wow. hello. it's been a long time. the duties of running around with little children all day and then sitting on my butt in front of my couch every evening watching "bring it on" and survivor have lured me away from the chore of formatting all my pictures and putting them online. but i've taken some fun ones lately, so on this beautiful spring day, i'm sitting inside, working the adobe photoshop 6.0. all for your benefit. these pictures start a while back, in early february, and start off with skiing in interlaken, switzerland and my four days in florence. enjoy!

this is where i would like to live someday, thank you very much. up in the mountains of switzerland. of course, it would help if i could actually ski. unfortunately, as tommy and julie had to deal with, i cannot. i think i was the only person on the slopes that fell and had to literally inch down slopes out of fear for my life; everyone else, from ages 5-95, was basically a professional skier and whizzed past me, laughing their european laughs.

some more beautiful interlaken mountains. taking the half-hour gondola ride up to the slopes was like entering a true winter/fairy/wonder land. totally, totally amazing and unreal.

i would put up more pictures of interlaken, but the skiing experience was basically traumatic. so i'm making a conscious choice to repress it. onwards to a much more enjoyable venue -- florence, italy, in my opinion, the best, most wonderful, most beautiful, most perfect city in the world! and they say i tend to exaggerate...unforunately, my pictures of florence are also somewhat limited, because many of the most stunning things, such as the artwork and inside of buildings, were not photographable. like david (this statue completely blew me away, as did everything else's of michelangelo's that i saw) or the fra angelico frescoes in san marco's. oh well. you'll have to do with my crappy shots instead.

this is unfortunately somewhat dark, but it's the view of the san lorenzo dome from the apartment where i stayed. i completely lucked out for florence accomodations; one of my grandmother's good friends (whose late husband was consulate general in florence about 30 years ago) let me stay in her apartment. it was basically the best place ever. one minute away from the duomo, on the third floor of an old palazzo that was right across from the medici's first palazzo. stunning views, great light, and she was the nicest lady in the world and basically fed me every moment of the day. not a bad life.

this is the inside of the famous baptistry in florence, which is right across from the duomo. it has the doors of paradise -- those bronze paneled doors created by ghiberti. the inside was beautiful -- the building is octagonally shaped and the ceiling is completely paneled in gold-burnished paintings.

these are the long steps leading up to piazzale michelangelo, about a 15 minute walk past the arno, and a place that offers this view of florence. wait for it...

nice, eh?

and look! a tiny couple is getting married.

this is the view opposite the florence side. it's some nice tuscan hills. mmm tuscany. i love you.

this is kind of a neat thing. one night, when i was talking with mrs. gordon (whom i stayed with) she told me that on one stone of the palazzo vecchio, there was a vague carving of a face. apparently, it was done by michelangelo, on a bet. that he couldn't carve a believable face on a stone. with his hands tied behind his back. but look! he could. michelangelo's stuff was so incredible... i mean i've vaguely studied renaissance art history and seen slides, but seeing his sculptures in person was indescribable.

okay! that's the end of this one. in the interest of those who don't have kickass internet connections, i'm splitting my pictures up into two pages so they'll load easier. move on to the next one...my travles to ivrea (aka hell), pisa, lucca and via reggio.