The Journal of his Delights

Seriously, folks — it’s been three days of walking, walking, walking, interspersed by looking at art, eating delicious food, and then more walking.

Here are some tidbits found along the way:

• Lampredotto is the upper part of a cow’s stomach, and it’s super-delicious. There’s a cart in the Oltrarno neighborhood that does it mighty fine. They also make a mean hamburger.
• We went looking for Galileo’s house in Arctri but couldn’t find it. We took comfort, though, in knowing that we walked the same paths and streets that he did. What we did find is the Nicaraguan consulate. Not that we were looking for it, but we just sort of ran across it in the middle of nowhere in the hills surrounding Florence.
• Michelangelo’s David has huge hands. Really. The museum was also exhibiting photography by Robert Mapplethorpe, which was strangely appropriate company for the David — something about the shape and lines of the human form I think.
• Florence is packed with tourists, especially around the central area. The same is true of Rome, but because that city is larger, it somehow seems to dilute the effect. In Florence, because they’re all concentrated around the Duomo, the city’s main attraction, the effect is amplified.

We continue to have a good time, and have taken to strolling around the city in the evenings once the press of tourists has died down. We’ve posted another slide show of our wanderings — it includes all of our photographs from Florence, Arcetri, and Siena to date. To view it, please click here.

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P.S. That first picture of the Duomo is the view from our window.

Instead of writing this post on the train from Rome to Florence, Mary and I spent the entire time chatting with the couple sitting next to us, a couple of New Yorkers visiting family in Italy. The time flew by as the verdant countryside passed by the window. They showed us pictures of their travels. I showed them pictures of nuns. And somehow the conversation turned towards Top Gear and the hosts of the show larking about.

It was pouring down rain when we arrived in Florence, and the streets were mad with tourists running around with their umbrellas. It felt like an adventure just getting to the hotel, but our room quickly turned into a little haven and then we were out on the street again, ready to wander the city. We had lunch in a cute little place, what felt like the Italian equivalent of a diner. Mary had tortellini and I had a pork chop. A little more wandering, back to the hotel to rest, then more wandering, and then we topped off the day with the most glorious meal yet. No pictures, I’m sorry to say, but the food was just fantastic.

We started with a pecorino cheese with honey and thyme, which just about sent me to heaven. Mary followed with Ribollita, a Tuscan peasant soup — very earthy and quite delicious. I followed the antipasti with a risotto of black cabbage and sausage. It was surprisingly delicate. Then the secondi arrived, wild boar with a red wine sauce (almost a gravy) and roasted potatoes. The boar was very light, and the sauce balanced it, gave it some heft.

I felt sorry for the American woman next to me who was reluctant to try the food on its own terms. She had to control the entire meal. The salad this way, the vegetables that way, and all of it without any oil. You’re in Italy for god’s sake — how can you eat without olive oil permeating everything. *sigh*

Fortunately, the company at my table was flawless. And Mary and I left happy and quite full.

A slide show of our wanderings in Rome, Day 2 is now available, and you can find it by clicking here.

P.S. If you’re ever in Florence, try the Ristorante la Maremma.

Yes, that’s right — I’m writing this post from Italy, where I’m on holiday with my sweetie Mary.

If there’s ever been a sign that the Journal has been in need of an update, this is it. All I can say is that I’ve been preoccupied with a personal project that’s take an year to complete, not to mention a romance with the greatest girl ever. It’s been an interesting year, and I can definitely say things are on a upswing. And lucky boy that I am, I’m spending ten days in Italy, split between Rome and Florence.

Mary and I have spent the last couple of days in Rome, walking our feet off. We hit the Vatican, Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, Pantheon, and Spanish Steps all on the first day. The second day (today), we visited a humongous flea market in Trastavere and then wandered around the city, up around the area around Bourghese Villa. Along the way, we enjoyed some amazing food. Pasta, pastries, gelato, steak — yum! My feet hurt, but my heart and stomach are happy.

There’s been a lot to see and experience, and I’ll try and do it proper justice, writing a longer post on the train to Florence tomorrow. In the meantime, I can point you to a slide show of photographs, which you can find by clicking here.

Before I sign off though, I also want to point out my favorite photograph of the trip so far:

Dear friends, this photograph is just about the coolest thing ever. It’s of the space shuttle Atlantis in silhouette against the backdrop of our sun. Wow, just wow…

Photo Credit: (NASA/Thierry Legault)

The photograph is by Thierry Legault and captures the NASA space shuttle Atlantis during solar transit on May 12, 2009 from Florida. The shuttle is currently on a mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.

This past weekend, a small group of us wandered the area around the Ferry Building looking for photographs. Nothing sang to me, but I did find some interesting textures. And the light was so pretty in places.

It has been such a long time since I was out with my camera, just looking for interesting images. So long time in fact that neither of my film cameras is working. Hopefully, it’s just a matter of dead batteries, but I recall the Nikon F3 was having shutter problems before I went off to London.

Now I wonder if I shouldn’t go properly digital. My point-and-shoot did all right when I was traveling, but I felt constricted on the outing. Decisions, decisions. In the meantime, here’s a sample from the weekend:

If you’d like to see the rest of the images, you can find them at Flickr.

In honor of Old City Cafe, I thought I’d highlight some of the photographs I made of the real Old City.

More pictures of Jerusalem can be found at my flickr page.

I realize it’s a bit late for year-end top ten lists, but I just had to share this beautiful, sublime, terrible, heart-wrenching, gorgeous collection of the best photographs of 2008. Truly, there are some masterworks of photographic journalism included.

There is also Part 2 and Part 3.

I was bicycling home yesterday, not in a hurry and admiring the scenery, when it occurred to me: life is good.

I like where I’ve found myself and who I’m becoming. Yes, life will (always) continue to present difficulties—the challenge of learning my way as a writer; the inner work that’s so important to me, which is hard; and the fact that I still don’t have bookshelves for my apartment—but in a perverse way, I enjoy these (and the other) bumps in the road. Each is an opportunity to test myself against.

Isn’t life remarkable?

Yesterday, the entire office was invited to spend their lunch break working on the Flutterfrog. It went surprisingly well, and I’m sure the extra hands were appreciated. Here are some pictures that Chris made:

The full slideshow can be found at Flickr.

This is a test of PhotoXhibit for Wordpress. If this works, you’ll have a pleasant flashback of my visit to Dazaifu.

Update: It works! If you click on the images, you get a cool lightbox feature. Even better, you can move from image to image from within the lightbox. Just move your mouse to the upper right or left till the Next/Prev buttons show.