What you may not have gotten from my previous entries is that I really like Venice. I mean really like it. I think its my favorite city in the whole world. The lack of cars is key, because there is no car stink and no car noise. Its hard to imagine what this is like if you haven't seen it before, but it feels like camping in the middle of the city ( Read more... )

Today was a hard core sightseeing day, even though it was thunderstorming. We saw St. Marco's Basilica, the grandest church in Venice, as well as the Ducal Palace and Peggy Gugenheim's collection. St. Marco's is not as big as the Duomo in Florence, but way way more detailed and richer. All kinds of gold and silver items, and mosaics covering ( Read more... )

Got into Venice this afternoon, haven't done much but walk around. The coolest thing, of course, is that there are no cars. The air is really fresh for a city, dispite the smell of pee on every other wall. But the lack of noise pollution is the best! The evening air, sans car noise, is eerily quiet. I could really get to love it ( Read more... )

Florence has been really nice. Its a beautiful city. I ddin't know ( Read more... )

Miwa and I are in Florence now. We arrived last night after a Loooong ( Read more... )

In Boston now, there are lots of interesting things going on, and I might write them down...

I saw this great article in the Vancouver Courier about historical fencing. Its basically a no holds barred European fencing style which is as close as possible to the real old style European dueling. They learn advanced technique by studying manuals of greats like Cappo Ferro ( Read more... )