I would also like to say that after being in Turkey, where the only word I managed to learn was teşekkürler, or thank you, being in Italy has been a welcome relief. Sure, I stumble and my Italian is not at all good, but at least I can understand bits and pieces through my scrappy Spanish, which also allows for me to make sense of the most basic grammatical rules, and orally it is somewhat familiar because I hear it a lot when my cousins Giulia and Ella are around. My parents, on the other hand, are totally rocking the Italian, and the Italians must think so too because they don't immediately switch to English when my parents start attempting to communicate. So, that's all good.
Anyway, my brother had been dying to have some Mexican food for a while now. We were all a little starved of the comforts of home and so when my brother begged my parents to find a Mexican restaurant in Florence and go there for dinner, they happily agreed. Believe it or not, there was a Mexican place right around the corner from our rental apartment, a mere block away, so after arriving to the apartment and settling in, we headed out. I have to say, despite it being the worst Mexican food I have had probably in years, it was still really nice to eat something that tasted the slightest bit like home. Seriously though, I think the first thing that goes in my mouth when I return to San Francisco will either be a burrito or something Asian, because Europe isn't the best place to get either of those things. The restaurant did, however, have an amazing icy mango drink thing that I got and which definitely made up for the overly salty dinner. And as good as it feels to be able to stumble around in Italian, it felt even better to be able to speak fluently to the waiters there in Spanish. Can't wait for Spain!
The next day we went to the market a few blocks away. It reminded me a lot of La Boqueria in Barcelona (although admittedly a lot smaller) because it pretty much sold every local cultural food you could imagine and a lot of it was stuff that you couldn't just get at a market in California. (Think amazing Tuscan sausages, prosciuttos and cheese. I love Italian food!) The market was also surrounded with leather shops, which was pretty cool. We also walked around and looked at the outside of the Duomo, or the main cathedral for the city. (If you recall Milan had a Duomo too.) This one is extremely well known in particular because its dome is massive, the largest of its time, and it is painted on the inside using the finest of Renaissance techniques. It was also designed by the famous Filippo Brunelleschi. We also made sure to get some gelato ;) and got some dark chocolate ice cream that finally topped the last place in Venice. I am such a chocoholic. Eventually we made our way home and cooked the rabbit that we bought at the market. SO DELICIOUS!!!
Thus ended day one of Florence! Day two was a visit to the Medici Chapel, a basilica sponsored by the wealthy Medici family during the 16th and 17th centuries, and a great example of how Florence really was the wallet of the Italian Renaissance. The entire thing was made of inlaid marble, for starters. There was a humongous painted ceiling (all in beautiful Renaissance style) and there was a second part of the building that was, drumroll please, DESIGNED, BUILT, AND DECORATED BY MICHELANGELO!!!! That's when you know that they've got some disposable income.
Actually, to be honest, some of the statues made by Michelangelo were a little bit unrealistic, obviously not his best work. We will, of course, see his statue of David at some point (which my brother insists on calling "The Naked David," as if that were its given title) and I'm sure that will be a lot more realistically designed than the ones we saw at the Medici Chapel. It was still pretty cool to see something designed by someone so renowned though. And the entire chapel was pretty darn beautiful. After that we headed home and did some homework :( and that ended day two.
On our third day we finally got to see the Duomo! I was pretty excited. The inside was surprisingly plain, almost not Catholic, as we saw many Protestant churches in Zurich that were more decorated than it. That is, plain with the exception of the dome itself. There were also ruins in the basement of previous churches built as far back as early Christianity in the Roman times, something like 5th century CE. So that was pretty cool as well. But back to the dome. It's pretty amazing because you really feel like you're looking up at people sitting in the sky. There are even paintings of people that look like their legs are hanging over the edge. Not to mention the fact that painting on a curved surface is extremely difficult. To draw something that looks like a straight line, you have to draw a curved one, for starters! That alone was pretty darn amazing. But when we started climbing the stairs to get to the top of the dome, it was even more so. First of all, there were a LOT of stairs. We counted 459 on the way down, although a sign at the bottom said 463 (we think there were more stairs going up than down, since they went on two different paths at some points). Second of all, it was really amazing walking around the inside of the dome, because the paintings that looked life-sized from down below were in fact MUCH larger than life. The head of one demon that we saw painted on the ceiling was probably three or four feet in diameter! Just to put things in perspective. Being so close to the paintings also gave me a greater appreciation for them, because we got to see the beauty and detail up close. But it didn't stop there. We also climbed all the way to the very top of the dome (getting out of the way of the people coming down in the meantime) and the view up there was SPECTACULAR. We were REALLY high up (376 feet, to be exact, if Wikipedia is to be trusted) and the piazza below us looked tiny! We spent a good amount of time up there simply because the view was so spectacular. After we made our way down (counting our steps along the way and quadruple checking between the four of us) we also went to the baptismal building and the bell tower, both of which were separate from the main cathedral. The baptismal building was gorgeous, with a beautiful gold mosaic ceiling. The bell tower was also pretty amazing, because it was almost as tall as the dome (almost) and it provided a great view of the dome and the city together.
Ceiling of the baptismal building
We should also note that being Thursday the 12th of March it was also the day before my birthday, so that night we planned to all go out and catch some music. Things got complicated, though, because my brother wanted to go to a soccer game in celebration of his birthday (which is the 28th) and it was the only night that we could make that work. So in the end just my dad and I went out to see some music and my brother and my mom went to the soccer game (and from what I hear they had some pretty good seats too). It ended up being really fun. The band advertised themselves as playing MPB (Música Popular Brasileira, or Brazilian Pop Music) although sometimes it was more like MPB and other time more like ragtime. It was an interesting arrangement: a percussionist/lead singer, a guitarist who also sang, a violinist, and a keyboardist. The violinist and the keyboardist were by far the most talented in the group, and they were not only extremely quick and creative with their solos, but they complimented each other very well and improvised in relation to each other, which is pretty difficult. All in all, it was a lot of fun and we got home pretty late.
The next day was my birthday!!! We all slept in late because we had been out pretty late the previous night and we didn't get out of the house until about 10:30 AM. So I guess I turned 13 somewhere on our walk to the pastry shop for breakfast. ;) After our pastries we headed out to go to the Boboli Gardens, but by the time we got there we were going to have to head back again in an hour so it didn't seem worth it to pay admission. Then we walked around for a little while and headed home. We had to get home early to meet our family friends Pat and Shirley, who were coming to visit, but by the time we got back they were already there! We ended up spending most of the rest of the day planning for the next week or so, and later we headed out to go for a walk and finally at around 7:00, went out to dinner. Dinner was a lot of fun and very delicious, although what I ordered wasn't at all like what I expected. I ordered "marinated beef," which it definitely was, except it wasn't cooked, it was raw! It was still really good though, surprisingly. We all had a lot of fun and headed home late that night--again.
I went Paleo! Yay!
The next day my brother was really sick, having thrown up three times in the middle of the night, so he and my mom stayed home and Pat, Shirley, my dad, and I all got in the car and drove to the nearby town of Lucca. There was a museum there called Lu.C.C.A. (what a fantastic acronym) which stood for Lucca Center of Contemporary Art. It turned out to be a very misleading title. Most of the art there wasn't really all that great, and none of it was contemporary except for a few pieces in the cafeteria, so it was pretty disappointing. We then went out to a late (but very delicious) lunch and went to a few churches, including one that had the relic of an ancient saint from 1272 who is currently slightly green in fuzzy. Hence our name for her: the green saint. We also saw two street performances of interpretive dance, which was pretty fun, and then we headed home for another large and delicious dinner.
Just to get your Sunday off to a good start, here's a picture of a 750 year old relic in a church!
So that's been our experiences in Florence so far! Be sure to check back for more in a few days! And for more pictures take a look at my Instagram @sachiko_happiness.
Happy belated Simone & Nicholas!! What an amazing place to spend your birthdays..Teresa
ReplyDelete