Jack Adams — Florence and the rest

It’s been pretty good since Athens when I last blogged. Rome was magnificent. We went to all of the four major churches. I liked Saint John Lateran the most since it had the twelve exquisite apostle statues, and they were only designed by the apprentices of one of the master artisans. I really enjoyed our day trip to Ostia, we got to run around and through, and occasionally up, the ruins for a god few hours. Pompey was good, but I preferred Ostia. It is really well preserved and you get a really good idea of the size of all the houses and other buildings.

Florence was great too. We went to the Uffizi gallery, after a nearly four-hour queue, so we got to see some of the masterpieces held there. We got time to browse through the markets and I eventually bought a really nice leather jacket. We went around to see all of the churches in the city, though some of them were closed. We went out to Pisa on the first day. Although it’s a classic tourist site, it is still fun to have your photo taken holding it up or leaning against it. We encountered a shop selling, possibly, fake black-powder pistols, but taking a hint we got from a story about a previous trip we resisted the temptation to buy one.

Beaucaire has been really relaxing. We’ve been going out in the morning, around 9:30 and coming back about 4:00 each afternoon. We all go for swims because it’s so hot, except I can’t. The ‘skin adhesive’ the doctors used to glue my skin back together would dissolve in water, or so I think because they told me that I couldn’t shower, get my head wet for three days. Fortunately there are baths here, so I have one instead.

The food here is really good. We get proper meals instead of takeaways or filled rolls from a bakery. I’m really looking forward to getting home and having a meal, which has cooked vegetables. I also miss playing sports, seeing that there is no room for us to throw the disk that Waz bought with him.

I really was enjoying the Pont du Gard. It’s over forty-eight metres tall and over its whole length only drops by two-and-a-half centimetres. I did indeed dive into the river after having an earlier conversation with Mr Wilson about risk assessment while on holiday and how it goes out the window and Waz telling us that when there hasn’t been heavy rainfall you can normally walk across the river. At least I didn’t yell Y.O.L.O. before I dived, but I did do a Leeroy Jenkins. Anyway, after knowing that I hit my head, I surfaced and thought that I’d be fine. I stood up after a few seconds only to see both Myron and Henry King starring open mouthed at me. Only then did blood start dripping past my eyes. It ended up that I’m fine and I had to go to the hospital in Nimes later that day to get it glued up.