almost 4am... my favorite time of day. i take a hot shower and return to the kitchen table of my little apartment. it is strewn with scattered bits of paper, art history textbooks, scrawled essays and notes, sketches of faces... i smoke a cigarette and listen to Zero 7 again. as the sky just begins to grow lighter, i turn off the light and the music and sit next to the window. i stare through the bars at the green leaves being stirred by raindrops... listen to that beautiful soft sound... and watch as the sky changes from deep smoky sapphire and slowly fades into silvery purple with shifting gray clouds. i feel a rare sense of calm... i pack up my backpack with sketchbook, camera, passport, money, a book to read & a change of clothes, and walk through the big double-doors out onto Via Erta Canina and make my way under the great arch of the ancient city walls and down through the alleyways to the Arno...
the water of the river reflects the cloudy sky, which is beginning to let the rays of sunrise glow through so they can eventually warm and dry the wet stone streets and old red rooftops. i pass the rows of columns and marble statuary of the Uffizi... and the Ponte Vecchio with it's muted gold and green watercolors... leading over to the grand Palazzo... all resting peacefully in this most silent time of day, Florence appearing like a ghost-town save for a few newspaper vendors and cafe owners setting up shop for the morning. i continue along the river... two more bridges until i make a right and head for Santa Maria Novella. pidgeons stir about in the little park in front of the old church while old people have begun to mill around on the benches near the fountain. after stopping for an apple ("una mela, por favore") at a stand, i proceed toward my initial destination: the train station.
after finding a train for Pisa, i wait on a bench on the platform and have a cigarette while observing the girl next to me reading an English biology book. i strike up a conversation with her - showing her my biology book that i'm reading (for pleasure) and, though she actually speaks little English, we talk a bit about science and college and learning... until the train arrives.
i sit at a group of seats alone, hoping i'll remain so, and try to ignore the leering and mumbling of the two middle-aged men sitting accross the isle from me. i can't bring myself to read, so i just stare out the window...
the sun and the clouds are battling for who will prevail for the day and the result of their skirmishes is a beautiful, fine mist that spreads over the hills and pastures... sometimes shimmering in the sunlight trickling through and sometimes rolling more boldly when the clouds take over. the sun is ultimately victorious, however, and goes about heating the dew-dropped fields and the puddles on occasional winding tree-lined country roads. i'm in simple awe as i watch it light up the sprawling vineyards and pour over the verdant hillsides... lush, lush, lush. this dynamic, gorgeous and deliciously opulent landscape flashes by me through the train window in a mesmerizing rhythm: flat land, rows of crops, punctuated by streams and fences, rising up in dramatic candenzas in the mountains near Carerra, ebbing into valleys and villages, and dancing amidst the ragged stone quarries and farms.
i was too spaced-out and entranced to notice that i'd taken a wrong train to pisa and ended up an hour behind schedule. those men accross from me ended up proving most helpful in sorting me out to get to the airport, but i missed my flight anyway...
it was such a wonderfully peaceful and aesthetic beginning to what proved to be a very, very long and crazy adventure of a day... one that didn't really end until days later. but one that led me to all sorts of unexpected and exciting locations and people.
and that's another story for another time :)