Firenze

 The Duomo is probably my favorite building there. We climbed all the through the dome right up to the look out platform at the top. From there you have a pretty great view of the city.

 Here is the view from the top.

 Leonardo

 Santa Croce. We sat and spent some time sketching the church.

All the one way street signs got spiced up a bit with a little pictures. I thought they were pretty clever. By the looks of things they were printed on and not vandalized.

5 Reasons Why I Love My Kindle

Earlier on this year my brother and I decided that it was time to purchase an electronic reader. There are several different ones on the market, but since I am already an avid Amazon fan, I decided that it was going to have to be the Kindle. Now after using it for several months I want to list 5 reasons why I love my Kindle so much.

1. Battery Life: So I have already been reading books electronically for several years. First I used a Palm TungstenE and later an Ipod Touch. They are both great but they lack the Kindle's battery life. According to Amazon.com the battery should last for about a month. What I have discovered (and this is hard to measure since my usage was continual and not continuous) that using it several hours every day will give you about 2 weeks of reading. This is pretty awesome compared to the 3-5 hours that my previous devices had.

2. E-ink: The Kindle has a special screen that uses a system called E-ink. The goal is to make the screen look like actual paper. And the amazing thing is that it actually does look like printed ink on paper. I put a protective covering on the screen which makes it ever so slightly glossy, but does not impede on my reading at all. Also it is not backlit, like most electronic devices and so this is better for your eyes. Another advantage, you can read outside in the sunlight without your screen reflecting.

3. It's light: When reading I really like to hold my books in one hand (mainly so I can hold food in the other). Only 8.7 ounces, it weighs less than most books. It can be comfortably held in one hand for hours at a time (I cannot be stopped once I start on a good book).

4. Free Books: The website www.gutenberg.org offers over 36,000 free books in different electronic formats. These are books that are older and therefore are not subject to the same copyright laws anymore. Some nice people got together and decided that everyone should have access to these books for free and so project gutenberg was born.

5. Storage: It was always a family joke to see us packing for a trip. Every member of the family would take several books with them. Paperbacks do not weigh that much, but when you are taking ten with you it can add up. A Kindle also solves this problem. You can take hundreds and hundreds of books with you and your suitcase does not get any heavier. So, for someone who likes traveling and reading, this is an ideal combination.

Kimonos compared to Dirndls and Aquabats: Why bats need a drink too

During our stay in Japan we got to visit a Japanese bathhouse (Onsen). At the beginning a clerk gives you a bathrobe (Yakuta) which you put on and enter the Onsen. Quite unexpectedly you enter a Japanese Disneyland. Everyone is wandering around in Yakutas and there are stands selling everything from food to tourist trinkets. The food was a little overpriced but the barley tea was free. The entire experience was pretty great, although it was definitely geared towards tourists, both Japanese and foreign. That raises the question as to when you become a tourist. Are you a tourist in your own country, your own city? I would love to hear your thoughts.
A few days after going to the Onsen, Fred and I were in store looking for Yakutas. As you can see on the picture, they are pretty great looking and I thought it might be worth investing in one. We began looking around the store only to discover that they are pretty pricey, until we suddenly found some that were a lot cheaper. We started looking through them to see if we could find the right sizes, when a lady working in the store waled up to us and said: "Those are lady kimonos." We must have looked pretty foolish for our inablility to tell the difference and so we moved on quite embarrassed. Fred joked that had we been in Austria or Bayern, the equivalent would have been us looking at a Dirndl. I guess there is a lot to learn about other cultures.

 To the Aquabats. Yes, they are a band and I think I discovered how they came up with that name. Last night Fred and I were in the pool and the sun disappeared beyond the hills on the horizon. As night fell the bats came out of their hiding places to grace us with their presence. Suddenly the bats came swooping down and would glide above the water while sipping up a drink. Maybe not the easieset way to get a drink, but its the bats only chance to drink something without drowning. We felt a lot like batman as all the bats flew around us skimming over the water. We will try and get a picture. Wish us luck.