Monthly Archives: April 2007

My God… It’s full of stars…

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Note: This post was lifted directly from my notes on Saturday, March 31st. It is complete and unabridged.

It’s Saturday afternoon now and I am taking lunch on the Piazza della Signoria. Michelangelo walked here in this square. So did Galileo. So did Machiavelli. The Medici rose to power on the business flowing through this square. The Renaissance was born and flourished in these walls. This is the cradle of what is good and right about Western civilization… Of art, of science, of understanding what it means to be men. Someone wiser than I once said “If I see further, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.” It is how I feel here in this place. My own learning, my curiosity, and the desire for improve constantly find their own root here. In coming Florence and seeing these things and walking in the steps of the ponderously brilliant minds who lived and worked here I have a deeper understanding of myself and a far more humble perspective of my own meager talents.

The Road to Pisa…

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Note: This post is based on notes I made between March 30th and I reserve the right to edit this posting for content and clarity at a later date.

…Does not lead directly through Bologna. In fact, it’s more of a detour on the road to any of the major tourist towns. I’m glad we made the effort, though. It’s the seat of the oldest continuously operating university in Europe and with 100,000 students, it feels like a college town. The cafes are plentiful and the food is cheap… as long as you don’t order a Coke with lunch. Raining all morning, it was tough to get a real feel for the town, other than the overwhelming feeling of age. It’s hard to shake that feeling anywhere you go in Italy. The pictures I posted are from the Piazza Nettuno and San Petronio Cathedral.

Back on the road to Pisa, the rain finally gave way to a low overcast. First impressions are important and it’s hard to get past the idea of Pisa as a tourist trap. The vendors are thick along the walls and even inside the main gate, but once you’re past them, the things you see are simply amazing. Renaissance Pisa understood the concept of monumental architecture dead on. Coming through the city gate, you’re sort of surprised by the proportions of the religious center of the old city. Maybe it is a tourist trap, but it is one of those places that you just have to see to really appreciate.

Getting there is…

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Note: This post is based on notes I made between March 27th and March 29th and I reserve the right to edit this posting for content and clarity at a later date.

In truth, getting there is really a giant pain in the ass. In our case, the pain was slightly magnified by having only a 45 minute scheduled layover in Munich. Clearing EU customs with 29 people, and getting to the next gate: simply not going to happen in 45 minutes. I’m fairly certain that’s some kind of natural law or something. At any rate, we missed our connecting flight and had the opportunity to spend an extra three hours in the beautiful Munich International Airport. That last part wasn’t actually snarky… The Munich Airport is a pretty nice place to be stuck… and you can smoke inside as long as you don’t mind standing in a small ventilated booth contraption. I wish I would have taken a picture of those. I may want to have one installed in the house if the weather doesn’t improve soon.

Munich is also a good place to people watch. And by people watch, I mean ogle foreign women with the confidence that you are almost guaranteed not to ever see them again. I need to note here that as a group, European women are just plain hot. Their accents are hot… and sweet Jesus, do they know how to dress. I don’t necessarily mean that they’re slut-ified, but hot in an elegant Kate Hepburn kind of way, but I digress.

The first real day of the tour started off with 29 exhausted tourists heading for a 45 minute boat ride to Venice. Most of us probably remember that Venice is the “City of Canals,” but what the history books usually leave out is that canals are, even today, the principle mode of transportation in the old city. Come to think of it, I don’t actually remember seeing any cars on the island. Not that those cars would have had anywhere to go, because as the books also left out, there really aren’t “roads” per se, more like alleys and footbridges. Basically, if you’re not on a boat, you’re walking. The place really is amazing. It’s one of those places where the pictures don’t really do it justice. I think the fact that we were really there hadn’t really settled in at that point, so those first days have a bit of a tendency to blur together. Venice is really something you have to see to believe. More something out of a picture book than a real place.

The world turned upside down…

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The French went to the polls today (and there’s no real reason anyone other than me would know this) and, wonder of wonders, elected a pro-American conservative president. Nicolas Sarkozy ran on a platform that promised to “loosen the 35-hour work week by offering tax breaks on overtime and to trim fat from the public service, cut taxes and wage war on unemployment.” I’ve read a few articles this evening that compare him to a Thatcher and or a Reagan for the French people.

I’m a little stunned by all of this. Being annoyed by the French is something I’ve come to expect. It’s like the sun coming up in the morning. I’m not at all sure what I think of a France that isn’t wandering around looking for an eye that needs a thumb stuck in it.

So tonight, for one time only you’ll hear me say it: Viva la France!

Marathon Man…

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So after a 5000 air miles, a six hour nap, and a 900 mile drive, I am back in Memphis. I have copious notes from the last 9 days that I will be working on pulling together into some kind of coherent narrative… Probably a tale in several parts. You may reasonably expect to assume that I’ll be posting some pictures and lots of verbiage over the weekend. As for tonight, I’m going to go make a drink with ice and go to sleep.