Counting Years Passed

It's a small midnight party involving fruits and cakes. Thank you everyone for coming!

Pick Your Apple

An apple a day keeps the doctor away, that's a slogan people used to keep you eat your share of fruits. And anyway, apples are common and inexpensive.

These apples, however, are different. I took a snap of them at the Swarovski Kristallwelten (Crystal Worlds) in Innsbruck, Austria. They sell high class stuff, many with 3- 4 digits price and there I was wondering which things I could get as souvenir.

Perhaps now I should start taking oranges instead.

Lucca: Behind The City Walls

Italy has been divided into small villages for a long time. During medieval times wars between villages are not uncommon. For this purpose some of them have walls built around.

Lucca is an example of such village ( or city now as the population increases). They were once at war with Pisa. Compared to Pisa, the walls around Lucca is more well preserved.

Within the city stood some watchtowers. Too bad we did not make it before the closing time to climb one of those. The city itself look similar to the other Italian cities. But having these walls around sure has added to the sense of being in medieval times.

Pisa: The Leaning Tower

Pisa is probably more famous and become tourist destination because of the leaning tower.

The tower is supposed to be a bell tower for the city cathedral. We were able to get on top of the tower through a spiral staircase within, for a limited time of half an hour only and saw the nice scenery from there.

Would it be better that the tower was straight instead of leaning? I thought of that, and see if I could push the tower back to normal. But then on second thought, the world already had so many straight towers. Let this one be lean then. So I stopped pushing.

But apart from the tower, the city of Pisa is really a small peaceful city in the middle of Italy.
Clear sky. Green grass. Vast view. Those things relaxes the mind.

Florence (2):Da Vinci

Among the most famous in Florence is the Gallery Uffizi. It has large collections of paintings and sculpture made by Italian artists.

Unfortunately, I'm not a really big fan of art.

First half an hour: 'wow cool' ( stood one minute and observe)
Next hour: 'err. . did I see this painting before somewhere?'
Remaining hours: 'I guess we've seen enough art for the week'

One of the most interesting section there was for Leonardo Da Vinci's works. Prior to coming here I thought of him as just a painter. How I was wrong. He was also a sculptor and scientist at that time. There were physics experiments, mathematical conjecture, architectural designs and even dissections of human body conducted by him. A man of wide interest.

Another interesting place in Florence is the Old Bridge ( Ponte Vecchio). A short bridge with houses built on top ( mostly shops) and one of the main tourist attraction.

Snowfall

So finally, right the next day after I complain for the warm winter, snow fell near my apartment. And I thought to myself, "here comes winter".

The snow was thin. Almost feel like raining except that I could catch the falling snow. Roads were covered in thin layers of ice, making it slippery. Much of the snow in the road has been removed when I went out though. The normal sorroundings with snow looked somewhat beautiful white.

But it seems that I expected too much. The snow fell only that fateful day. There has been no more hint of snow since. It rained but not snow. Perhaps it's already spring now. One month early.

Warm Winter

It was a beautiful day. The sky was clear. The sun was shining brightly. A bit warm. Green trees. Fresh atmosphere. Still there was something amiss . . well what was it . .

Oh, it's supposed to be midst of winter now . . well aren't winter supposed to be freezing?
And yes where is the snow? Some of the days there are a glimpse of snow on the mountain summit, and that's all. Just when I thought I had a chance of playing with some snow. Well, fat hope that was.

People blame it on global warming. But winter throughout europe this year would be one of the warmest in several hundred years. I once asked my Italian flatmate:

me:Is the warm winter a good thing?
Tommasso: Of course not
me: why? it's not so much cold now
Tommasso: Many reasons, people cannot ski, that's one
Then the bears do not go to sleep. Bugs that's supposed to be dead are still alive.
Nature's balance are affected.
me: (nod) ic . .

Well the only thing I miss from this winter was the snow. The ideas of whether bears get much sleep or not does not appeal much to me. Yeah, people tend to be selfish.

Hope the winter will get colder these days.