Pasta, wine, joy.

At sunset I stood on the Ponte Vecchio. I stood and I looked out onto the river and to Florence and to the burnt sugar sky. I started to smile and cry at the same time. I felt such a wave of pure joy in that moment. Joy of standing on this most ancient and spectacular bridge. Joy that I have worked SO HARD to get to this moment. Joy at finally feeling happy to be living life. Joy for what tomorrow may bring. Joy for pasta. Joy for being ever so slightly overwhelmed by this most unreal city.

I truly feel like I have stepped back in time. There are too many thoughts, exclamations, wonders whizzing around my head. I wonder if this is what it’s like to awaken from a coma, an assault on the senses in the most juicy, sexy, delicious way. One feels the urge to ask questions about the architecture and history almost before the last has been uttered. And then you smell something ridiculously tasty and need to know the origin just before something else catches your attention and you’re off once more, tripping along those smooth stone slabs beneath your eager feet. I already feel I’ve run out of time in beautiful Florence even though this trip is to last five whole wondrous weeks. There are students milling, posing, pouting. Fathers and young children, groups of older Italian women gossiping and talking over one another, desperate to have the most shocking news to tell. One man watches me, I think with slight concern, I catch his eye and grin, his face softening into a smile in return. The shops on the bridge are beginning to shut. Everyone is taking a photo of that burnt sugar sky. Somewhere someone has just finished a song and their little crowd claps in cheery appreciation. There are bicycles swerving, their riders cool and unruffled with the possible disastrous collisions. Ice creams are being spooned into happy mouths. Groups sit on the still warm walls along the river eating hot pastries and laughing into the setting sun. There is a girl reading her book in a nook along the wall. I turn and head in search of the perfect bowl of pasta.