9:18am -

Things move at a slower pace here. The police officers at the Florence airport are laughing, socializing amongst each other, one of them is playing tug-of-war with the drug dog. We step outside and everything else is a smaller scale too, the billboards outside are—dare I say—quaint, none of the buildings are more than three or four stories high, the roadside signs smaller too. There is definitely more of a carefree attitude here; I’m sure after a couple of weeks I’ll find out if that’s the pace here or just my novel read of it.