Time to Explore!

January 8, 2011

It is our first full day in the city! We live extremely close to the biggest open market in Florence called Mercato Centrale and we went to go buy fruits and vegetables and realized we were kinda in deeper than our heads. The market ended up being kinda intimidating because at some stands you can't touch their produce, you just have to tell them how much you want, and they weigh things in kg and we had no clue how much a kg was? But we just threw ourselves into it and the people can see that we are obviously American and they helped us out. I bought a few apples and carrots and then we went inside and discovered the butchers and bread shops...it's awesome! Although a little gross when you see pigs heads and hooves and rabbits legs tied up, and yeah. But we ended up figuring some things out and bought enough to get us established. We threw our things back into the apartment and went off exploring. We also live extremely close to the Duomo which is a well established catholic cathedral. The first time seeing it I got the goosebumps..it was so incredibly beautiful! It's also so extremely hard to take pictures of the Duomo because it's so gigantic and it seems like you can never get the whole thing in! But after taking pictures and just gazing we walked on and found a 99 cent store which are found ALL OVER! And have become my best friend. We also see gelaterias on every single street and we stopped at this one called Very Good, and had a little bit of miscommunication. We thought the woman said the price was 2 euro for a cone we agreed and each got a cone - I got half tiramisu and half caffe (coffee). We took our cones up to the register and the woman told us that it was 8 euro...apparently she thought we were asking how many scoops you got? But whatever, it was still good and I would never complain about eating gelato! As we walked the streets we realized that literally all the streets lead to the same place if you walk enough. The maps of the city look like a huge maze, but everything connects to everything, and it's really quite refreshing knowing that it's hard to get lost if everything can lead to the somewhere you're familiar with. Two things I giggled at while walking down the street: this one kid had a HUGE rattail, and I also could have sworn I saw a boy I know from Kent (Tyler Sells) and had to take a double-take to make sure it wasn't him. It was quite a fun, but exhausting day and came back to the apartment to make our first dinner: spaghetti! Our apartment was supplied with a jar of marinara and spaghetti noodles so we cooked some up and I had bought orange Fanta (the Fanta here had a more orange juice taste, rather than sugary like in the States) earlier in the day and it with dinner, along with my fresh bread - D-ELICIOUS.

This cute Christmas tree with red bows by the Duomo.

The big Piazza by the Duomo.

Danielle, Marissa, and Lauren in front of the Duomo.

More Duomo!