Birthday Day

I started out my 21st birthday with a motorcycle ride into town from Pietro, which rocked! As my dad said, it's one of those really authentic Italian moments that you just can't buy! He dropped me off at the Porta Romana, so that I could walk into town to go to the Uffizi.

The Uffizi is a pretty cool museum/art gallery. I don't think any of their art is modern, most of it is at least 300 years old, and a lot of it is even older. Some came from the private collections of the Medici family, who ruled Florence until the 17th century. They were great patrons of art during the Renaissance, encouraging and paying for many famous works of art to be created. This includes Botticelli's Birth of Venus.

After the Uffizi I treated myself to a fancy lunch at a restaurant with this view. It was rather delicious(both the view and the lunch)!


My other birthday treat to myself was this, which is also the big surprise I mentioned in the last post. I got my hair cut short! I went to a place near Santa Maria Novella Church, which I had passed the day before. The guy who cut it was named Leroy, which is possibly the most un-Italian first name I have ever hear, however, he spoke no English at all. It took three tries and me pointing at a picture before he finally got just how short I wanted it. When he got there he exclaimed 'Basta!' which means 'Enough!'


When I got back to the house Oretta told me that they would take me out for pizza. We were going to go to a restaurant, but her brother had been to a festival in town that had some very good mushrooms. There has been so much rain that the mushrooms are particularly excellent right now. We decided that that would be even better than a restaurant. When we got there it turned out that the festival was a fundraiser for the local chapter of the Italian left-wing democratic party, which is really just a fancy way of saying communist. The whole thing was family run, with the parents doing all the cooking, and the kids serving. This of course led to some very confused (and tired) kids running around with dishes, trying to serve them to all the wrong people. I had the mushroom pizza, and it was very tasty.

When we got back to the house Oretta lit some candles stuck in the rind of a watermelon cut in half. It was the perfect addition to having already eaten so much food. All round an excellent day!

All Roads Lead to ...

I interrupt the scheduled programming to let you all know that I am currently (as in real time, instead of all this back posting business) in Florence! I was going to try and finish up all the back posts, but in the crazy that was finally moving out of residence for the last time, I didn't get to it. I have a few more posts that I can do with stuff I put on the internet, but I might wait and do it all when I get back.

I am staying with family friends, the Milazzo's. They live just outside Florence in an old farmhouse.


With a view like this.

And a Chertosa (Monastary) in the distance. I hear they are up to 12 monks now.

Yesterday I did nothing but sit around with their two boys, Pietro and Matteo, who are my age. It was lots and lots of fun to do nothing at all, and when I got bored of that, I could go look outside.

Today I took the bus into town. My first stop was the Santa Mario Novella church, since it was right beside the bus stop. Inside there are some beautifully restored frescos. Interesting choice for the story they tell, but amazing.

I had lunch on the steps of Piazza San Lorenzo, where there are loads of covered stalls selling all sorts of things. I bought some Murano glass earrings, and might go back for some gorgeous scarves.

I then walked all the way to the other side of the downtown to the Ponte Vecchio. Almost all the stores on the bridge are jewellers. Apparently, a long time ago, the Arno River flooded, and all the jewellery was washed into the river, giving it the name River of Gold.

I then walked to the Uffizi to book my ticket for tomorrow. I'm very glad I did, since the line up to get in was very very very long.



I walked a lot today, most of it just wandering about, seeing the city. I took a little break for a cafe latte at this restaurant. It was more expensive than I would have liked, but the view was very good. You also can't beat history, this place has existed as a cafe since 1847.

Not to mention of course, that this is what I had to look at while I was sipping my coffee!
There is a post office under the arches, where I found more of my favorite post boxes. The ones in Italy have separate slots for local and international mail.

The arches also hold more of the covered stalls that can be found everywhere in Florence.
While I was walking about I mostly had no idea where I was going, nor any real destination. I had a map, and a decent sense of direction, so no worries about getting lost. Every once in a while I would turn a corner and find that I knew where I was, remembering something from when I was here 7 years ago. This is the local courts, though the last time I was there there where armed guards hanging around outside. They might have been carrying machine guns, and were kind of scary! However, today there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary about the building.
Tomorrow is my birthday, and I've been promissed an outing of pizza. Not to mention that I've got my own surprise up my sleeve!