Friday

Oct, 12, 2001

into the tourist mode

I don't have anything to present today and, in fact, one presentation is about another product line. One is about corporate strategy. One a customer experience. It is stuff I need to know, though. And I think the guys deserve my presence since they've come this far. If they have questions and such. So I sit in on these presentations. The presentations are quite good. They focus on solving problems to sell rather than selling a bag of stuff.

I've had to pack up this morning. I'm changing hotels. (Wouldn't want to get used to one set of weird plumbing or anything.) After the presentations, we all pile our luggage in the hotel dining room and have lunch together. Good talk about work and other things. I bid everyone good travels and transform myself into a tourist.

I go around the corner to the Hotel Malta di Croce (Maltese Cross) and check in. My room has a high ceiling (about fifteen feet) and is inconvenient for hooking up the laptop to power. The bathroom is servicable but the toilet has a tank way, way up on the wall with a button part way down that has to be pushed and released in some unknown incantation until it flushes. All in all, it will do. I unpack a few things for the long weekend of tourism.

And, I'm off. I've already walked through the Piazza del Duomo but it's time to really see it. I go into the Baptistery. The inside of the dome is intricately decorated, but the ancient floor is what really fascinates me. I go into the cathedral itself. Looking up into the dome is amazing. I buy a candle and light it for my mom who has been ailing. I'm not religious but this is something I do in famous old churches. Who knows?

Going to the top of things is a tourist tradition for me. Like mountains, because the steps are there and also the views are nice. And it feels like an accomplishment. So soon I'm standing in the blazing sun (it really does seem to blaze here) in the Piazzo del Duomo, waiting to pay 10,000 lire for the privilege of climbing 463 stone steps.

My lungs are aching when I emerge on the walkway around the dome and I'm really tired when I emerge on the outside. I sit on a bench and recover, staring at the Tuscan hills on the other side of the Arno. I spend a bit of time looking in all directions, looking down the curve of Brunelleschi's huge magical dome.

Wow, I'm exhausted now. Time to have a nap and a bottle of water. After recovering from my climb, I decide to get myself together and find a place for dinner. I haven't made an arrangement to meet any of my buddies who are still in town. So I walk off in the direction of the Piazza della Repubblica where there are cafes including one where I had some good carpaccio before. I look at another cafe and then, for no particular reason, bypass the original one and go to the one next door. I select a table good for watching passersby when one of my buddies comes up and says, "We are over there!" Hmmm. What are the odds?

So I join my two work friends and one of the Nancys' husband and step daugther. The twenty-something is so excited about her trip to Italy that she can't contain it. She wants her picture made with the waiter and runs off briefly at one point for more shopping of gifts for friends.

We are all meeting in the morning for a trip to the famous Uffizi Museum. I'm a tourist now. But, meanwhile, back to the Maltese Cross for a sleep.

top of the dome

"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace..."

John Lennon, "Imagine"

Meta:
We'll just be keeping Lennon's radical lyrics here indefinitely. I'm updating this after the fact. Which means, of course, that I forget even more than usual.

JUST TYPING
Off the top of my head.
I find less there.
Than I once might have.