Our first of the Florence must do art "museums"

Today began with Spanish lessons... Kendall started today with Mikela, Joel began earlier in the week.   Kendall has a Spanish One text: Italian edition!  Great way to begin learning Romance languages.

After the lesson, we headed out to the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens.

With a photo of Rick Steve's recommendation of paintings to view in the Palatine Gallery, we headed into the collection of the Medici family (c. 1500s).  Walls were stacked three or four high with paintings in gilded frames.  Raphael's portraits were my favorite, but photos were not allowed.

A pizza break at Gusta Pizza... a recommended spot from last year's PC ESE students

 PC students (likely this years) left their name on our table!

Back to the Boboli Gardens for a hot, but beautiful stroll.

 Cosimo I's fat dwarf jester straddling a turtle: Quite a sight!

And a bit of modern sculpture in profile.

The boys walking in Boboli  Gardens

A dog... missing Jazzy here in Florence!

Back over the Arno for a drink at the roof top Terrazza by our apartment.

Mom and I enjoyed our first Spritz, the Florence summer drink.  Kendall a Caffe Freddo and Joel, a fresh Squeezed Orange Juice.  A much needed rest on a very hot (over 95 again today) day.

Duomo from Terrazza

Tripe Take Two

Today I went back to the cart below our apartment for a lampredotto in a lighter spicy sauce.

   After a quick run up and down the stairs this is looking at me. It looks similar to roast beef, mixed with Chinese spare ribs. Despite this observation it has no comparison in flavor to those foods.

The actual sandwich tasted like beef with the texture of pork fat except not quite as chewy. The sauce is spicy and creamy. The bread is nice and has great texture. Compared to the other sandwich this one has  less sauce and the meat has more flavor. I would give it 4.25 stars (still don't know how to do the star things). I will continue to look for different foods to review.

-Kendall (you know my last name)

Pisa

Enjoyed a bus trip with the Fairfield students (all 101) to Ikea and Pisa.   First stop Ikea to get a few things for the apartment (sharp knife, simple table to go over the bidet to make the bathroom/laundry room more functional,  wine rack that Joel is going to use to organize his books, sharp knife and solid pot holder)... and then it was on to Pisa.

The baptistry. 

Looking up past the alter in the baptistry.  Wonderful echo!

The cathedral in Pisa

Galileo was said to have been inspired by this chandelier as we watched it swing during mass.

Exquisite mosaic floor, and the not so beautiful alter newly (2001) installed.

Can we hold up the leaning tower?

An hour bus ride home, a short nap and facetime call to Bow Lake, and we were off to find a perfect cafe for dinner.   End up in the Piazza de Vecchio.

Red pizza, not quite Providence style.

Walnut ice cream with amaretto and espresso to end the evening.

View of Plazza di Vecchio as we walked home.

Overall another wonderful day in Italy.   School/university officially starts this week.   

Happy Labor one and all back home.

Laura

Tripe

The food cart right under our apartment that believes no part of any animal should be wasted seeing that their main dish is called trippa al florintine or other wise known as tripe florentine style (cow stomach). 

This dish is served on a roll here with a red sauce that is a salty paste that smells unsettling and is a little unsettling to the stomach.

enough about what with the tripe the actual meat was chewy at first, but some pieces were quite tender and rather delicious. The rancid sauce was actually  quite pleasant with the tripe which seemed to have little to no flavor by its self. Since the sauce was a little overpowering the choice of bread was excellent it was light and had little flavor but it added something that was needed, a different flavor. Over all I would give this sandwich 3 1/2 stars (I couldn't figure out how to actually add stars). In the next weird foods blog post we get a little specific and try the fourth stomach of a cow, lampredotto panino with the traditional parsley sauce.   

-Kendall (if your reading this I think you know our last name)       

Lucca

Hey all 

Yesterday we took an hour train ride to a small walled city called lucca. The city was full of beautiful art and buildings and full of many many stairs I counted approximately how many steps we climbed and got over 1000 stairs! Just as an FYI the pictures are out of order because some are from mom's phone and some are from mine.

This is the view from the top of torre guinigi a tower with several trees on top

Here Kendall and I are looking down the cities renaissance walls

Kendall examining a French symbol on the side of a wall

Here is a view of torre guinigi from the bell tower

Here we are on the train

Now start my pictures. This is a view down the walls down to the ground

Here mom gram and Kendall are all enjoying their lunch on the wall

This is the staircase down from the bell tower which has 207 steps in it total

This is the towns clock tower

Here is a view of the cities red roofs from the top o one of the towers

Here is a patern created by the stained glass in San martins cathedral

These are the striped pillars on San martins cathedral

This is mom gram and Kendall just outside the city walls

All in all a great day in Lucca

-Joel

The little things

Today was orientation for the students arriving in Florence (101 total,  15 from PC).  What great fun to see all eleven Elementary Special Education majors, and four other PC students in a hotel near the airport in Florence.  Weary, but excited.   Joanne (the Fairfield director),  Erin (program assistant) and Sylvia (program administrator)  led the students through much helpful information, but many admitted to me later they were on overload with so much information.   In just the week here,  I could add more stories to those told of those little things that are different.

1)   The keys... our first night we thought we were locked out... but really we didn't know how to use the keys.   We needed to walk to the Fairfield office (lucky it is open till 6:30 - working hours ~10-6:30 here) and luckily Joanne was still there.   She walked back with us to the apartment;  no locksmith was needed, just a lesson on how to use the key!  I now think to myself as I use it,  square to the left, push it all the way in, turn to the right as many times as needed (1-3 depending on how it was closed when you leave).

2)  The stove and oven.   You need to turn on the gas with the lever on the wall, then turn on the burner you need.   Then there is the oven,  well it is still an issue as all of the symbols and numbers are worn away.   We have learn by experiementation that the left knob is the setting -on, bake, broil (and today I learned a setting with above or below heating),  the right button is temperature -- 9:00 can heat bread (say 200-250),  6:30-7:00 cooks chicken or meatballs (350 or so).

3) Coffee ... well it is espresso over here, and we have walked by many a cafe, but I have not had an espresso out of the apartment.  On our second day, Joanne (at Fairfield) taught me how to use this Italian coffee maker.   You put water in the bottom, you add coffee grounds in a filter that sits on top bottom part,  you then screw in the top, the pitcher.  Then you heat the pot on the stove for 15 or so minutes till it stops perking.    I am happy to report the coffee is good, not too strong.

4)  3 prong outlets.  220 Volts.

thus the spaghetti of converters to charge our laptop.

5)  The washing machine  ... many different cycles,  two dials (cycle, temperature).   Even the short cycle is more than 75 minutes...   everything does take time in Italy.

6) The night shutters ... to keep some air flowing, but to block the light (and bugs).   There are no screens on the windows in Florence.   

7) and  Google and YouTube automatically switch to Italian!   And on a related note, the computer in the office is in Italian -- learning new Italian words for all the Microsoft software commands as well as a  unique keyboard (many of the symbols are in different places!).

I can't say we have it all figured out, but after a week we are making everything work... including figuring out how to make risotto from scratch with minimal instructions in Italian.  A wonderful dinner after a long day: mushroom risotto, salad and carrots.   Perhaps tomorrow we will make it back to the macellaio for some chicken or pork.

Ciao till next time.

Laura