Florence!

After a very long and somewhat arduous travel day we finally have arrived in Florence!!!! We are beyond excited!

Once we landed in Rome we had to take an airport shuttle from the tarmac, then we walked about a thousand miles to the train station (actually it wasn't far but we'd not had much sleep), took a train from the airport to the main (and very large) train station of Termini, in Rome. It makes Grand Central Station in NYC seem small by comparison. And like Penn Station in New York when catching the local train to Jersey, they post the departing platform information 10 minutes before the train departs so we were running, again! We took

a high speed train to Florence. I loved the high speed train. It has assigned seats and lots of windows to watch the the amazing countryside. We arrived at the Santa Maria Novella station in Florence (their main train station and also very large) and caught the next local train to our neighborhood...literally a 5 minute ride. Then we hoofed it to our apartment. I managed to get turned around so our 10 minute walk actually ended up being 20 minutes. We were so tired and soooo hungry!

Our apartment is lovely, very quaint, located in the very middle-class neighborhood of Rifredi. We were met there by our landlord and his charming wife. They are so kind and so gracious. We were given all the important details, which I promptly forgot due to lack of sleep and no food, and they went on their way. Leah and I could not go another second without sleep so we took a nap....3 hours later we woke up and headed out the door to find something to eat. We found

a small shop with pizza and desserts and in our exceedingly poor Italian we made ourselves understood. We left with a slice of pizza each and some goodies and of course some wine (Prosecco of course, after-all it was for dessert!). I have learned a lot in the last 48 hours and the biggest thing I've learned is that they can make awful pizza in Italy! Good lord it was terrible and I could not finish it; the desserts were crap too....lesson learned. Our timing was way off...every decent place was closed so we made-do. Tomorrow we were getting up early to hit central Florence for our first day of sightseeing and awesome dining.

Only, it didn't turn out quite like that. I was awakened at 6:00 am with a phone call from Carl who was eager to speak with me. We hadn't really spoken since I left. Just a quick call to let him know I arrived safe and sound. As I am up drinking coffee by 4:00 am virtually every single day of the week, he felt that he was in safe territory....only I was still asleep. But I made coffee and we chit-chatted a bit and I went back to sleep. The alarm went off at 7:00...Leah and I agreed we needed another hour and we fell back to sleep. FOUR hours later we woke up....it was 11:00 am!!! Wow!

After the initial shock of sleeping for so long we hurriedly dressed and made our way to the bus stop. One of the important details I DID remember was that there was a bus stop right outside our apartment. We bought our tickets and waited for the next bus arriving at 1:20. While waiting we struck up a conversation with a man and his mother who, were also waiting for the bus. They were so nice. The man spoke wonderful English from spending 3 years in London, though he was from Brazil. At 1:40 it was obvious that the bus was not coming. Our charming Brazilian-by-way-of-England-living-in-Florence friend showed us a short cut to the train station and off we went.

As we approached it started to rain....lightening, thunder, the whole nine yards.....it was freaking awesome! It reminded me very much of monsoons in Arizona in August...only it actually rained and it wasn't 104 degrees, maybe 80. While we were there we met a couple from England lugging way too much luggage up the train platform and we congratulated ourselves for only bringing carry-on luggage...the best decision we made regarding this trip!

Arriving in central Florence we made our way to the. Mercato Centrale. It is a very large open market with restaurants upstairs....my stomach was growling and my head ached but everything smelled wonderful! We made our way to a shop that had a grill and ordered a steak with rosemary potatoes and Parmesan-topped, roasted tomatoes. I don't know if it was because I

was so hungry or if it was the way it was prepared but it was the best steak I have ever had! All their meat was grass-fed and local....I was in heaven. No meal is complete without dessert and my dessert of choice is always ice cream....one coffee-flavored gelato coming up!

Initially we had planned to go back to our apartment after we had eaten and rest but once we were fueled we felt so much better. We decided to take in some of the sites we would be visiting more in-depth later in the week. It was a great choice. We found ourselves down by the Arno river heading toward Ponte Vecchio and made another gelato stop! Coconut for me, pistachio for Leah and we kept on walking. The Ponte Vecchio is lovely from a distance and somewhat disappointing up close but only because it is so full of jewelry stores and other shops that cater specifically to tourists , not to mention the hundreds of hucksters selling knock-offs of every designer known to man...It was very Times Square-ish. Lovely from

afar but up close, she needs a make over. On our way back to the train station we were rewarded with a street performance by flag bearers. It was wonderful and so colorful. Leah and I were so happy that we opted to wander the city rather than go home early to rest.

Tomorrow is our cooking class....can't wait! Buona notta!