WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION, PART II

october 24, 2007 // 12:56am

The other day, Vicki and I went to Europe. We went to a lot of different cities. First, we went to Rome. Then, we went to...

FLORENCE

florence is a lot more relaxed than rome. still plenty of tourists, but it's quieter than rome, with less crazy motorbikes.

if you ever find yourself heading to italy, do yourself a favor and pick up a rick steves book. it's practically essential. rick recommended this one place that's kind of cafeteria style; you grab your tray, go down the line and get your food, then pay at the end. except, the difference from a normal cafeteria is that the food is really good. and the difference from the surrounding florence eateries is that the food is really inexpensive.

we climbed to the top of Duomo. we did it first thing in the morning, which was good because the stairs are narrow, and there are a lot of them.

in italy, when they list beer on menus they don't often tell what kind of beer it is. it's just listed as "birra alla spina" (tap beer) and then the options are just sizes: piccola, media, grande. they don't seem to take pride in their beer like some other european countries. (that's right, I'm looking at you, germany!)

one day we rented a car and went out to explore tuscany. it was a Renault, which was not an impressive car. I was assuming our italian car would be an MFC, but instead it was a BSC. they have a lot of traffic circles over there, and when you slam on the gas to try to quickly merge into one, the Renault takes about half a minute before it realizes you want it to move. If you ever want to die in a traffic circle, I recommend getting a Renault.

we saw this sculpture called David. it's very famous. these museums have "no photo" policies, but a lot of people don't seem to care. so while you're in a sea of people trying to look at a gigantic naked man-boy statue, there's also a lot of security guards running through the crowd, yelling at people who think they're above the laws of the gallery. it's all very inspiring.

our tour guide for the accademia gallery was not very good.
our tour guide for the uffizi gallery was excellent.

in italy, they don't seem to like separating "sidewalk" from "street." they just kind of flow right into each other. it's intimidating when you're walking and almost get hit by a bike/car/motorcycle. but it's also intimidating when you're driving and think you're on a road, but then you realize you're heading down a sidewalk, about to drive off a staircase where some people are casually eating their lunch. I say that's intimidating, but another word I could use is "funny." because, in fact, it was pretty funny to see the look of terror in their faces.

I like gelato places when they make the gelato really tall and work a bunch of fruit into the presentation.

I took some pictures in florence. take a look, if you want.

next episode: venice.