Parks

Hey all,

Said goodbye to the opera singer this morning, then packed up and headed off to the new hostel. Will miss opera singer – he was a good flatmate to have for a month. The new hostel is a cracker – Dany House – more of an apartment where they rent rooms than a hostel – run by some bloke and his girlfriend who were given the place by his mother so I suppose he thought if he rented the rooms out he wouldn't have to work – only problem is that I have done something I don't understand to my laptop and it is not working for the wireless here. So don't know when I will actually get to post this. Walked to the hostel from the apartment this morning mainly to check the luggage weight over a bit of distance – my pack is borderline doable for a long hike but I think once I put three kilos of water and a bit of food into it it might become a problem – so got to figure out somewhere to stash some more stuff in the next two days. Anyway – told the guy when I got here that I had been in Florence for a month, but he either didn't understand or was upset by that so still insisted on getting out a map and showing me all the places I have been to already, but he and his girlfriend seem really nice – lay out food and wine for free at 9:00 and when they discovered I didn't drink promptly bought out some apple juice – I have a two bed room that I am sharing with some Chinese woman who has been studying phys ed in Rome (?) for a couple of years and seems sweet – has good Italian and English. Only other person in the whole place tonight apart from the owners is some chick from Sydney who seems nice except she has been using the only computer they have for about 12 hours straight now, which normally wouldn't bother me, but is today because I have somehow killed this laptop's connection to this wireless network. So at the moment am thinking that all those things you hear about people from Sydney are probably true. Update – she just hopped off so I can use email: she thought I was online as I typed this – maybe people from Sydney are not as bad as they say...

Wandered around today to look at this big fort that I have seen on the maps but it has all these “this is not a tourist area” signs around it – still not sure what it is used for exactly. Then found this museum, which was overpriced for what was in it but did have this one cool room that had this curved fresco roof – and they had some weird installation in that room where the floor had been turned into a curved (fake) fresco so you stood in this weird and beautiful room that was paintings the whole way around. Also a number of scale models of Medici theatres which I took photos of for K – the little descriptors said that for the Medicis theatre was not just entertainment but an instrument of political power and a way to impress all with their technical abilities and artistry, spread their culture etc. etc. I guess they will say the same about Hollywood in a few centuries. Found a nice park near this hostel, and don't have much planned for tomorrow – maybe sit in the park and read for a few hours. Also bought another small Italian/English dictionary that I can take with me in the pack and a book aimed at 6 year olds which is lighter than Winnie – which I might hopefully be able to puzzle out a bit.

Next day: just back from the park where I have been reading this book called Gomorrah about the mafia all day. Good book, but pretty horrific. By a guy called Roberto Saviano, who'd you'd have to reckon might die young, considering all the people he names in his book. Was made into a film as well, which I have but have not yet watched. Was in the park for about 6 hours and basically did not move except to follow the shade – the sun had this irritating habit of moving all the time. Nice way to spend a day, though felt obscurely guilty about not doing anything... There is a huge butterfly house there – costs to get in but they let me in for free so I could get a coffee – took a couple of shots of the butterflies.

Photos – a park where I had lunch (yesterday) – then this weird bit of street art/graffiti near there and the fort thing – was obviously a place where homeless people sleep against the outside of the wall amongst the trees – so someone had done a chalk outline of a wino. Not entirely sure exactly how to interpret it but the chalk-outline/victim/scene-of-the-crime thing was smart. Then a room in the museum, a shot of one of the models of Medici theatres they had, a butterfly, and finally the park where I spent the entire day so far today.

Cheers, B.