At and near our hotel

Breakfast was a big deal for us every morning. It got us up and out of the room early enough to get a great start on each day. Also, it was a fabulous chance to see the other people staying at the hotel...always interesting because of the handful of nationalities in one place. Unfortunately, though, there was a pervasive "UA" problem. UA? Ugly American. You know the type. The loud-mouth asshole who refuses to speak anything but English, and when someone doesn't understand, the UA's solution is to talk LOUDLY. The blithering idiot who travels to far-away places as a status thing, but gets pissy when everything isn't just as s/he is used to at home. There were a couple of these people at our hotel, and I hated them. Actually, I saw them all over Florence. It made me cringe and want to go around apologizing to everyone who fell victim to the UA's shitty attitude.

Anyway, back to the fun things. So as I was saying, breakfast was always fun. A pleasant, quiet way to start the day, and a couple times, I got down there long before Amy and Mom so I could have a few minutes of journal time before the day started. Oh, and my room overlooked the breakfast patio.

The view from my room of the hotel's outdoor breakfast area and surrounding buildings:

My window from the breakfast area:

The stray kitty who lived at the hotel and scored lots of great food every morning:

My perfect breakfast: kick-ass coffee, a pastry, and some journal time.

This is the hotel across the street from ours. I took this picture because of the flag, which isn't actually a pride flag as it might appear. It says "Pace" (Peace) and they are all over the place over there. Everywhere.

This is my mom at the cafe down the street from the hotel. She's buying some goodies for us to keep in our room: