Tumbling Down the Rabbit Hole

What a long, strange trip it's been... calling on both the Grateful Dead and Alice In Wonderland to describe these last 4 days.

I arrived on Monday afternoon as planned after a very long 24 hours of travel. While it was a relief to be landed at last, that was only the beginning of feeling completely off balance trying to settle into a new (and very small) apartment and figure out where and how to do everything. As some of you may know, I have become something of a creature of habit these last few years. To say that having no routine and nothing familiar is disconcerting would be an understatement.

But I know that given time, things will begin to get more comfortable and that is in fact starting to happen. Slowly.

The last few days have included:
• Lots of walking, trying to get my bearings
• A fair amount of sleeping in an effort to get into the right time zone
• Me looking sheepishly at shopkeepers while asking "Inglese??"
• Several trips to the grocery store trying to figure out what to eat now that I have no microwave

First impression of Florence is that it's incredibly beautiful. One thing I appreciate most about European cities (the few I've visited so far) is that the largest buildings are not skyscrapers with offices but are usually churches or some other very old, unique structure. That is certainly the case here, no tall office buildings to be seen. Almost all of the buildings are charming and historic and in the colors you'd associate with Tuscany, like terra cotta, peach and yellow.

The weather has been incredible, in the 80s every day down to maybe 60 at night. It seems I just missed a brutally humid summer here, several people have mentioned how awful it was. I can sympathize after the "summer that wasn't" in New England.

Seeing the Duomo for the first time is incredible, the size and scale is beyond description. I have yet to go inside but that will happen very soon. I hear from a few of you that climbing the stairs is worth the claustrophobia.

Yesterday was my first foray into the bus system. There is a route that makes a circle around the city so I jumped on to get a look at other areas that I probably won't get to very often. I also had my first gelato, quite yummy.

Last night was my first evening out, I got together with a group I found through MeetUp.com, a mixture of people looking to practice Italian or English. It was great, very nice people, and I confirmed that Rosetta Stone, while fun, has not yet taught me anything I can use in conversation.

But it was really good to get out and meet some people including several Americans. We had great food and of course great wine. One of the girls (American, here for the same amount of time as me) reported that a friend told her "if you don't gain 20lbs. while you're in Italy, you're doing something wrong." I'm really glad I didn't bring a scale.

I miss home and all of you and wish you could be here. Until next time!