So it is Saturday evening in Florence and somehow 5 days have passed since I was last in communication.
A little explanation about a simple problem and a complicated solution. I think it was Monday when my world got very small. All of my devices quit communicating with the rest of the world. I presumed it was my fault until my landlord left a note on the door and said something was wrong with the buildings internet and it appeared the problem was in my apartment. He asked for permission to enter my apartment to correct the problem. I then received a text saying everything was OK.
This was good news except for the fact I still did not have internet service in my apartment. When I reported this to my landlord he started explaining to me how the Russkies and Chinese have targeted Americans and their communications and it is out of his control what my country is doing to put me in this position. This was an interesting turn of events I had not anticipated.
After my landlord calmed down and we were able to have two productive conversations he agreed to come back to my apartment and reset the router extender for my service. I watched him as he pulled the extender out of the wall socket and it was obvious someone had reefed on the plug in the wall socket and had bent the plugs out of a serviceable condition.
At that point the Russkies came back into the discussion and I told him I would prefer to deal with his lovely wife to resolve this issue. Her attitude was if you don’t have hot water I call the plumber. Why have we not called the Internet Service Provider? After 3 more days of ordering the replacement part from New York, which of course made it my fault when it did not arrive on time, characters used in the site password that were not allowed and a service person who spoke Albanian, a land lady who spoke Italian, French and Spanish and a tenant who spoke English and Pig Latin, I finally had service at 7:00 pm on Friday night. I happen to have had a bottle of Limoncello which I opened and we all shared in good health and now all is right with the world.
Now back to what has happened in the last several days.
We started Monday in the traditional manner of breakfast outdoors with espresso and pastry.
I am always interested in finding things that don’t seem to belong together but when you think about them there is a connection. I will let you think about the photo below and tell me when you make the connection.
Spencer and Abbie were off to the Duomo and other Museums and I found myself down at the Arno again. It was an unusually still day allowing for these reflective shots of the river.
I try to pay attention as I walk around the city and I notice the public employees still have a sense of humor on the streets.
I am not sure if this was lunch or dinner but Abbie had one of those, “my goodness, that is good” or was afraid she had spinach in her teeth. I prefer to think it was the former.
Then it was time to shop for some leather in Florence.
I think it is now Wednesday evening. We forgot to make reservations for this restaurant but were able to get in for a 9 o’clock seating. You go through this door down to a basement level to get to the restaurant. There are several Michelin Stars hanging on the wall as we walked down the stairs. I ended up with no photos of the food. I guess because I was so busy eating.
Some where I did think to take a picture of the menu. Sorry it is sideways. I can’t figure out how to reorient it. The point is they have some pretty specific thoughts about how they think you should want them to prepare your food.
With all of the cigarette smokers around me this seemed unfair but I know how to select my battles.
I think this is all I can do tonight. Time to get ready for Sunday.
