Sunday morning in Mexico

This Sunday morning at 7AM, I awake to an enormous commotion on the street below. For those of you who have not been to Italy, Italians, if up, are not out of the house until 9-10AM. (I love this place.) This is very unusual. I thought to myself, “Wow, these people REALLY serious about church.” But then I hear drums and a woman with a microphone that reminded me of almost every Mexican all inclusive I’ve ever visited. This is not what I want from Italy, at 7AM. I get up and look out the window. It is not a group of raucous churchgoers, but some sort of event, the kind where everyone is wearing the same t-shirt.





I decide I must go check it out, and more importantly, have breakfast. After a delicious, if somewhat inappropriate, truffle, pecorino and arugula panino, I park myself at Café Rivoire for a cappuccino and some people watching.

Apparently, I have stumbled onto the Corre Vida Marathon. There are literally thousands of people congregating in Piazza Signoria, chatting each other up. However, I don’t think “marathon” means the same thing in Italian because I just saw a man with a number pinned to his orange shirt wearing jeans. There are older women wearing lycra and shoes with no socks. Can you say chaffing? This should come as no surprise, but many Italian men are sporting spandex, the too thin and too much information spandex.

A gun goes off, but no one is in any hurry. They continue to sip their cappuccinos and gossip with their neighbors, for 15 minutes. Finally, after 30 minutes or so, the piazza is clearing out, and I can’t help wondering what happened to church?