Paris & Rome 2018

[Drunk Monk]

i just had the best pizza in my life.

IN MY LIFE

buon giorno firenze!

[Greg]

Florence, huh? Go figure.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Oh, you’ll get used to great pizza...then you’ll come home to disappointment.

[Drunk Monk]

Wrecked for pizza, coffee, art museums, architecture, culture, everything... Alas USA. At least we have Hollywood. 

Uffizi done. Break time. There was one nice shamshir in a special display of Islamic art there along with some helmets & axe heads. And of course the Uffizi hold that great Medusa shield along with one other. 

Our Florence Airbnb is spacious and located in the center of everything. Food is much more affordable. Such much leather - so glad I’m not into leather anymore or I’d go broke (actually I’m already there or will be after this trip).

---

crap.  this airbnb wifi bouncing between 2 providers) just ate my last post.  the street wifi is better.  while this airbnb is centrally located and has a washing machine (no dryer but air drying is working fine here), it also 3 locked doors, 2 of which it takes all of us to open. and dicey wifi.

i take back what i said about euro cops.  it's only the french and swiss that are in great shape.  the italian cops have big bellies, just like ours.  must be the pasta.  

we beat the crowds at the uffizi with early web tickets. might not have the same luck tomorrow with our doumo tix - that space was a madhouse.

italian statues are more burly than french.

i now understand and respect grotesque (in the original artsy fartsy use of the word)

[Greg]

You might want to skip the gellateria's as well. Otherwise your USA food disappointment will only expand exponentially.

Are you climbing to the top of the Duomo or just going in?

I'd put Sante Croce on your list, too. It is far less crowded.

[Drunk Monk]

Did the Academie & Galileo - David had a big ass and hands & those stradivarius were gorgeous (I'm a sucker for bird's eye maple). Galileo’s fingers were kinda trippy. Cool contraptions tho. I was struck by the craftsmanship behind those devices.  

Santa Croce - might check that out.  Thanks!

Probably going to skip climbing the Duomo. We have the full pass with all the trimmings but stairs are killing me now.  I am weak.  All our feet are sore enuf. Stacy's tevas are failing and my legs are still tore up from those Parisian cramps.  We walked and shopped and cobblestone is rugged. 

I hear ya on the gelato. It’s like eating icing. I’m only tasting a bite of my familys’ but I can resist the pizza & pasta. Blood is under 150. Trying to be good but I’m a slave to temptation. Had an ok panini (too bready and wound up tossing some of that), a horrible San pelligrino (chino flav which i think is bitter orange and licorice), and a wonderful seafood pasta full of clams & mussels plus these weird long tailed shrimp centipedes that were more shell than flesh - Klingon food - wasn't exactly sure the proper way to eat that - live maybe?

We're taking a break again.  Not sure if we'll go out once more today.  All this art and food is so exhausting.

[Greg]

Are you getting any news about the bridge collapse in Genoa?

[Drunk Monk]

Google went italian on me, so yeah, a bit.  Been avoiding news, truth be told.  I so needed the break.  But yeah, last I saw the death count was 23.  Tara kind of wants to go to Genoa because it figures so highly in so many Shakespeare plays.  They'll do that without me, along with Venice and Greece.  Yeah, I'm bummed about that but I just can't afford more financially or away from work.  I just glanced at some of our viral and the crew has already effed a bunch of stuff up (and I've only been gone a week).  Mind you, I'd abandon them in a heartbeat (web stuff is easy enough to fix later) but I'm just out of time off for this year.

---

Forgot to mention that the UN tour was cool.  Made me proud of the world but ashamed for our nation.  The tour guide tactfully discussed the US exit from the Human Rights Council and then launched into all the great stuff they do, a lot of which I wasn't fully aware.  We managed to get there just in time (turns out all public transit in Geneva is free if you're at a hotel) - they cut the line off right after us for the next hour tour which we couldn't have made because our train times.

We hopped the train to Milan - Trenatalia, and my in the gutter mind kept wanting to swap that Tr for a G.  That circled the lake and went through the alps - the most spectacular train ride I've ever taken in my life -

IN MY LIFE

- but it escaped my cheap point&shoot camera because it was just too awesome and the moving train windows ruined all my attempts.  The free wifi needed a credit card and I wasn't going there.  We had about 2 hours to kill in Milan and Tara and I spun around the block as Stacy enjoyed her first Italian cappuccino.  Then back on the train for a few hours, then stumbling around the night streets of Florence trying to find our AirBnB.

---

The bummer about traveling by rail is they don’t stamp your passport. I like collecting those country stamps.

[Drunk Monk]

Still not quite adjusted to euro time. I wake up and stare at darkness a lot. Been having the most vivid dreams. Most are about people and stuff back in Cali - there were several rock/JAH Med ones when I first arrived. There was a doom one but I’ve forgotten it now.

[Drunk Monk]

Okay Greg, climbed the Duomo.  Damn, that was all my latent claustrophobic vertigo issues rolled into one.  But so worth it.  That dome fresco of hell and that view.  So worth it.  Thanks for the prodding because given my leg issues, I was tempted to bail but I thought, no way can I miss it if Greg did it.  

This morning we did that whole circuit - campanile (where I failed at level 1 due to cramps - Stacy made it almost to the top and Tara made the top just to take a pic of me collapsed below), opera museum which had some nice relics and a harsh donatello mary magdalene, the duomo, that other amazing dome thing too. All sublimely spectacular.  

Had some amazing cappuccino, another salmon treat, several bottles of fizzy water, a yellow tomato pizza with buffalo cheese and whole wheat crust, some weird blueberry ice tea, tastes of T's almond custard pastry, watermelon (w/seeds) & mint gelato.  

Meant to mention yesterday's swords - some cheesey gladius and fantasy pieces in a tourist shop.  But there were also some nice repro gladiator helmets.  Tomorrow, the armoury.  We must move to another AirBnB across the river.  

It got hot today. Real hot. I'm living off fizzy water.

---

oh and a cheese plate.  how could i forget that?  only 3 cheeses (wish they'd mark them) but one pepper-rind one was awesome.  still, not as amazing as french cheese plates.  french rule with the soft cheeses.

[Greg]

Yep, never fear to tread where Greg has gone before. Granted, I did do it in 1984 when my legs were a wee bit springier and I'm sure the lines were shorter.

Michelangelo Plaza.

[Drunk Monk]

Oh hold the phone...84?  WTH?  Weren't you just out of your teens then?  Bro, we could take on the world back then.  My half-century old legs bitch at me if I get up too fast now.  dammit! 

We got skip-the-line tix online before we left.  It was a bit crowded going up, okay at the top and fairly uncrowded going down.  They limit it nicely.  The line to the main cathedral was free and ridiculous - we bailed on that because we could see it fairly well from the dome.  We saw all the rest in that area though.

Not sure about Michelangelo Plaza.  Tomorrow is all about the AirBnB swap and the Stibbert.  We leave for Rome the following day.  Not sure where the new AirBnB is, but the Stibbert is the other side of the city.

---

Yay! Blood sugar = 94. Thank you duomo hike.

It’s pasta time!

[Drunk Monk]

That was the best spaghetti aglio & olio I’ve ever had in my life -

IN MY LIFE

- that was my go to dish back when I ate pasta. The Italian place near work took it off the menu, but would still make it for me special until it closed a few years ago. Now I’m going to just savor my bergomot soda and not worry about blood.

[Greg]

Pasta tips and blood sugar readouts! Certainly the best travel diary ever.

[Drunk Monk]

Bummed I didn’t take a food selfie.