Back in Columbia

I've been back in Columbia for over a week now. It's good to be home. Things are coming together with TerraStride, and I am glad to be a part of this team. Kelsey and I ate dinner last night at Terra. We sat beneath a Japanese maple and the lights of the patio underlit its canopy of fresh, spring leaves. We had an excellent meal - the pork roulette was perfect - and the wine and conversation lent the evening a joyful headiness.

Sioux Falls

I am moving back to South Carolina. Last Tuesday, Kelsey and I flew into San Francisco and began packing my apartment. On Wednesday night, we had a party with friends and neighbors and hit the road the following morning. We first drove to Bozeman via Elko to visit Kelsey's mom for the weekend. We visit Mastodon Hot Springs and took a dip in the Boiling River. It snowed, and we ate well and laughed a lot. Kelsey and I left this morning and drove to Sioux Falls. South Dakota's prairie and badlands have a staged, soothing beauty. Watching the full moon rise over them was one of the best parts of this trip.

This is my first blog entry in two years. I have let my writing slip, but I plan to remedy that. 

Tessera

There are few things more telling than the combination of camouflage and rap.

Moved

Moved to a new house yesterday.  It's a great house in Sherwood Forest, a working-class neighborhood near Shandon.  It will be even better once materials of the painters, who the landlord fired today, are everywhere still, and the bathrooms are unusual, but it's my own space in a long time.  Very excited.

Comic-Con Notables

I'll be updating this post periodically with material from Comic-Con.  Here's a few to begin with.

Birdemic: Shock and Terror takes its place among other mind-blowingly awesome flicks like Rubber and my favorite The Room.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE5dJDgZ644

Birdemic II is being released soon and will be posting its trailer on iMDB in the next few weeks.  Congratulations to James Nguyen, Jeff Gross, and the actors and staff that made this second "romantic thriller" possible.  Hitchcock has nothing on you guys, and thank you for inviting me to the release party chock full of PlayBoy PlayMates.  My bucket list is one item shorter.

Draven:
A comic book series that will soon be released, Dravn combines beautiful illustrations with an interesting premise that leads to some surprisingly deep and complex explorations of the human imagination and use of power.
http://dravn.com/

Yuki-7 animations exude retro style:
http://yuki-7.com/index.php

Crime Spree in Columbia, SC

Why are the State, the police force, and the government of the city not addressing the crime spree that is taking place in Columbia, SC?  Four of my family members' homes have been broken into in as many months, and one of my friend's homes was burglarized twice in three months.  In the latter case, the first time the police responded to his alarm going off, they went to the wrong house and gave it the all clear.  The second time, again responding to the alarm going off, they checked the front door and gave it the all clear.  Columbia's crack police force failed to notice that the invaders had kicked in the back door and burglarized the house from that entrance.  Both robberies occurred mid-morning on Trenholm Road, one of the city's busiest streets.  Now it has emerged that the latest gang initiation is home invasion, when gangs wait for residents to be at home before breaking in, assaulting and terrorizing whomever they find, and stealing anything that they can carry.

Bravo, CPD, you've managed to crack down on fake IDs and the nefarious pool of twenty year-old co-eds enjoying their time in a college town, the real threats to property and safety of the people you serve so well.  Bravo, the State, for eschewing sensationalist nonsense and fairly reporting the real issues that affect Columbia.  Bravo, leaders of the City of Columbia, your leadership and unselfish zeal for the public good continue to shine forth.

The incompetence and misdirected priorities of each of these organizations are staggering.

Here's some supporting evidence.  Notice that the rates of violent crime in Columbia range from two to three times the national average.

http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/sc/columbia/crime/
http://www.areavibes.com/columbia-sc/crime/

Contracts

Pandoodle is growing.  We've booked a great deal of consulting business creating custom media solutions, games mostly, for clients around the world.  With this expansion we are moving from our older cowboy model of shoot first, deal with the details later to a more sophisticated model of approaching each projects in stages with the right resources and procedures so that the company and our customers are clear in their expectations and protected legally.  With my extensive legal training, that is arguing with my father who is in fact an attorney, I am charge of drafting the contracts that the company will present to our subcontractors and vendors.  It might sound boring, but I have enjoyed learning to some basic degree how contracts work and constructing binding expectations and terms with nothing more than language.  It reminds me of playing football in my next door neighbor's backyard when I was very young.  The older boys in the neighborhood would change the rules of the game midway through a play, shouting, "It's now full tackle!"  They were bigger than me, and my protests amounted to nothing.  Invariably, they always won.  The power to dictate terms and ensure they are followed is great power indeed.

This example reminds me of another contract that is less overt than one signed on paper, the implicit contract between two adults as to the modicum of behavior towards each other that we expect and follow.  We assume that a real world that is intelligible and constant for normal human beings does exist externally of ourselves, and that our behavior towards one another is rooted in this reality.  For example, people do not like being manipulated or hurt, but they do like being treated with respect and kindness.  Many people affected with a mental illness do not recognize a fixed reality, and one of the most difficult challenges of dealing with such a person these fundamental assumptions of behavior towards others do not exist.  Without a firm grasp of reality, an insane person's behavior typically follows the will of their emotions; however, their reason still abides but is corrupted and made subject to this emotional turmoil.  A common metaphor for a crazy person is a horse without a rider.  I would argue that that metaphor better represents an irrational person.  A crazy person is more like a centaur, their rationality and emotions inseparable, but the latter being dominant.  Rather than addressing and responding to reality, an insane person will often use their rational facilities to force their reality in place of yours, shaping the rules to their advantage.  The smarter they are, the more dangerous they are.  In backyard football, the older boys would change the rules to their advantage, justifying it with the generality that might equals right.  There was no question as to whether what they were doing was right or wrong.  Everyone knew it wasn't fair, but no recourse existed.  Insanity is more unsettling than brutishness, because when it changes the rules, it does not recognize any reason to justify itself.  A crazy person breaks and makes rules to accord with the turbulent reality within their mind.  A sane person's less flexible view is at a disadvantage; thus, crazy always wins.  The only way to deal with crazy is to never engage.

Anti-Depressant Commercials

Recently, I started taking Wellbutrin.  The reasons need not be discussed, but the effects are a different matter.  I could kiss the mouth of whoever invented this stuff.  A fellow mendicant of this immaculate brain candy aptly described the experience when she said, "Wellbutrin allows you to see the world in color again, not just black and white."  My experience with Wellbutrin led me to ask why pharmaceutical commercials for anti-depressants are so bad?  Here's one for Zoloft:




Even if you weren't depressed, you should be after this commercial.  Your psyche is a little round ball being equally harassed by a grey cloud and a chirpy bird.  Once you start taking Zoloft, the grey cloud disappears, only to be replaced by a second-rate oboe player and erectile dysfunction, making a futile existence all the less pleasurable.

Not all pharmaceutical commercials are bad.  There are plenty of jokes about taking Valtrex and suddenly finding yourself white-water rafting, playing frisbee with friends and your dog, and dating a hot broad who somehow finds you all the more sexy for having Herpes.  The wonderfully positive and message that says, "So you have an incurable veneral disease?  Who cares?!  Live it up with Valtrex!"


Following the example set by medicine for venereal diseases, anti-depressants could do better by not focusing on the problem but by presenting a hyperbolically inflated happy ending that we all want to believe.  Anti-depressants producers should hire whoever does Coca-Cola's commercials.  Imagine this one if the bottle of Coca-Cola were replaced with Wellbutrin:



Life can be all the better depending on what is ingested.

San Francisco and Comic-Con

I returned yesterday morning from California.  I had planned to spend the month of July raising money and developing business in Silicon Valley, but because of half-baked plans and a series of misadventures, their highlight being my wrecking a Prius in San Francisco, my time on the west coast came to an early close.  Nevertheless, it was not an unsuccessful or unenjoyable trip.  I relished spending time with my brother and his new wife and seeing San Francisco for the first time.  On my only Saturday on the peninsula, I borrowed a Porsche, and Sanford and I roared off to Half Moon Bay.  While crawling through the hills that separate the valley from the sea, we admired the vibrant day and the verdant slopes juxtaposed against an empty blue sky.  The top was down and I felt my face sunburning, but as we approached the Pacific, the weather changed dramatically.  The sky filled with low grey clouds, and the temperature dropped so far that the air had the chill of autumn in it.  We parked the car and walked to the sea, crossing a moor and climbing down steep sandy embankments.  The surf roared with water as clear and turquoise as a tropical sea, but when we took off our shoes and waded in, we found it to be as cold as winter.  The Pacific cools the air around San Francisco during the summer and keeps the temperature above freezing during colder months.  The grey clouds that hang over the ocean and suck the color from the California landscape creep into the city as fog.  They form when the cold sea makes contact with warmer winds.

After leaving Half Moon Bay, Sanford and I walked around San Francisco.  We visited some famous pier that was nothing but a tourist trap.  After jostled our way through an abominable crowd in order to see sea lions basking in a marina, we found only there; the rest had headed south for the summer.  All very anti-climatic.  We walked through North Beach, San Francisco's Little Italy, stopping to have a beer here and there, and then made our way through Chinatown, where Sanford bought Susanna a polyester kimono decorated in colors unknown to nature.  At the same bizarre, we found similarly designed kung-fu outfits blazoned with roaring tigers with flaming paws, Chinese symbols, and other animals of power and grace.  If I had cash, I would have purchased my next Halloween outfit.  I wondered, though, if it would be culturally insensitive for me to wear one.  However, I decided that it would be worse to present yourself to a crowd of Halloween drunks as a kung-fu master than to assume the slight risk that you may offend someone of Chinese descent.  Asians and Caucasians are among the few races that still have a sense of humor about their racial heritage.  As a thought experiment, I imagined three white people entering a party, one wearing a dashiki, one a kung-fu outfit, and one lederhosen.  The first outfit would be the riskiest.  I then imagined three Asians entering the same party in the same outfits.  The third might win him best costume.

After procuring gifts and quaffing an aperitivo or two, Sanford and I dined at Hunan Homes (no relation to Sherlock the waitress assured me), where we ordered eel and other strange dishes. 'Twas delicious.  Sus luckily was working a night-shift when we returned to the house and promptly passed out in an MSG coma.


I spent the week working in Silicon Valley.  Despite its reputation, the area is not terribly impressive.  It's a largely affluent stretch of suburb that reminded me of NOVA with better weather, more Trader Joe's, and worse highways.  The state of the roads would lead you to think you were decaying rust-belt town, not the tech center of the world, but that's what happens when a state invests according to ideology instead of good finance.


I said my farewells to San Francisco and Silicon Valley last Wednesday and caught a Virgin American flight (amazing company) to San Diego for Comic-Con.  ComicCon is an annual event that gathers comic book, fantasy, and science fiction producers and consumers in one awkward mass.  It was an interesting glimpse of an exuberant and strange facet of American culture.  I expected the overweight superheros and acne-ridden heroines.   At Renaissance fairs I had gawked at scrawny young men in plastic armor and wenches in Eliabethean dresses that hoisted their veiny breasts up to their clavicles.  But the sheer mass of the crowd, the concentration of geeks, and the soup of incongruous cultural reference was staggering.  Comic-Con was a joyful celebration of human imagination, in which fans made their cherished ideals quasi-real by dressing as their favorite characters with nearly sacrosanct devotion to detail and authenticity.  Some costumes must have taken weeks to complete, and those who wore them were not just a grinning nerd freshly emerged from his grandmother's basement.  Nay, for that week, he was Thor or Spider Man or Wolverine in aspect and demeanor!  She was no passed-over virgin whittling away her hours fixing coffee or rearranging clothes-racks.  For that week, Wonder Woman, Black Widow, or Lady Mechanica, bold, sexy, and feminine!  Devotees of the same denomination hailed one another and compared outfits; old men sold illustrated volumes of naked women; and consumers went from booth to booth collecting trinkets and discussing the future of certain franchises.  Who cares if the cause of the celebration was cultural vomit?  The excitement and joyfulness was wonderful to take part in, and I got to play Halo 4, which kicks ass.

The Dead in Spring

I was driving back from the gym, when I stopped at the intersection of Gervais and Harden.  It was a beautiful spring morning, and "Going Down the Road Feelin' Bad"was playing with the windows down.  The music was loud appropriately.  I was lost in thought when a cop pulled up beside me.  His windows were also down, and I did not notice him until he extended his hand across the space that separated our cars and pointed at me.  I looked over and watched him through my sunglasses.  He brought in his finger, turned his fist, and gave me a thumbs-up.  I smiled.  The light turned green.

Quick updates: Pandoodle is one sponsor of the Indie Grits film festival in Columbia.  It's been a great success personally and professionally.  I've had the opportunity to meet many interesting, artistic people that I would have never met with my old network.  There is a great deal of energy in Columbia that has yet to be exhumed, and I am pleased to realize it.  For awhile, plotting an escape seemed the only way to deal with this town.

Pandoodle is working with a few filmmakers now to incorporate our technology into their next films.  The filmmakers seem excited about the AdHere system, as it enables them to incorporate advertisements into their films dynamically.  Whether a film is being show in Columbia, Austin, or New York, local ads can be embedded, and filmmakers can use the resulting revenue to fund their art.  If indie films wax in popularity, like Napoleon Dynamite or Paranormal Activity, advertisements from larger sponsors can replace the earlier ones, generating more money from the film.

It's taken awhile, but filmmakers are starting to realize the advantages of this strategy, and a few innovative ones are chomping at the bit to produce the first film that employs Pandoodle technology.  My goal is for that first film to recover its full production cost within one year.  If Pandoodle can demonstrate that, there will be no doubt left as to the power of this technology to reshape the media industry.

I love independent films, and I hope that Pandoodle will officiate a happy marriage between amateur filmmakers and local businesses who may both thrive off stories told and a visions produced.

Still living at home.  Broke as mud.  Chasing deals.  Might be in San Francisco this summer selling and raising VC funding.  It seems likely, but it's still contingent on many factors.

A friend's death

Matt, a friend from my days at IBM, passed away.  He was forty years old.  While I was a rookie salesman, he was constantly willing to lend advice, help, and his greatest skill, humor to any situation.  His magnanimity and zeal for life were infectious.  I learned much from Matt and shared many good times with him.  I am deeply saddened by his departure.  Matt leaves behind his two sons, eight and three, and his widow, who is due to deliver their third son in three weeks.  God help that family.


Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;

while the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain:

in the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened,

and the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of music shall be brought low;

also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets:

or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.

Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher; all is vanity.

Ecclesiastes 12:1-8

Pencils down... almost

Over the weekend, I finished the latest and, I hope, last draft of my Master's thesis.  I also finished the latest but certainly not the last draft of my Bronzino paper.  These are the last remains of a stillborn career in art history.  I went through the labor only to find the corpus devoid of breath.  Nevertheless, I have taken pleasure in writing again and inserting things into my paper that will upset academics.  For example, capitalizing He when using the pronoun for Jesus Christ.  I like putting in minute points of style or content like this to which academics are often more attune than the greater patterns of human heart and history. In a university, you could say, "My foreskin needs liberating!" and an academic would nod their head knowingly, but if you capitalize He for Christ, they might rupture a sphincter.

Mermaids

A lesson in entrepreneurship:

Two fishermen are at sea casting their nets.  Near the end of the day, they catch something heavy and haul it up to the boat.  In the net, they find a mermaid so beautiful that she'd make a man's heart melt.  As they stare at her, one of the fishermen lifts her into his arms and releases her back into the sea.

Blankly, his partner asks, "Why?"

"How?" responds the first.

Loose ends and next steps

It's Saturday and raining, and I am tying up loose ends and preparing for the next steps in my career.  I am first finishing the last two academic papers that I hope to write.  One is my Master's thesis, the other a paper I gave last December at the British Institute in Florence that is being published in a volume about Bronzino.  I will send them off on Monday morning.

Every week, Pandoodle gains more momentum, interested investors, potential clients, and strategies for going forward.  We are meeting today to discuss the company's business plan, and I plan to recruit interns and sales people this quarter.  It will be my first experience managing people directly, which is exciting.  I wanted to teach art history primarily to assist young people develop their thinking and potential, and managing a team of sharp marketers and sales people will present that opportunity with perks that academia does not support.  I can choose whom I will work with and directly support them, and if we are all doing our jobs correctly, then we all get paid accordingly to our efforts.  This should be great fun.

I recommend seeing Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.  I don't recommend drinking heavily beforehand and grumbling your boozy observations to your sober date in the front row of an independent theater while swigging a Fat Tire tall boy.  Make sure she's at least as drunk as you first.

Bravo, Fry

The British six-part series Stephen Fry in America is amazing.  Fry's analysis of the differences between the South and North, in which he rightfully includes Florida, and the complexity and often hypocrisy of American culture, ideals, and history are spot on.  It does not surprise me that an Englishman felt most at home "culturally and spiritually" in the Southeast.  If you have Netflix, I recommend watching it.

Enjoying meeting with independent filmmakers and studios throughout the state -- interesting, creative people.

Oh, Cola Town

Starting to grow bored with Columbia -- surprise, surprise.  Threw a dinner party with a friend on Saturday.  We ate gumbo and grilled doves on the back porch, while the most people planted themselves on the couch inside to watch football.  Then it was bars, binge drinking, and drama.  Same conversations, same concerns, same nonsense.  Although I'm growing frustrated with my it environment, this discontent could be a good thing.  Having exhausted Columbia's unchanging and unchangeable social scene, there's nothing to distract me from work, the gym, and books.

The weekend was not a total wash.  Spent the warm Saturday afternoon working on a paper that I'm publishing.  I found a booth in a coffee shop, watched the flow of busy people, and turned and molded phrases in my mind.  I believed that academia had beaten any pleasure I might take in writing out of me, but I truly enjoyed the exercise.  Still don't want to teach.

On Sunday afternoon, with a slight hangover, I shot doves (or at least shot at them) out on the small track that's left of my late grandfather's farm.  The rest was sold last year.  Not much was flying, but it was a warm, beautiful afternoon.  After the hunt, I went home and wrote for the rest of the evening.

The Pandoodle team is back in town, and we're developing strategies for selling our technology.  Work is good.

2011 Gamecocks

Thus concludes the 2011 Gamecocks football season, and how wonderfully it ended.  Eleven wins in one season, a new record for the fighting gamecocks' football program.  SEC sports have become one of the pleasures of moving back to South Carolina, and I am ready for the baseball season to begin in February.  I have no use for basketball.

Sore as beejesus after starting to workout again.  Ready for the team to return from various holiday destinations so that together we can generate more momentum at Pandoodle.

Hello, 2012

The last four months have been rife with transitions and changes, and while I have not yet documented them, I have decided to write more frequent, shorter posts.  To ring in 2012, I am sharing my New Year's resolutions:

1. Give 'em hell at work
2. Make a pile of money
3. Move into my own place
4. Get into shape

My resolutions have regressed.  Instead of goals lofty or specific, I am now pursuing ends that most twenty-eight year-olds should have already accomplished.

New Year's was a hoot with a karaoke party awash with champagne at Alekapalooza 2012.  Great fun, interesting conversations, and not one glass broken.

In other news, I purchased a new car on Friday.  It's a 2011 VW Golf TDI.  When people ask the dreaded question "Have you ever been in love?", I can now answer, "Yes."  There are no finer modes of transportation than horses, diesel engines, trains, and speed boats.  There is no mode worse than sailing.

Two weeks ago, Pandoodle opened its first office in Columbia in IT-oLogy on the corner of Gervais and Sumter.  We are on the ground floor in an area know as the fishbowl or human aquarium.  Its glass curtain windows separate the long narrow office from the sidewalk, and there is no where to hide from public view, which I enjoy.  It gives provides a mild distraction, which helps me to focus (I do my best work in noisy bars), while offering free advertising for Pandoodle on a busy corner.  I pace from one end of the office to the next while making sales calls, mirroring the pedestrians outside, and from my desk, I have a view of the old oaks and tombstones in the graveyard of Trinity Cathedral.  I recognize the graves and monuments of many of my ancestors, a personal momento mori.  Keeping in mind that death awaits intensifies the sweetness and grief of living; it offers a touchstone and perspective for all priorities.  If the soul is not immortal -- that is, if it doesn't exist as a qualified and individual personality (which is problematic since temporal events can alter personality.  Is one's soul before and after a lobotomy as different as the person?) that survives after the body dies and rots -- then death can bring nothing else but oblivion, an empty peace.  If it the soul does exist, crucial questions such as what form it takes, what it does, its intent, and all sorts of questions that cannot be answered without revelation truthfully thwart further discussion of this topic.  But if there is an afterlife, I hope that it's such a grand disappointing mess as the soul's instance in manflesh.  I hope.

Florence DIY

DIY Florence

The jewel of the Renaissance, Florence, Italy fostered the majority of the philosophers, writers, and artists that shaped early modern Europe, and much of the fabric of the city remains as it was five hundred years ago. Visitors flock to Florence throughout the year to stroll through the medieval, Renaissance, and 19th century churches and palaces of its centro storico, see its cache of Renaissance masterpieces, and enjoy Tuscan cuisine. With one the largest concentrations of tourists and study abroad students, Florence boasts a plethora of sites and activities and maintains a vibrant nightlife. Tourists tend to clog the city during the warmer months, so travel to Florence between late October and late April when the city is much more manageable and enjoyable.


The cost for a four days/three nights DIY Weekend in Florence:
TOTAL COST: €230
HOSTEL: €60 (Three nights at €20 per night)
FOOD: €75
TRANSPORTATION: €10
ENTERTAINMENT: €45
SITES: €40


GETTING THERE

By Plane
Many airlines fly into Florence’s main airport, Petrucci (FLR). To reach Florence’s central train station, Santa Maria Novella, from the airport, you can either take a taxi into the city, which cost €20, or the big, blue SITA bus that departs every twenty minutes or so from the airport, which costs €5. However, most low-cost “budget” airlines fly into nearby cities that are a bus or train ride away.

Transferring to Florence from Other Cities

From Pisa (PSA)
Pisa is your best bet for flying a low-cost airline to Florence. RyanAir, EasyJet, WizzAir, and many others fly into Pisa, and transferring from the airport to Florence’s central train station, Santa Maria Novella, is easy. You can catch a train that runs directly from the airport to Florence. After you purchase a ticket, which costs about €5, validate it by stamping them in a yellow, toaster-sized box at the beginning of a platform and board the train. In an hour and a half you’ll arrive. Check the schedule for the trains that run between Pisa AE and Florence on the TrenItalia website.

You can also reach Florence from the airport at Pisa using Terravision, a private bus company. A ticket costs about €10, a little more than the train, but the buses run earlier in the morning and later at night. The last bus will usually wait for the last RyanAir flight to land before departing, even if that flight is behind schedule. The bus drops you offer at the Santa Maria Novella train station.

From Bologna (BLQ)
RyanAir and EasyJet also fly into Bologna, but transferring to Florence is a bit more complicated. No buses run directly between BLQ and Florence, so you’ll have to take the train. To reach Bologna’s train station from its airport, you’ll need to take the bus marked BOLOGNA STAZIONE CENTRALE. At the station, catch a train to Florence’s central train station, Santa Maria Novella. While trains run regularly between the two cities, they do not run early in the morning and late at night, so schedule your flights accordingly, and as always, don’t forget to validate your ticket before boarding. The trip back is much the same, only take the BLQ bus from Bologna’s train station to its airport. Check the train schedule and prices between Bologna and Florence on the TrenItalia website. On a side note, Bologna is fun university town that is known for its food and cityscape, and it’s worth scheduling time around a flight to explore it.

From Rome (FCO)
After landing in Rome Fiumincino (FCO), take the Leonardo Express to Roma Termini, the eternal city’s main train station. From Termini you can easily catch a train to Florence – a few depart every hour. There are three types of trains you can take: the Regionale, InterCity, and FrecciaRossa. The Regionale takes between three and four hours and costs about €15; the InterCity takes two and a half hours and costs about €30; and the FrecciaRossa takes an hour and a half and costs about €50. Are you richer in time or money?

By Train
You can also reach Florence by train, but unless you are traveling from another city in central or northern Italy, flying will typically save you time and money. You can take the night train, in Italian, the Euronotte, to and from some large European cities including Paris and Vienna, but again flying a low-cost airline will usually be less expensive, even when you factor in not having to pay for a night in a hostel. Although traveling by train may not be as efficient as flying, it offers views of the rolling countryside and hours for studying and daydreaming in comfort. A train journey through the Alps or Southern France may be worth a place on one of your trips’ agendas.


STAYING THERE

There is no lack of hostels in Florence, nor lack of students staying in them who are looking to have a good time. Do your homework on hostelworld.com, hostels.com, or couchsurfing.com to find the right accommodations for you. Better yet, if you know anyone who is living or studying in Florence, ask to crash with them for a few days.


GETTING AROUND

Florence has one of the oldest and best transportation systems in the world: your feet. The city is tiny, and all the major sites are at most a twenty minute walk from one another. There are buses that run through the city and its periphery, and if you decide to ride one, but a ticket a Tabacchi and validate it on the bus. It’s an honor system, and if a transit agent catches bumming a free ride, he will charge you €50 and often demand you pay it on the spot. The naïve American excuse has been so overplayed in Florence and most of Italy that it’s rarely worth trying.

Chianti and Beyond
You can visit the famous countryside and cities just outside of Florence by train, bus, or bike. To reach Siena or any of the smaller towns scattered throughout the Chianti region that lies just south of Florence take a SITA bus, not the train – it takes longer and drops you off outside of town. You can catch a SITA bus at the bus station just southwest of the Santa Maria Novella train station. Tuscany Bike Tours offers, well, bike tours through Tuscany, and if you’d rather have a motor to help you through the hills, join one of the Vespa tours of Chianti that stops at famous castles and vineyards. Lucca, a charming walled hill-town that is an hour and a half train ride west of Florence, makes for an awesome daytrip away from the crowded Florentine streets.


THE SITES

If you are planning to visit four or more of Florence’s museums and gardens, purchase an Amici degli Uffizi card before buying your first ticket. The card will allow you to enter any state museum in Florence gratis, plus you can go straight to the front of the queue. Given that the lines can often stretch for hundreds of meters, this will save you hours of time. For students, the card costs €40. Entrance into most museums cost about €10, so if you will break even with an Amici degli Uffizi card on your fourth museum. The Amici degli Uffizi card will grant you free entrance to all the sites below unless otherwise noted.

• Gli Uffizi

Stendahl central! Get ready to see masterpiece after masterpiece after masterpiece of Renaissance art. Don’t be surprised if you see people crying because of the overwhelming beauty of it all and grimacing because of the slow herds of tourists. Viewers’ commentary is almost as enjoyable as the art.

• San Marco

Cosimo “il Vecchio” de’ Medici, commissioned Michelozzo and Fra Angelico to renovate and decorate this monastery to celebrate the glory of God and the magnificence of the Medici. Not only is San Marco historically significant, but the harmony of its architecture and paintings creates a calm, mystical space.

• Il Bargello

Formerly the first seat of the Signoria, Florence’s ruling body during its years as a republic, the Bargello now serves as a gallery of Renaissance sculpture and material arts. It is one of the most interesting museums in Florence and is rarely crowded. Don’t miss the Renaissance arms and armor collection on the top floor; if it’s closed, the guards will often let you in if you ask politely.

• Palazzo Vecchio

Once the Medici were established as nobility, they moved their residence from the Palazzo Medici down the street to the Palazzo Signoria, the former seat of the Florentine republic, and renamed it the Palazzo Vecchio. They also hired out a team of artists to redecorate the palace, which is now full of important mannerist paintings and frescoes. Don’t miss Eleonora de’ Toledo’s private chapel by Bronzino. The Amici degli Uffizi card does not grant free entrance here.

• Palazzo Pitti and the Boboli Gardens

When the Medici became grand dukes, they moved again, this time across the Arno River to a palazzo that they purchased from the wealthy merchant Luca Pitti. Here, they really went nuts with the renovating and redecorating. Inside you’ll find some spanky apartments awash in velvet, a gilded Baroque gallery oversaturated with masterpieces, and a gallery of modern (in Italy, this means 19th century) art on the top floor. The Boboli Gardens are one of the highlights of the palace. Stretching for acres, these formal Renaissance and Baroque gardens form a pleasant retreat that boasts beautiful walks and sweeping views of the city and countryside.

• Galleria dell’Accademia

The home of the David and his fabulous derrière.

• Il Duomo

Pronounce dwOH-moh, Florence’s cathedral was the largest and most innovative church in the world at the time of its completion, and today it still remains as the heart of the city. Brunelleschi famously designed the cupola, which was the first domed structure built on such a large-scale since antiquity. You can climb either the dome or Giotto’s bell tower that stands just south of the church’s façade. For those of you without an obsession for structural engineering, climb the bell tower; it is not as claustrophobic and crowded as the dome, and it offers equally wonderful vistas of Florence as well as a view of the cupola. While you’re at the duomo, pop into the baptistery to see its breathtaking mosaics from the 11th century, and don’t pass up the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, one of Florence’s hidden gems.

• Churches

The Catholic Church and its followers patronized much art during the Renaissance, and many masterpieces can be found in Florence’s churches, which are often masterworks of architecture in their own right. The best churches to visit are Santa Croce, Santa Maria Novella, Santo Spirito, Santissima Annunziata, and San Lorenzo. These churches also roughly form the boundary of Florence’s centro storico or historical center, and you can use them to quickly orient yourself when exploring. To visit most of these major churches you will have to buy a ticket; the Amici degli Uffizi card does not grant free entrance here.

• Piazzale Michelangelo

Piazzale Michelangelo offers one of the best views of the city and its famous churches and palaces. Pack a picnic, hike up to the piazzale, grab a seat on the western stairs, and catch a sunset over Florence. The best way to get there is by walking up the Via del Monte alle Croci, just south of the city’s southern wall, and taking the wide stairs on your left up to the piazzale.

• Other Sites

There is so much else to see! Check out the Brancacci Chapel, Palazzo Davanzati, Museo Firenze com’era, Fiesole, and the villas and gardens in Florence’s periphery.

FLORENCE EATS

Every region and every city in Italy has its own cuisine, and Florence is no exception.

Local Flavors

• Restaurants: There are four types of restaurants that you will find in Italy: bars, osterie, trattorie, and ristorante. A bar serves panini, plates of pasta, and coffee. N.B.: a single sandwich is a panino, and ordering a latte will get you nothing but a glass of milk. Osterie are vibrant, inexpensive restaurants with noisy atmospheres and simple dishes. You might have to share a table. Trattorie are a step above osterie in terms of food and atmosphere, while ristoranti are even more fancy and expensive.
• Trippa and Lampredotto: Cuts from different sections of a cow’s four stomachs stewed with vegetables and broth. Originally, butchers gave tripe vendors tripe and lampredotto for free, considering it worthless. The vendors then prepared and sold cheap, tripe and lampredotto sandwiches at job sites, which earned them a reputation as working man’s food. Over time, the Florentines perfected the method for preparing and cooking tripe and lampredotto, and now Florentines from all walks enjoy them regularly.
• Ribolita: A think stew of bread, white beans, tomatoes, onions, garlic, and olive oil that is very popular during the colder months. True comfort food.
• Bistecca Fiorentina: The best Italian cuisine uses great ingredients and cooks them without screwing them up. Bistecca fiorentina, or steak Florentine, is no exception. This thick T-bone is quickly seared on both sides, drizzled with olive and salt, and then promptly served al sangue, literally bloody. In a traditional restaurant, if you ask for the steak cooked any other way, they won’t serve you.
• Chianti: Named for the fertile wine country between Florence and Siena, Chianti is delicious red wine made from sangiovese grapes with notes of cherry and fermented grapes. No Italian meal is complete without a glass of wine, and light and palatable, Chianti goes well with nearly any dish. When you cheers, make sure to look everyone in the eyes and tap each glass; never cheers with an empty glass or water.
• Caffè corretto: A shot of espresso with a shot of grappa, brandy, or any liquor of your choice. The Italian equivalent to a Red Bull and vodka at night, or a bloody mary in the morning.

Cheap Eats
Hit the markets. The mercato centrale and mercato Sant’Ambrogio sell fresh food fresh from the field and butcher’s block at inexpensive prices. Buy some ingredients and try your hand at Italian cooking at your hostel. In these markets, you’ll also find trattorie, small restaurants where you can sit and eat traditional fare at a great price. In terms of the quality of the cuisine, these trattorie can compete with many of Florence’s better restaurants.

Money Saving Tips
Avoid tourist traps, which charge a fortune for subpar food, and eat at bars standing up. If you sit down, you will be charged more for food, coffee, or a drink.


SHOPPING

• High-End Shopping

Florence is a fashion capital, and you can find major outlets on Via Calzaioli, Via Tornabuoni, and Via Vigna Nuova, which are all within walking distance of each other.

• Leather

Florence is famous for its leather goods, but you do not have to purchase a posh label to own bags, shoes, and accessories of the highest quality. There are many local stores and craftsmen that create and sell leather products; however, it can be difficult to distinguish between legitimate vendors and ones who take advantage of tourists. Ask your hostel staff or locals to suggest stores that specialize in quality leather goods, and buy Florentine!

• Artisan Shops

Wander through the Oltrarno, the area south of the Arno River near Santo Spirito, to find artisan workshops hidden among winding streets and alleys. You can watch artisans craft iron, wood, paper, glass, and precious metals by hand, and they’ll often give you a lesson about their trade. The items that they create are high quality, relatively inexpensive, and unique. Support local craftsmen – they are dying breed!

• Markets

For all types of food and ingredients and a truly cultural experience, wander through the bustling mercato centrale and the Sant’Ambrogio market, which is a favorite among Florentines. The markets close in around 14:00 and are great places to grab lunch. The outdoor San Lorenzo and Porcellino markets sell leather goods, hats, scarves, clothes, jewelry, and souvenirs all day. Most of the items are medium quality at best. When buying something, always haggle and never break the bank on any one thing.

ENTERTAINMENT & NIGHT LIFE

• Live Music

Check out the Globetrotters’s guide The Best Live Music Nightlife in Florence, Italy.

• Bars and Discotheques

There are plenty of popular nightclubs and discotheques in Florence that offer scenes from classy to trashy. Elegant nightclubs are affected and super expensive, while nightclubs that students frequent can be super sketch. Attenzione!

LANGUAGE

Almost everyone in Florence speaks English, especially younger generations. However, Florentines are proud of their heritage and their language and will appreciate it if you at least try a few cordialities. Here are some to get you started:

Yes: Si.
No: No.
Hello: Ciao serves as both hello and goodbye, but it is not for use in formal situations. Stick with buon giorno (bwOHn jOUr-no) and buona sera (bwOHn-ah sAY-rah), which are more formal than ciao. Good morning is said until about 15:00; afterwards, it’s good evening.
Goodbye: Arrivederci (ahree-veh-dAYr-chee) is the formal version of goodbye.
Please: Per favore (pear fah-VOH-ray).
Thank you: Grazie (grat-SI-ay). Don’t neglect the last syllable, nor give it that horrible valley-girl cadence.
You’re welcome: Prego (prAY-go).
Excuse me: Mi scusi (mi scOO-si) is formal, while scusami (scOO-sah-mEE) is informal.
Hello, beautiful: Ciao, bella!