Mom pushed for this trip. Italy has always held a special place in her heart, much like New Zealand does for me and RBD. Her and my father lived in Florence together before moving to Orlando in the early 1970s. She actually met him in the leather market near the Duomo. He sold gloves, she a tourist between stops. He had an accent, and the rest is history.  

I practically grew up Italian. We ate Italian food frequently, my parents spoke Italian to each other, which encouraged me to learn it (so I could understand what they were talking about), my parents had Italian friends, and many social customs I grew up with (like consuming alcohol) were decidedly European.  

I’ve been to Italy twice before. My first trip occurred in 1992. I was in 8th grade. The next trip occurred 9 years later for college credit. A required course, History of Drama and Theater), or HODAT, took us up the boot of Italy studying ancient theaters. It turned out to be an auspicious trip because I met a woman during it. Many years later, she would agree to marry me.  

Mom and I depart JFK tonight. RBD joins us Wednesday. I sit here in the Korean Airlines Lounge, which is surprisingly crowded with non-Koreans. Budweiser cans fill every table, the place resembles a frat house the day after. Bottles of Bacardi and Remy sit on the counter, asking to be heavily poured since nobody is supervising them. The rum will pair nicely with the Xanax I take on International flights to help me sleep. I am only moderately concerned my heart will stop. We arrive in Florence in roughly 12 hours. 

Thank you all for volunteering to come along. Every day I’ll send pictures and a blurb. At the end of the trip, let me know which picture you’d like to keep and I’ll send you a high resolution version of it … suitable for printing and framing. To help me take beautiful pictures, I rented a 50 megapixel, medium format Fuji camera. I’ll be able to capture 16-bit color in a much larger dynamic range than my usual Canon DSLR. (Really this just means expensive.) Plus, that many pixels means very fine detail. I am excited to try out the gear, usually used by pros shooting ads which adorn the sides of entire buildings. 

We depart in 90 minutes.