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This is Max and his new family. Daniella, Max's wife, and her daughter
Alicia. Max picked us up from the airport in Pisa when we arrived in
Italy.
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After lunch the first day we went to Grazia's apartment. Grazia
is opening some gifts that Shirley brought from the U.S.
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A Chinese restuarant near Max's apartment, we went to eat here
our first night in Florence.
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Authentic Chinese, in the middle of Florence! Who'd have thought?
Here is Grazia and Alberto, Max, Alicia and Daniella (who had no
interest in even trying Chinese) also joined us for dinner here.
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The second day in Firenze, Max took Ryan & I to the center.
Here's Ryan with Max on Ponte Vecchio overlooking the Arno
river.
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A view of Ponte Vecchio. I was very pleased with how this picture
turned out, with the reflection and bright color.
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We're at the Uffizi. I was having some fun with the Sepia mode
on the camera. We didn't go into the Uffizi this time.
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Max took us to a small English pub in the Piazza del Duomo that
had a small balcony on the second floor. It was awesome to be
able to relax without crowds of tourists and enjoy the surroundings.
This is Ryan, with Santa Maria del Fiore (the church) and the Campanile
(Bell Tower) in the background.
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This is me with at the Pitti Palace inside of the Boboli gardens.
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At the Boboli gardens, this tree looked pretty cool. Ryan's
walking underneath, impatiently waiting for me to hurry up.
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We walked through Boboli around the back of Forte Belvedere.
I'm here on the side of what used to be the city wall, trying
to get a view overtop some trees of the countryside
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One of my favorite pictures of the city and surrounding hills,
this is from inside Boboli.
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While Ryan and I were wandering Florence, my mom went with
Franco to the cemetary.
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That night, we went out to eat again with Roberto and his family,
and Grazia, Francesca and Alberto. Since Ryan and I were staying
with Alberto at his apartment, this picture seemed appropriate.
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I woke up one morning to a little noise outside, (ok, so it
was already past time to get up). I thought this was rather clever,
a ladder like object leaned up against a building with a device
that climbs up and down with a flat surface on top. So that's how
they get the furniture in these places.
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Have I ever mentioned that I love digital cameras? This is a tree
in the park across from Grazia's apartment. It just looked neat.
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This is a view from on top of the Duomo. We decided to hike up
after doing some shoping, as I hadn't done it my last trip.
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And to prove it, here I am.
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The sun finally came out while we were on top. It cast a nice
shadow across the city. There was this english (based on his
accient) photographer on top as well, shooting some pictures.
He commented on how he was going to take the same picture, I said it
looked neat, he said it looked like a tit. I guess that's one way
to look at it.
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Inside the dome, here's a decent view of the ceiling. I was
mildly nervous that the floor could give way and we'd all fall to
our deaths, which just makes painting and constructing this dome
that much more impressive to me.
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A view of the old city wall. I'm trying to imagine what it would
be like to live in a city surrounded by a wall, the best analogy
of U.S. cities I could come up with is the looping highways that skirt
around the edge of the city, which would be nearly impossible to cross
by foot. Ok, really really really bad analogy.
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We almost got a good picture here... This is at Piazza di Michelangelo
with Ronato, before going to San Gimigano. There's some more pictures
with his family in with that group, but since this specificly had
Florence in the background, I stuck it in here.
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