A fellow Backroad-ian (and Canadian!) girlfriend of mine, Caitlin, and I decided to meet last weekend. We googled a map, we said... what is half way between Chamonix and San Giovanni Valdarno? Answer: Genova.

My answer to the question: "What is Genova like?" would be something along the lines of: "have you been to Winnipeg?"- NOT that I am discounting Winnipeg as a lovely city for its own purposes, but it is a little... industrial? run down in places? cold? The picture above was taken at the port area (the nicest of Genova). Caitlin and I picked up a tour guide entitled "Best of Genova"... and then we did the entire '2-3 days to see Genova' in 5 1/2 hours. Awesome. Most of the city smells like rotting fish. Also awesome.
There was a little place full of pleasure crafts... I thought of my father. Sailor father! Although I can think of some other nicer places for Dad and Mom to have their future boat. Like Cannes? Much nicer M and D. Much nicer.
The girls of the weekend! We couldn't interpret some of the signs (despite my *fantastic* Italian) so it became the running joke of the weekend..."I think this is an important statue/building/street..."
I ordered cheese in Italian. Sweet. Notice the hanging meat. I love Europe.

Rice balls!
Deep fried rice and cheese in a ball? Culinary heaven on earth.

Our luggage at the train station Sunday afternoon. We were just a little bit of a gong show. The far right hand bag is my awesome new Timbuk 2 bag. I picked the (non-matching) colors and everything!

So the moral of the weekend is:
Winnipeg is a nice place to visit for a short period of time. And so is Genova. You might even discover deep fried rice balls.

The sun is coming in the window at the villa in San Giovanni. Morgan is cooking brunch and we're going to Florence (Firenze- the local lingo) for the day- today is Italian Independence Day so we are wondering what festivities we might find. We shall see.

h2 xo