Florence - 7/07/05

Let me explain these markets to you... first of all, there were roughly 18 of these in Florence.  And they were all the same.  There were exactly six and a half different stalls, and they were just repeated 20 times, in 18 different places.  Somehow people managed to spend two hours looking at the exact same things over and over and over and over...

Stall #1: Small leather goods - purses, manbags, wallets, gloves etc.  And really sweet eurodudes wearing Vespa shirts to hold down the fort.

Stall #1.5: Larger leather goods - mostly coats and girls who look thrilled to be at said stalls

Stall #2: Silk and other textile goods - mostly scarves, shalls, and ties.

Stall #3: Trinkets - absolutely absurd belts, watches, and other low-quality 'jewellery.'

Stall #4: The beverage kiosk - in my expert opinion, the only worthwhile stall.  And there fewer of these than any of the other types of stalls.

Stall #5: Junk stalls - junk is too harsh of a word, but I can't find another word that better conveys what this stuff was.  The Asian tourists LOVED this stuff.  I mean, look at all of those straw hats.  Really?

Stall #6: Shirt stall - these shirts dissolve when placed in a washing machine, but they look great the first and only time that you'll wear them, especially if you're wearing one that says 'Vespa.'  I was going to buy the batman shirt for Dan, but then I remembered that he already had that one.

This is the view from our window of the Duomo

Ditto

This is the square across from our hotel.  It doubled as the Ambulance dispatch station.  We did not sleep well.

Tom loves him some Florence.

Joanna and I at the 'Joshua Tree,'  a little hole in the wall place where they had air conditioning.

That's tom, and that's me.

Cristina, Tom, and a blind girl.  Nope, it's just Joanna.

My turn.

Cristina and Tom

Joanna and me doing my best 'Joanna in 90% of her pictures' pose

Cristina and Joanna are friends

Tom and me

Tom and Cecil

Me, my three chins, Joanna, and Tom

Tom, Cristina, and Joanna looking like a picture from a magazine cover.  I don't what magazine it is.

Street music!