Dear diary

We rode Eurorail from Roma to Florence. We are finally acclimated, though I still curse and swear at Steve Jobs. The iPad is amazing, but typing on it, especially when tired, is a task.

We have the lay of the land, we are rested. We found our way around Rome with ease. Their bus system is very good and easy to understand, and one Euro allows 75 minutes, anywhere. (Just now I wanted to type “allows” and Steve Jobs inserted “allosaurus.” Wtf? I was thinking about the allosaurus earlier today! Creepy!)

Eating in Rome is a challenge. People here don’t eat much, no 2200 calorie triple whoppers with a pound of fries and catsup. Sodas and mild beer are everywhere, and frequent public water fountains too (often very ornate), so we just carry a bottle and fill up now and then. We are eating little but are not that hungry.

People here are thin and attractive. Women dress provocatively, but I get used to it. (No I don’t.) I saw a store this morning that caters to “big” people. The mannequin in the window looked like an NFL lineman. In the US we used to have “big and tall” stores, but now that we are all “big,” though not tall, WalMart serves all needs.

There are No old people working the trains and cafes. I think they get to retire and receive pensions here, and become what American right wingers call “parasites.” (I thank Swede for that insight.) In America if you work hard, if your productivity increases, your wealth-creating master creates even more wealth, by osmosis. And you have to keep on working all of your life because you know that the master will stop handing down his wealth to you if you stop. Memorize that now students. You don’t create wealth by working, parasite. Working merely allows you to collect wealth from people above, who create it by putting it in the bank after it appears like manna from heaven. Econ 101. Right wing economics is not voodoo!

The countryside is all developed here, of course. There are no wild lands, which disappeared centuries ago in Italy. But they farm and the landscape is well tended with abundant trees. It’s got its own kind of charm. (Please go away Godfather music!) It is hard to tell what crops are growing as we speed by fields. I did see sunflowers. Off in the distance are small villages on hilltops. Why did they do that? There is always a good reason. It might be to defend the village, or simply to keep farmland undeveloped to feed themselves.

Florence we are told is small and walkable. I’m all ‘ruined’ out, and glad to be getting away from that part of the trip.

Wine is very good in Florence, our waiter said this morning. We had Chardonnay these last two days that was excellent, though we don’t know from wine. All I know is that my wife liked it, and she generally gets a burning sensation from most wines. We just bought two bottles at a store here in Florence for less than six Euro – it was all very low-priced.

I am tired of standing and eating and drinking cappuccino. But if we sit down, we get a waiter and prices go up my more than a third. Most cafes offer self-service or sit-down. Naturally waiters are always enticing us tourists to have a seat.

If a customer is unhappy with service, the custom here is to bury a coin in the leftover food. It is the ultimate insult. As our waiter cleaned the table next to us last night he found a Euro in the remains and was livid and deeply insulted. He said that if the person who did that was nearby, he would throw the food in his face.

Waiters are all Italian, as are all in the service professions. There are people of all cultures here, so it would be hard to know who is an immigrant. But they have a minimum wage, strong unions and public-funded education through post-secondary. They also have publicly-funded health care, and excellent infrastructure. The trains run on time. The one we are on is smooth and quiet and comfortable. The Internet here is excellent, speedy wherever you can get on. In American motels, unless you get up at 3:00 AM, the net is usually slow to very slow. Motels don’t invest in large networks, and so more than half a dozen online is the limit. Not so here.

I tell you, this socialism Is awful! People are so unhappy here Swede! They all want to be Americans. They are in denial, of course, as the word American doesn’t pop up much. This is my proof that they are in denial – they don’t talk or think about us, which must be a conscious act on their part because we are America and everyone wants to live in the USA. Italians probably wish we would bomb them, butnit only happens in their dreams though.

We are in Florence now, and we are waiting till it cools down a bit to climb the 463 steps to the top of a church tower. The church here, the Duomo, is amazingly beautiful. As I understand, they finished all but the top of the dome, as they did not know the techniques for that architecture. Michelangelo, who lived here, helped finish it and then use this dome as his model for St. Peter’s.