Day 18

Ciao!

I went to bed early last night (11:30) and we weren’t meeting until 11:30 today so I got to sleep in as well. I woke up at 8:30 and was ready by 9, but I didn’t want to sit around inside forever so I went out for a walk to discover new things. I left the apartment, walked down our street to the next intersection and made a right. We’ve never been this way past our street, so I was excited. I walked to the end of the road to a very busy street with a big patch of grass and some large trees across the road. I hugged the corner and made a left. The building I was walking against used to be a prison; I pretty much just rounded this building on my 30 minute walk. Once I got to the end of it I walked through a square and ended up at the Sant Ambrogio market, so I walked down Macci (the street I live on) to another intersection and wandered a few more streets before heading home. The coolest thing I passed was a beautiful courtyard garden that I could peek into through a big iron gate. However, it's only open to the public on Tuesday and Thursday.

I got home around 9:30 and ate a big fruit-filled breakfast then sat around until we left at 11. We met in front of the Uffizi and pretty much just sat there debating whether or not we should go in. After about 30 minutes we decided to get paninos at Geoff's favorite place (All' antico Vinaio). The line was a lot shorter today than it was the other day and the sandwiches were even better too. It was so delicious. Then we figured we should go into the museum because it was starting to rain and it was pretty cold. 

We had to go back this one last time because Amber needed to present on a painting in there. It was Judith Slaying Holofernes by Artemesia Gentileschi, a beautiful and graphic painting by a successful female artist from the 1600s. But as you may have learned from my posts, the Uffizi is not a very manageable place. So six of us entered the building with the rest coming in 15 minutes later as decided by the rude guard. When we were all back together we slowly made our way through the maze that is the Uffizi. We made a few pit stops to sit and at one point we waited in line for the bathroom for like 15 minutes. Over 45 minutes had passed since we got into the building before we actually got to the painting Amber needed to talk about. And we really didn't look at anything else. So we talked about it for a while then made our way through the long exit. Brittany and I sat in the kids' gift shop for a while looking at fun stuff. When we went out into the cold outdoors to find some of the others, we found Geoff, Rosie, Chelsea, and Katia lounging on this big wooden bench thing. So naturally we joined them, and everyone else ended up on this thing too. So we stayed there for a while.

Next we went to the campanile of the duomo for Ana Maria's presentation. It was so cold and windy. That's pretty much all there was to it. The belltower is amazing and the history behind it is just as incredible, but standing out there was weird. Gypsies kept coming up to us and we kept having to shoo them away.

When Ana Maria was done we broke for an hour. Katia and I went to this fancy bakery right across from the baptistery called Scudieri to get some fresh cannolis. Oh my gosh. I've only ever had one cannoli in my life and it was at an Italian market in Tampa. This cannoli was 10 times better than that. One half had a cherry on it and the other was covered in chocolate chips. I can't describe it other than saying it was perfect and every bite was scrumptious in its own unique way. I loved it. I must get another.

After that Katia went home to put on more warm clothes and I just hung around the area and people watched before walking over to Alessi to meet everyone for our wine tasting. Alessi is a candy store in the front, wine cellar in the basement, and a restaurant is attached. It's awesome. So when I got in I bought a bar of chocolate and ate a piece later and it's awesome. As for the wine tasting, we learned a lot about looking, smelling, and tasting wine. We had a glass of white wine and two glasses of red wine. I definitely liked the white wine best. It was sweet. The reds were bitter and dry and I'm really just not used to drinking anything alcoholic so don't take my word for any of it. But I enjoyed it all! We also had small pieces of bread with oil on them and other pieces of bread with the best tomatoes I've had here. So that was a fun experience! Once we were done everyone walked around in the cellar trying to find wine to take home.

Katia, Geoff, and I left and walked around the city a bit before going home briefly. We then went to dinner together to the #2 best restaurant in Florence (All'antico Vinaio is #3 and a few people are going to the #1 restaurant tomorrow night). It's called Il Pizzaiuolo. It was definitely one of the best meals I've had. The water was free, which is crazy to find here, and the pizza was cheap but heavenly. I got a pizza with mozzarella and eggplant on it. Those two toppings were baked to perfection, the sauce was sweet, and the crust was fluffy and warm. So good. 

After that we walked around Santa Croce then went home. We're hanging out as usual, having the best time in Florence! Geoff is talking about his craving for a vanilla milkshake right now, so we may or may not go on a midnight milkshake run to The Diner, the one place that we think might have milkshakes and is open late on Fridays.

Okay bye!