Back in California

I am home. After a 20 hour travel day I arrived home to the loving arms of my wonderful husband. My last day in Florence was a perfect food day. It started with meeting my friend Toni, who owns a food walking tour in Florence called "Taste of Florence". We had a fantastic lunch, then strolled the city. The evening was another fun dinner at a vegetarian Italian restaurant with Che-che, Jamie and Dada.

It was a great trip and I am glad to be home.

Concert

Pizza

Concert and a medieval tower

July 16, 2012

It started out as a quiet day. We went out for lunch to have a pizza. It was delicious. Then to the grocery store for a couple of things. We talked to Jamie and she said Elenora and Luca had a concert that night in a small town outside, but near Florence. So about 7:30 pm we went to Che-che’s house to pick up Jamie and Che-che. Another friend Maurice was there and I talked to him. He is Irish, but has lived in Florence for 22 years. I asked him how he ended up here and he said, “Shoes!” When he was a child in Ireland on Sunday at church he was fascinated by the shoes people had on. This is where his love of shoes began. He now had a shoe collection and works in the shoe industry in Florence.

Jamie, Che-che, Dada and I got into the car and drove to the concert. It was in a park with a medieval tower in the center. It was a warm night and the concert started about 10 pm and lasted for two hours. It was a group of 5, a drummer, a violinist, a bass player, and Luca who played about 10 instruments (several types of clarinets, several sizes of sax, bass, cello) and sang and Elernora who played keyboard and accordion and also sang.

It was so much more than a concert; it had poetry, theatre, dance and amazing music. It was very coordinated but seemed improvised. It was funny and touching. It was jazzy and folk. It was passionate and lyrical. I loved it.

Dada with her bag and the carry on luggage size restriction box

Ryan Air

Ryan Air is a well known discount airlines in Europe. They had lots of other ways to make money, and they have very severe restrictions on carry on luggage. When we were boarding the plane in Chania, they made everyone put their bag in this box and if it did not fit, they had to pay or not take the bag. We amused ourselves for about an hour watching people pound with fists, using their feet and sitting on their bags to get them to fit in this box, so they could take it as a carry on bag for no charge. It was amazing how they could squeeze those bags into the box and sometimes they had more trouble getting then out of the box.
The other ways Ryan Air has to make money are; choosing a seat, checking a bag, food on board, gifts on board, lottery tickets on board (2 Euros each or 6 for 10 Euros), advertising on the overhead bins, extra insurance, talking to them on the phone rather than the Internet, and printing a boarding pass for you. But the plane tickets are very cheap and Ryan Air is very popular.

Monastery #2 from the outside