In celebration of passing the ridiculously difficult (for me) math exam that was assigned to me from compliance at my new PACU contract at UK in Lexington,
Congrats on passing the exam!
I am going to relax a little bit and write some.
Write some what?
and an over-the-top gluttonous festival of meat.
mmmmmm... meat...
Church bells greeted the dawn and shopkeepers were just beginning to set up their wares.
You certainly paint an inviting picture.
Raise your hand if you know what’s there!
Bob?
Darren?
Sylvia????
If you guessed David, you are right!!!
So close!
Actually, no, I did not know that's where the statue of David was.
Sometimes, it’s just better to not focus on the journaling and enjoy the treasures around you, no?
Friends, the veins in his hand!!!
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That's just... I mean... ridiculously incredible! Even before I read your comment on the hand, I was marveling at it. It looks so lifelike!
Until right now, I had no idea that David was actually holding anything! Is that a towel?
(The lost-and-found pink vest)
Yay!!
Another incredible work, no?! Look at those folds in her robe!!!
How can they
do that?!?!?!? It's
stone!
Is that... a
folding clarinet?????
we decided we had plenty of time to take in one more museum that Florence has to offer- the da Vinci Museum.
Well, sure! That'd be high on my list.
The da Vinci was a 5-minute walk away from the Accademia, so why not?!
Nice that it was that close. I presume if it hadn't been, you wouldn't have been able to go.
By 9:38, we’d paid our entry fee,
Man, that's quick! You must've spent under an hour at the previous museum. I don't know how you did that.
Ever been to a children’s museum? The ones that are a bit on the touchy-feely side?
The Battlefield Chopper-Upper (see in the picture how it's supposed to chop the enemy's legs off?) :
I think I've seen that (or similar) before. I don't believe it was particularly useful.
Looks like a perfectly executed method to kill someone underwater.
I like that she put her arm through. Neat effect!
All told, we diddled around in that museum for about 45 minutes, and it was getting close to the time we needed to get back to the Airbnb to check out. Our deadline was 11:00 and we’d be cutting it close.
45 minutes??? Did you
run???
My idea was to grab some sandwiches to eat on the train, but that plan got decimated on so many levels it wasn’t funny.
Decimated? You took the Chopper Upper with you?
My sister-in-law had highly recommended a sandwich shop that it sort of an internet darling (the Antico Vinaio), and to humor her we headed that way to give it a try. It was out of way, but we thought it would be fun to say, “hey, we tried it!”. When we got there, there was no one in line,
No one in line... that doesn't sound promising...
It was at that moment that the truffle oil stink bomb hit my face. The odor was so overpowering it clung to my clothes like gum in a toddler’s hair
and it permeated everything and hung in the air like the last unfiltered thing you didn’t mean to say in front of all your co-workers.
Remember we had the sweetest hostess? Amazing lady really. She helped us find our way back to the train station toting one of the bags almost all the way there. I’d highly recommend this place, so if you’re ever in Florence stay here with Olga!!!
Wow! She really went above and beyond!
Heck, *I* can’t even stand around for 3 hours.
It's like you've never tried to ride Peter Pan at Disney.
I wasn’t about to spend one fraction of a Euro on food when we had 40 bucks worth of sandwiches in a bag right there.
Why not?
You'd
throw out 40 bucks worth of sandwiches...
all of a sudden, the more matronly waitress appears out of nowhere and says, “Madam.” Shaking her head and giving me a look of half stink eye and half disappointment. Crap! I was so busted.
Off to Italian food jail for you!
I sheepishly wrapped it back up and put it away and to this day I will always wonder if it was the offensive stench or the fact that I was eating outside food that she disliked most. It’s a 50-50.
Basilica of Santa Maria Novella. The style was the same as the Cathedral we’d been to the day before, this was just a smaller version. Sadly, they charge to get into this one
I am not impressed with churches that charge money to go inside. What if you just want to have a quiet place to rest? Or pray? I mean... it's a church! Shouldn't it welcome
the poor???
(Super cool old door bell on the church wall)
Where else can you pick up a pair of handmade genuine pink leather shoes?!
I kinda like that. Not the pink, per se, but the handmade shoes. You don't see that anymore, anywhere.
This random, probably mentally disturbed, dude was sitting next to them and, after telling him multiple, multiple times they didn’t want to talk to him, kept pestering with questions and seemed very intrusive to the point of harassment.
At least they seemed to escape unscathed.
Gagging, together we decided to toss out 40 Euros of sandwiches and vowed to never tell my ex-sister-in-law the story of the sandwiches that offended wherever they went.
Oh dear.
(I'm sorry Colleen if you ever read this!!!)
Way to throw your DSil under the bus!
It was nearly 7:00 before we finally retrieved our luggage out of the storage lockers (of course we had to pay a fine for being an hour late
)
Of
course you did. You're
tourists... they can charge whatever they want.
. Exactly 13 minutes later, Mom and the girls showed up panting, and my poor mom with her cane definitely limping. But we did get the table
Phew! For a second, I thought you were going to say that the table was gone.
The waiter, the same one who was no nonsense about holding the table, was also no-nonsense about taking our order. So much so, that he basically told us what we were going to get.
Ummm…. Okay then.
"You'll eat it and you'll like it."
“2 steaks with veggies will be more than enough for you. What can I get you to drink?”
“Um, I was kinda wanting gnocchi.”
“Fine, I’ll bring that too.”
Did you regret that, considering the mass of food that arrived?
The place was slammed, he was stressed out, and it was brutally apparent he had no patience for indecisive, dawdling tourists who didn’t know shiest from shinola about Florentine-esque steak dinners.
I'm betting he sees indecisive tourists all day long and just can't afford the time.
Mass of food! Did you guys come close to finishing all that???