Meandering Through a Rainy Florence

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Ah, Day 3 of rainy wandering!

Alright...time for some culture...today we wandered through the streets of Florence enjoying the drizzle of rain and the fact that it kept most tourists inside! Yay! The pic of the Duomo shows what the skies were like today - the weather here is like in Boulder, it changes all the time. I mean last week it was in the 80s and now it's chilly and raining - WE LOVE IT! Good thing we packed for all sorts of weather (hence the insane amount of luggage!).

We wandered back over toward the river and walked up to the Uffizi Gallery, not jealous one bit of the crazy folks waiting in a TWO hour line to get in! We just kept on walking to the "outdoor" gallery that is just adjacent to the Uffizi. We saw some incredible marble and bronze statues. This is the great thing about Florence, you really don't NEED to pay to see art, it's everywhere.

We also decided that it wasn't so cold that we couldn't enjoy an al fresco dining experience in the Piazza dei Ciompi. It is a very small piazza on the east side of town. Jen enjoyed fresh lasagna and Gus had a very yummy pizza margherita (one of the hundreds I am sure we will consume). The best thing about being pregnant in Italy is that you can use it as an excuse to eat whenever you see something yummy! Mmmm...fresh lasagna!

Ah, this is something strange that we have noticed. As many of you know we took 8 weeks of Italian lessons before boarding our plane. We thought, "Great, we'll be able to communicate and not expect everyone to speak English." Now this was a wonderful theory...it breaks down however once you are here. The Florentines have a knack for noticing when you are American (I think the flip-flops and wide-eyed looks give us away every time) and immediately switching to English! Oddly enough, we are having the hardest time getting the locals to SPEAK ITALIAN TO US! Pazzo, I know! (Crazy!) We use our Italian all the time, trying not to use English unless we really have no idea what the Italian word is. We find it really humorous that we are IN Italy and have to force people to SPEAK Italian! 😊 Oh well, maybe when we go into the country we'll have better luck.

That being said, Gus made his first joke in Italian today with our waitress. We got our check and Gus asked, in Italian, if they accepted credit cards. She said "no". I then asked, in Italian, if they had a bathroom. She said "no". We kind of muddled through that we were striking out in our questioning and we all had a chuckle. Then Gus holds up cash and asks her if they accept "THIS" - to which she replies "Si!" and we all laugh! Maybe you had to be there, but I was so proud of Gus's first joke in a foreign language. 😊

Buona Sera Tutti!

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Photos

Fountain of Questionable Importance
Michaelangelo proclaimed this fountain a waste of marble! I guess you are allowed to critique when you're Michaelangelo.

Comments

[Trisha]

Museum Hint
Yo G's. Here's a museum hint-if you do want to get into the Uffizi or another, check them out an hour or two before closing. Ya still have to pay, but we found no line and hardly any folks inside. We just cruised through the whole thing and saw what we wanted to quickly! You sound like you're having an amazing time! Yeah!