The Best Moments Are When You Don't Take Pictures

Much has changed since my last post. I bought flights to England, Dublin, and France all for less than $75! The best part is, I convinced two people to come with me! Two Israelis who are living here in Florence are studying at the university and have let me move in with them. One is studying architecture, so it's like having a private tour of Florence when walk around the corner to buy milk. I suggested that they come with me to London, and they are! It's nice to be out of hostels, especially because I've been staying in one place, and the people in the hostel kept switching.

Yesterday I went out for coffee with the owner of the kosher restaurant, Simcha. We're on a first name basis now which is cool, and I have yet to pay the full bill for my meals when I walk in there. And that's was I mean by the best moments are when you don't have your camera. Because here's me, having coffee with the owner of my favorite restaurant and one of his friends who owns a juggling store on the same block. His friend treated us, so I said, "La prossima volta, pago io, ah?" (Next time, it's on me). I think it would be a really cool idea to once a day, find a random Italian walking around and take him or her out for coffee in exchange for ten minutes of speaking Italian and hearing about his or her life story. This is definitely the place to do something like that.

We walked around the Boboli Gardens at the Palazzo Pitti. You can just imagine the Medici aristocrats taking their afternoon tea stroll in their private neverending forest full of statues and fountains.

Seth, these statues are for you.

Now this one just reminded me too much of Pirates of the Caribbean and Davy Jones not to take a picture.

I think a bike ride towards Chianti in the afternoon will do the trick (Mom, sound familiar?). Tonight, we're going to see the new movie 2012 at the Odeon, the only place that screens films in their original language without dubbing (Italy is terrible with that, one of the reasons no one knows English; everything's dubbed), and then tomorrow night . . . Symphony!