With the help of the Babel Fish translator I managed to work up enough nerve to make a few semi-intelligent button choices on the washing machine. I am still in the dark about the button with a picture of the sun behind a cloud and then there is the 800-400 button. A little mystery is always good in ones life. The machine is now locked and loaded. I pushed the “picture of the key.” Yes, the key confused me for a while. But what do use to “start” a car but a key. Maybe the manufacturer of this ARISTON front-loader also makes cars.
It immediately started making grinding noises then started turning. Turning slowly. Very, very slowly. It also seems to prefer turning counter-clockwise twice as often as clockwise. Could counter-clockwise wash better? And might I add that there seems to be less water in the machine than in the air, on a humid afternoon in Las Vegas. Slowly it turns, back and forth 30, 40 no 60 minutes. (I didn’t even push the super wash cycle). A coal miners clothes can’t be that dirty. It washed so long I worried it might never end but finally I heard the drain gurgle (my only indication as there is no visible level of water in this machine). Well, the little sucker has been saving its energy for the spin cycle. The dynamo at Niagara Falls doesn’t have anything on the Ariston. Then we have no less than 60 minutes of rinse cycles. Fortunately I started this four-load process at eight in the morning.
There is no dryer. Laundry here is strictly Florentine style, that is, out the window on those creaky pulley contraptions that you see in the early 1900’s in the Brooklyn; except my lines don’t have the pulleys. Remember I am four floors up, over strolling tourists and the occasional accordion player visiting the restaurant down below. I am extremely concerned I will drop something. The weight of a wet queen-sized duvet cover is probably enough to dislocate some Romanian retiree’s neck or at least spoil the over-sprayed over-teased hair of some blue-haired Arkansas housewife on her second honeymoon. Then there would be the embarrassment I have to go through running down to fetch the garishly printed IKEA sheets I have been forced to sleep on. At least they are cotton.
Fortunately I had the presence of mind to shake everything out before hanging. You know. Socks always lodge themselves in the corners of fitted sheets. Everything is hung outside, inside on hangers or draped on the drying rack provided by the landlord. The place looks like “Larry Lee’s We Wash It” in here.
I took a walk. It was still the time of the boat-people (cruise line) tourists so I went off track. There was a wonderful base and vibes (xylophone) duo in the San Croce square so I spent time there listening and photographing the fresco details on the upper building walls. They are in remarkably good condition considering their age. It was five when I headed back home. I stopped near the Palazzo Vecchio because there was a war demonstration that had attracted a crowd. However, there was an unmistakable absence of people waiting in line at the Palazzo Vecchio. I took a chance and went in. Except for a few couples and a small gaggle of students it was free and clear. As I went in I realized why. This is the City Hall of Florence and there was a ceremony presenting trophies that afternoon. The place was closed until just before I arrived. The main attraction for me was the Sala dei Comqiecentro (Room of the Five Hundred), named after the 500-member people’s assembly that met there. “Fodor’s” calls it “almost grotesquely huge.” All the immense ceiling decoration was done in just two years.
Oh, yes. Remember about a thousand words ago or so? Well, I mentioned an abstract installation in the Museo del Bargello that was giving a counterpoint to all the antiquities. I liked it. The Palazzo Vecchio decided to do the same. The artist who provided the “counterpoint” here is the artist Georges Adeagbo, a Venice Biennial winner (who cares). He had used newspapers and empty beer bottles (among other things) around the beautiful belongings of the Medici. Any place he had strewn his “installation” looked like a horde of drunken frat boys from UCLA had camped out for the evening. The art world gone amuck!
Throughout the building I noticed that the ceilings are all magnificently done. Some of lesser significance than others but all impressive. However, everything below (except for a few exceptions) is all rather plain and straightforward. Only about three rooms had floors that I would consider interesting. The rest looked like they came out of a San Fernando tract home. As with much of Florence the beauty is available to those who can bend their head back for lengthy periods. I need a massage.
Pictures for tonight: under eaves frescos in the Piazza Santa Croce, musical combo in the same piazza, (the following all hand-held with no flash) Palazzo Vecchio room of the 500, ceiling detail from the same room and a ceiling detail from another room.
