Arrived in Florence yesterday. Spent the first four days of the trip with Soni's brother, sister-in-law and niece (my niece pretty soon (I'm Jagi Maku :) ). Great people, very fun and relaxed. There are 355 pictures just of them (mostly our niece).

Running into the limits of the camera rather frequently, mostly zoom-related (can't get good shots of the details higher on the buildings), but also capacity (I easily fill up the 512MB card in about 6 hours) and battery life (we generally have to switch to spare batteries around the 7th or 8th hour of frugal use).

Went to the "Hospital of the Innocents" (an orphanage) yesterday, as well as the Cathedral of Florence. Highlight architecturally so far, however, was definitely Milan Cathedral (Duomo). I've read lots of articles that say you can't capture the feel of the building (or any gothic cathedral) properly in photographs... now I understand those articles.

The camera just doesn't let you feel the scale of it. You'd need a fish-eye (or human-eye) to get a feel for it, but that would warp the distance where your eye is drawn. The space truly is awesome. While the Duomo in Florence is huge, impressive, and magnificent, it really just feels like a big building. The Duomo in Milan felt like a forest, an expression of something beyond human kind.

I got up early today intending to pop over and check on the billing run... but missed the 5 hour time difference in my calculations... the billing run happens in 3 hours. Downloading email now (connecting in the hotel around the corner is fast, but there's a rather large backlog).

Today, it turns out, is labour day here. We're still trying to figure out if the article means that everything will be open and just a single Euro for admission, or whether everything will be closed. Want to get in to see Michelangelo's library at Santa Croce (couldn't get in last night). Once Soni wakes up we're going to go "up the hill" as well to see the whole town (and to see the palaces and gardens over there).

Haven't yet got the "product shots" I wanted for the laptop. Tried one in the Hospital of the Innocents, but it needed to be up on a pedestal or have a more funky angle than I could manage in the rain. Would have loved to get a shot against the Milan Cathedral, but like many of the buildings its facade was under restoration.

Email has finished, going to check that now.