Tuscan impression-1999
Unfortunately, my first impression of Tuscany was not good. It was somewhat gray and dull, stale and chaotic. Although I changed my mind after I visited her for the second time.
September, 1999
Meeting
I flew Eva Air to Paris and then transferred to Florence. The airport of Florence was surprisingly small. I took a train to a tiny station nearby Barga. Something more surprising to me was that there was no shop, no cab, and even no man around. I could not find any help. An hour later the train brought a Dutch physicist. We called the hotel Castelvecchio Pascoli to get a taxi. The castle was huge and beautiful. I heard that it had been the summer resort of Benito Mussolini. However, I did not quite appreciate the view of Tuscany countryside, although I learned from the books of Frances Mayes about how she loves this place. Nevertheless, I had a single room with a wonderful bathtub in the hotel. However, I could not sleep well at the first night so that I had a bath in the midnight. Next day my neighbor, Dr. W. Keller, complained to me that he was woken up by noise because his neighbor took a shower early. I wished he did not know I was the one he complained.
During the conference, the participants were arranged to have a trip to Lucca, a preserved old town which attracts a huge number of tourists. Ann Beyer accompanied me and told me some religious stories about the churches that we visited. Honestly speaking, I did not appreciate any of these old churches at all, and had no desire to pay attention to them in detail.
Italian cuisine is famous, but I could not finish one fourth because the amount was too much. One day I was questioned by a waiter whether I do not like their dishes. Besides, I really felt sorry because of wasting food.
Florence
After the meeting I went to Florence. The hotel I stayed was in a 14th-century building, and located very close to the Gallery of Accademia. I went to visit this museum and its original David statue created by Micheangelo. Except for this statue, I could not remember anything I have seen. Till today, I still do not know how to appreciate Italian Renaissance art, exception for only a few pieces of work by Leonardo da Vicin and Raphael. I was also not interested in anything related to religion, so that I did not visit the famous Duomo, Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. Again, I didn’t enjoy much watching Italian religious paintings in the Uffizi gallery. However, no one can miss the famous works of Botticelli, da Vinci, and Raphael. Tizian’s Venus of Urbino reminded me the Olympia by Manet, which is my most loved painting. Olympia expressed a part of spirit from her previous lives. I also went shopping on the streets of Florence but I was not particularly interested in those fancy but unnecessary goods.
Chaos and September 21st
In the third morning I went to the airport of Florence. However, something unfortunate happened. Although the sky was clear and blue, the plane could not fly to Florence to pick up the passengers because of some uncomprehending reasons. The plane finally came and brought some passengers who were supposed to get off at Bologna. All these people accompanied the chaos. Although we finally got to Vienna, my Eva Air had already gone. I sought help from the customs office, which was so bureaucratic. I finally stayed at a hotel near the airport for a sleepless night.
I was almost crazily eager to be home. I could not wait and almost ran to the airport to get the plane to Amsterdam in the morning. There I spent all my time explaining what had happened to me to an Eva Air Lines’ officer, who was an English lady. Finally, I was asked to buy a new one-way ticket to Taipei, which cost terribly high. The worst was that two of my credit cards didn’t work. In the last minute I thought of another card in my suitcase which finally saved me. I used the coupons to upgrade to the business class. I was treated nicely later on. The instructor of the cabinet came to listen to my complaint. Although, I felt very unhappy for this trip, the business class service compensated me bit. The airplane landed at Dubai, the capital of United Arab Emirates, a strange place to me. I got back at home on September 20th. At the midnight, we were all awakened from sleep by the earthquake and witnessed a tragedy of Taiwan. We experienced the days without water and electricity. I had to bring the bottles to get water dispended from the city government, which never happened to me before. All of those cannot be swept away from my mind.
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