The trip *Zürich - Firenze* is a bit less than seven hours by train. I met John and it seems that every day we talked about programming, work, work ethics, quality, the essence of things and various aspects of it, and then we spent the rest of the day ogling... Looking at the gazillion tourists flowing through the city, the crowds assembling here and there, the other tourist streams slowly being diverted, the people looking at the buildings and statues, the people looking at their cameras as they filmed the buildings and status, and us, looking at the tourists... I had a wonderful time.
While in Florence, I read *Rites of Spring: The Great War and the Birth of the Modern Age* by Modris Ekstein, ISBN 0-395-93758-2. The title refers to Stravinsky’s ballet, *Le Sacré du printemps*, which I am listening to as I write (ASIN:B00000416F). This ballet illustrates the spirit shortly before *The Great War* – the first world war. Everything is in the event – scandal, shock, being there, seeing it – and building from the reception of the ballet, the author goes on to describe why people were so exhilerated when the war broke out, what the current prevalent thought on the past and the future was – in short, the author examines the *Zeitgeist* before the war, during the war, and after the war, including the effect it had on the people that would eventually fight the second world war.
#Florence #Firenze