Florence was a lesson in patience. Despite all our planning, we accidentally got on the slow train from Roma Termini to Firenze S.M.N. We got on a train labelled "express", but go figure, apparently things labeled "express" or "direct" are in fact not express or direct - they stop at every little town along the way. So, the alleged 2 hour trip to Florence was actually more like 4 hours. Once we go to Florence, we decided to get in line at the Ufizi Museum. We didn't have reservations, so we just had to wait in line. The line took about 3 hours to get through. In the process, we met a nice couple from N.Y.C., chatted it up for a while, sent the dude from the N.Y.C. couple to get some beers, and then drank. Once we got in, we saw about a million paintings of Kate Blanchett. Just kidding. The art was quite impressive - we saw the Birth of Venus among other things. I can't think of any of the names of the other paintings, but they were very, very beautiful. I never considered myself a fan of Renaissance art before, but this museum has made me change my mind.
After the museum, we had dinner in a nearby plaza. By coincidence, we sat right next to some people that had been in the Ufizi line with us. Then, we had some gelato - very tasty. Then, by much, much, MUCH greater freakish coincidence, I was stopped in the street by Mark Stover! !! !!!!!!!!! ! !! I was just walking down the street with the sun in my eyes, eating gelato with Andrea and this dude walked right up to me and put his hand on my shoulder. At first I thought it was someone trying to sell me something, but they usually don't physically touch you. Andrea thought it was a pickpocket, because she's paranoid. But it was Mark - my ex-coworker at Winternals! Insane. Earlier in the week I had chatted with Anthony (another ex-coworker), and Anthony had said I should try to get in touch with Mark because he was somewhere in Europe, but he thought he was Ampsterdam or something. We weren't heading that direction, so I didn't bother... But apparently Mark had decided to go to Rome and then Florence and then somehow he just bumped into us on the street in Florence! Amazing! Ridiculous! We chatted for a little bit and decided to hang out tomorrow. The rest of the way home I just kept laughing to myself at how amazing it was that I randomly ran into someone I knew in the streets of Florence...
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