and hint of the veins on the front of the ankle and the way the shin has a sheen on it right where it stops being flat and becomes the belly of the calf. The guy was a genius.

Another great hour was down at the Brancacci chapel south of the Arno which is a room full of many scenes, nearly all Masaccios. Masaccio was a pre michelangelo painter, one of the first to paint in human expressions of anguish and jealousy, in his crowd pictures there is an old man dozing off and a child being bored while Saint Peter is actively healing folks and causing others to fall down dead. Lots of great drama, and yet people are just being people in its presence. The colors are something. He inspired the other artists with his excellent use of perspective and vanishing points, and some of the paintings were lost but can be somewhat recreated by the training paintings that Michelangelo, da Vinci and others did of some of his figures.

Florence itself has been so easy so far... as long as you have access to an atm that is. Its way more compact that I figured, the labyrinth of streets is easy to figure out because they keep breaking out into the squares you have seen before, and its not very slopy, and even with an achy knee Im doing just fine. we got in last night on a fine night, kinda warm, and were able to roam around looking at menus and ancient walls and every house wall seeming to have some kind of niche with some kind of sculpture or painting in it, and lots of the streets crossed over with arches suporting more houses. we got very tasty simple meals which Craig has been describing, I do not understand why their arugula is so much better than my arugula. This morning was great, we got ourselves out of bed at dawn in order to adjust to the time zone and walked down to the Arno and it was such a pleasure because the rising sun caused beautiful golden reflections of the buildings down on the river water, which barely had a ripple in it, and the sky above was blue with white curly hints of cloud in it which really did have those renaissance forms you see in paintings of florence in the 1400s. And you could see these clouds, and a few birds, reflected in the water of the arno.

So another great thing about florence is that even though the euro is kinda expensive right now, you get such great food value for your buck. Even if one plate of appetizer food, just plain old crostini with crudo parma prosciuto, costs 11 euros, when you get it its an enormous plate with about ten huge curlicues of prosciuto and the two crostini are covered with a velvety chicken liver mush that probably sounds awful but is divine and there are fresh lettuce leaves to give that fresh taste and splitting it with Craig is just fine. None of this stingy california plate stuff.

well this is not a small thunderstorm after all its a big rain now and thunder thunder thunder so I guess we will be here and wet for a while. But luckily day one in florence was just lovely and maybe now I can coax Craig to spend the hours and hours in the Uffizi that I have been longing to do. Just kidding craig! he was actually really entranced with the Duomo museum and the Brancacci chapel.

Oh yeah the duomo museum also has a lot of fabulous old marble carvings and cornices from other pre renaissance and renaissance times, including a fascinating reclining Mary apparently in the process of giving birth, with no agony at all, she looked kinda like a reclining buddha. oh, la de da, think Ill give birth today. Also there was a really great collection of Della RObia children playing instruments of all kinds to praise the lord, and we got some great shots of this, and Donatelllo made one very similar which is facing.

and the Ghiberti doors. They are pretty cool too but not my favorites so far. My favorites are everything else I saw today. Also the very cool colors of stone today, green malachites and green sandstone and white marble and chalcedony and jasper and whatever.

Oh and I think Craig also mentioned there are just a few vendors in town.... wanna buy a scarf, wanna buy a belt, wanna buy a purse, step right up