Florence 2

Florence feels outrageously long ago even though I only left about a week ago. Still, never too late to cut together a li'l video, and hey presto that's what I've done! After the jump, said video and a few stray thoughts about my month-or-so in The City That Sleeps A Normal Amount!

There are lots of surprising angles from which the city is frig-dang beautiful. This is one of them I guess???

Continuing the theme of "videos about places scored by songs about different places"

And now, the random musings:
I didn't realize I had these preferences, but I'm not as much an Italian wine fan as I am a French. Or... maybe I just had the wrong Italian wines? Who knows! I made a connection with a gal in Florence who's very much an oenophile, so I sampled more than I typically do, and have been shocked to discover that I have tastes and preferences. Knowing yourself: will it ever stop?

Caffes at just about any piazza will sell you wine that you can drink in the piazza which seems great but sometimes the wine isn't that great so I sort of recommend maybe opting for beer or spirits instead. But drinking in the piazza is very fine and swell.

One of the best things about Florence is stumbling upon things. An enoteca near my flat, for instance, that turned its block into an every-night block party of sorts, with young people sprawled across sidewalks and into the street with wine and snacks. Or the street by my apartment, which one night suddenly turned into a concert venue for a small rock trio. Or the dozens of markets every weekend - one of the main reasons I tend to recommend people stay in the city on Sundays to check out the markets, and use Mondays as their "tour the countryside" day if they're in for a shorter trip.

Ceramic cats ceramic cats ceramic cats ceramic cats ceramic cats. One of these days I need to come to Italy when I do not have several more months of travel ahead of me, so that I can buy the nonsense that my heart desires.

There's a great egalitarian sense to work here - I think this is true in a lot of western Europe - which is supposedly why American tourists are always taken aback by "bad" service in shops or restaurants. But I love it: the short version is that everybody assumes everybody else is a human, basically their equal, and behaves accordingly. Nobody's gonna treat you better or worse because they think you will or won't buy things/order bottles of wine. It's great.

"Traveling is like flirting with life." It's also like piles of bikes and the street art that one redheart stickfigure guy does! You know the one I mean. ADMIT IT.

Cooking for myself was one of the great joys, bringing back a thing that grad school tends to make me bad at. Not much makes me happier or calmer than grabbing fresh veggies, throwing together a quick and tasty meal, and remembering (after weeks of wondering why my sauces were turning out funny) that mascarpone, not ricotta, is the secret ingredient in my tomato-based pasta sauces.

Not my usual market, but this would be Prato on a Saturday. Not bad, Prato!

With the longer horizon of this trip as opposed to last summer's visit, it's interesting how... gradual the experience has felt? I'm not articulating this clearly, but without a Sightseeing Agenda, and with days spent doing work and ambling, and nights following my whims, memories kind of flow like a river, not easy to grab onto. My photos and videos tend to bring back a lot of fragments (ah, the ceramic festival! oh that woodworker I got to chat with! that one wine shop with amazing pecorino cheese!) but it was all less event-driven than last summer, which on the whole I rather like. Feels like what I like travel to be: a temporary change or experience rather than a chore list or a self-focused itinerary.

This cafe/bookstore in the fashion district (YES I SPENT SOME TIME THERE NO I COULD NOT AFFORD ANYTHING) was among my favorite sit-and-work spaces outside of the nigh-perfect Oblate Library rooftop cafe.

Well, in any case, it was a swell ol' time, and a good start to the summer. Got my first teaching applications in, hammered out some materials for non-teaching jobs, got a head start on revising some articles for publication, and dipped my toes into the next chapter of the dissertation. When I reach Vienna, it'll be dissertationmania for the duration, but just now I'm mid-spree through the Balkans (spoiler: I wish I were moving slower!) and playing catchup here. In coming days: Cinque Terre, Milan, more useful tips, more navelgazing, more of that sweet and delicious #content without which the internet would SURELY not be complete.