Zumba anyone?

This was the shortest flight to Europe I've ever been on. After flying to Chicago, I boarded my 9 hour flight to Rome and settled in for the long night of uncomfortable travel. About an hour into the trip I took a full-strength Ambien and, to my complete surprise, when I woke up the pilot came over the intercom to announce we were 55 minutes away from landing. Thanks to the miracle of science I slept the entire flight, but eerily, I have no memory or sense of the time I was out.

When I woke up all I could think about was the Senator Kennedy Ambien Scandal. If he was driving his car under the influence of Ambien, there's no telling what I could have been doing. I have these awful images of me running up and down the aisles of the plane doing Zumba booty-shaking moves! Let's just hope my seatbelt keep me strapped in.

Florence, of course, is beautiful. But where did all the tourist come from? Don't they know we're in a global recession and they should be at home on a "staycation"?

For my first day I hadn't planned on seeing any of the major sites, I just wanted Todd to take me around the city so I could get my bearings. But it seems in Florence you can't cross a street with out running into a major piece of sculpture or architecture. So today I saw the Ghilberti and Donatello statues at the Orasanmichele. One represents the pre-Renaissance way of doing sculpture, the other is a revolutionary advancement in art and was the inspiration for all future Renaissance sculptures. Can you tell the difference?

Yeah, me neither.