February 6, 2009

rode Nadia's bike to the market at Piazza Ghiberti. I bought a sweater that was supposed to be ten euro. As I was paying, the man started talking to me about where I was from. He didn't know very much English, so I had a hard time figuring out what he was asking me some of the time, but he seemed excited to talk to someone from the states and at the end of our conversation he gave me a euro back to go get myself a caffe. I don't like coffee so I didn't buy the caffe, but I thought it was really nice of the man to give me a discount especially knowing that I'm a tourist.
rode around a little more. Riding a bike through the city is kind of fun, but it's SCARY. People, cars, bikes, and vespas are absolutely everywhere so you have to be able to swerve all over the place. I was glad her seat is fairly low because there were many times I had to stop and put my feet down to avoid running into people. Only the really main streets have real sidewalks; all the rest just have tiny little strips about two feet wide, so most of the time I had to bike in the street. Bikes and vespas usually zigzag all over the street in between the cars, but there doesn't seem to be any sort of consensus of which side of the street you should be on to make a turn, so that's confusing. I'm definitely glad I won't be driving a car or vespa around here.