272.April 4

Firenze, Italy

We arrived at 09:00 in Firenze. I slept well, despite waking three times in the night to change cars and show tickets. We get our own cabin to make into beds most of the time, and I like it just as well as a hostel, especially last night, when we left our luggage in Firenze station and did not have to carry anything, except my camera. The next morning, we drank cafe (espresso) and ate pastries. Then we waited in a huge queue to see Michaelangelo's David. It was expensive, but a good cult following keeps the price high. The weather was clear blue, so we did not wait in any other lines that day (which was good, because they were enormous on this radient Easter morning). The weather really makes the day for me, I'm noticing. We saw the palace of Medici, the cathedrals, the markets (Lars bought a soft brown leather vest for his girlfriend).

Now we are on the train to Tuscany, more specifically Sienna, where we will see the largest city square in Italy. They held chariot races in the huge square, and still have some on summer holidays. Sienna, where we could not board a bus from the station because we didn't have a ticket, so we walked (with packs) to that grand square (more of a circle) and rested on the slant in the sun with the thousands of tourists. This was only a tourist town, but it was completely medieval, with the start of a cathedral that would have been the largest in the world. We got a bus ticket and rode to the hostel (after a long wait for the stupid bus). I took a long shower pronto in a big cubical and filled it up. We shared a room for three with a Swiss student, who had been working on the railroad. He was nice, and went with us for dinner, pizza in the piazza and two bottles of wine- he brought a nice bottle of Don Pascual that was a going away present from home. Lars and I had eight pieces of pizza while we drank. Lars and I continued to walk around with the bottle of Don Pascual (which the Swiss had given to us after only a swallow, because he was meeting a friend at the station) in our hands until later, when we spent fifty minutes on a free bus ride back to the hostel. The whole time I was tense for them to kick us off, or take us to the polizia because we did not have tickets. We bought another bottle, this time white wine in white plastic cups, and played pool.

1994

Easter Morning again,

In Wabasha, we went to church early in the morning, and then Jacob and I had breakfast and went back to bed. Goodnight, and Goodluck.

2010

The dress rehearsal for "Noises Off" went rather well, though I'm hoping to catch up on some sleep and that we'll break less glass objects on set for the actual performance tomorrow. We set up some more chairs for the audience after the show and arranged tables and things.

2013