I'm in Florence this rainy morning. Looking out one window I see a tower crane building something, out the other, the Duomo. So far I am not impressed with this country. Going through customs was easier than getting into an R rated movie in the states. The view on the train from the Rome airport to Roma Termini was disgusting. I saw more graffiti than I've ever seen in NYC. Nearly all the buildings I saw were in disarray or completely destroyed. The half hour ride was an expensive $18US. (A round trip ticket for a 2 hour ride to New York via train costs about the same, and you get a seat.) I lost the eye cup to my camera and the one the camera store here sold me does not fit.

I had some pasta last night, it was al dente, which is a refreshing change. If you order pasta from almost anywhere in the US (even some "Italian" restaurants"), it is mostly cooked soft. I generally cook my pasta to a slightly softer state than they serve it here, but it is nice to know how real Italians eat it.

I have my AT&T wireless phone on me, and it is capable of worldwide service. It's ass expensive, but it is nice to have just in case. I've been getting these very annoying text messages presumably whenever I change cell towers. "CB(50) Roma/ROMA/Frienze" and then a longer message with HTML syntax once in a while. I'm shocked that I don't get UMTS signals (3G) anywhere around here. I initially only got GPRS (2G) coverage but just today I've been able to get EDGE service from some provider called I WIND. Previously I was connected to Vodafone IT. Even if I did have 3G, I wouldn't be using the data service, its $0.02US per KB!

I don't know what we'll be doing today, but I've been up since 5am (it's 9am now) and no one is awake. I'm worried about eating breakfast at this point. Can I score some pancakes or a cheese omelet or are those American foods?