Sojourn a journey through life

Florence, Italy

We made it back to Florence after our time in Cinque Terre refreshed internally but externally quite rough around the edges (particularly legs and chin )! With Giulia agreeing to keep our large packs, we had packed light for the short journey to the coast.

One thing you must do in Florence is visit the Uffizi museum, which we dutifully waited in line 3 hours for in order to get inside. Neither of us could believe that one building could contain so many pieces of art. Room after room (45 main ones in all) were loaded with paintings and even a few statues. Every hall in between rooms also was lined with statues and portraits. Your eyes could really only take in so much in a day and after a couple hours we couldn't see straight anymore.

Daniel's favourite painting was Leonardo Da Vinci's 1472-5 The Annunciation. I (Carly) really enjoyed a set of 7 paintings by Piero del Pollaiolo. Each of these paintings where one of either the three theological virtues or the four cardinal virtues. All of them were a single woman with special symbolic items for the virtue she was portraying (Hope: eyes up with praying hands, Faith: chalice and cross, Charity: burning flames and suckling baby, Justice: sword and globe, Prudence: mirror and serpent, Temperance: pouring liquid from one vessel to another, and Fortitude: shining armour). How all of the symbolism is reasoned is beyond me. I did find it most interesting that the painting of Justice made direct reference in its accompanying script that she held the typical sword and globe rather than the scales that we usual see in our courts today.

That evening, Giulia took us to a neat tapas place on the river. It still seems so strange, as a North American, to see people drinking freely on the streets or in the park. Here we were, spumanti in hand, wandering on the street alongside the river. The concept at the restaurant, buy the drink (8 Euro) and eat as much as you'd like from the tapas bar, was super neat.

Another one of our days in Florence, we joined Giulia and her friend Pamela, as well as two Italian guys Pamela knew for a day on the lake. It was an artificial lake, not the most scenic, but the company was grand. We swam, sunbathed, and had BBQ. I'd never seen so much meat consumed during one meal in my life. Maybe not surprising seeing as it was the guys who where in charge of purchasing the food. I had my sausage and a piece of the beef steak, but I'm afraid I really had to pass when the bacon was then cooked up along with some pork chops. Just meat, you ask? Well, of course not! We had wine too. I must add that I don't think I've even seen, or would like to see that thing they called bacon again. I may be crazy, but I think I might have heard some faint squealing of what once was as it headed down the boys' hatches.

On our final day, after a very unexciting laundry outing (8 Euro for a load), we relaxed the very very hot day away wondering the streets and piazza's for Florence's city center. Internet, shopping, lunch and reading. That evening we took a short train ride up to Prato where Giulia met us after work. She had arranged a final dinner at a local pizzeria with her family (Dad, Mom, brother Giovanni and cousin Chiara). Very neat to meet everyone I'd been seeing photographs of for years! It was especially great to see Chiara again after her exchange and stay with us from Italy in Sept. of 1994. I think Giulia was more than happy to have another person (Chiara) ready and willing to do some translation. Hard work! It was a delight to chat with Giulia's mom (also a teacher), Dad and brother. We very much enjoyed our meal together.

Interesting things I learned from Giulia and her family about Italian culture vs. our North American culture:

Work days for Italians are often 9am-8pm. Why so long? They have a LONG lunch break. It is most common that you would go home for lunch. This is the biggest meal of the day with pasta, meat or fish and fruit. It is not uncommon for the lunch break to be a couple hours long. Their dinner time is often 8 or 9pm. A lighter meal of bread, cold-cuts, cheese etc. Giulia was so surprised that we would eat dinner around 6pm. Don't you get hungry before bed? I mentioned in our home, we often would have a tea time with toast or something before bed...but mind you, our dinners are often our largest meal of the day because we haven't seen one another since morning and our lunches are packed (ie sandwich) and quick.

Giulia said that she'd never had an "English Breakfast". When I asked her what that was, she said bacon and eggs. We don't have that very often, I noted. Maybe something special for the weekend. Her breakfast is typically biscuits (sweet cookies) and milk. When I said I never really drank milk (like a glass), she was astonished. Then again, cereal isn't common for them, nor is yogurt. Toast was mentioned but perhaps only for dinner with meat and cheese, not with something sweet like jam. Gelato is a staple! Because of the length of time between lunch and dinner, it is common to have gelato around 5pm.

Pizza or Pasta everyday. Ham and Pineapple (Hawaiian) is unheard of! Chicken in your pasta? Craziness. In Italy, the family of ingredients for Pizzas and Pastas are limited (ie ham and cheese) , however, the variety and diversity of these few ingredients is surprising. Never had I heard of so many kids of ham (cotto, prosciutto, speak etc.) and such interesting cheeses for pizzas (pecorino, mozzarella, mascarpone, parmesano, etc.) One of Daniel's favorites quickly became speak with mascarpone. Cheddar. What is that? No one in Giulia's family had ever heard of that kind of cheese. Yet, if you said to a North American to name the first cheese that came to mind, they surely would say cheddar. We didn't even know how to describe it or its varieties. Hmm.

Italian coffee is like a great kiss. Not watered down, makes your heart skip a beat (or ten if you make the mistake of pouring yourself a cup full) and keeps you floating, or shaking, for hours (as long as your bladder isn't as efficient as mine). After dinner coffee is the final say. You wouldn't dare have anything else once this had been drunk.

Other tidbits: most bread we had in Italy was unsalted, oil and vinegar or butter with bread is largely unheard of, Christmas dinner will also see pasta, it is not uncommon to live at home until marriage at 30 or 35 or ....even still sharing a bedroom with your sibling. Dad and Mom, I'm coming home!

I sure hope that I got all of this accurately. Of course, there are always exceptions to the trends. I'm sure Giulia will quickly correct any of my flaws here.

A resounding grazie to Giulia, as well as her family and friends!