Maxwell's Lost Again

I laid in my tiny airbnb bed on my ipad, plotting and planning my next steps. I set my sights on Geneva, I could walk down the street looking at the expensive watch shops, take a trip out to the lake and walk and look at the pretty people. So I booked a train ticket to Geneva, reasoning it would be a good halfway point to Florence. I was half right. It was easy to find a ticket there, but impossible to find a ticket out. Flights were similarly silly; my only option had a 2 hour layover in Tunisia, which I did consider at some length, but decided against it. Geneve just was not that important.

Leaving that idea, I figured I could just train to Milan, see a new city if I couldn’t pull off a new country. I could stroll the streets by myself, imagining the lives of strangers, maybe strike up a conversation with a bartender or some woman selling cigarettes. See what the fashion thing was all about. Booking tickets seemed easy, click scroll, click purchase, and I was content until I realized I had booked for a week after my intended date. Click scroll, click panic. Everything my Sunday was fully booked. I was trapped. I canceled all my tickets, got around 1/3rd of my money back, and went back to the drawing board. Live and learn. Or live at least.

Simplicity winning, I booked a flight to Florence, and decided to just enjoy a few unplanned extra days in Paris. I resolved to go out as much as I could and then recover. My New York favorites and a newer friend I made in Tokyo were all in town. I was a man amongst it all, so busy and wrapped up I forgot to text someone I had long planned to see in Paris. Katia is not pleased with me.

I ended up beating my family to Florence by a full day. They had a flight cancellation and got stuck in Madrid, I Facetimed some very happy people from a random hotel in Barcelona, all enjoying my dads pleasure at his bags being lost.

I made a friend at the Florence airport taxi stand and we spent the day wandering the city together. It was my first time in Florence during the actual high season, as I had gone twice in spring and once during Covid, and the crowds were immense, jarring. I was glad I didn’t feel the need to go see the David or do anything other than wine tours, as I don’t think I could have braved the long queues in the heat. There’s little I won’t do to avoid a line.

I brought my new friend out to a family dinner, some tiny Osteria like all the others that my dad found and claimed was the best. We drank wine and ate bistecca and potates and pasta with boar sauce, then wandered back down past the canals so she could finish her work day at night. I walked back home alone after a contented day of seeing everyone, happy on the streets with my music playing to me.

Much like my feelings towards Thailand, I feel I have seen what I want to see of Florence in full. I feel similarly even of Rome; I’ve seen enough for most of my lifetime, or for this era of my life at least. I was ready for Nice and Berlin, for new additions to my era before it might end.