So yesterday T and I woke up early and went for a run. We ran away from the buildings, down the Arno, where cobblestone turned to dirt path and I felt like I was back in Santa Barbara, running on the bluffs. It felt wonderful to have the air pumping in and out of my lungs so quickly, to be sweating, to be in touch with my body after days and days and days where walking, dodging people and getting swept up in the currents of them, were my only excerise. There were flowers, little white ones and little purple ones, all along the way. There were also these seeds-- those kind from blow flowers-- white and floating about like atoms. I mean, really, there were so many of them and they were everywhere. Piles of these seeds could be mistaken for snow, the way they collected upon the Arno, the trees, the old men in tiny shorts sunning themselves. They (the seeds, not the old men) danced around in the air infront of us, swirling like a visualizer, pulsing/siwrling/vibing to the music of my Ipod (THANKS JARED! love the CDs!)

We met Ian again with some more euro store wine, although he had his own wine. Getting up to the piazza, which overlooks Florence (!) was beautiful but it was challenging, especially since my legs were tired from the run and stairs we had to climb were many. It was also, as would be expected, totally worth it.

Drinking wine with T and Ian, I took a bunch of pictures, especially of the tiny little Florentine buildings below. I thought of Florence, then, as a city made for dolls, and the gigantic David in the middle of the Piazza as their god or something. Ian told us some more about his poems, his life, and his travels. He's been, really, everywhere.
"Do Europe later in life," he told us, "Asia first, when you are young." If you get sick in Europe, you're alright. If you get sick in Asia...it's much better to be young and resilient. More of Ian's adventures have been catalouged forever in my brain, but I don't have enough internet to share.

When we asked him if he had plans for later, he responded: " No, no. I don't have plans anymore. I used to make plans all the time, always had a plan. I had this pocket watch on me all the time (sold it later), but I realized one day: you wake up, at some point you'll have a shit, and then one day, you'll die. Why make so many plans? I stopped doing that, completely. It took me a long time but now I'm doing just exactly what I want to do...live and write. I hang out with Toad. It's nice..."

Some of his cooler stories that day were about the time he spent making goat cheese on a commune in France. There, in the commune, also grew mushrooms. Everyday there would be a bowl of tabbacco out and a bowl of pot, up for grabs for anyone, whenever they'd like some. He said somedays he's work and work very hard and his mates would tell him "hey, Ian, come relax, don't work so hard," and he's say no, no m, he wanted to work. But other days he's just lay in the meadow, smoking a joint. Ian gave me the number to this commune and a little spiel to tell the people, to see if I could work/ live there for a little while if I decide to go to France. I'd have to extend my Eurorail pass and I'm not sure how expensive that is, but it's nice to have options, especially adventurous ones.

Ian brought us flowers he picked from somewhere nearby before we left, and T and I, buzzed from the wine, smelled them the whole stroll back to the best, doughiest pizza I've ever had.

**note: Most of the drug references found so far I've made because I picked up Leary (and others') book: The Psychedelic Experience at a bookstore here. I'm reading it because it's a known text, it has a pretty cover, and it's interesting in a weird way. It translated the Tibetan Book of the Dead into psychedelic terms. I've never done LSD and think, after reading some of it already, the enlightenment (which is the goal of the Tibetan Buddhists and the psychedelic movement, theoretically) doesn't have to be reached through chemical means. I'm pretty sure Leary didn't think so either, since meditation and yoga seem to have the same effect on one's ego and he knew this, but he did promote LSD as a "fast track," which it might very well be. The fast way, however, may not be as beneficial. Or it may, as I said, I don't know. I do keep thinking about this total burnout I met at my friend's birthday party in Isla Vista, though. He (the burnout) had taken so much acid and things he couldn't communicate or function very well in society. In the middle of a living room filled with people dancing, moving to the fast paced music coming from the speakers, was this guy, contorted into a backbend-ish yoga pose, perhaps experiencing something awesome, but definitely not experiencing the reality of the rest of the party...

Anyway, after reading more of the Psychedelic Experience and finishing Kafka's Metamorphosis last night, I had a series of nightmares that kept me up most of the night. So, if I can't find Kerouac's Dharma Bums (which I hope I find before getting on a train to Berlin), I think I won't read anything else but history for the rest of this trip. And whatta trip it's been...