Philadelphia

Philadelphia
Nov. 8 -- Nov. 9

We made it back to the US! Or, more importantly, we made it back to the states with all the food/wine we wanted to bring back with us! Horray!

Here is Aaron checking out the exchange rate for the last time:

I made a list of things I missed from the US to make me a bit more enthusiastic about returning. Not that we didn't want to return, but, well, who actually wants to return to real life after traveling for a month?

Katie's list of things she missed from home:
1. Not needing adaptors for our electronics.
2. Our KITTENS!
3. Being able to use 3G for our phones or, being able to use data wherever we are whenever we want it! (This is what we call a first world problem, but it's really nice to be able to check my Facebook.)
4. Using our credit cards wherever we want without the extra international fee.
5. Hairdryers that are not reverse vacuum cleaners. Also, hair straighteners.
6. Not being the couple with the American accent
7. Cooking
8. OUR KITTENS!
9. Not having to check the currency exchange rate wherever we go.

After collecting our bags, we hopped into a cab run by possibly the angriest cab driver in the world. So yeah, we felt like we were back home.

We had enough time to drop our stuff off at the lovely B&B Aaron reserved for us called "Le Reserve." (I appreciated his efforts to make it seem as if we were still in Europe.) It was the most beautiful place we stayed at our entire trip by far, so of course, I forgot to take a picture of it.

We then went to see Independence Hall and had the most enthusiastic tour guide of all time. Look! There's George Washington in front! (Not our tour guide)

The courtroom

And the room where the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were signed! And, contrary to what I had thought, lil' Rhody was NOT one of the last states to sign, so I've got a little state pride there. (Of course, SC WAS, so there's that.) Also, check out Washington's rising sun chair.

All in all, it was pretty interesting to lean about our own country's history after spending the past month learning about Europe's. Our country is such a BABY!

Then, Aaron and I went to a hole-in-the wall bar called Franklin Mortgage and Investment Company (no joke!) for a VERY strong drink followed by a trip to the Ranstead Room for a less strong drink. Both places were very cool and old-timey. The bartenders at both had handlebar mustaches and wore suspenders with those things that hold up your sleeves while all the waitresses had that thick Adele eye makeup. We were the least cool people there but enjoyed ourselves nonetheless! Here is Aaron enjoying himself while also looking very concerned:

We had dinner at a Mexican restaurant called El Ray, but by this time, the time change was hitting me pretty hard, so we went back to the room and crashed.

The next morning we woke up insanely early and then had breakfast with a very nice couple from Belgium and a very narcissistic couple from Florida who are currently writing their memoirs "because our children really want to read about our lives." Upon seeing us, they told us to "be on our best behavior" in order to make a good impression on the Belgian couple and then proceeded to tell the couple how nice is must be to be from Amsterdam. We were pretty insulted but are also pretty sure we weren't the ones making a poor impression on anyone.

We had enough time before our flight to see the Liberty Bell, so we headed that way and saw this cool exhibit at the same time. Archeologists have unearthed the foundation of the original President's Residence, and the exhibit has partial walls where actual walls once were and tell the stories of the slaves who worked in the house. Here's the foundation:

Then we saw the Liberty Bell!

We were in Philly, so we had to have a cheesesteak at some point. We went to Campo's, which was close and quick. The cheesesteaks were less cheesy and more bready than anticipated, but still good.

Then, it was back to Charleston for us! It felt surreal to be heading back home after so much time away, but we were excited to back home and sleep in our beds and snuggle with our cats and shower in our shower!

Next up: Epilogue

Dublin

Dublin
(Nov 6 - 8)

So our last stop in Europe was Dublin.  We stayed at the Charles Stewart Guesthouse, which was one of our larger hotels, so that was nice.  We pretty much dropped our bags and headed down to the pub for a bite to eat, because Katie was starving.

Then we felt like we needed a drink, so we headed to the old Guinness Brewery (now called the Guinness Storehouse).

Katie was cold, so she went into babushka mode.

It was a little bit Disney-esque, but you actually could learn quite a bit about the old brewery, the process of making casks, some of the old ad campaigns, that kind of thing.  The tour starts with the original 900 year lease of the property

About half way up the pint glass-shaped tour, we noticed that they had decorated somewhat oddly for, well, Ireland.

I mean, we knew that Europe paid attention to the American elections, but really?  Turns out the American embassy had rented out the brewery to watch the election.  I'm sure these weren't for us, but we took advantage anyway.

As we continued the tour, you can learn how to pour the perfect pint of Guinness Draught, so that was fun.

(side note:  In the above picture you can actually see both of my wife's awesome birthday presents to me.  A new watch and a suit!  She's awesome.  OK, back to the beer.)

And of course the best part of learning how to pour a beer is drinking it.  We headed up to the gravity bar to enjoy our beers.  The room is full of mirrored tabletops with lights shining down on them so that the reflections on the ceiling look like the head of a Guinness. (Katie seems to think that was intentional.)

Then we headed to Temple Bar for a drink before dinner (I feel like there's a theme here).  They had the obligatory Irish drinking songs, but there was also a couple of musicians (guitar and banjo) who were quite good and made some of the old standards much more interesting, so that was fun.  Katie and I tried a couple of new beers from 8 degrees (Sunburnt Irish Red and Howling Gale Ale) which were both pretty good and waited until our reservation.

Since Katie's awesome, she made me a birthday dinner reservation at White Friar Grill, which turned out to be excellent.  We started with a bone marrow appetizer and had venison over gnocchi and rabbit leg with mashed potatoes for mains.  For dessert we had creme brulee with Jameson and cherries for dessert!  It was awesome, just like my wife.  (d'awww)

The next day we grabbed breakfast at the hotel.  We're told this is a traditional Irish breakfast, but it seemed more like something I would have made from whatever happened to be left in the pantry and fridge while hungover on a Saturday morning in college.

Then we went wandering around town and ended up at the Jameson Distillery (by accident, of course), but not before we saw this amazing selection of movies currently available for viewing.

Since it was already 11:00 in the morning, we had a drink while waiting for the tour to start.  The Jameson Distillery was also a bit Disney-esque, but again, still kind of informative.  Katie received the golden ticket at the beginning of the tour and so was able to do a whiskey tasting at the end. She was kind enough to share with me.  Not exactly a fair fight, as the other whiskeys they have you taste are Jack Daniels and Johnny Walker Black...  But Katie enjoyed all the whiskey anyway.

After our morning drinking, we went to the Black Sheep (kind of a theme for this trip...) for a drink and some food.  They have an excellent beer selection with lots of local microbrews and very good food.  We split some thick-cut fries with chili and a leek sausage with stout.  Also, apparently the light in there makes me look like a goober.

They also had excellent over-urinal advertisements.

We finished the night wandering about London and stumbled upon more than one of these on the sidewalk.

Apparently they've excavated various bronze-age and earlier sites in Dublin and these stones commemorate what has been found.

The next day we met a very interesting taxi driver and headed back to the states.  Hooray!

There was a couple in front of us who were early to mid twenties and had never been on a plane before (or so I'm assuming from the sheer amount of movement of their seats) and a gentleman across the aisle who was either very nervous about flying or Irish.  I took this picture a few hours in to the flight while he was in the bathroom.  It's kind of hard to tell from the pic, but they're all empties.

If you're anything like me, you rarely get anything to eat on an airplane that isn't peanuts or pretzels, so whatever they feed you is kind of a treat.  This is, of course, simply false optimism.  Here's the Italian sandwich.  I'm quite frankly amazed that the Food Channel isn't running specials on these guys.

Well, that's it for Europe!  Now on to Philadelphia (and phones with working cell and data service!)...

Venezia!

Venice

November 3-6

First of all, I cannot believe that our little blog-writing rotation had Aaron writing about Florence and not me! However, this might be for the best as my entry could very well have been a lot of sappy “I love and miss Florence so much it hurts” language that no one really wants to read besides me. However, let it be known that I am now begging Aaron to find a job in Tuscany so I can move back there forever and ever.*

*Note: To all parents reading this: Since Aaron and I do not know Italian, this will probably never happen, so breathe a sigh of relief.

Ok, Venice. When we left you last, Aaron explained how the city was flooding thanks to Aqua Alta and we had decided to brave the city anyway.  So, on the train we went (after a farewell hot chocolate from Gilli) and we were pleasantly surprised to find the day only overcast—no rain or flooding!

Aaron had found us a little Bed and Breakfast close to the train station, but also kind of hidden away. When I say this place was “somewhere” in Venice, that is probably the most accurate description of its location. I kid you not, in order to get there, we had to go through this very low-ceilinged alleyway:

And then literally squeeze between two buildings:

On various maps of Venice, both of these are labeled as streets.

We were both pretty amazed that we fit through that space after taking into account all the pasta and pizza we had been eating for the past week. But we did it! Horray!

The B&B is run by a funny little man who says “okey-dokey” a lot, and his wife who likes to make funny little breakfasts. Here is Aaron in our funny little room:

Also, in this house, many of the door frames were very low that I didn't notice. Aaron did notice. Here is Aaron hitting his head on the door frame leading into our funny little room:

Poor the Aaron. By the end of our trip, he would get sympathy pain in his head every time he walked through a doorway without ducking. 

By the time we were all checked in, it was 3pm and we were starving. The funny little man recommended a restaurant nearby, which we obediently went to and (after some haggling with the waitress who really wanted us each to order a full Italian meal –primi, secundi, and contorni) ordered a pasta dish to share. This dish has been around since the Middle Ages and was developed when cocoa first made it to Venice. Apparently, when Italians first encountered cocoa, they went, “A new spice? We’ll put it in a sauce!” This just goes to show you that Italians have not changed since the Middle Ages. Anyway, it’s a cocoa and olive oil sauce with chopped octopus and prawns over linguine  It was pretty good, but I don’t think I’ll be looking up the recipe any time soon. Here is Aaron eating it:

After lunch, we did our normal wander-around-the-city-and-see-what-we-find bit and discovered (thanks to ample signage) the Rialto Bridge and San Marco Square. Here are some obligatory touristy pictures of all that:

San Marco is pretty amazing. The Turkish influence in the architecture is just beautiful, and seeing it at night was pretty magical.

When looking for a place to have dinner, we stumbled upon an Indian restaurant. Gleeful, we bounded in! Pasta is my favorite thing to eat, but it turns out even I need a change after a while. Now, I know what you’re wondering: Is Indian food in Venice any good? After all, it was a significant trading port for hundreds of years. The answer to this question is this: No. No, Venice does not have good Indian food. No matter how tempted you are, no matter how much you want some chicken tikka masala and chai, do not go in. Resist! Resist! The chai wasn't even good. We were served lightly flavored milk. GIANT SAD FACE. But it was nice to have a change of pace.

The next day, Aaron, who had been ignoring feeling sick up until this point, felt pretty darn sick. It was also a rainy, gloomy day, so I thought I'd let him sleep in. This is when we learned that at our particular B&B that sleeping past 9:30am, skipping breakfast, and staying in the B&B past 10am are not allowed. The funny little woman and I had a conversation that went something like this in varying degrees of broken Italian and English:

Funny little woman: *knocks* Excuse me!

kk: *quietly slips outside the room* I'm sorry, my husband is sick so he's going to sleep and we won't be having breakfast.

FLW: Well, that's too bad, but I already put out plates for you, so you must have breakfast.

kk: Oh. Ok. 

So, Aaron wakes up and we have breakfast and learn that FLW is not a very good cook. Then:

kk: Is there a Pharmacy close by?

FLW: Yes, but they are all closed because it is Sunday. You can go to the train station though and get some medicine out of the vending machine. This is good because you have to leave so I can clean your room.

kk: Oh you don't have to do that! Aaron is going to sleep.

FLW: Yes, you must go.

So Aaron and I go and I officially do not like this woman who is making my husband get up when he is sick.

However, Aaron seems to rally after 30 minutes and some more medication and we decide to escape the rain by going to the Guggenheim Museum. This is very hard to find and in the process we get to see what this "Aqua Alta" is all about. Here I am on one of the many raised walkways the Venetians put in when the city floods. You can see the water hitting the bottom edge of the walkway:

And here you can see a bit of the flooding:

 It also takes us most of the day to find the Guggenheim, so imagine a lot of damp sloshing about with wet feet and breaks for wine or pizza in the middle. The rain also caused us to keep our cameras tucked away in our slightly less damp pockets, so we don't have many pictures. We also managed to lose and find our umbrella no fewer than four times during this period of time. But, the Guggenheim was wicked cool and housed in her old house with tons of Calder, Picasso, Pollock, and Dali. I highly recommend coming here if you are ever in Venice.

That evening, we had a dinner date with our old Florentine friends Manesh and Tanvi! They were staying at the Stuchy Hilton, which is literally on its own island that you can only reach via boat and after our experience at the B&B that morning, (and, admittedly seeing a mother and daughter walking out of the spa in their bathrobes) I was ready to switch, no matter the cost! 

Here we are! Hi Manesh and Tanvi!

We first went for drinks at the hotel's rooftop bar where I had my first Aperol Spritz. I liked it so much, I had one per meal until we left! Then we had an amazing dinner at the hotel's restaurant. Everything was delicious and the company was great. All in all, a good time!

The next day, after a breakfast of burnt coffee and bread with bologna, Aaron and I just wandered. It wasn't as rainy although we still had the Aqua Alta to deal with (see Aaron on the platform below):

and I think the constant touring had started to exhaust us. So we walked over bridges and stopped for lunch by a canal. Here is Aaron apparently trying to smoke his pen like a cigarette. I think we have been in Europe too long!

The next day was AARON'S BIRTHDAY and ELECTION DAY and also THE DAY WE FLY TO DUBLIN! We tried to sneak out before FLW could catch us but it didn't work. She gave us our burnt coffee (telling us we would be "rude" to skip breakfast), and we left. 

Final thought: If you are going to Venice during Aqua Alta, buy galoshes when you get there. You can get some for as little as 15 euro and then your feet will be dry the whole time!

Next stop: Aaron's birthday and Dublin extravaganza! 

Teaser: Beer is involved :)

Firenze

Florence, Italy

(October 31 - November 3)

So Florence, like Rome, was rainy.  The weather apps and websites that we used inevitably lied to us (including a pouring rain that lasted at least an hour during a day that was supposed to be sunny with 0% chance of precipitation) and we realized that most of our shoes are merely water resistant.  No fun.  That said, Florence may be the city I enjoyed the most on this trip (we’re flying to Dublin now, so we’ll see whether that’s changed in the next couple of days).  Part of the reason is certainly that Katie spent many months here studying during college and so knew her way around, could recommend restaurants, etc.  Florence has been the only city where I literally knew nothing of the layout of the city when we left, as she pretty much set our itinerary and navigated the entire time.  Unfortunately, due to the constant rain and a fairly regular “no foto” policy most places we went, we have fewer pictures from Florence than most other places, but we’ll make due.

I have a pretty purse.

We then went out and walked around Florence for a bit as Katie got her bearings again.  We did a “I used to walk down this street on my way to class and turn left here so I could say hi to my favorite Fendi purse” tour which included popping in to a café on Piazza della Republica called Gilli that served the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had by a good margin.  It was thick enough that you could just about stand a spoon up in it.  Nom.

Because it was still raining and we were losing daylight, we decided to put off the sightseeing until the next day and do a little shopping.  I ended up getting a pair of boots at a store called Bata (I think?) where a young German woman went through various stages of grief over realizing that she had lost her wallet.  It wasn’t so much the issue of the wallet itself as the fact that she was travelling tomorrow and apparently had been walking around with her passport (and maybe her tickets?) in her wallet, which she had left in the top of her purse which she left open.  I was unclear whether she actually lost the wallet in the shoe store but at one point (she mentioned previously being at a bar or restaurant) she did suggest that the store was actually liable for the loss (all while ignoring the advice provided by the employees, who were telling her to go to the police and call the airline so she could report the theft and get temporary travel documents made up.  She was utterly convinced that this was a terrible idea).  I counted (certainly not in this order) denial, anger, bargaining, anger-bargaining, blame and ignoring good advice like a four-year-old, so 6 stages of grief*.

*The psychology courses I never took in undergrad are a bit hazy.

That night we had an excellent dinner at Ciro and Sons, one of the better dinners we’ve had so far on the trip.  Katie had been there once while studying in Florence and it turned out to be on the end of the very short street that our hotel was on.

The next day we walked around town and saw a number of the sites.  The most dominant and striking building in Florence has to be the “Duomo”, a domed church in Piazza del Duomo called Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore.  The exterior is done entirely in green and pink marble in very intricate patterns and is unmistakable.

There’s also a similarly decorated baptistery in the same piazza that we checked out.  It has a really beautiful Byzantine-style interior.  Like many other churches of the era, the interior artwork tells various stories from the Bible.  One theme we noticed throughout Europe was that of the Last Judgment.  In one of the more confusing pieces of the trip (my opinion), you have the risen Christ reappearing with the Last Judgment below while saints, angels and, what appears to be another non-crucified/risen Christ, look on.

We also went inside the Duomo which is far plainer inside than most of the other churches we had been to.  Many churches of this size and age in Europe are covered in gold leaf, tapestries, paintings, mosaics, statues and the like.  The inside of the Duomo, however, was quite plain, with the occasional painting or inscription along the walls and few windows.  The rest of the interior made the inside of the Duomo (dome) itself all the more startling, as it is intricately decorated, quite similarly to the Baptistery.

While we were there, we also had the opportunity to light a few candles, so we did.

The Duomo and Baptistery are in one of the largest and most active squares in the city.  This is where I first encountered the “gypsies” that Katie had always spoken so highly of.  Legend has it that gypsies had been known to throw a baby into your arms if you were carrying something valuable and when you dropped whatever it was to catch the baby, someone they were working with would pick it up and run.  Tricksie, indeed.  The gypsies were certainly persistent (though none threw any babies at me), but not nearly so prevalent as the random guys selling umbrellas and ponchos.  These guys are seriously diligent and overwhelmingly optimistic.  In Florence, I was offered an umbrella by no fewer than a dozen of these guys over a 72 hour period.  In only one of those instances was I not already actually using an umbrella.

We then headed over to the Ufizzi museum, but the lines were very long and not actually moving, so we headed toward the Arno, which runs through the city.

And we wandered through some of the residential streets on the other side of the Arno.

We also found the headquarters of the incredibly important and internationally renowned Associazione Culturale Italo-Indiana, or the Italian-Hoosier Cultural Society, as it’s commonly known in the States.

We grabbed a prosciutto, arugula and provolone pizza and a bowl of ribolita in a little café called Baldo Vino off of Piazza Santa Croce, another of the main city squares.  This restaurant was also where I tried my first Italian microbrew of the trip, described by the waiter as a “light lager” that looked, smelled, tasted and felt exactly like a medium-bodied ale (ratebeer.com tells me it’s a Belgian ale).  It was pretty good, nothing you need to start calling Italy to get a hold of, but I’d recommend you give it a try if you happen to see it on the shelves.  It’s called L’olmaia (this one was the “La 5”).

We spent the rest of the day wandering around Florence until we found a laundromat, which was good because we were getting pretty thin on the necessities.  So we brought our clothes, got them started in the washers and popped across the street for a beer and some cribbage.

One of the washers had trouble getting between various stages of the wash cycle, so we had to call the guy that runs them to come fix it.  He’s late (I’ll be there in 15 = wait 30), so I start futzing with the machine and it actually does kind of start working, but not great.  Wouldn’t really be an issue, but we have dinner reservations in a couple of hours.

OK, I told you that because I wanted to give you an idea of why this next scene happened at all.  So there’s a guy who was in there, mid-40s, American from California who practically introduces himself by saying that he grows weed for a living.  He’s pretty drunk at this point (it’s probably 5pm).  The guy who runs the laundromat is also an American from California.  If you ever watch the show Modern Family, he reminds me a bit of Phil Dumfrey.  He rides a moped and spends the entirety of this story (at least 40 minutes) wearing the helmet for it, chinstrap tight.  Both are talkers.  There are also these two girls who look like they’re in college who are awfully quiet this whole time.

So the two guys from California are trying to out-“I’m more an American living abroad than you are” each other.  Weedy McDrunkerson has been complaining about the machines and so Californian no. 2 offers him a beer.  While this is happening, we’ve been getting various restaurant recommendations from Weedy and no. 2, specifically why not to go to the places we’ve already been or currently have reservations for and why we won’t be able to get any other reservations on such short notice because it’s a holiday.  In this back and forth (or back and FORTH I should say, as they were doing most of the talking), Katie mentioned that she studied here in college a few years back.  At this point, one of the two church mice who have been taking this whole scene in silently asks, “kind of a long shot, but where did you go to school?”  “I studied abroad here through JMU.” “That’s what we’re doing!”  “OMG!”  (etc.)

So here’s my favorite part of the story.  Weedy and no. 2 can no longer dominate the conversation, Katie and her new JMU friends are basically completely ignoring them.  So Weedy goes next door for his beer, while no. 2 tries to stick around a bit longer to see if he can swing the conversation back in his direction.  For some reason he decides that I want to talk about James Bond and the new movie that just came out (anyone seen it? Any good?  I’ve got my doubts…).  I’m happy for the distraction from our new Californian friends, so I pretty much stick with Katie’s JMU conversation.  We have to get going to make our dinner reservation, anyway.  Speaking of…

We went to dinner at Il Latini!  It’s a restaurant that Katie had been to a couple of times in Florence before and always had a really good experience with, so I was pretty excited.  Their reservation system isn’t what most Americans are familiar with.  Basically you call ahead and get your reservation for one of two seating times, 7:30 or 9:30.  We had a reservation for 7:30, so we get there around 7:15 and I wander off to find an ATM.  When I get back, Katie has a new friend!  She’s such an extrovert!  Our new friends are Minesh and Tanvi and live in Houston.

So there are probably 150 people crowded around the door when they open at 7:30.  The way it works from here is that people basically push to the front and give their name, then the rest of the party squeezes through the small mob of people and sit down.  This got particularly interesting when taxis tried to drive down that street.

We finally push our way through and end up seated with Katie's new friends!  The dinner goes something like this.

Waiter shows up. "Would you like to do the antipasti tonight?  Yes?  OK."
4 antipasti plates show up, including what must have been at least 1/8 pound of prosciutto PER PERSON.
Waiter shows up. "We have 4 primi dishes, which would you like?"
Primi shows up.

To give you a feel for the portions, here you can see the size of Katie's veal chop (secondi) after she had eaten half of it.

For dessert, we split a panna cota with chocolate, and the waiter brought out a glass of port and a glass of moscati for each person at the table, as well as an enormous basket of biscotti.  KK and Aaron were very happy.

Between the 4 courses, enormous portions, 2L bottle of wine and 4 beers that our table consumed, I was expecting a hefty bill.  Turns out that the bill comes to 90 for the two of us, which is just asinine, so we give the waiter a sizable tip and head out to celebrate our enormous dinner with our new friends.

As it turns out, they'll be heading to Venice in a few days as well, so we set a date to meet up for dinner and drinks again in Venice.  You know Katie, always meeting new people!

So the next day we went to L'accademia, a museum in Florence that houses mostly sculpture, including a number of unfinished pieces by Michelangelo.  The main reason we came, though, was the David.  Unfortunately they have a no photography rule, so I don't have any pictures inside the building, but he is an enormous, beautiful work of art.  The whole no pictures thing was actually kind of nice, because it kind of forces you to really look at it rather than just take pictures.  He's also in remarkably good condition considering his age and that he was kept outside in a public square for about 100 years.

Regardless, you can still get your picture taken in front of a scale replica of the David in one of the city squares, so we did.

Gotta keep this blog PG.

Also, Perseus with Medusa's head.  Because why not?

 So again we waited in line to get into the Ufizzi and again the line was incredibly long and didn't really move, so we hopped out.  Apparently you can buy advance tickets a week out and the line is like 10 minutes.  We'll have to do that next time.

Later we did a bit more shopping.  Katie's giant travel purse is kind of falling apart, so she got a new giant travel purse and did quite the job dickering, might I add.

While we were out, we also stumbled across a wine bar where we learned two things.  First, there's this sport played only in Florence called Calcio Storico (literally historical soccer) or sometimes Calcio Florentino (Florentine Soccer).  It was apparently started in the 1500s .  It's played in an arena about the size of a modern day soccer field, but with sand rather than grass or dirt as the field.  It's a bit like rugby, carry a ball to your opponent's end to score.  27 to a side with 7 referees.  The game is largely unchanged from the original.  There are still only 4 teams, one from each of the historic neighborhoods of Florence.  They still only play once a year, in a 3 match tournament.  The referees still wear period garb.  There's even a parade before each match with horses and banners and whole thing.  The wine bar we were in had one of the recent semifinal games on and we watched a bit of it.

The major difference between Calcio Storico and rugby or soccer/football is that in Calcio soccer, as long as you keep it one-on-one, there aren't really many rules.  It's perfectly legal to punch someone in the face, throw an elbow into their nose, put them in a head lock or choke them.  I'm not kidding.  They've recently started recruiting from people outside of Florence, so-called "professionals".  Some are recruiting from professional rugby teams, but there's a trend toward recruiting people from MMA. Here's a picture of one of the "little guys" mashing a dude in the face while running with the ball: 

p.s. Katie grabbed that photo from guidedtoursofflorence.com

Anyway, while we were there (the night before we leave for Venice), the lady running the wine bar mentions that Venice is flooded right now and shows us this newspaper.

 So Venice has this thing called "acqua alta" which just means that, since it's an island at sea level, if it rains really hard at high tide, the city floods.  We did a bit of research online and it tends to only last for a few hours at a time, so we figured we'd survive.

That night, we caught another excellent dinner, this time at Giglio Rosso.  Florence has had by far the best and most consistently good food so far this trip.  Will definitely be coming back to the Tuscany region.

Next stop, Venice!