Boots in the Oven

What We're Learning in Florence

1) Though his dried fruits and nuts are wonderful, DO NOT buy spices from the guy at the top of the stairs in the Mercato Centrale.

The only coriander he had available was packaged in a mix with black and white peppercorns.  Husbear bought it, thinking he'd just sort it when he got the bag home, but when he dumped it out on the table he discovered little pantry bugs.

Much, much sorting ensued.  All the bugs are now squished, thankfully, leaving perhaps 40 pieces of coriandolo intero (whole coriander, we hope).

2) Though for some reason I keep wanting to call it Gorp, everyone we know now has to go to Grom for gelato!

This place was unlike any other gelateria we've ever seen!  Most striking is the lack of big bright displayed gelato tubs with pieces of fruit sticking out.  I guess Grom is confident enough in their product that they feel they don't need overstuffed mounds of gelato to entice the tourists?  (Plus, I imagine it keeps the gelato fresher and stops that icky skin from forming when it melts and refreezes.)

Plus, they have a mission statement!  A gelateria with a mission statement!  And seasonal gelato- monthly, even!

We ordered mirtillo, or blueberry, which was the flavor of the month and actually tasted like fresh blueberries (!), in a tri-flavor cup with cassata (a sicilian treat, with a ricotta base and candied fruitbits) and fior di latte, which is normally a type of mozzarella cheese but here denotes a type of gelato that tastes - kind of like mozzarella cheese.  (But like good mozzarella cheese, not that dried yellowy crap people throw on pizzas.)

Wow.  I think that's the best gelato we've had in Italy.

It was so good, we agreed very quickly that we absolutely needed to order another coppetta.  Slightly smaller this time, with only two flavors.

Crema di Grom (the one with the chocolatey/cookie-y bits) and crema come una volta.  Both cream-based flavors, with a very good mouthfeel.

I have to try all of their chocolate flavors!

This coppeta, we took outside, so as not to be seduced into ordering a third.

3) Eating gelato by the duomo is awesome and we should do it as many times as we have a chance to.

4) Because, good as gelato is, you can't live on ice cream alone: sammiches at I Fratellini are not only tasty and cheap, they are also a good time.

You know how some places describe themselves as holes-in-the-wall, and you get there and they're enormous?  Well, I Fratellini (The brothers) is actually a hole.  In a wall.  With two brothers, a counter, a pile of bread, boxes of meats and cheeses, and lots and lots of wine.  The sammiches are 2.10, unless you want to fancy it up and get the one with truffle oil - then you're set back 3.  Glasses of wine start at 1.60, and little shelves outside the counter are numbered so you remember where you put your glass.

I got a tasty combination of mortadella and melanzane, or bologna and pickled eggplant.  The vinegar kick of the eggplant cut right through the fat bologna, making for a terrific combo.  Husbear got a veggie option, with pecorino cheese, arugula, and truffle oil.

5) For now, electric cars have to get plugged in somewhere, and that somewhere is apparently available on the streets of Florence.

Yes, that thing on the right side of the picture is a large outlet box, and the cord you can see coming out of it is attached to this teeny car.

I need to find out what the deal is with these, as we've seen quite a few around town and they only seem to seat one.

6) My husband loves me and wants me to be happy.  That's the only reason I can think of that he put together this wonderful meal last night. 

We went to Standa, our local supermarket, and picked up some of their ready-to-eat antipasti.  These are tasty little marinated anchovies (not salt-packed, like the mouth-puckering ones you get on Greek salads at home) over which Husbear poured some garlic he heated in a little bit of olive oil.  Then he added some red pepper flakes and flat-leaf parsley (prezzomolo).  We had this with grilled bread.  Yum.

A little later, we ate our main course - a panzanella made of cubes of grilled bread tossed with marinated artichokes and eggplant, fresh tomatoes, red onions, and this amazing lightly aged goat cheese we found.

Delicious, along with being nice and light and vegetable-filled. 

And, since we have to cram as much gelato into our gaping maws as we can before it starts to get cold around here:

7) Gelato from Gelateria Veneta is nice, but not knock-you-out-of-your-pants-and-leave-them-in-an-ugly-pile-on-the-street like Grom's.

This seems like much more of a local hangout, where teenagers come to talk about boys and girls and smoke.  And eat gelato.

Now, I will say this for them - their gelatos are the right color, with the possible exception of the mint gelato.  The pistachio is a (still appealing) muddy green, the banana is light gray instead of day-glo yellow, et cetera.

Because this is what we do, man, we ordered a three-flavor cup.  This time, we got lampone (raspberry), buontalenti (some sort of bread pudding/rum dessert flavor) and, again, fiordilatte.

I am pretty sure that Veneta makes all of their gelato by hand, and not from a mix, though I can't pretend my tastebuds are sensitive or well-trained enough to know for sure.  These particular flavors were a little sweet for me, though the buontalenti (if I'm spelling that right) was totally outstanding. 

8) Tribal tattoos HURT, especially if you get them on your face.

O.K., FINE, you're right, it's just that the light was behind a bush.  I like my explanation better.

In an effort to make this blog a little more user-friendly, I am going to try to start listing addresses, etc. for these places we're going.  If I forget, well, tough cookies.  I like you guys, but I like not spending hours hunting down random stuff in Italian on the internet too.

So.

Gelateria Grom: Via del Campanile/Via delle Oche, Firenze, 055.216158

I Fratellini: Via dei Cimatori 38r, Firenze, 055.2396096

Gelateria Veneta: Piazza Beccaria 7r, 055.2343370

girlie

Cooking and Eating and Shopping, Oh My!

Not to rub it in the face of all you lovely folk back in Texas (where it's been over 100 degrees 23 out of the 28 days so far this month), but it's another lovely 80 degree day here in Florence.  Husbear's out, trying to check in with Study Abroad and possibly, if he's lucky, pick up his cell phone, and I sit here at home trying to craft a post out of a set of disjointed pictures from the last couple of days.

Yesterday, we went to Apicius for information on the permesso di soggiorno, bought like seventeen kilos of leeks at the Mercato Centrale, and then ate felafel.  Going to any small felafel or schwarma stand anywhere in Europe reminds me of when we were backpacking though the continent after college,  when an average day in an expensive country  (read France) meant that we could afford to either 1) picnic on yogurt, fruit, and a loaf of bread, 2) eat Chinese food, or 3) eat schwarma or felafel.  Of course, there were days when we were able to swing a full meal, especially in Italy or Spain, but for the most part we ate a lot of cheese and felafel.

Also, I had my first proposal of marriage ina felafel restaurant in Amsterdam.  I don't think it had anything to do with my sexy looks; in fact, I'm all but certain it had to do with my American passport.  ("A business relationship," he repeated.)

I would say that these particular offerings were mid-range, gaining points both through judicious application of several tasty and well-spiced sauces as well as the inclusion of French fries (what!  yay!), but losing points due to a significant lack of salt as well as underfrying of the felafel patty.

The place had a mirror wall.  Time for a self-portrait!

You can see our camera from here!  (BTW, that was a really, really good investment.  That little camera goes just about everywhere with us.)

Then, we walked past the duomo

(yup, hasn't gotten old yet) towards Paperback Exchange.  Husbear really, really wanted a replacement Silver Spoon (due to weight restrictions, he didn't bring his home copy with), and I very much needed to buy some books to read that weren't Italian guidebooks.  Though their prices are a little high, they have a great selection of books that I've been wanting to read for years but haven't really gotten around to.  Perhaps without TV in English I will have a chance to better the ol' mind a little?

Ahem... we also went by Lush, because I was out of face cleanser and Husbear wanted to try their Gin Tonic solid shampoo.  (It's been discontinued in the United States, where it was called Jumping Juniper.) 

Hey, our book choices make us look semi-literate!  (I hid the Mary Higgins Clark and Dan Brown.  Ha.)  Dave Eggers and Bocaccio were my choices (I thought Bocaccio would be a good tackle while we're living here) while Husbear went for John Kennedy Toole and a Tom Robbins, along with the Silver Spoon we originally walked in there to get.

While I was spending hours setting up and lighting that beautiful shot, Husbear was toiling away in the kitchen, melting leeks, making crepes, slicing taleggio, and toasting hazelnuts.

He put together this lovely salad, filling the crepes with melted leeks and taleggio and serving them on a bed of frisee and arugula with an apricot/hazelnut vinaigrette.  Yum!

After dinner, we left our house to go on a walk, which was greatly shortened after the realization that we were getting rained on.  Oh well.

This morning, the tasty tasty obsession with combinations of polenta cakes and poached eggs continued with:

Polenta cakes on a bed of arugula tossed with a red wine vinaigrette, topped with a poached egg and sauced with a leek bechamel.

If I ran, after looking at all that food it would be about time for me to go on a run.  Since I don't, it's time for an aperitivo and then a final push to get this place in tip-top shape prior to Husbear's school orientation which begins on Thursday.

Ooh ooh!  Breaking news:  Husbear has arrived with his phone, so we do now have that and will try to be good about keeping it charged and on.

It for now... until we do something else worth blogging.

girlie

Sweet Breakfast in Firenze

Now that things have settled down a bit and I'm not constantly busy and confused, perhaps I can give little miss fingers of fire a break and write something myself for a change.  Heck, maybe I can even get my stumpy little sausage digits to peck out something interesting and possibly relevant.

For now though, I just want to let you know what we're eating this morning and you're not (probably not. I mean it's possible.  Actually, if you are eating this, email me and we'll discuss the cosmic odds).

Oh yeah.  Pan fried polenta cakes wrapped in pancetta and topped with a delightfully goopy poached egg.  On arugula. Can't forget the arugula.

So in summary:

I should write more. We ate breakfast.  You may have eaten breakfast, but most likely not this. 

And they said I'm not thourough.

L. Pants

Carbonara and ROCK AND ROLL!

One of the things that's so great about living where we do is that we're within very easy walking distance of one of Florence's best food markets, the Mercato Sant'Ambrogio. Though the building, and the selection, are smaller than the Mercato Centrale, you also don't have to deal with the insanity that is the streets surrounding the Mercato Centrale - plus, since mostly locals shop there, the prices are cheaper.

One day I'll even take the camera and get a few pictures.

Yesterday, Husbear put together an early dinner with fresh pasta he picked up at the Mercato Sant'Ambrogio.  He was really in the mood for spaghetti carbonara, also known as the Italian bacon and eggs.  Since no fresh spaghetti was to be found, he settled for the larger pici.  We also grabbed some pancetta tesa, eggs, and some awesome parmagiano-reggiano.

He was even able to make a frico, or little cheese basket, with our crappy little skillet!  He used it for a little egg-nest.

It was a little richer than the original, which is based in cucina povera, or the type of cooking stemming from necessity and poverty.  This had a little more cream, eggs, and pancetta - and it was richly delicious.  Yum.  Cucina rica, si?

To keep us from completely stuffing ourselves with eggs and cream, we also made a salad with celery, celery leaves, apples, and toasted almonds with a dijon honey vinaigrette.  It's based on a recipe we've made before at home, but this time we were able to include beaucoup celery leaves since the celery for sale here actually retains its tops.

Everything was really good, so I ate too much - as usual.  This time, at least I could justify my overindulgence by telling myself I'd walk it off on the way up to Forte Belvedere.

Yup - as I sorta alluded to in the last post, we actually did make it up to Firenze State '06 at Forte Belvedere last night!  This is part of a city-wide festival which takes place in August, in an attempt to stem the tide of Florentines leaving for the beach.  So, we made our overfed way back up the hill on the other side of the Arno.

When we got there, at about 9:30, the place was pretty quiet.

Forte Belvedere is a 16th century fort built both to protect the holdings of the Medici and to give them a retreat in case things got a little heated in the city below.  Alls I know is, I wouldn't want to storm it by myself.

Husbear and I couldn't decide if the ruts in the stairs are from cars or carriages.

The price of admission was... free! so we were able to justify spending 5 euros apiece on crizappy prosecco.  The bar was very nicely situated.

We took our prosecci and strolled around the ramparts, taking in the view of the city to the north.

And this is what we look like at night in Florence!

Coming into the festival, we saw signs that a rock band would be performing beginning at 10:30.  Having never been to an Italian rock show of any kind, we just had to check these guys out.

Wow, was it worth it.  They weren't just a rock band - they were a COVER band.  Their repertoire included mostly songs from the 60s, with a good sprinkling of Elvis tunes and British invasion chart-toppers.  Some of these were performed in Italian, including We Five's "You Were on My Mind", and several beach blanket bingo type songs we weren't fortunate enough to recognize, but which had the local crowd frantically doing the twist and the swim.

Then - the pièce de résistance.  Midway through a rollicking rendition of Johnny B. Goode, the band suddenly stops and asks the audience to call out musical genres.  They proceed to perform the song tango-, punk-, reggae-, samba-, salsa-, new wave-, oasis- AND:

oh my goodness-

you have to watch this-

and I hope you enjoy it at least as much as we did-

Yes.  This was not to be topped.  And I hope you enjoy the video, since it took almost an hour to upload to YouTube.  We've learned our lesson - future videos will be much smaller.

You're very welcome.

girlie

Our First Passeggiata

There's a ritual practiced by Italians all over this country.  Each night, before dinner, you put on your best threads and shake your tail feathers out in public in a slow stroll around the main piazze in town.  We're still getting the hang of this, so instead of a preening passeggiata around the Piazza della Repubblica or the Piazza Santa Croce, we went on a 4 kilometer stroll up a huge hill on the other side of the Arno at about 7 this evening.

We took this walk directly out of our Lonely Planet Florence, which suggested we begin at the Ponte Vecchio.  This is the only bridge not destroyed during World War II, and it's lined with jewelers and folks hawking paintings off of blankets.  Today, they were joined by a young Japanese man phonetically singing "The Day the Music Died," which added a more surreal touch to the proceedings.

The area immediately across the Arno was jammed with people, but we took a quick left onto the Costa di San Giorgio and the crowds thinned almost immediately.  This road takes you right up a fairly steep hill.

Yes, you share the space with cars.

After just a few minutes of panting your way up the hill (I would not recommend this walk in the middle of a sunny day!) you reach the house Galileo lived in during the first half of the 17th century.  It's beautifully restored, but does not appear to house a museum or anything of the sort.  I'll have to go back and research.

But it DOES move!  Though there are apparently some, even now, who might like to argue with Galileo.

At the top of the hill, the road evens out and goes through a 13th-century gate in the town's medieval walls, the Porta di San Giorgio.

Right through this gate is a giant fortress, the Forte di Belvedere.  Through August 31, they're having a cultural festival there, with a restaurant and bar (of course!) and exhibit on what looked to be 20th century Italian art.  We're thinking about going back tomorrow, so I'll report back if we do.

Through the gate, the road's name changes to the Via di San Leonardo.  This stretch, though nice, is not that interesting - it's mostly made up of these walls that are too tall to see over, punctuated every once in a while by gates you can't really see through.  The little bits between the bars do afford pretty views of the valleys below.

Plus, every once in a while there's an only-in-Italy moment.

Very suddenly, a major intersection springs up from behind one of the walls along the side of the road.  Why, it's the Viale Galileo Galilei!

This road seems to be a major thoroughfare for traffic heading out of Florence, though it has some really lovely views back into town across a valley.  It's a nice street to walk along, since it's lined with trees that keep you sheltered from the traffic.

Plus, you get these truly amazing views off to the left.

Eventually, this road deposits you in the Piazzale Michelangelo, a large piazza holding a big bronze copy of Michelangelo's David.  From here, you can see just about all of Florence's major sites, including the Duomo, the Palazzo Vecchio, and Santa Croce. 

Especially at twilight, when we were there, the view was completely unbelievable.

However, one can only take in sights like these for so long when one has gone at least three hours without eating, right?  So, back to the house for dinner.

Our route back to our flat took us past Santa Croce.

Seeing this building reminds me exactly how insane it is that we're actually living in this town. 

At home, Husbear put together a meal with some fresh gnocchi we picked up at the mercato centrale today, along with a pasta sauce made with raw tomatoes, basil, and cubed mozzarella.

As Husbear said, this gnocchi was the best he'd had that he didn't make himself or get at a good restaurant.  I think that's actually pretty high praise!  We'll have to try more fresh pasta from that stand at the mercato centrale.

Sorry, folks, but I'm fading fast here.  Bedtime for Girlie!

girlie

Hello, Firenze!

We're here because we're here because we're here because... we're here!

We arrived from Bologna yesterday midday and sweated our sunny way over to Milligan and Milligan, our rental agents, only to find that our landlord was still on vacation and was not expecting to return until after 3.  Ah well - so gnocchi and pizza were had at the OK Bar (that's the name, not a judgement) on the corner of Via dei Servi and Via degli Alfani.  (I thought I remembered Steve blogging that he really liked this place - and he's right, their food is quite good, and reasonably priced!)

After pranzo (lunch) we headed back to Milligan and Milligan to gather our things and take a taxi to our new place.

Let me just take a moment out here to thank Steve most enthusiastically for leaving a wonderful bag of books, maps, bus passes, and tourist guides for us at Milligan and Milligan!  Between that, and his eminently useful Florence guide (which he provided to us free!) we are inundated with a wealth of terrifically useful information.  I do have to insert a small pout here that he and his lady wife Susan moved from Florence to Paris before we got here, but hopefully our paths will cross in the future.  (And, when you're done with me, you should definitely go check out his blog on their experiences in Florence, Siena, and now Paris.)

Anyhoo, back to ME ME ME.  (or, well, US US US.)

Our taxi dropped us off right in front of our new home, where we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

After about 45 minutes of listening to "oh god oh god oh god what if they don't come and we have to sleep in the goddamn street on our first night in Florence" Husbear trundled resignedly off to find a payphone and call our landlord's cell phone.  Of course, not a minute after he left, our landlord and his wife came running around the corner competely out of breath and apologetic.  They helped me carry our bags up the two flights of stairs to our apartment, and when Husbear got back Carlo gave him an extremely thorough tour of the premises.

We have a three-page single-spaced list of the contents in here, people.  And Husbear and Carlo went through the whole thing, along with meter-reading and hot-water heating and how to start the gas stove without burning your hand.  And how the keys work (which is actually a good thing, since I'm pretty sure our door could stop the invading hordes in their tracks).

After they left, we fell over for a little while.

Today, we took pictures, since we thought there might be interested parties...

Once you make it through the street-level door, there are 44 steps up to the apartment, which is on the 3rd floor (what the Italians would call the second floor).

Entering our apartment, you face a long hallway with the hall kitchen immediately in front.

Currently, the washing machine is on the fritz, but it should be fixed by next week.  We found a supermarket today and bought bananas and butter and dish soap and toilet paper and eggs, which come in packs of 10.  The supermarket's store brand is called "clever", so we bought 10 clever eggs.  An argument for veganism if I've ever heard one.

On your right immedeately through the front door is the bathroom.  I took this picture standing in the tub looking back towards the hallway.

We have a bidet!  I hear they're great for keeping wine and fruit cold.  (Just kidding, in case any of you think I'm some special kind of idiot.)

To your immediate left as you walk in is our dining/living area.  The dining room has a loft on top of it with a twin bed, and the living room has a red futon in it that you can barely see in the pictures which does fold out into some sort of bed-like thing.

The dining room also opens onto a small balcony, from which you can sorta see the top of the Duomo if you crane your neck and believe really, really hard.  (I swear it's there, but it's much too small to photograph.)

Angling slightly right from here, you will see the living room and a startled Husbear.

That window overlooks the street below and a bar, which appears to be rather a hotspot at night... a little on the loud side, shall we say?  Earplugs may be a necessity, all of you wanting to visit; though when it cools down a little, we'll probably want to be keeping the windows closed anyway.  Fascinating.

To the left of the dining room is our bedroom, which is currently a balls-out mess since we weren't quite done unpacking when I took these pictures.

We have a wonderful amount of storage space, for people who didn't really bring much of anything.  That white armoire, or whatever, on the far side of the room is the largest piece of furniture I've ever seen.  Remind me not to buy lots of things to fill it up that will later have to be mailed home, 'kay?

So, back out to the living/dining area to check out our loft.  I took this picture from the middle of the living room.

The loft is really like having an extra bedroom, though it isn't entirely private.

It has its own cabinet-based storage space, and lighting, and little window, and bed and desk.  It's actually a pretty nice setup, once you get up the very steep laddery stairs.

So, now that I've completely bored you to tears with my most likely completely incomprehensible apartment tour (and if it didn't make sense, you'll just have to come see it for yourself - not you, crazy internet stalkers) how about I distract you with a gnoccho con rucola, mozzarella, e pomodorini that we shared for an antipasti before dinner tonight at Trattoria Pallatino?  (ooh, long sentence.)

So, tomorrow off to Ikea, if we can figure out how to get there, and also to the Mercato Sant'Ambrogio near our house to stock up on vegetables and fruits and breads and such.  Hopefully we will take pictures and get them up here, but lord knows how long our internet will hold out.  Try not to read this too hard, since we don't want to jog the internet loose, okay?

Loves to all of youse!

girlie

Bologna, Italia - August 20, 2006

If you haven't checked on us in the last 12 hours or so, well, we're in a new country.  I don't think I could keep this up for very long; fortunately, we arrive in Florence tomorrow to get our keys and our apartment for the next 10 months!  Woo!  It's already going by much too fast.

Care to see something ridiculous?

This is the airport in Dublin right after we arrived for out 4:10 flight at about 1:00 on August 19th.  Oh yes.  Now, it really isn't as bad as it looks - I know you don't believe me, but since we got chosen by airport statistics-gatherers I can tell you with confidence that it only took us about an hour to get from this point to our gate.  Really.

Our flight was uneventful.  Hilariously, I think we were the only non-EU travelers on board, since our passport line contained... well, us, and the EU-only passport window was jammed.  We breezed through and retrieved all of our luggage, this time.

Ohmygod our hotel is AWESOME, and for only 58 euros this time!

And we have our own bathroom and there's a maid and we have a flat screen TV and there is an awesome free breakfast and and and yay!  Apparently Bologna isn't much of a tourist town - shocking in Italy - but they make most of their money off of trade shows and business travelers, so things are cheap this time of year.

Actually, make that things are CLOSED this time of year.

Almost the entire town is gone for vacation.  Full blocks of shops are shuttered - even in the food market area, which we excitedly approached early this afternoon only to find nothing open.

Anyway, this didn't stop us from having a good dinner last night, including a lovely serving of prosciutto e melone, now in season.

Normally, I'm not a fan of cantaloupe (or muskmelon) but apparently, when it's really sweet and flavorful and perfectly ripe, and then you wrap it in ham, it's really good.  Who woulda thunk?

We blithely set out this morning, not realizing the full extent of the Bolognese vacation.

According to our Rough Guide, Bologna boasts 25 miles of porticos, covered walkways built onto the sides of buildings.  These provide a welcome respite from the sun, which is still pretty intense this time of year.

We intitally walked in the direction of Bologna's two main piazze, the Piazza del Nettuno and the Piazza Maggiore, thinking we would get food along the market streets just past the Piazza Maggiore.

Piazza Maggiore holds some impressive monuments, including an enormous one on a wall with pictures of all the partisans killed during World War Two and the names of the people killed in the 1980 train station bombing.

The Piazza del Nettuno holds a fountain that looks a little odd by day (if you look closely), though by night it's beautifully lit and serves as a meeting point for the young Bolognese.

(detail of the Neptune Fountain)

My favorite building in this area is the church of San Petronio, which was orginally intended to be bigger than St. Peter's in Rome until the Pope's man in Bologna said "Right, we're totally going to let you crazies build a church bigger than St. Peter's.  Are you INSANE?" and diverted money and land towards the university, then located nearby.

The end result is hilarious, with the marble one-third done and the area intended to be the side aisles sort of incorporated into the surrounding streets.

Walking down the streets on the sides of the church, it's really easy to see where the aisles were supposed to be - they sliced right through the center of the windows to let the street through!

It was at this point that we discovered the lack of eating options in this area, since all of the picnicking food shop options were closed for vacation and all of the restaurants were a little more than we were planning for lunch.  We figured we'd walk down by the university, thinking that would be a likely area to get a cheap, filling, and tasty lunch... forgetting that the university was completely closed down for August.  Duh, in retrospect.

On the way, we did get to see one of Bologna's more famous landmarks - the Due Torri, or two towers.  They date from the 12th century, and there used to be lots of them all over the city.

That's not just perspective; the tower on the left, the Torre Garisenda, is leaning rather precariously, though the one on the right, the Torre degli Asinelli, is doing pretty well from all appearances.

Bologna has a pervasive grafitti problem, and we saw some pretty funny stuff walking through the deserted university...

You did what to the what now?  And you are the what?  Oh, never mind.

Though we ended up making a big loop through the university and back towards the center of town, we did eventually find food.  Can't say it was good food, though.  Husbear described his pizza as tasting "like a doughnut" - hardly a ringing endorsement from a pizza-lover such as him.

At this point, we walked WAY north to the modern art museum, a diversion I would reccomend against if you find yourself in Bologna... unless you're a big fan of rocks and dirt lying around on the floor... that you have to look at in appreciation.  Also, there were 8 staffers there and 5 visitors, which made for a little awkwardness since the staff felt they had to watch you at all times, lest you kick the dirt or try to eat the cotton balls.

I'm not kidding.

Sadly, you can't see the exploding cotton ball chimney, which is just outside of the frame on the left, but I can verify that the dark smudge in the middle of the room is a pile of dirt with a three dollar compass in the middle.

We still had a good time, though.

You've most likely heard the phrase sex sells?  Well, why suggest it if you can club people over the head with it, is what I'd like to know.

Since it's getting very late, I'm going to breeze quickly through our dinner.

Just kidding!  Not about the time, but definitely about the McDonald's.  Don't you just desperately want that ridiculous hamburger?

No, ma'am - for dinner, we went to La Colombina, a lovely restaurant behind my favorite church, the San Petronio.  This restaurant was really good, though a trifle pricey - we split the "typical Emilian antipasti," which ended up being a giant plate of six different kinds of cured ham... oops... and tortellini in brodo, a Bolognese specialty of tortellini in a really flavorful chicken broth

and gnocchi "Grand Prix" which turned out to be delicious.  The more ubiquitous potato gnocchi was mixed with spinach and then wrapped around a little bit of ricotta cheese, with a tomato cream sauce.  Totally delicious.

We split this dish, so I got three gnocchi and Husbear got three.  I could have eaten all six, I think.  They were really, really good.

OK - much too late here!  Tomorrow, on to Florence, our home for at least a little while.

girlie

Dublin, Day Two - August 18, 2006

Another full day on which to report!  (This kind of shabby writing is the type of thing up with which you shall not put, I know.)

We had another terrific day in Dublin.  I really like this town, but it doesn't feel at all out of my comfort zone, except that everyone has great accents and there are more red-heads around.  It's a very nice Northern European city, is all.  I'd really like to come back, but mostly to get out of Dublin and have a look-see at the countryside... and eat more Irish butter (and gain lots of Irish weight!).

Breakfast this morning at the hostel was an extremely chaotic affair, involving lots of bumping into each other and other hostel guests, washing and rewashing mugs, and refilling the electric kettle which for some reason only had a 3-cup capacity.  Breakfast equaled corn flakes with whole milk, white bread, and instant tea.  Eh, at least it was free?

After breakfast, we walked over to the Central Post Office.  The facade of the building was the only thing left after the Irish Republican Army used the building for their headquarters for the Easter Rising.

You can still see bullet holes in the facade.  It's amazing to think that this only took place in 1916!

Then, on to the Jameson distillery (by way of a mall, where we picked up a watch with alarm since we somehow managed to misplace both my watch and our travel alarm in the move...)

The tour, priced at E 8.75, was a little much for us, since we're not big whiskey fans anyhow... but we did decide to get a drink at the on-site bar, the Coopers Rest (apostrophe missing in original).  With a name like that, how could we pass it up?  And, by the way, their prices were very reasonable.

Husbear tried a glass of the 12-year distillery reserve, which is available only on-site, and I got an Irish coffee, available most places.

I think my coffee had as much whiskey in it as Husbear's glass, but somehow it didn't taste all that strong.  We lingered over these drinks for quite some time, though we did see a few people knocking back enormous glasses of whiskey before heading on the distillery tour.

Verdict - we're still not whiskey drinkers, though the Irish Coffee may have a place in my life...

After all this sitting (well, we did walk across town to the distillery in the first place) we were getting a bit hungry, so we started walking to the National Museum figuring we'd eat on the way.

We actually ended up finding a terrific place to eat, a colorful pub called Nancy Hands.

I had a lovely, if a bit salty, bowl of leek and bacon soup.  And a Guinness.  Look, I'm in Ireland.  I don't want to get thrown out of the country for not bowing down properly to the national drink! 

The National Museum was really fascinating - we saw a really cool exhibit on Irish coins dating back as far as 900 CE, with half-penny's that were actually pennies but in half, coins that had been restamped in an effort to raise their value, and the strange tidbit that Irish money for years was worth exactly 12/13ths of English money.  Huh.

They also had gloves made from the skin of an unborn cow.  Yew.

They were made in Limerick, and they were so delicate they were sold crammed into a walnut.  (That tool in the middle is for spreading out the fingers.)

After the National Museum closed at 5, we set our sights on the Modern Art Museum.  Unfortunately, it was closed, but we were able to wander the beautiful grounds.  For some pictures of the grounds, laid out in the classic English style, see our Flickr photostream.  (They are also in this set, if they've fallen off the front page of our flickr stream.)

After enjoying a bit of relaxation in the museum garden, we walked in the direction of the Brazen Head, Dublin's oldest pub (est. 1198!)

This place was much larger than it looks from the outside, and it was absolutely jammed with Dubliners - from office-workers just getting off for the week to entire families enjoying fish and chips and Guinness stew.  I had a really good dry cider.

A couple of funny things we've seen around Dublin, in our wanderings today:

When they say no bikes, they really mean it.

These markings are on almost all of the crosswalks, just like in London - and, let me tell you, they really come in handy to my jet-lagged self. 

No frills, just booze.  To go.  I guess in a place where almost everyone walks, they can do things like this.  (Note the opening day specials include Miller, Budweiser, and Coors Light.  In IRELAND.)

For all of you guys clamoring for a view of our hostel room, here ya go:

It's serviceable... oh, and to dear auntie, who emailed me to say "jeebus, isn't 77 euros a little excessive for a room at a hostel?" let me just say that's for two people in a shared room, at 39 eurosish each.  We could have gotten two dorm beds here in a ten-person dorm for 17 euros each, but then I would have had to kill someone.  Or nine someones.

Tomorrow afternoon, we leave Dublin for Bologna.  Our flight is in the late afternoon, so we're going to leave here after an early lunch, given the security situation.  Wish us luck, as the border guys check our visas and lack thereof tomorrow!

Well, this is almost bye, Dublin!

girlie

Dublin, Day One - August 17, 2006

We've made it!

Most of the way, anyway, and only two of our three checked bags initially made it with us... though we have them all now.

This post is going to be short, since it's already 1 in the morning and we've been up since basically 8:30 Eastern time yesterday with an approximate 1 hour nap - and did I mention that our hostel's common area is filled with Germans who are giggling shrilly at old episodes of Jackass?

Well, it is - but at least the hostel has internet access!

We've had a really really really full day.

Yesterday, midafternoon, we took of from Washington DC a little late due to traffic slowdowns into New York (not because of the security issues).

I gave Husbear the window seat, since he's never flown out of National before, and he got this great view of the Jefferson and Washington monuments.

We only had an hour and twenty minutes at JFK in New York, which sounds like a lot but was barely enough to leave the terminal, catch the stupid Airlink bus to our new terminal, and go through security again.  We made it to our gate just in time for final boarding.

We arrived in Dublin this morning at the entirely uncivilized hour of 5:30, only to find that our bag with all of our guidebooks and Husbear's shoes had failed to make it with us.  After getting forwarding information sorted out, we left the airport for our hostel.

Did you know that a bus ride from the airport into town costs the same as a one-day bus pass?  I thought that was strange marketing.  We bought the one-day bus pass and took the bus to within 4 blocks of our hostel, Litton Lane.

Though it's a little dingy, the hostel has nice rooms and a great location, along with a really reasonable price of only 77 euros a night.

After dropping our bags in the left luggage room (which comes complete with a leaking pipe... our things got more than a little damp) we made a beeline for a traditional Irish breakfast.  Our beeline ended up being a little more circular than we hoped, given our lack of sleep and lack of familiarity with Dublin, but we eventually found this bizarre restaurant on the top of a shopping arcade serving a full Irish breakfast for 8.40 E.

After this EXTREMELY filling breakfast (I was only able to finish about a third of mine, and it held me 12 hours until dinner!) we thought we'd walk over to St. Patrick's cathedral, constructed on the approximate location where St. Patrick baptized converts in the 5th century CE.

On the way, we stumbled on these really cool doors.  I read that there's a story behind all the doors in Dublin being painted different colors; apparently, late one night a drunk Dubliner, stumbling home from the bar, entered the wrong house and got into bed with the wrong wife.  When this woman's actual husband returned home, he was so incensed he killed the intruder.  Since then, the women of Dublin have been sure to paint their doors distinctive colors so their menfolk don't get killed for being stupid.

St. Patrick's was lovely, and while we were there the dean (?) offered a prayer for peace which was really nice to hear.  The same thing happened when we visited Christchurch later on, oddly.

(interior of St. Patrick's, Dublin)

Honestly, though Christchurch is the more famous of the two churches, I think we enjoyed St. Patrick's better, there being more "stuff" to look at - memorials along the walls to battles throughout the last three hundred years.

(exterior of Christchurch, Dublin)

At this point, I completely ran out of steam.  Having gotten exactly no sleep on the only 6-hour flight from New York to Dublin, I was done.

Luckily, we were at the point where Litton Lane allowed us to check in, so I took a 1.5 hour nap.  After waking, it was time to visit something a little lighter - the Guinness brewery.  Though reports pegged it as lame, our experince with the total lameness of Amsterdam's Hieneken Experience made us curious - could this brewery be as uninteresting as that one?

Surprisingly, we really enjoyed our time there.  The Guinness people have put on a great show, with lots of interesting information, including old advertising campaigns which we found really interesting.

Plus, though the entrance fee is expensive, it comes with a free pint of Guinness!  And, trust me, by the time you've made it through learning just how much time and effort goes into producing a pint of Guinness, you are really ready for a taste.

You know it takes something like 119.6 seconds to pour a perfect pint of Guinness, so the ratio of beer to head is right on?  Well, this guy knew that.

These pints look gargantuan, but I promise they're only pint-sized.

We lingered over our pints in the seventh-floor bar, which has a great panoramic view of Dublin.  Though fairly crowded, it was a nice way to while away the time and get situated in a new town.

Since this was our first day in Dublin, and we had already consumed (at least a small part of ) a traditional Irish breakfast, we really wanted to try a traditional Irish dinner as well.  You might think this would be difficult for a person who doesn't eat much meat, but he managed.

I actually saw this restaurant a few weeks ago on an episode of Passport to Europe, and it looked really interesting.  Though exposure like this is often disasterous for restaurants, we did find other good reviews, so we decided to give Gallagher's Boxty House a try.

They were jammed, so we didn't actually get seated for dinner until 10... but since my internal clock has absolutely no idea what's going on, this was fine.

Even at that late hour, they were still really busy.

I ordered a salmon and smoked cod boxty (basically like an extra-hearty crepe, with potatoes added), and Husbear got mushy peas, colcannon (mashed potatoes with kale), and a plan boxty for a make-your own platter.

It was a really hearty meal that was actually quite tasty, and I'd certainly reccommend the restaurant if any of you find yourselves in Dublin.

Then, back here for the wrangling of pictures and writing of (sorry this one's a little disjointed) posts.  I hope you guys realize how much I love y'all!

Tomorrow, we have a list of about 17 things to do, and it's going to 2 - so good night to us, and we hope you're all doing great!

girlie

We now join Phase II, Already in Progress

Warning - what follows is heavily text-based, as I'm writing from my grandmother's computer in Alexandria VA and don't have many pictures uploaded.

We've decided to break down our Austin-Florence journey as follows:

Phase I: Pack house in Austin into Penske truck, take house and cats to New Orleans with stop in Houston for visa-checking

Phase II: Fly from New Orleans to Alexandria, VA; spend time with family in hotel in Chincoteague, hopefully with relaxation on beach

Phase III: Fly from Alexandria to Dublin, Ireland on August 16; hit up Guiness Brewery and eat a boxty; take in beautiful Irish vistas and culture for two days (yes, totally comprehensive)

Phase IV: Fly from Dublin to Bologna, Italy on August 19; do some eating and some practicing of our current vocabulary of five Italian words

Phase V: Train from Bologna to Florence, Italy on August 21st; get keys to flat from rental agency and move into apartment

Since this is such a large move, I wanted to break it down further into sub-phases 1-a through 5-r, but I can't pinpoint enough specifics to make this feasible.

We've had a very eventful week or so here.  Packing up the house, though it posed no real problem save one of time and failing energy, still took 4-ever.  We didn't end up leaving Austin until about quarter to one in the morning on Sunday night, putting us into Houston (well, aktcherly the Woodlands) at 4:30.  At 10, showered and sorta refreshed, we left for the Italian consulate, only to find out that after holding onto our visa applications for nine (!!!!) weeks, their final decision was to issue Husbear's visa and not mine.

Urgh.  There was no reason not to issue mine; I can't imagine why they didn't.  I'm a little worried, but not overly so, as we are only planning to stay about 10 months and should be fine (surreptitiously crosses fingers).

Several hours outside of Houston, I glanced up towards the Penske being driven by Husbear and noted shards of rubber bouncing behind it towards my car.  I screamed into the walkie (yes, we had walkies in our vehicles) to get him to pull over, and we discovered that the inside rear tire was blown.

Luckily, we were nowhere near the capacity of the 16' truck, so the decision was made to continue driving the three hours to Baton Rouge to visit Brandog, Whitney, and Rayne(beau) for dinner while having the damage to the truck assessed.

After a lovely visit involving tasty Thai food, a couple glasses of wine, and three hours awaiting the tirechanging guy, we made it to Mandeville to the Husbear's parents' house at about 2:30 in the morning.  At 8, two wonderful neighborly gentlemen came to help us unload the truck.  We do know how to do these crazily short turnarounds, don't we?  (Husbear actually let me sleep that morning until 9, I think to get me to stop weeping.)

Mandeville was quite nice; it's really unfortunate that we only had two days to spend there.  I was very glad to be able to spend a little bit of time with the Husbear's folks, who are sincerely amazing people.  We get to see his mom in about 5 weeks when she'll come visit us in Florence.

(Husbear's mom, enjoying our company)

(Husbear's dad, enjoying hilariously oversized goblet of beer.)

We knocked off Day 1 with an 8-hour round-trip to Natchitoches to visit the Husbear's grandpa, with a quick stop at Billy's for boudin in Krotz Springs (husbear's mama - "You brought us sausages from crotch springs!") due to a fortuitous and downright freaky coincidence involving Jeffrey Steingarten's "It Must Have Been Something I Ate"'s chapter on turducken being read at the very moment we flew by Billy's.

Everyone there was buying 5-pound frozen boxes of boudin, so we hoped we had chosen right.  We did - wow was that good.

(sorry it's so green - I think we still had the tungsten setting on on our camera.)

Wednesday, we packed.  A lot. 

And ate scones and tea at a cute teahouse.  We went to bed at 2:00 and awoke at 6 on Thursday to drive to the airport.  A lovely breakfast was had at Morning Call, with several beignets, cafe au lait, milk, and Swiss Miss (strangely).

We were enjoying our beignets, and looked up to the TV on CNN just in time for some craziness.  The story of the foiled plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic had hit the airwaves, and footage of long lines at airports all over the world filled the screen.

Great.  Our flight was due to take off at 9.  We rushed to the airport, only to find exactly 3 (three) people in the security line, which gave us plenty of time to repack our liquids and gels into our checked luggage.  Our flights went perfectly smoothly, though it was pretty funny hearing the ladies in Atlanta complaning about the loss of their hairspray.

I'll try to update again before we reach Florence; if I am not able to do this, don't blame me, blame a lack of Internet access!

girlie