See Me Now

  I’m back home now, thankful for only one delayed flight as I flew home on the 2nd day of flight cutbacks resulting from the US Government shutdown. My jet-lag is substantial, but it’ll pass as I take things easy and reflect upon what an amazing adventure I’ve had. Here are a few closing photos and thoughts.   Further below, I go into detail about the company that coordinated this trip. We had a full moon during my last few nights. I tried, but largely failed, to capture its magnificence, but this photo turned out ok.   Note the Duomo barely visible between the two buildings. My apartment was on Via d’Ardiglione and it didn’t occur to me to translate that until my last day. I had assumed it was someone’s name but nope: ardiglione translates to ‘barb,’ and, sometimes, specifically to the barb on a fish hook that snags the fish’s lip. It can also translate to tongue, as in the tongue of a shoe. After puzzling over this I concluded that the name refers to the shape ...

                    Travel fatigue is setting in for me and, I sense, also for readers of this blog. If you’re still reading, thanks for hanging in there. Though tired, I remain content and, having settled into a daily routine, do rather feel as if I’m living like a local. For example, I’ve become attuned to the coming-and-going rhythms of my neighborhood such as:           - parents taking their kids to and from the nearby park in the afternoons (children’s laughter and chatter echo off the stucco walls lining our narrow street) Halloween Astronaut               - the elegant-shoe shoemaker hunched over his laptop every time I pass his window           - opera singing wafting through my window after dark from the nearby Chiesa di Santa Monaca nighly performance.             - how the woman who...

            I'm finishing up week three here in Florence and it's overwhelming to describe everything I've seen and done. During the past week, I've had a good balance of doing the expected tourist things (Bargello, Orsanmichele, Palazzo Davanzati, Palazzo Vecchio, Pitti Palace, Boboli Gardens, Villa Bardini & Bardini Gardens) and some out-of-town things such as another e-bike ride, more long walks on my own, and a day trip to Pistoia .           Here's a scattered selection of photos I hope you find interesting:     Second story gardening       Mod clothes for sale      Someone likes purple      Large signs on someone's entry gate (in English, not Italian??) Sign posted on a resident's door  "Beware of the cat and the owner"   ~~~           On Tuesday, I went on another e-bike ride with the same company as before. Also,...