Florentine fragments, Vol I

Last summer, I had just under a week in Florence, shared for a bit with my friend Jenna. I wrote at the time that I loved it but didn't quite get a handle on it - it was a bit overwhelming and a bit... tough to get into the fabric of the city compared to some of my other stops. That's what brought me back this summer - the notion that a full month, having already done a good bit of the Touristy Bit, would give me an ideal place to work while trying to sink into local culture the way I like to do while I travel. And hey, swell: looks like that's how it's working out! After the jump, fragments and thoughts on the first half of my time here.

Florence from... either Piazzale Michaelangelo or Abbazia di San Miniato al Monte. Florence: It's Very Nice™

The idea of this summer has been "get work done while enjoying the culture," with three long stays meant to be productive changes of pace from life back home. So far, it's feeling bang-on. Here, I've made a habit of starting the day with pen-and-paper drafting work, moving to one of two libraries after breakfast to work for the morning, breaking for lunch, and finishing the day with whatever electronic work/correspondence needs doing before dinner and the passeggiata. It's been ideal: multiple walks over the course of the day, and changing environments framing a steady rhythm of work. It's as productive as I've felt in quite a while. And more than that, it has me feeling like I'm getting the city this time around.

My home piazza, a bit east of Sant'Ambrogio, out of the tourist center and packed with locals but only a 15 minute walk to the heart of things. It's nifty! I recommend it!

Last summer two art history grads at Teatro del Sale tole me that Florence is a small enough town that if you're here long enough, you get to know a lot of people. I'm finding this true this time, even not having been here that long. Staying out of the main tourist areas has helped, as I think has establishing routines. Once people see you a few times, their tourist guard seems to drop a bit and you get to have real conversations. Below, a smattering of random happenings from the past week and a half. Some are encounters, some are just images. All of them make me very happy to be here.

Olive trees on a hike in the countryside! Contrary to what you have heard, Tuscany is not "a post-industrial wasteland" where "bog and muck and rust are the primary colors" and "the air is thick with pollution." In fact, it's quite pretty!

Saw two teenaged sisters on their way down from the church above Michaelangelo plaza with their family, one hopping down in a red dress and white jumper, making bird noises and laughing. The other, in black, hair back and tight, smoking, all grim business.

I mean, San Miniato is absolutely a solid church for a goth teen to hang out at. Not pictured here, but definitely photographed: about a half-dozen of the creepiest/most morbid tombstones I have seen in my life. Culture!

An elderly couple at the architectural site in Fiesole who joined my roster of Life Relationship Goals - he  lovingly agreed to follow her lead on several dead-end efforts to get out of the site, and just as they were about out of it, he announced that he wanted to sit down to conceptualize what it might have been like to watch a performance in the Roman ampitheater. They were both patient, funny, bantery, and entirely at ease in the world as they explored.

Fiesole's architectural site - arches, towers, baths, theatres, the whole nine yards

My first night here, I ordered gelato from Il Procopio gelateria and almost cried it was so good. Remembered my friend Joanie telling me, on my first trip to Italy, to plan to eat gelato every day. Haven't done that this time (a month is a long time!) but I am doing What I Can.

Evenings here are sometimes very nice to look at

Bought zucchini (in full flower!) from a merchant at the Sant'Ambrogio market; later that afternoon, I was in my neighborhood grocery store when a woman energetically accosted me and said "You buy Zucchine!" and it took me a moment to realize it was the woman who'd sold to me that morning, seemingly delighted to run into me again in her own neighborhood.

One of Blub's many pieces of street art ("Art floats" being the name of the series, I'm told). Great culture of street artists here, and a local gallery has a piece I want badly that's a Blub portrait of the city's most famous street artist Clet. Cool.

Had coffee with my AirBnB host, who turns out to be a theatre professor, chatting about Italian and American politics and culture, the age of decadence that she feels we're in, Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, and, surprisingly, my advisor, who she turned out to know well, having planned conferences with him over the years! We've since enjoyed a texting correspondence as she takes a working holiday to Spain.

A bit of gloom on a walk through the Bibieni gardens, which were a glorious surprise, Versailles-or-Schönbrunn-esque in their sprawling grandeur.

More stories in the offing - it's been nice to wander, strike up conversations, make new connections, and to do all of this while still making progress on my jobs-and-writing fronts. Keeping a full investment in the world around me and getting work done: who knew it would be as swell as this!