helmet, brain bucket, insurance policy

Liana, not in these words of course, I embellish, threatened to cut me off unless I bought a helmet to wear while tooling around Florence. No one wears helmets when riding, unless they are in lycra on a bike that costs more than this trip cost me. That is not to say that the pavement hurts any less because my bike cost 50 euros. Who knows why the italians (or the dutch, or germans for that matter) bike more, but wear fewer helmets. Likely it is something to do with personal choice.

So in the spirit of detente, and insuring my law education regardless of country, I went to find a helmet this morning. The shop I went to had some good looking helmets in my price range, but not in my size. The closest they got to me was big enough for my daughter, Vinna. Unless I upped my price by 10 euros, then they had extra gargantuan size. I wore it out, like a new pair of shoes. As I was signing the visa slip, the saleslady said that this helmet was worn by the rider winning the Giro right now. I answer, "Will it make me go faster and look slimmer?" She laughed and said, "No." Ahhhh...almost as dry and witty as a britisher.

The good news is, the front vents have some mesh to screen my head from bug-kill. You can just make it out in the shot.

I drank quite a bit of coffee today...enough to make my palms sweat.