Speaking of gelato (since I always am), I announce the following list…
 

Logie’s Top Flavors of Gelato So Far:

Cherry

Nutella

Tiramisu

Chocolate Pudding Bar

Peach

Rasberry

Lemon

Unrelated thought: It is impossible for America, Prussia and Denmark to hang out together, because no single place on Earth is capable of containing that much awesome at one time. 

It would explode. Trufax.

June 18^th, 2009

Not too much to say about today; I’m a little bit tired. It was a travel day; we spent hours driving from San Gimingano (bye-bye, Beautiful! I’ll miss you!), to a city off the coast where we caught an hour-long ferry to Elba Island. Whatever the name of the port town was, we got terribly lost there; for two hours at least. Fortunately though, when we got completely fed up and went about trying to find our destination on foot, we ended up finding a great little café, and had a wonderful lunch. All’s well that ends with good food, is the moral here (I hope).

I’m sad that we don’t have the car anymore, not because I’ll miss the wonderful driving experience (I have, to name a few, Anti-Driving Disorder, Parking Anxiety, Hysteria-Assiociated-with-Changing-Lanes, Turn Signal Confusion, and many other slightly-terminal conditions related to automobiles), but I’ll miss the radio. Even though it was an FM Radio, and we were cross-country driving through hills (which meant we had to change the station every two minutes or so due to static. I’m pretty sure we never got to listen through a single song all the way through). I don’t have an iPod or CD player, as I said earlier (I listen to all my music on YouTube or internet radio), so I’ve been going into music withdrawl. Specifically, soundtrack and country withdrawl; I have had “Romano’s Delicious Tomato Song/I’m Sorry, That’s How it Is” and every Shania Twain song known to man replaying in my head over and over for the past couple of days. It’s getting bad, folks.

But it’s getting better, because now we’re on Elba Island, which has a BEACH! That means I get to stuff myself in a sundress, run around in my bare feet and totally wear myself out! It’s gonna be a blast! I expect to do absolutely nothing but that tonight and tomorrow.

(BTW, ignore this if you want, but does anyone know when the new release date for Arthur Kirkland’s CD is? Only, I want to know how long I have to wait until I can finally blast “Absolutely Invincible British Gentleman” into my ears (probably for a straight week) and I’m paying for internet by the minute, so I don’t have time to look it up. That song sounds amazing.)

June 17, 2009 (Part Two)

Same day as the Siena trip, but this was on the way BACK. Now, we took a different, quicker way back to San Gimingano then we’d used before, but Mom didn’t like it quite as much… So she kept craning her neck around while driving on the Italian highway (which made me very nervous, of course), looking for landmarks from the original road. Eventually, we were getting thirsty; we’d planned to stop for something in Siena, but it was so crowded, and everything was so expensive, and… you get the idea. Long story short, no lemonade for Theresa and Logie. Well, while Mom was frantically trying to find the road… she actually found it! We were looking for a place to pull over, and I saw a sign that said “Monteriggioni”. I was like, “Okay, that place has an awesome name. Let’s pull over and see if it has any cafes, or something,” and so we did. After driving for a while though, we saw rising above us, perched on a huge hilltop, the ruins of a castle fortress. This thing was big, and forboding, and it looked kind of like Helm’s Deep, Edoras, Mordor and Jumanji all rolled into one. So it looked practically like the most awesome thing we had ever seen. We were like, “Okay, food can wait; these ruins have gotta be explored by us, right now.”

So we put the Focus in gear and climb this gigantic hill, and are surprised to find that next to the castle, there is a vast expanse of a parking lot. It wasn’t very full, but still we were like… Huh? Popular ruins, maybe? Whatever, so we didn’t think to much of it, we assumed that maybe it was now a fancy restaurant, or something. We hiked up a very nice footpath, with lavender bushes on both sides alive with honeybees. Neither of us even flinched, of course. XD We finally got up to the gate, and we walked inside, and just stopped dead.

Because, seriously, we had come all this way expecting these ruins to be empty. Definitely not the case.

What we saw before us was the town of Monteriggioni; nestled within the gigantic castle walls were tiny cafes, restaurants, a hotels and little apartments tucked into anywhere they could possibly fit. The gate opened into a small plaza with an old well at the center, a church and miniature olive grove to the right, and the rest was ringed by the commercial center of Monteriggioni (which consisted of several wine shops, a small grocery store, a six-room hotel and two cafes). We just stood there in the gateway for a little while. It wasn’t a big deal really, we probably shouldn’t have been as startled as we were… But we went in expecting to be the only souls there, and were instead greeting by an old man casually walking along to his home after grocery shopping, carrying a bag of bread and greeting us with a smile. It was a beautiful surprise. Man, can you imagine living in a castle?

We sat down at one of the cafes and had a leisurely lunch (forget stopping for drinks!). I had homemade Italian pasta, like I promised myself I would (Monteriggioni is surrounded by wheat and olive fields in the middle of nowhere, so it’s more practical for it’s citizens to make everything themselves than have to sent for, pasta for example). It… was… Oh my goodness, (Feliciano Vargas, I humbly beg your fictional forgiveness!) it was much better than I expected! It was served with mushrooms that tasted oddly like beef broth, but the whole thing was so tasty… I’m so happy I got to try homemade pasta at least once! Check that off the list!

 We hung around the town for a long time after that; there was a tavern, a shoe and purse shop, a tiny public garden (that I could probably run around in twenty seconds flat) full of fig trees and benches, and much else besides that. There were a couple artists, but I think most everyone else was a farmer. We took LOADS of pictures, probably more than at any other place, so if you’re interested in seeing it, my mom would probably be more than happy to show them off. =)
 

June 17, 2009

Today we decided to do something crazy, and trek to Siena. Mom’s been, and she REALLY wanted me to see it, so I was like, “Okay, sure,” even though it meant leaving my beloved San Gimingano! (Sob!) It took us about an hour to get there, because we took ittsy-bittsy little roads 

(I just had an overwhelming urge to play Okami. Strange.)

that wove through every tiny village that could possibly be on the way. When we finally got to Siena, we were both surprised to find that it was HUGE, and I was surprised to find that she was surprised to find that it was huge, almost as surprised as she was that she was surprised (or something like that). Anyways, we tooled around these one way streets totally freaked out, had NO idea where to go, parking was impossible. We found one parking lot outside of the old city center, and lurked there for half an hour before it was made quite clear that no, we weren’t going to get a parking spot ever ever ever in a billion years. So, we parked in a residents-only spot, and I was very calmly being hysterical about this, because all the other non-licensed cars around us had tickets, and I in no way wanted a foreign parking violation. But Mom was like, “Oh, well maybe they’ll be nice to us!” and I was like, “WHY ARE YOU SUCH AN OPTIMIST, of course they’re not going to be nice to us, they’re gong to treat us the same as everyone else you are driving me CRAZY,” but we went in the city anyways. It was a lot like Florence, except it was hotter, there were more cars, and more people, and more touristy shops, and my backpack was heavier. So at the beginning, I gotta admit, I was not having too fun of a time. Everything was uphill, too. Jeez. Thank goodness for Fairview and my years of ramp-climbing conditioning for moments such as this. Guess they were preparing me for the real world, after all.

Anyways, eventually we made it through to the center of the city, the “Piazza del Campo”, which looks like a gigantic hand fan made out of bricks crash-landed in the middle of a medieval stronghold. It’s divided into nine sections; I don’t know if it’s for original ruling families, or for different sections of the town, but they DO hold a giant horse race every year, one representing each division of the city. And I can tell you this much, they have some serious division spirit! Each section has it’s own colors, it’s own mascot, and it’s own flag, which can all be seen on street corners, in shop displays, in car windows… Everywhere! I mean, I think that’s what they mean. I have no idea; I have no internet, and therefore, no knowledge. I really want to know what’s up with that though; I mean, what does the porcupine on the white, black and maroon flag stand for?! I’m going to go CRAZY if I don’t figure that out! (And, pathetically enough, those who know me well will know that I’m absolutely serious.) 

After that, we went into a very heavily-gilded cathedral (those who know me well will ALSO recall that I’m not a big fan of church, so this was really more Mom’s stop), where everything was carved out of… who knows what, but it was very ornate. There were stripes of blue and gold all over everything, statues of every cardinal (it seemed) glared down at us from the ceiling, and there were quite interesting depictions of the crusades carved in marble on the floor (they were actually really pretty, and were one of the only parts I truly enjoyed looking at). Mom reprimanded me a little for mentioning this out loud, but I couldn’t help but wonder, if all the money and work that went into this cathedral went into helping the city instead, how much would the quality of life for it’s citizens improve? There are lots of different answers I suppose (Mom’s was: “God is less interested in material things, so this is an act of devotion, and was rightfully built, etc.”). It was a nice stop overall though, we took lots of pictures. And on the way back, we went scarf shopping! :D

But possibly my favorite thing that happened (at least after seeing the Pizazza and getting scarves, of course), was that upon return to our car, we had no ticket.

June 16, 2009

Hello! I just woke up! Ahh, what a wonderful thing, siesta is! I can take a nap in the afternoon until dinnertime and no one can complain! (Except my mom, who I suspect wants to go out and paint some more… but she hasn’t journaled ANYTHING, and I’m making her get a jump on that.) Alright, so yesterday I was in too much awe to write anything, but now that the shock has worn off, I suppose I’d better fill you all in on where we are!

San Gimignano, prepare to not-be-done-justice!

So, after a hectic afternoon on the Italian highways (during which, my mom was all, “Whee! This is great!” and my fingernails did considerable damage to the car interior out of terror), we made it to the city of San Gimingnano, which I knew NOTHING about. I knew about as much of it as you guys do (assuming of course, you know nothing about it either). Let me educate you, because this place is AMAZING. Just so I have a starting point (because honestly, I don’t know where to start, this place is just that way), let me cheat, and briefly copy from the travel book:

“The “city of beautiful towers” is one of the best-preserved medieval towns in Tuscany. Its stunning skyline bristles with tall towers dating from the 13^th century: 14 of the original 76 have survived. These windowless towers were built to serve both as private fortresses and symbols of their owners’ wealth. In the Piazza della Cisterna, ringed by a jumble of unspoilt 13^th and 14^th century homes, is a wellhead built in 1237. Shops, galleries and jewelers line the two main streets, Via San Matteo and Via San Giovanni, which still retain their medieval feel.”

READ THAT. This place is SUPER. It’s a Renascence Fair lover’s goddamn paradise (I am not one of these, but this place could still pretty much be heaven). Now that you’ve had the Eyewitness Travel Guide version, are you ready for the Logie version? Can you handle it?! Here we go!

It took us FOREVER to find our hotel, and there’s a good reason for it; the entire city is encircled by a gigantic stone wall, and there are no cars allowed inside. We didn’t realize, for a very long time, that our hotel was actually inside the wall; how lucky are WE?! We parked outside and walked through the gates, and even with the travel-guide-cheating, it’s still hard to begin describing it. Everything is made out of warm, tan rock, the (very!) narrow streets are flagstone, and they slope up and down and around in varying degrees, but about the same level of the ramps in Fairview High School, so you’re basically hiking around everywhere. (I have such an advantage because of this; while other Americans are becoming winded from their long walks, I’m just striding past them, perfectly conditioned for this sort of thing like, “Ha ha, you fools!”.) The town is small, but it seems huge to me; because, I think, it’s so condensed. Everything is very close together, the streets are so narrow I can stick my arms straight out to the sides and almost brush the fronts of the stores with my fingertips, and the buildings are MUCH taller here than in Boulder. Those towers the book was talking about? Those things are massive, they’re each ten stories tall! That’s about TWICE as tall as any building in Boulder, because of the height restrictions we have there. What they look like are gigantic rectangular prisims of rock, rising straight towards the sky, perfectly plain and smooth except for arrow slits at the top. Oh, did you ever used to draw pictures of castles when you were little? Did you ever draw them with those strange carved patterns on top, that looked like a square, then a space, then a square, then a space, and so on, going along the top of the wall? If I had internet, I’d look up the name, but they actually have those here, going along the walls on top of a lot of the buildings, no joke. These guys built castles, they probably had knights, they meant business. The rest of the buildings aren’t quite that high, but they all range from around four to seven stories. They’re built in a sort of rambling way, all being supported by the others, sort of falling however they cropped up (but it was the 1200’s, so what’cha gonna do?). Oh, there are also banner-like flags lining the streets everywhere; they change colors as you walk through the different sections of the city; really, it feels like we’ve stepped back in time! I half expect to turn the corner and see people start jousting! There ARE these weird hook-things hanging off many of the walls… Mom said they were used for hanging people by their feet as public punishment. You’d think that people would, you know, take them off the walls, but oh well. It gives us something to talk about.

Views. Holy cow. This city is built on a gigantic hill in Southern Tuscany. You know, I was telling Mom, this place might as well be Fairview-done-right; it’s pure, solid stone, there are crazy ramps everywhere, once you’re inside you can’t see the surrounding area worth beans because of the wall. But, once you get to a place that you can actually see out there, it takes your breath away. The hills never seem to stop, and these guys don’t waste any time; as soon you hit the outside of the wall, BOOM, cue olive groves! There are fields of these beautiful blue-green trees, vineyards, rows and rows of cute little black bushes, wheat fields; they just stretch out in front of you like the world’s biggest and tastiest quilt. Every field is separated from the others by big, bushy hedges, and occasionally they’re interrupted by rude, but stunning dark forests. And it doesn’t matter where you go; once you go up high enough, you can get this panorama wherever, no big deal.

It’s all a lot of fun; we haven’t been doing much but sitting around marveling about how awesome everything looks, painting, going to cafes, etc. Oh, they have wonderful gelato here also; we were eating some sitting around that well the travel book mentioned, around eleven at night, just impossibly happy. One of the very best things about this town is that we feel unbelievably safe. It must be the walls, or the tall buildings, or the fact that everyone treats everyone else with a ridiculous level of politeness, but it feels like nothing bad could possibly ever happen here. That’s a silly idea, of course, since everyone has their problems, even the residents here, who water their beautiful flowers boxes every day to cover the buildings with color. But, seriously, this place feels like a “no-dreadful-things” zone. :D

June 13^th-14^th, 2009: Arrival and First Impressions of Florence.
 

(AKA, “buono tomato”, indeed)
 

So, remember how I was talking about all the red roofs they have in Frankfurt? Well, as we were flying over Florence, I realized that the red roofs there made Frankfurt look like novices. Like AMATURES. Florence is just a MASSIVE army of red roofs marching around olive-laden hills. These people take their roofs seriously to the max. It’s very impressive.
 

Italian customs was even easier than German customs; in Frankfurt, we got our passports stamped. No paperwork, no checks, I thought, “How can it possibly get any easier than this?” Well, Italy was all, “Well, THIS is how!”, and didn’t give us any customs at all. We walked from the baggage claim… into the street. MARVELOUS. Well, I suppose it’s ‘technically’ a domestic flight, after all? I don’t know what I’m talking about, someone feel free to correct me at any given time.
 

Anyways, Florence is BEAUTIFUL. Our hotel room is quite small, there’s two beds right next to each other, and a bathroom, and a window with tall curtains. We’re in the old part of Florence, and all the buildings around us are just as tall, so there’s no view, but that’s fine. Everything is made out of light brown stone on the bottom, with yellow or gold plaster making up the next few stories, and of course, all the roofs are red tile. This city is hot, about ninety degrees in the daytime, and the whole place smells very strongly of leather. This is another beautiful old city built WAY before cars were invented, so all the streets are small, winding cobblestone sidewalks, complete with pedestrians EVERYWHERE. Cars drive on the roads, sure… If and when people decide to get out of the way. This is only in old Florence, mind you; in newer parts of Italy, people drive like respectable MANIACS, and I’m sure Ma and I will experience this first hand as we drive from town to town, so expect a detailed, thorough report about how dangerous they are further on down the road. (Road. Drivers. Ha ha, I’m so punny.) So, I was hoping that maybe resting on the plane would help me with jet-lag? Mm, no, not a bit. As soon as I got into the room, I crashed HARD (but I didn’t miss the mattress, so thank you for your concern). I slept for a good couple hours before my mom forced me out the door to dinner. Fortunately, I had slept through siesta, when everybody’s sleeping ANYWAYS, so I’m already well on my way to becoming a natural citizen… or something.
 

These people take siesta SERIOUSLY. Like, I thought people took siesta seriously in Mexico, but I was wrong. These Italian folks don’t half-ass ANYTHING (except for the Pharmacies, which close on Sundays); at two or three o’clock, all the stores close, and nobody really moves until six or seven. Like right now, I’m writing this at four in the afternoon. Now normally outside my window, I hear throngs of crowds, people shouting, horse hooves on cobblestones, cars rushing by and screeching to a halt, drums, it’s a regular earsplitting din. Right now, I hear one guy, and the occasional moped. Really, the difference is staggering. Now, this is a wonderful break, and I’d better get some sleep now, because if I want to go to bed at, say, eleven at night, FORGET IT. I tried this last night. See, when people are just coming back to life at seven pm, it means they can go for a long time; my mom and I were having authentic Italian gelato (more on gelato later, and I had lemon by the way, it was fabulous), at around 10:30, and there were people EVERYWHERE, couple just starting dates, people sitting down in restaurants to eat dinner, there were children around the age of four or five playing outside around print vendors and street performers… and it’s almost 11 pm! Mom said as we were going to bed, “Jeez, if you didn’t know any better, by what it sounds like outside you’d swear it was three in the afternoon!” And it DID sound like it, it really did!
 

Aw man, I got off topic. What was I supposed to be talking about?
 

OH YEAH. My day. So we walked around, and we’re staying right over by this very famous bridge, Punto de Something-or-Other (Ponte Vecchio)  and it’s an old thing from the 1300’s, oldest bridge in the city (and the only one to escape being blown to rubble during WWII, I’ve heard). It’s covered in little goldsmith shops, and people selling cheap prints of famous paintings other people have done. When they’ve been there for half an hour or so, they swoop up all of their prints… and move to the other side of the street, about five feet away. Repeat as necessary. We went to a nice (but not too nice) restaurant, and I had a potato-stuffed ravioli (which made me think of the German-Italian alliance in WWII and made me laugh a little inside), which was really tasty! I LOVE POTATOES. We ordered the house wine (BTW, drinking age in Italy = 16), and we were hoping it would be like, this awesome local stuff… But it was just regular table wine. They didn’t even give us glasses for it, we just drank it in regular cups, so it was probably REALLY inexpensive. But then, it had a very nice aftertaste, and it made our stomachs and chests feel very nice and warm even after the first sip, so we decided that in Italy, even the cheap stuff is pretty nice. XD
 

Afterwards, like I said, we wandered around and found some gelato shops. Gelato shops, let me tell you, if you’ve never seen an awesome one, are SOMETHING ELSE here in Italy. In Canada last summer, the family was fortunate enough to find a cool gelato shop. Oh it was marvelous, the stuff was brightly colored and carved into huge blocks, sitting on ice, and just decked out in whatever the flavor called for. Strawberry had big, ripe berries sticking out of it and crowning the top and the sides in patterns, Coconut had the SHELLS of the things embedded in it, with sugar-coated shavings and umbrellas, even the Coffee was decorated in those straw-cookies, and had light-colored coffee beans arranged in tasteful designs all over. Every block of sweet dessert was a work of art, and we had never seen any place like it. Guess what? Just about EVERY ‘gelateria’ I’ve seen so far has been just like that, if not even BETTER. It is just beauty beyond description. Pain is notoriously hard to describe, but even more difficult and frustrating is how to describe a particularly enjoyable food (or so I think. Snob). It’s something you just have to experience to understand… And lactose intolerance sure as hell wasn’t going to stop me from getting the ULTIMATE dessert flavor experience! So I got lemon.
 

We hung out, actually, ON the bridge, sitting over the river (Dad would have killed us for doing that, even if it was on accident while he would be wrestling us from our seats on the edge, trying to save our lives [he’s TERRIFIED of heights]). This was the time when it was ten-thirty, and everyone and their seventy-year-old mother (seriously) was out and about. There was a street performer there who serenaded everyone in English, Italian, and some other language which “he wasn’t really sure what it was, anyways”. Didn’t matter, he was good; it was such a prominent hang out spot, and there was only one of him, so mom and I assumed that he had to get a permit for this particular time, or something.
 

I didn’t sleep well; I got up and got ready and put my painting supplies in my backpack around 4:30 in the morning, and waited patiently for my mom to get up. Jet-lag had finally hit her, and she was OUT. Around nine, I finally threw open the curtains and windows to let in the ruckus of the outside world, and that woke her up. If she’d gotten up later, we’d have missed breakfast, so I didn’t feel too bad. Breakfast in Italian hotels, I’ve read, is typically bread with butter or fruit spread, and that was what we had… Except, we had a LOT, especially me (because I didn’t want to get hungry later, and I knew we’d be going to museums and things), and I was happy that they didn’t make me have any eggs. Why is it, when you get breakfast in America, there ALWAYS seem to be eggs? I don’t like eggs, not one bit (unless it’s an egg on toast, and then it’s not SO bad), which sounds strange coming from a girl who’s family raises chickens… Or maybe it’s not strange, because I’m sick of them. Oh well.
 

It feels good to type. It’s a good thing I’m typing a lot, isn’t it?
 

It’s Sunday. It should be Saturday, but then again, I’m in Italy… Hopefully, it will all be normal soon. Anyways, we wanted to go to the Uffizi, which is a CRAZY awesome museum that’s basically a “who’s who” of Renascence painters. This is good, because I know they painted lots and lots of, you know, people and other living things, so I won’t have to look at too many still lifes.
 

NOT THAT STILL LIFES ARE BAD. They take a heck of a lot of skill that I don’t have, and they play with crazy shadows, and very cool compositions.

Art friends of my mom, please don’t hurt me. :c
 

Anyways, long story short, we got lost, and we wandered inside this place called the Palazzio Vecchio, and we said, “Aw, what the heck,” paid for tickets and went inside. At first I’ll admit, it seemed a little bit boring. We were in what looked like a sanctuary, with strange, VERY exaggerated paintings of battles on the walls in pastel colors (why the artist thought soft-pink and easter-egg yellow mixed well with acts of violence, I will never know). I wasn’t really into it, but as we got further into the rooms of the castle, they were painted with big depictions of Roman myths, and crests of familes, and awesome painted wooden ceilings, and I ended up really liking it! Also, at the very end, in a very small room with glass all over the walls, was the WORLD. Specifically, a room with wall paneled in maps, hundreds of years old, beautifully painted, with intricate old legends written out in latin, and just about PERFECTLY preserved. They were maps of the world in sections; Spain, the horn of Africa, Italy, Greece, there was one map in particular that I stared at the longest, because I was trying to decide if it was a map of the Duchy of Lithuania or the Poland/Lithuania Commonwealth (I think it may have been the Duchy, and I’m a dork).

AND WE DID A LOT MORE TOO, but I don't have time. Trust me, you WILL be hearing about it, because it was awesome. We went to the Uffizi. What's an Uffizi? Oh, you WILL be finding out. :D

June 12^th-13^th, 2009: Journey to Florence
 

Alright, where do I begin with this little adventure? Uh, let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start… I could choose to break out into Sound of Music right now (and considering the previous sentence, it wouldn’t be difficult), but I won’t… Even though I went to GERMANY today! (It’s not Austria, so no Sound of Music for you! Even though it’s close, NO!) Ma and I took a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, and let me tell you people, if you’ve never flown to Central Europe, or you did and you’ve forgotten, let me remind you that it takes a HELL of a long time! I was sitting in my seat the entire time like “UGGGGHH”, because I’d taken sleep meds right before the flight (so I could get lots of rest and theoretically avoid jet lag), but I really fail at sleeping on planes, under ANY circumstances, so I stayed awake for nearly nine or so hours, without getting up, sort of in a vegetative state. I don’t have an iPod, or any CDs, so I listened to the plane radio the entire time… and they’d cycle through all the songs every hour and a half, or so… If I EVER hear “Love Lockdown” EVER again, someone’s gonna feel the hurt. It’s probably gonna be whoever arranges the Lufthansa playlists.
 

By far the most awesome thing about the flight was that everyone was speaking in German. I love German! Totally wish I could speak it. Yesterday, I mentioned that to my friend Jakob (who is himself German, and a fluent speaker), and he said to me, “Well, it’s not a very pretty language…” No disrespect, but I think it’s an awesome language; no, not just because I have a German last name, all, but I think few other dialects can boast as much power, and I find it rather soothing when spoken nicely, so I was very happy whenever they made announcements over the loudspeaker. Anyways, at the risk of sounding too much like the great Gabe Whitney, who’s to say what’s pretty and what isn’t? Oh well. I learned a German word during the flight, and it’s awesome; it’s ZUKER! It means SUGAR! =D I have no idea how to pronounce it yet, but it’s AWESOME, I can already tell.
 

Zuker, zuker, ZUKER, zuker-zuker. C:
 

So, after we arrived in Frankfurt, Ma and I didn’t have to go through customs, oddly, and just went through security again. I was so prepared for checkpoint (because I’m that pro), the security guy was really surprised, and was all, “Oh, do you speak German? You must have read all the signs!” And I was all like, “*sigh* No, I don’t. I’m sorry,” and got really self-conscious about it. XD After that, we were walking to our connecting flight to Florence, and my mom kept see all of these things she wanted, but she couldn’t get them.

It’d be like:

“Ooh, a bottle of water! I think I want one of those!”

“Ma, you can’t get one, we don’t have any Euros yet.”

Two minutes later:

“Oh look honey, Kaiser Healthy Snacks!”

“Can’t buy them Ma, you only have dollars.”

“Look at those sandwiches!”

“You don’t have any Euros, so just forget it.”

“I’m gonna get a bottle of water.”

“MA.
 

And so on and so forth. I, Logie, was trying to convince my mom, Theresa, NOT to buy food. WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE WORLD?! Nothing makes sense anymore.

We were lucky enough to ride a bus to take us to our next flight; I say lucky enough because I had been dying to get a glimpse of what Frankfurt actually looked like, but had been thwarted at every turn by endless stretches of tarmac, pavement and glossy glass terminal buildings. Eff. BUT, as we were riding this bus, I finally got a two-second glance at the scenery around Frankfurt, and I can tell you this much; it’s kind of green, it’s kind of flat, and it’s kind of shrubby. I also think it has kind of mountains, but they look about as tall as the foothill-mountains near Chautauqua where I live. I’m being super vague because like I said, it was only, like, two seconds. Also, and I saw this after we took off for Italy, red roofs; Frankfurt has them. LOTS of them. It was really pretty cool. You know what ELSE was pretty cool? About halfway through the flight, or so, I noticed that the pretty green plains we’d been flying over looked like they were slowly being trampled by an advancing wall of gigantic, craggy, snowy peaks that looked like they would knock us right out of the sky if they grew so much as an extra few inches. At first, I just sat there in total shock, staring at them. Then, I realized, “Holy crap… those must be the ALPS! Oh my god, they’ve GOTTA be the Alps! Those things are monsters! Ma, those are the Alps, right?”
 

She’s all, “Yeah sweetie, those are the Alps.”
 

Which made me press my nose against the window and go, “OMG, hi there, Switzerland!” :D SO HAPPY.
 

After the awesomeness that was Alps, we started flying over the hills of Tuscany, which were just… I think the best way to describe them is FREAKING ADORABLE. I don’t know if many hills can be accurately described that way, but bear with me for a second. They were all covered in crops and groves, of lots of different shades of gold, and olive and ochre, and many of them were dotted with what were presumably olive trees, vineyards, tomato plants, etc. Every section was divided from the others by dark rows of hedges, and there were Cyprus trees! CYPRUS TREES. They’re the long, tall things that are a beautiful deep green, look like well-kept shrubbery, and I’ve pretty much only seen them in Disney’s Hercules. And these hills continue allll the way into Florence, where the city practically grows around them. Wow, whatever that is down there, I can’t wait to eat it!

So, I'm leaving for Italy tommorrow... Which means I should dust off the old travel blog and kick this thang back into gear.

MEANING, BLOG IS BACK OPEN FOR BUSINESS.
At least, for a little while.
Like, until I finishing conquering Italy.
That's how I roll.

And we like it that way.

We also like (and by "we" I mean "me", and by "like" I mean "hate") how I'm supposed to be packing for my trans-continential cultural conquest vacation that I'm leaving for TOMORROW, or prehaps finishing those long-neglected graduation thank you notes... Or maybe I should take the time to pay off that nearly-overdue parking ticket, or read my unopened Italian phrasebook so I can communicate, maybe get my art supplies together so we can actually leave ON TIME...

Or maybe I'll just sit down here in the basement and doodle. I think that's what I'll do. That sounds like a good use of my time.