Seth's folks have finally come out to visit us in Florence! This is their first time out of the country so it was very exciting for them to get a taste of Italy. They arrived Friday, which was a day late because their original flight was canceled. They made it over to our apartment nonetheless, and dropped their bags and grabbed a quick lunch with us at the Trattoria Da Rocco inside Sant'Ambrogio market. This was about as far as we got, because as soon as we left to go see David Seth's poor mom slipped off the very uneven sidewalk and landed hard on her knees. She could barely move and was in a lot of pain so we shuffled over to the hospital that was luckily only two blocks away. We checked her into the ER and waited about 6 hours before she was helped. Though it wasn't exacly David, waiting in the hospital was at least an interesting lesson on Italian culture.
Poor Linda had broken her right kneecap and was placed in a very heavy full-leg cast. Of course the hospital didn't loan crutches--in fact, they didn't even have any in supply to sell--so we had to buy a set from a medical supply store downtown the next day after a consultation with an orthopedic doctor. Though at times dealing with the hospital seemed haphazard (in the typical Italian sense), we do have to hand it to them--after a CAT scan (she hit her head hard), two x-rays, the cast, and doctor visit, they were only billed 300euro (about $420), and the crutches were only 40 euro. This all probably would have cost thousands in the US.
Upon getting home we didn't think Linda would be able to make it up the three flights of very narrow stairs to our apartment, but she did, but she hasn't been able to leave since then. Seth went with his dad to Rome yesterday for two nights since we couldn't cancel the B&B they had booked (the Domus Livia -- this was an issue in itself that involved them lying to us about their inability to cancel or change the booking despite the emergency and over 40 hours notice), and I have been hanging out with Linda. At least I don't have school today so I can spend time at home with her and prepare for Aunt Dee and Eileen's arrival tonight. It is funny Seth's parents and my aunt and cousin's visit will overlap by several days, but we are just happy that everyone could come out. Poor Linda, though--I hope we can think of a way to get her out to see a few sights, at least the Duomo!
Monday, May 23, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Hidden gems
This week we have been getting a closer look at yet more interesting little things around the city. Sunday we went to Claudia's apartment for lunch--she is my (one) friend from Conversation Exchange and she invited us over because her housemate had shown her how to make ragu' toscano (Tuscan-style meat sauce). Her housemate's boyfriend's brother, conveniently, works in a trattoria and provided a huge plate of homemade egg pasta (tagliatelle) to cover in the sauce. I would love to learn how to make this sauce, but I don't think I would be willing to spend three hours to make it. The same goes for the fresh pasta.
On the way out we took advantage of Claudia's apartment being in a different part of town and walked down Via il Prato, the road where they store the Brindellone. This is the cart they explode every year for Easter and they keep it in this massive yet shockingly narrow compartment. Even though we just saw the door, that was almost enough for me. It was like sneaking a peak at a celebrity's home.
We next visited the Basilica di Santa Trinita to have a look at the Cappella Sassetti, frescoed by Ghirlandaio around 1485.
This morning (I had the day off from school) we met with Giovanni, an art historian fellow at I Tatti who lives a couple blocks away. He took Seth and me to see the Chiostro dello Scalzo, a beautiful cloister elegantly frescoed in gray tones by Andrea del Sarto (1508-1526).
Who would have thought something so striking would be hidden within the walls of this modest little facade?
As a bonus Giovanni drove us just out of town to see Andrea del Sarto's Cenacolo (Last Supper) at San Salvi. Maybe not as elegant as the Scalzo, but just as impressive. The nice thing about all these frescoes is that they are rarely removed from their wall and you have to visit them on-site. This makes it hard for museums to plunder them and more fun to track down individually. With just over a month left in Florence, we still have many more to see!
On the way out we took advantage of Claudia's apartment being in a different part of town and walked down Via il Prato, the road where they store the Brindellone. This is the cart they explode every year for Easter and they keep it in this massive yet shockingly narrow compartment. Even though we just saw the door, that was almost enough for me. It was like sneaking a peak at a celebrity's home.
I'm so content to be so close to the Brindellone! What is almost more impressive is its door (yup, that tall and skinny brown thing!).
This morning (I had the day off from school) we met with Giovanni, an art historian fellow at I Tatti who lives a couple blocks away. He took Seth and me to see the Chiostro dello Scalzo, a beautiful cloister elegantly frescoed in gray tones by Andrea del Sarto (1508-1526).
Who would have thought something so striking would be hidden within the walls of this modest little facade?
As a bonus Giovanni drove us just out of town to see Andrea del Sarto's Cenacolo (Last Supper) at San Salvi. Maybe not as elegant as the Scalzo, but just as impressive. The nice thing about all these frescoes is that they are rarely removed from their wall and you have to visit them on-site. This makes it hard for museums to plunder them and more fun to track down individually. With just over a month left in Florence, we still have many more to see!
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Flights home
I can't believe how quickly this year has flown! I have been having to think about finally leaving Florence and this afternoon I sealed the deal by booking flights back to the US. I will check out of here on June 30th and head straight to Denver, just in time for my cousin, Christina's, wedding. Seth will remain in Florence for a couple weeks so that he can have all the mosquitoes and all the tourists to himself, haha. I am just starting to feel comfortable here and I really wish I could stay longer (two years in one place seems to be the trend lately), but I suppose I will have to go back to reality at some point.
Now that the flights are taken care of I can start thinking about other things, like how to get Lorenzo back into the US, how to reduce our resident mosquito population before we have visitors these next couple weeks, how to bring back all our crap to the US, and figure out which classes to register for this Fall semester at Framingham. But for now I can really put my mind to pondering why on earth there was a huge piece of soaked Baccala (salt cod) in the middle of the residential road this morning during our run...
Now that the flights are taken care of I can start thinking about other things, like how to get Lorenzo back into the US, how to reduce our resident mosquito population before we have visitors these next couple weeks, how to bring back all our crap to the US, and figure out which classes to register for this Fall semester at Framingham. But for now I can really put my mind to pondering why on earth there was a huge piece of soaked Baccala (salt cod) in the middle of the residential road this morning during our run...
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Another kind of market
I just wanted to mention that I really like the food sold in Italian grocery stores. Don't get me wrong, I still LOVE the fresh produce markets like Saint Ambrogio, but the packaged products here are miles simpler and less processed than 98% of everything found in American grocery stores. The past several years I had almost completely avoided buying ANYTHING processed (i.e., products bagged, boxed, or frozen) from the grocery stores in the US. Our weekly groceries included milk, fresh produce, basic unsweetened cereal (like grape nuts and oats), dry grains and beans, canned vegetables, etc. Admittedly, we would often buy flavored yogurt and pasta sauce and occasionally ice cream, but that is pretty much it. I would willingly eat processed food if it were organic (or at least not full of ingredients I can't recognize), but those sorts of things are way out of our budget so we would keep things cheap and simple and cook from whole ingredients.
Italy, however, has spoiled me! You can pick up almost anything and it would use real sugar (high fructose corn syrup is almost exclusively an American thing), usually use real fat like butter or (natural) oil (although I have seen a couple productsthat use fully hydrogenated crap), have simple ingredients, and not be loaded in unnecessary salts and laundry lists of preservatives. As a result I have to be very careful when buying something to make sure I use it up asap, before it is taken over by mold. Though annoying, at least it reminds me that the food is NOT loaded with fake chemicals. Admittedly, this is not true of everything (coloring agents, some preservatives, and other strange ingredients do exist), but like I said, it still beats 98% of what you find in the US!
The ingredients: flour, water, tomato, mozzarella (milk, salt, rennet, milk enzymes), iodized salt, vegetable oil, extra-virgin olive oil, yeast, modified starch, basil, oregano. 
Also, this is kinda off-subject, but I really appreciate how this cream, chocolate, and whiskey colomba (dove cake) actually resembles the photo on the box.
After eating all these little snacks, I will seriously have to go on a diet when I get back to the US! Or at least go back to soaking beans...
Italy, however, has spoiled me! You can pick up almost anything and it would use real sugar (high fructose corn syrup is almost exclusively an American thing), usually use real fat like butter or (natural) oil (although I have seen a couple productsthat use fully hydrogenated crap), have simple ingredients, and not be loaded in unnecessary salts and laundry lists of preservatives. As a result I have to be very careful when buying something to make sure I use it up asap, before it is taken over by mold. Though annoying, at least it reminds me that the food is NOT loaded with fake chemicals. Admittedly, this is not true of everything (coloring agents, some preservatives, and other strange ingredients do exist), but like I said, it still beats 98% of what you find in the US!
For example, we even let ourselves have frozen pizza every couple weeks, which I haven't eaten since I was in high school. If any country makes excellent frozen pizza, leave it to the Italians!
The ingredients: flour, water, tomato, mozzarella (milk, salt, rennet, milk enzymes), iodized salt, vegetable oil, extra-virgin olive oil, yeast, modified starch, basil, oregano. 
Also, this is kinda off-subject, but I really appreciate how this cream, chocolate, and whiskey colomba (dove cake) actually resembles the photo on the box.
After eating all these little snacks, I will seriously have to go on a diet when I get back to the US! Or at least go back to soaking beans...
Arezzo
Yesterday we took a quick trip to Arezzo. For some reason Seth has been fascinated by this Chianti town 80km outside Florence, maybe because he kept getting it confused with Assisi, haha. Or because of the famous 11th-century music theorist, Guido d'Arezzo. I mostly knew it for its popular, monthly antiques fair, and for being the setting of Roberto Benigni's La vita è bella. Either way, we could get their really fast via the train station near our apartment (Campo di Marte), which we love, so we packed a picnic lunch and zipped down there.
Arezzo, not a huge tourist destination, was a relief from huge swarms of tourists, though it had well beyond its fare share of Germans (the Japanese were absent, tending to avoid these less grand cities). Like most towns, I suppose, it has a modern exterior with all the typical shops and grocery stores, but still maintains a lively struscio ('main drag'), and a lovely, old core.
The Vasari Loggia bordering the piazza
A park where we had lunch, outside the Medici Fortress
After a good walk through town and a peek inside a couple churches, it was still early enough to catch a bus to nearby Cortona (an even smaller town just a few kilometers away, the setting for another book and film, Under the Tuscan Sun), but we were not feeling the motivation and called it an early day. Maybe next time!
Arezzo, not a huge tourist destination, was a relief from huge swarms of tourists, though it had well beyond its fare share of Germans (the Japanese were absent, tending to avoid these less grand cities). Like most towns, I suppose, it has a modern exterior with all the typical shops and grocery stores, but still maintains a lively struscio ('main drag'), and a lovely, old core.
The bell tower of Santa Maria della Pieve rising through the middle of the narrow street
The very sloping Piazza Grande
There were little signs scattered around the city center illustrating where scenes from La vita è bella were shot. 
Along with the Piazza Grande, do you recognize this house from the movie? Seth is pretending to catch the key that kept falling for Guido, but we later figured out he is standing in front of the wrong door. The correct door is actually the one that the man in the foreground is unlocking ... with a massive set of keys!
The very sloping Piazza Grande
There were little signs scattered around the city center illustrating where scenes from La vita è bella were shot. 
Along with the Piazza Grande, do you recognize this house from the movie? Seth is pretending to catch the key that kept falling for Guido, but we later figured out he is standing in front of the wrong door. The correct door is actually the one that the man in the foreground is unlocking ... with a massive set of keys!
The Vasari Loggia bordering the piazza
A park where we had lunch, outside the Medici Fortress
After a good walk through town and a peek inside a couple churches, it was still early enough to catch a bus to nearby Cortona (an even smaller town just a few kilometers away, the setting for another book and film, Under the Tuscan Sun), but we were not feeling the motivation and called it an early day. Maybe next time!
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
A couple rodents
Poor Lorenzo has been a bit under the weather lately. Two weeks ago he had a little fall, and it took us a day or two to notice that he wasn't chewing cardboard like normal, and he wasn't really drinking water or going after the bird seed we feed him. We soon realized he busted at least one tooth in his fall and we gave him some time to see if it would regrow. In the meantime we began feeding him a mash of soft foods mixed with a bit of water, which he seems to really love (who wouldn't like soggy unsalted bread with oatmeal, banana, wheat germ and fiber pellets?).
After a week and a half Lorenzo still didn't improve. In fact, he had been rubbing his nose a whole lot and sleeping more than normal, but we figure Seth just passed on his cold to the little guy. However, by Monday we did notice for the first time the big broken tooth, slanting awkwardly in his mouth, so we found a vet who specializes in rodents and exotic animals (like gerbils) in a town outside Florence. We packed up the guy with a busted tooth (Lorenzo, not Seth this time), and we trotted a mile through a sudden downpour to the train station. We road the train, soaking wet, to Sesto Fiorentino, about 30min away.
The vet, a young guy with lots of piercings, was very nice and handled Lorenzo very well. I think Lorenzo even charmed him (I could tell by the way the vet giggled!), and he didn't even charge us to pull out the broken tooth. Everyone in the vet clinic, including a little boy, also admired Lorenzo, oohing and awing, calling him bellino (beautiful little one). Indeed, not many people in Italy have ever seen a gerbil, but we won't tell Lorenzo that is why he got all the attention.
Since Monday we hoped Lorenzo would go back to his normal chipper self, but he still refuses to chew hard foods and drink from his water bottle, even though the vet said he should be fine. Since he doesn't even want to chew cardboard, he has no other way to occupy himself and just sleeps all day and looks miserable until we let him out in the bedroom for a few hours in the evening (when he really perks up). Poor Lorenzo! Maybe we should send him to a counselor... Hopefully he starts chewing again before his other teeth get too long and we have to send him back to the vet to have them clipped, too!
On to another type of rodent. After waiting a respectable amount of time after Easter, this week I finally tried coniglio, rabbit, for the first time. I really want to eventually try roast rabbit, but for now I settled for a jar of bunny sauce from the grocery store. Rabbit is actually very popular in Italy (like it is in most of Europe), as are pigeon and horse. I think I would like to try pigeon before leaving, but I don't know about horse...
Pasta con ragù di coniglio
After a week and a half Lorenzo still didn't improve. In fact, he had been rubbing his nose a whole lot and sleeping more than normal, but we figure Seth just passed on his cold to the little guy. However, by Monday we did notice for the first time the big broken tooth, slanting awkwardly in his mouth, so we found a vet who specializes in rodents and exotic animals (like gerbils) in a town outside Florence. We packed up the guy with a busted tooth (Lorenzo, not Seth this time), and we trotted a mile through a sudden downpour to the train station. We road the train, soaking wet, to Sesto Fiorentino, about 30min away.
The vet, a young guy with lots of piercings, was very nice and handled Lorenzo very well. I think Lorenzo even charmed him (I could tell by the way the vet giggled!), and he didn't even charge us to pull out the broken tooth. Everyone in the vet clinic, including a little boy, also admired Lorenzo, oohing and awing, calling him bellino (beautiful little one). Indeed, not many people in Italy have ever seen a gerbil, but we won't tell Lorenzo that is why he got all the attention.
Since Monday we hoped Lorenzo would go back to his normal chipper self, but he still refuses to chew hard foods and drink from his water bottle, even though the vet said he should be fine. Since he doesn't even want to chew cardboard, he has no other way to occupy himself and just sleeps all day and looks miserable until we let him out in the bedroom for a few hours in the evening (when he really perks up). Poor Lorenzo! Maybe we should send him to a counselor... Hopefully he starts chewing again before his other teeth get too long and we have to send him back to the vet to have them clipped, too!
On to another type of rodent. After waiting a respectable amount of time after Easter, this week I finally tried coniglio, rabbit, for the first time. I really want to eventually try roast rabbit, but for now I settled for a jar of bunny sauce from the grocery store. Rabbit is actually very popular in Italy (like it is in most of Europe), as are pigeon and horse. I think I would like to try pigeon before leaving, but I don't know about horse...
Not sure why Annibale Carracci's The Beaneater is used as the image on the label, but I do like how the picture of the bunny on the lid helps to clear up any confusion.
Pasta con ragù di coniglio
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