Reflections
So today wasn't a particularily good day. Got some terrible news and I'm struggling with it.

Then tonight I was going through my old email and came along a very old one. It made me laugh. Seems so long ago but I can recall the trip quite well after reading this and so for memory sake, I'm posting the old email here. A laugh is always good.

Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2000 13:56:50 -0700 (PDT)

"Well, Mcleod and I are officially in Firenze (Florence for you uneducated...just kidding!). And so you know, NORMAL KEYBOARD!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don't have a lot of time though, this stupid place closes in 20 minutes.

Anyway, train to Italy went very smoothly. Seems we always have problems coming into to France, never leaving. First class on these babies! For the record, Milan may be the capital of the world... but it is sure one boring city. So little to do, we actually caught up on a lot of sleep there. We were there for 3 days, counting day of arrival and spent one of those in Venice. Ah, Venice. Beautiful indeed. Actually arrived during the Regatta so have to also mention, Millions of people there this weekend. It was like being in a mob you just couldn't escape from. But so much to see and so not like Milan, just loved it.

Been here in Florence for about 10 hours now and have to say, gonna like it here. Haven't seen anything in particular and already love it. Walked around all day, seeing the stores (ie: buying stuff) and hanging with the locals that are super friendly. Went out tonight to shoot some night shots, and it was like walking down a huge movie set. Nothing seems real but looks so amazing. Hard to describe.

Earlier found a street market and Mcleod was in heaven finding all these t-shirts he'd been searching for. Heard some rumbles, looked at the sky: totally clear.

Heard more, looked around, nothing. Heard more and more, ignored it. Then at some point started to hear it get louder, saw clouds (dark suckers) and knew that we were screwed. Whistled at Mike (our signal that we're stopping/see something or changing direction) and told him that maybe we should go eat. He ain't hungry but I'm like it's going to rain soon. He looks around and shrugs, naw... So I'm kinda arguing, kinda trying to convince him that it's going to get wet soon and then he hears people yelling so we both look behind him and there's all these tent people (for lack of a better word) running up ladders and putting up tarps. He just looks at me and smiles. Then.... within seconds, shall we say the heavens opened up and God dumped buckets on our heads. No little drops, no sudden streams of rain. NOOOOO!!!! Gotta have a bucket. So as we're laughing and running under tarps people are trying to sell us umbrellas. By this time there is no point and we are just soaked. So we had some pizza and waited most of it out. When it calmed down, we shopped some more. Hey, we're from Vancouver and it's only water. Good thing I brought the jacket though because it's cold tonight. Looks like tomorrow will be sunny again. It was beautiful when we arrived so I expect that tomorrow will be the same. Hope so, acutally left the camera at the hotel earlier when this all happened. No soaked shots I'm afraid.

Well, should go or I'll run out of time to send this. Hate to type all this and the damn time run out (you prepay for these computers and if your time runs out
it just kicks you off). So hello to everyone for me.

Don't think I'll be emailing again as Rome is going to be busy. I'm back in less than a week. How sad is that? Wish I was here for a little bit longer... even though some of you are dying for me to get back... Or are you all just saying that? :)

Ciao!!!!"