I swear, there are no Italians here in Florence. Okay, a few, but this place is crawling with Americans. They crowd the streets like so many spawning salmon. It is weird for us. Our cool little hotel, Hotel Azzi, is chock a block with 'em. You hear the familiar language on every corner, discussing this and that. We saw one dude with an Oregon State shirt; he totally fit the Pacific Northwest bill by the way, from the tips of his Nikes to the ends of his salt and pepper 'do. Oh well, as they like to say in Brooklyn, "what can you do?" Florence is popular, and I guess Americans feel safe and snuggly here in Italy. Still, it is a bit odd after having been in places so entirely void of this particular shade of tourist. Rome at least was huge so the masses got to spread out a bit. In Florence we are packed together, sometimes like sardines. To be fair, there are dozens of countries represented here, just more of our native tongue than we had heard thus far. Anyhoo, they are easy enough to ignore, and quite a few can even be charming.
We have had a rough and tumble time here, much like our experience in Rome. Dashing about and soaking up every statue, (guess they were really into the whole strong, nude, violent guy thing. Hmmm...), painting, duomo, piazza, and gelatto shop within a 30 minute walk from our hotel. Checked out the David; yeah it's amazing and really huge. The Uffizi was also terribly gigantic and filled with everything. It is a cool little city with tons of things to see around every corner, great shopping, if you dig that, and tasty food. Not too cheap however. So bear that in mind.
We are really close to the train station here, which is good. Our tickets to Bologna have been purchased and we will go out again for an insanely delicious meal tonight before shoving off tomorrow morning. We have a couple skin crawling travel days before we get to chill on the, hopefully not too rainy, beach. And then we have two weeks to get our heads around the idea that this year has cruised by at near light speed. Wow. [Editor's Note: Slightly outdated post here as we have landed safely in Dusseldorf, Germany where the trains are efficient and the streets are squeaky clean.]
I am not sure how the end of our trip will be as far as internet capability goes. So, either you will see another post before we get back to PDX, or have to wait a couple weeks for a recap.
Up next: Nightmare travel day, Jamaica, culture shock 101, and most likely a top ten list, cause I know you're gonna ask me.
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