::A Geek in Korea::

Things were looking up considerably from my last post. While I still think Venice is a massive maze, our trip to Florence wasn’t very difficult at all. We made it to the train station, switched trains, waiting for our train to arrive. We took one of the trains heading for Rome, but hopped off a station that connected us with Florence.

The reason we came here was to see the Uffizi Art Gallery. Several masterpieces are available for viewing, if you can stand the lines. We arrived an hour before the door opened, and there was a two hour wait. NO, we didn’t book in advance. I’ve waited in longer lines for roller coasters, so it’s not that big of a deal. We got stuck in front of some Wisconsin natives that spelled out every negative American overseas stereotype possible. Very loud and annoying. The accent also drove me up the wall. Don’t even get me started on when they started talking about “warping reality to fit their desires“.

The gallery was pretty strict about entrance. We had to pass through metal detectors. I failed SO hard. I had a pocket knife my father gave me in London to keep with me till I saw him again, where ever that ends up being. My wife also had to store her bag. Also, NO LIQUIDS or BOTTLES allowed. Every person in line with a water bottle tensed up, but all they wanted was for you to keep them in the bag, or check them at the front of the gallery.

We got an audioguide. They required a personal form of identification. I gave them my Korean Alien Registation card. It’s got my visa status, a picture, and my name. It’s a PHOTO ID. It’s not like a “Federal Breast Inspector” card or something. The lady was all attitude about it, “Passport or a Driver’s license”, which is totally not what the sign said. Who steals audioguides anyway? I handed over my documents, and got ready for the trip around the museum.

The audio guide was basically a highlights of the room sort of deal. “Look at this painting situated at this location from the entrance or exit”. They did this for all the paintings EXCEPT, for the MOST famous paintings in the entire museum. The narrator actually said, “These are SO famous, you don’t need to be told where they are, obviously, so I’ll go on at length describing them now. There is no rewind. Hope you listen careful, or you’ll have to listen to this room over from the start.”

Thanks.

I did happen to know ONE of these paintings, Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus“, but I didn’t figure out which one was “Spring” until the description was over entirely. In my defense, I never took any art courses in anything later than the Gothic period. Also, there were like 50 paintings in the room. Some of the descriptions of the rooms lasted for as long as the actual information about the art itself. The museum was beautiful, but that’s not really what I wanted to hear on the tour.

We ate out at a restaurant that had the unique distinction of being refined looking, but not classy enough to wipe off bird shit from tables before people sat down. INDOORS. We ordered a cheese, fruit, and honey platter for a warm up. The Swiss was delicious, the other cheese was like getting punched in the face with a rotten sock. No amount of honey, grapes, or whatever could cover up this tremendous flavor.

I went a little crazy and ordered gnocchi but this came with a pesto (?) sauce that was pungent and green. I didn’t bring my guide book to have the food translations available. We got lasagna too, which my wife liked very much. I was extremely jealous.

I took a side trip to Santa Maria del Fiore which is simply a huge church. I went up on the dome, which gave a panoramic view of the entire city. Prague was more beautiful, but the church didn’t let you take as nice of pictures due to the small windows. However, being on top of the dome, and seeing the whole city was really very nice. It was a lot of work, 468 steps in total. My poor wife told me she was going back to the minbak to rest, but instead did laundry by hand till I got back.

This is really, really not my style of sight seeing. I prefer Cambodia, where you can walk through a forgotten temple for an hour and never see another person.

We’re going try to book reservations for Rome for tomorrow. It might be impossible. We’re trapped in the THICK part of the Tourist season I guess. Walking around it’s nearly impossible to see ANYTHING from 12 to 5 PM. EVERYWHERE is choking with people. We’ll give Rome a go, if we can, and if we don’t like it, we’ll head off somewhere else in hopes of avoiding the crowds.