Chosen One

Hey all,

Last night at this hostel – changing to somewhere more central, a couple of Euro cheaper and also with less people in the rooms, so hopefully snoring will not be so much of a problem. The people in my current room are lovely – four Korean women, one Spanish girl and an English bloke, but the Spanish girl and one of the Koreans are shocking snorers – last night I took the precaution of going to sleep listening to an O'Brian audiobook on my mp3 player – at 5 AM I was woken, over the top of the audiobook, by one of the snoring culprits. And as nice as they all are when this happens I really do think quite seriously about whether or not I could toss them out the window in the middle of the night and make it look like suicide... So making a move tomorrow.

Went to the rowing club today with model agent – this patch of grass underneath the Ponte Vecchio – there is a secret little door on the street near the Uffizi which takes you down, underneath the Uffizi itself where they keep all the boats, through the super exclusive club where a select few people read papers and drink coffee in peace and quite, then out on to the lawn, where the crowds on the Ponte Vecchio get to look at you and two or three others sitting there on the grass – it was cold, but the view was beautiful, as was the peace and quiet, as was the knowledge that there is little point in getting in somewhere this exclusive unless you give others a chance to notice and envy you for having done so. You have to be rich, or famous (or both) to get in here – or a thuggish looking skinhead who bumps into the right people...

Model agent introduced me to one of the grand dames of Firenze in the club – a board member – who is taking me on some walk in the country on Wednesday with some equally exclusive walking club where they wander around for a few hours stopping every hour or so to read poetry. Am also helping model agent cart 100 square meters or so of flooring up to the new apartment on Monday – so have some interesting things to do while waiting to see if there is any response at all to the 30 or so CVs that I will email out today so I can hopefully make some money while waiting for K to arrive (joy).

Photos. 1. The restaurant I was raving about in the last post. 2. The rowing club, from the Ponte Vecchio. 3. Underneath the Uffizi. 4. And here I am, one of the chosen ones, or at least one of the ones who knows one of the chosen ones.

Cheers, B.