Just another day in Firenze

I have seen many strange things in my short time here. I would consider myself a fairly quick study, but there are a couple things that still surprise me. For instance...

Every morning I take a shower. Good, right? Well in the 4 showers that I have had I am still unable to figure out where to put the hot and cold water knobs to get a shower that I can stand in. When Jerry Seinfeld wrote his bit about 1/16 of an inch being 1000° he was in America not Italy, because 1000° is more like 1/32 of a centimeter. When I say 1000° I am not kidding! There is no cut-off to how hot you can get the water. There is a good chance that you could actually boil water straight from the tap. So, I have literally started examining the way I turn on the water. I think someday soon I will get it. In fact, today was a big break through. I found that although it takes several knob turns to get the cold water to start coming out you can turn it back down extremely close to off and plenty of cold water still comes out.

The streets are another mystery. I am pretty sure that the government thought about ways to get rid of some of the tourist and decided that naming blocks would be a good way to turn people away from wondering around. Streets here are much different than back in the states. They are similar to the confusing one block streets in the middle of Richland, but all over. You can be winding down a street and in a matter of 3 blocks the name of the street will change 4 times. I am pretty sure that this is the work of an evil genius.

Speaking of evil genius all the transportation here is similar to the game Grand Theft Auto only without the shooting. The streets are tiny and vehicles have no speed limit or even a reason to stay on one side of the road. You have to be on your toes at all times to be ready to dodge out of the way of a motor-scooter that is willing to run you over to get to the cafe on the corner to sit down and enjoy a relaxing afternoon.

All of these are things that I have learned to cope with and some I might even conquer. But one thing I will not get used to or even be able to forget is the experience I had yesterday. Scott and I went to the telephone/internet store to make a couple phone calls. Unfortunately, non of my people picked up the phone (yes I am talking about you family). In fact, I blame this experience on all the people who didn't answer the phone. Because of this I left my small phone booth to pay and wait outside. After I paid my bill I began to look around the tiny store leaving to wait outside. I glanced into the computer lab area to see the setup and noticed a little elderly lady on the computer. She must have been about 65 and I was impressed she was using a web cam to talk to what I assumed was a loved one. As I was leaving the area I got a little more than I bargained for when her friend on the other end of the web cam stood up to proudly show off his goods. Although the experience taught me a valuable lesson, never be nosy in an internet cafe, the experience will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life.

After attempting to drink the image from my memory I did end up taking a ton of pictures of the Duomo area and the baptistery. I will sort through them tonight and put some up tomorrow. I will also be going to Fiesole today and will put those up tomorrow as well.