Florence!

I'm in Florence. The rain has followed me, and so has my traveling companion, but she doesn't get into town for another few hours, and I have another few hours before they let me into our appartmente. So off I go, wandering the streets. Again. My foot still hurts.

In Paris, my six or seven years of French study came back to me, and I could form complete sentences when dealing with a person who didn't speak English. I could also read a lot of words, and everything pretty much made sense. I even watched several hours of TV and understood what was going on.

Here, in Florence, I haven't the faintest clue! The language sounds nothing like French, and there's little resemblance. My BFF, who traveled to Italy a few years ago, told me to just wave my hands around some more if the person I'm talking to doesn't understand me. Sounds like a plan.

Oh, and the keyboard here - way more like the American keyboard. Still different, but at least all the letter keys are in the same place and I can type away, punctuation aside, with similar speed as at home.