Besides needing the sleep, there’s probably a reason I’ve been sleeping so much while on vacation. I woke up yesterday with a scratchy throat and today I am having trouble even talking. The friend I mentioned yesterday has been giving me cough medicine because the coughing starting last night. Again, it’s very nice to be cared for in this manner.

I want to get out and take some pictures. The trees are absolutely lovely right now and when the northern sun hits them, it seems like the world is aglow. Back home, all of this beautiful color is long gone and it’s so wonderful to be in the center of it again. What is really stunning to me is the range of colors. I walk down the front steps of my friend’s house and there is a moss of green along the sidewalk. I want to see it in the sunlight and see it glow. There are plants with beautiful purple stems and big green leaves. There are ivies and grasses.

Yesterday we went to a park and watched some older Italian men and some younger Hispanic men playing bocci. Oh, how I love bocci! I want to go back and take pictures of them playing. Their faces are so expressive and beautiful.

I saw a young woman reading a book yesterday. She was under a ray of sunlight and she was glowing. It was the perfect picture.

It’s funny what being in the middle of a pedestrian city can do to your photographic eye. I’m not used to seeing so many people out and about like this. It’s like eye candy and my senses are almost overwhelmed. I want to go out and shoot but I think I can’t do it all as much justice as it may deserve.

Hopefully today will be just as nice as yesterday and I may get a chance to practice, though. I know I’ll never get better if I’m not practicing.