Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Getting Back into the Groove

I seem to have lost my blogging Mojo.  I'm having trouble thinking of what to say, and the ideas I do come up with don't seem worthy.  So, I've decided to post whatever comes to mind, in an effort to post more often and hopefully get back into the groove.

I didn't see many dogs in Italy.  From what I've heard, it's not all that common for people there to have them as pets; although it is becoming more popular.  Luckily, I didn't see many strays there either.  So, I was surprised to come upon two loose(ish) dogs in Florence.  I zeroed in right away on two labs who had been leashed together, as soon as we walked into the piazza.

They looked well fed, but there were no tags, and no apparent owner nearby.  I stopped and looked for quite a while, but I seemed to be the only one who showed any interest in them.  That upset me.  I'm the type of person to stops for loose dogs, looks for tags and tries to get them home; but there wasn't much I could do in Italy.  Even if I did know who to call, I didn't speak the language.    But, who would tie two dogs together and then abandon them???

I hesitantly left the dogs behind, and went with Ginny to get our gelato.  As we sat there having our treat, I looked across the piazza and saw the most wonderful thing... a group of apparent travellers and their dogs.  The labs very clearly belonged with them.   One lady in particular seemed to be their owner.  I don't know where she'd been, but she was back, and she clearly loved them.

At first I just watched, but when I saw the yellow lab jump up on the bench and slurp her from chin to forehead, then curl up in a ball beside her, I got out my telephoto lens and took some shots as I found spaces between the crowds.  None of these resonate with the pure devotion that I saw that day, but they do give a hint.





And this guy has his own suitcase, which he jumped into as soon as it was opened.

Funny - I didn't notice the graffiti at the time.  If I did, I didn't remember it.  I must have been too busy looking up and around at the amazing architecture.


And one final picture, which Ginny took...

It may not be apparently in this photo, but we were impressed with the serving sizes over there.    You pretty much got two scoops, whether you wanted them or not... we eventually stopped fighting it.  But, those bowls, which were fairly ubiquitous, were about 1/2 a cup in size, and were never packed full.  The scoops were each about half the size of what we'd expect if we bought an ice cream around here, but they were more than enough.  That might be yet another reason why we rarely, if ever, came upon an overweight Italian.

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