Imperssions of Firenze II: tourists

I couldn't find any reliable numbers on how many tourists visit Florence on an average day. Let's just settle for 'a lot'. It's a never-ending onslaught. The three most common nationalities we encoutered were Chinese, German and American.

The Americans were usually in their twenties or even younger. The men almost universally wore khaki shorts, polo shirts and flip flops. It was like every American freshmen student of economics decided it was time to visit Florence at the same time. The women were thankfully more varied in their outfits. The later it got the more likely they were to carry small plastic cups - of which they seemed to have an endless supply of - filled with something the only thing I am sure of is it's alcoholic nature.

Our fellow Germans were older, between 30 and 50, I'd say. Some of them really did wear their socks under their Bikenstock sandals. I shouldn't be too judgemental about it, but we should really stop doing that. The Germans were the only group in which cameras were still as common as smartphones.

I am really bad at estimating the age of Asians, so I'll refrain from doing so. I also don't really know how I can tell if someone is Chinese or Japanese. I just know. I vividly remember one couple that strolled alongside the river Arno, Ponte Vecchio in the background, dressed like it was at least their wedding day as their friend told them to look to the right, then to the left and then at each other while ceaselessly taking photographs.

Another thing I noticed was the prevalence of selfie sticks. Surprisingly it <font style="background-color: yellow;">wasn't</font> the young people who were most likely to own one but middle aged men.

My sister<font style="background-color: yellow;">, </font>who ha<font style="background-color: yellow;">s</font> spent the last month living in Florence<font style="background-color: yellow;">,</font> told me <strike>that</strike> she felt uncomfortable walking around with the rest of us because we <strike>could be</strike> <font style="background-color: yellow;">were so</font> easily identified as tourists by the locals. After my first day in the city I began to understand why she considered that to be a bad thing.

Hi everyone!

Hi!

This is my first notebook entry.

My name is Cristian, <font style="background-color: yellow;">I'm</font> from Barcelona and<font style="background-color: yellow;"> I</font> work in a pub.<font style="background-color: yellow;"> I</font> can talk with some <font style="background-color: yellow;">tourist's</font>, but my English grammar is awful and<font style="background-color: yellow;"> I</font> want to do an official exam <strike>the</strike> next summer. My natives idioms are <font style="background-color: yellow;">Spanish</font> and <font style="background-color: yellow;">Catalan</font> <font style="background-color: yellow;">, I</font> can help with this<strike> two</strike> if somebody need<font style="background-color: yellow;">s</font> it.

The letter "I" is always written as a capital letter, when its on its own - hope this helps :)

two - is the number 2