I apologized to a shopkeeper today for a minor hassle. He hadn't any English, so we were muddling along with my terrible phrasebook Italian. He seemed to get my meaning, but I was suddenly overwhelmed with the possibility that what I had said was not, "I'm sorry," but rather, "I'm slow."

On her honeymoon, my mother, mistaking casado (married) with cansado, told everyone happily that she had been tired for three days. With languages mixing in my mind, I thought of despacio (slowly, in Spanish) and wondered whether "Mi dispiace" actually meant "I'm slow." So far, the online dictionaries haven't a clue what I'm trying to say, but I prefer to think it wasn't "I'm slow" (although frankly I wouldn't have blamed him for nodding at that).

Anyway.

Siena is quiet at 2:30 am. I'm in the library in the hotel, which was once a palace of some sort, sitting at an unbelievably uncomfortable desk and trying to type myself to sleep. So far, the only parts of me going to sleep are my feet, because the edge of the chair is cutting off my circulation. But I'm drowsier than I was when I reluctantly turned the lights back on and came downstairs in search of a computer.

We're only here for the night. Tomorrow, we'll take a train to Chiusi, change trains, and head to Rome. I've wanted to see Rome since I was eleven or twelve years old, but leaving Tuscany will be harder than I expected.

Tuscany is all earth tones, sand and stone and clay, with mountainous terrain, endless rows of grape vines and olive trees in perfect symmetry, towns which have barely changed from their origin in 1100 or 1400, original iron rings for hitching horses still set in the sides of the buildings.

We left Firenze in the morning with a friendly driver who answered all of our questions and took us to Siena by way of San Gimignano (this picture was taken from approximately where we had lunch). San Gimignano is ten kinds of wonderful, and so is Siena. More on them later, of course.

Now, I think, I should go back to my room, open the shutter a bit to let in some of the crisp night air, and sleep like the dead.