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enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

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Tongue hurting a bit, for some reason.

Productive evening!

I spent about three hours reading travel advising sites for anecdotal stuff about Florence.

This was partly a discouraging exercise, in part because I remembered all of the things that I disliked about Florence the first time, and that I liked Rome better.

I suppose I could always pick up and go to Rome.

But I think the thing with Florence is that it is like every city - you have to take it for what it is.

And there is a great deal there, as we all know. So I'm searching off the beaten path and I'm going to think and feel my way through it. Plus I have a wonderful countryside bike rides planned and otherwise I really do just like to sit still and focus on the core art that I want to appreciate. Plus I want to draw.

Though I enjoyed drawing in Rome more than I did in Florence.

I'll figure something out.

Perhaps I'll just go to a smaller town and sit still for a couple of days. I'd like to go out to the countryside to stay for a day or two, but I'm not sure how I'll manage that. Hmm..

At any rate, I found some EXCELLENT fora in which Americans and so on who are officionados of Firenze were openly and loquaciously sharing their more academic passions for the city. This was good. It seems that actually doing research before traveling is a GOOD thing. I've always before been a lazy arse. This is why I rarely see much! :)

And then I was replying to a note left to me last night by swimmer72, and I started thinking about the fact that I should look for running routes in Florence.

When I was last there I was ill but had only a couple of weeks before dropped out of my Oly "qualifying" race in London, England. Naturally I was kind of antsy to do at least a little bit of running somewhere in Florence. Rome definitely affords better, more peaceful running, but I did not mind my run in the Cascine park in Florence.

Anyhow. The point of the story is that I was musing to swimmer that I might run from Florence to Pisa, which I'd contemplated when I was there the last time. I think I had contemplated this because Pisa is also along the Arno, or at least I think it is.

So I discovered tonight that as the crow flies Florence to Pisa one way is about 43 miles.

I think I'll pass. I mean, I could do it but 86 miles round trip? I am not an ultra-marathoner and never will be.

So I started googling the ol' running Firenze thing, and I found some interesting running routes that people had mapped on mapmyrun dot com. Kind of a cool site. I do hope that people in Florence have better taste than do people in Ottawa, however, as all of the five star runs that people had posted in Ottawa were BORING. I'm assuming that the issue is that people running in Ottawa are generally run clinic people from the J0gging room and so have not had the luxury of running longer and elsewhere. They are forgiven. ;)

The mapped runs in Florence are kind of predictable, but no worries. I've discovered for example that apparently I can run along the Arno at least to Signa, which is about 7 miles away or 14 miles round trip. That should do. I hope that the views are nice. I plan to rise before dawn at least one day in order to watch the sun rise from above the Piazza Mich. or whatever on the south side of the river. Should be nice. I hope it's safe to jog out of my hostel at 6 a.m., i.e I hope that no one tries to kill me for getting up and putting on jogging gear that early in the morning.

Trust me, if you have ever stayed in a hostel you will realize that most people will look askance at a person poised to jog in the early hours. But that is not exclusively true, so I am being a bit of an arse in saying this.

That is all, there is no more. I could say more about the day and all of course, but I'll spare the details. It was a busy day. I planned a seminar for the morning and invited these microsimulation guys and was sweating bricks for a while that no one was interested, but then it picked up and the thing ended well - with a future partnership between departments. I'm good at follow up so I sat down after I returned from French today and wrote out an annotated list of participants and questions to send to the speakers (with business card info.), to ensure that the details for continued discussion are promptly furnished.

Oh, and there was that weird episode with the guy. I'm guessing that he was merely shy or panicked about asking me out when he got me on the phone. I've been told by Dan repeatedly that I am intimidating, and I'm guessing that this is true. I really don't think of myself in that way, but I realize that I do tend to speak in a way that makes me seem...I dunno...grown up. I make jokes but they're usually not stupid and perhaps they convey control of the conversation rather than openness and interest. You see, I'm thinking. :)

Stomach bothering me again tonight. Ate some cheese. I am thinking that cheese is out. It seems to be highly correlated with my stomach cramps.

Otherwise I've been feeling great for the last week since I cut out the wheat, and I felt great all day and night yesterday. No more cheese for a while and I should be great. (I had cut out BOTH wheat and cheese previously.)

I have lots to say on the Olys thing and the torch relay, but I will spare you my mouthing off until tomorrow!

A demain!

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10:19 p.m. - 2008-04-09

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