Last days of Florence (well, in Florence)

Sad but true - our time in Italy is coming to an end and quickly. Yesterday we bought train tickets to Zurich, Switzerland for this coming Saturday. It will be another trip from hell as the only direct train leaves at 3:30 pm and it takes 7 hours to get there by which time it will be way past the boy's (who - as of yesterday - is no longer the baby bird he used to pretend to be but a baby dragon), or rather the baby dragon's bedtime and he will be spewing fire driving everybody crazy. All of that still beats the prospect of having to change trains in Milano with 85 kg of luggage - and that was before the purses. Sunday, May 11 is a triple whammy for my mom, it is her birthday, its Mothersday and (less important in the US but sort of a big catholic holiday in Europe) Pentacoast. I guess, I "have" mothersday, too, I wonder whether anybody will think about that and daresay "no". Somehow, though, mothersday is still associated with my mom for me and so what the heck if I don't get another picture of a vulcano/canon and an unfullfilled promise of being a good boy all day long.
Most of the day yesterday was spend purchasing the tickets for the trip. It ain't as easy as it sounds as Max travels for free but still needs a reservation (I am certainly not going to have him sit on my lap for 7 hours) so we had to get in one of those lines and endure an example of Italian efficiancy. Or rather Uli got in line and Max and I watched trains arrive and depart. He loves the train station and knows all the "silver arrow" (fast, long distant trains) as he has been here with Uli several times before. There are the frequent trains to Roma, then the ones to Milano, to Venezia, Bolzano and Napoli plus all the slow regional ones to Lucca, Pisa, Arezzo, Viareggio, Livorno, what-do-I-know. He gets really excited about the trains coming and going and I get really freaked about him running around among all these people who push and shove and might well get a little guy shoved on the tracks. Finally, though, tickets in hand we left happy to have this almost last piece of travel logistics taken care of.
Today we finally got Max to get a haircut. he was screaming bloddy murder by the mere mention of a haircut, I think he thought it would hurt as "cutting" somehow implies something painful and/or that we would drop him off somewhere and just disappear. We walked by a hairdresser on our way from a boring outdoors shop that Uli wanted to see to a highly recommended "authentic" salumeria (whatever that is) and suggested we might have a little look inside. The idea of special scissors got him to go inside and once he sat on the chair, wrapped in one of those black capes with a "Donald Duck" comic in his hands and the hairdresser singing to him he hold reasonably still. 15 minutes later what Uli used to call our "baby lion" was again a rascal boy. Now I have to look twice to recognize him when he runs around in between the crowd because he looks so different.

The weather has been very nice and warm and Florence surprisingly calm. I guess the European tourists are waiting for the Pentacoast vacations to take their trips and so one could actually walk by the Duomo for once without having to stop every 20 inches for a tour group. So after the haircut and before the Salumeria (which was indeed a lot of fun with cheap self-serve food and Italian patrons only) we took another stroll around the town, walked by the Uffici, bought another ice-cream for Max for being a good boy at the hairdresser, chased pigeons and engaged in some shameful stereotyping of the tourist around (still plenty). The Americans are always easy to spot, they wear shorts, come hell or high water, rain of shine its shorts, mostly combined with T-shirts and fanny packs. The Japanese are easy to spot they always carry and amazing assortment of shopping bags from high-end stores around. They also seem to have a knack for carrying them very elegantly and the bags seem to be color coordinated and carried in a way to ensure maximum display of the designer names. Don't get me started on the visors, umbrellas used agianst the ghastly sunshine and occassional dust-masks (have seen them, definitely, here in Florence, on a Korean family, though). Germans and Dutch, I found, are virtually indistinguishable other than by language: generally fairly tall people, mainly older (at least this pre-Pentacoast- holiday week), the men with beer bellys and cameras, the women in sensible shoes and odd clothing that is supposed to be jolly or "springy" such as pants with flower patterns plus a rain-coat - one never knows. The Scandinavians are similar, just a little taller even and more blond. The British, I hate to say, are easy to spot as well, there outfits are - eehm - is a little on the frumpy side. Baggy, I'd say, mismatched, you get the drift. Enough stereotypes already. I have to say it's fun, though, to be politically incorrect for once.
Feeling slightly nostalgic about our imminent departure we took another trip downtown by foot in the afternoon and ended up at the Arno near the Ponte Vecchio. The light was awesome, the photographer in me wishes for nothing but evening light all day long (or morning light but who wants to get up by 5 am) so I sent my boys home by bus when the little one got tired and took a leisurely stroll long the Arno and then back through the city. Initially the light was great, golden and soft, so there must be like 150 Ponte Vecchio pictures on my camera now. It's harder downtown as the narrow streets block the evening light and everything was in deep shadows already. It was interesting, though, to see the city change. The fancy goldsmiths on Ponte Vecchio closed and after that happend the illegal Africans came out hastily putting their 3 Euro prints of Michelangelo's angels, the Duomo by sunset and an assortment of nude females on the pavement. Fake Gucci purses showed up and little toy cars and - that's a new one - guys selling those tiny little tripods. The sunglasses guys, who carry their stuff attached to a foldable piece of sturdy cardboard with another one that serves as a stand (build and packed up in seconds) disappeared with the sun but the beggars remained. I am sort of silly that way but I feel extremely vulnerable walking alone though a darkening city with my camera equipment. It's not that expensive as camera equipments go but it sure looks sort of fancy to the untrained eye. Not having brought my tripod either I decide to call it quits - at least I got those Ponte Vecchio shots - I can now proof we was here ;-)