On our second morning in Firenze, we headed to Mercato Centrale for breakfast. Mercato Centrale is a huge market of fruits, veggies, meats, cheeses -- all by people who specialize in these things. It is also my personal favorite place, because I lived next to piazza mercato centrale when I studied abroad here in 2010. (see first blog: jensflorenceadventure.blogspot.com) We paid a visit to my absolute favorite coffee bar and ordered the breakfast that I ate every morning when I lived here: una cafe latte e cornetto vuoto (a latte and a plain italian croissant). Those lattes are THE BEST. I dream about them. Also, my breakfast was under $3 American. Where can you get such a quality breakfast for so cheap??? Reasons why I need to keep going back to Italy: cheap, delicious coffee and pastries. We wandered around the market (and bought peaches from my favorite fruit man). We marveled at the giant cuts of proscuitto and parmesan cheese, had a sample of limoncello (a florentine specialty) and just enjoyed the atmosphere. Then we headed right outside to do a little shopping at the San Lorenzo street market. I bought a beautiful leather messenger bag, and wallet -- I feel like as a college graduate, I should probably look like an adult. You can't get better leather cheaper. After shopping and chatting with some of the merchants (....well, and avoiding the "Bella! You want leather jacket?" "no, grazie" "oh come on! Discount for blondes!") we went through the various paper stores and perused all the hand made cards and journals. Across the river, we went to Il Papiro - a local paper store chain. We entered the shop and were immediately greeted by the sweet sounds of ABBA (Mamma Mia is REALLY becoming the theme of our trip). After singing along a bit, we realized that a demonstration of paper marbling was going on. An Artisan had put paint over what looked like water and made designs with it -- then, he placed the paper over it and voila! Gorgeous marble-painted paper. It was impressive and pretty magical. After that, we headed home to put our stuff down, rest our feet and eat our delicious paninis from my favorite panini place by mercato centrale (I had proscuitto with pecorino - my absolute favorite cheese here). Our feet were pretty sore from walking through the historical center multiple times the day before, so we rested for a little bit -- I wrote some postcards. Then, we did another Rick Steves walking tour of the Oltrarno, which is the other side of the river from the historical center and where we are staying. We started in the middle of the ponte vecchio, passed a couple of old towers, walked down a quiet street where artisans were working, stared at the pitti palace and saw a few churches (naturally). After that, we were pretty exhausted so we had some down time in our apartment. That night, we took a bus up to Fiesole for the incomparable view. I was glad Kelly and Sharon got a chance to see the huge houses surrounded by tuscan greenery. We hiked up to my favorite viewing spot, sat on a stone wall and watched the last part of the sunset. The view simply cannot be captured in pictures. The Duomo still towers over everything, but looks smaller with the entirety of the sprawling city around it. It gives you a nice perspective of Florence - how far it extends and also the beautiful Tuscan hills surrounding it. T'was a good way to end our trip. We took the bus back down and grabbed some pizza to go. I waited outside while Kelly and Sharon ordered. While I was sitting there, three old men were walking by, and all of a sudden one turned to me and said, "deutsch?" and i was like, "errr, Ich spreche nur ein beischien deutsch" and then we had a conversation in German with little Italian interjections. It was so bizarre. Apparently he was from Munich, but had been living in Italy for many years. I think he was REALLY excited to speak German with someone, and I was fairly impressed with myself that I could keep up a conversation (I haven't taken German since my sophomore year of highschool). I was finally able to get away (wir mussen schlaffen!) and we went back to eat our pizza and pack. While Sharon and Kelly watched Italian MTV, I opened my email to find an email from my friend Jordan (who I'm traveling through the UK with later this month) -- he had just gotten to Florence!!! We planned to meet for a super early breakfast, as my train left before 10am. I went to bed, and woke up at 6am to meet Jo by 7am at piazza della signoria. I love walking through cities when they are just waking up. I sat in the empty piazza (a rarity, as usually it is mobbed by tour groups) and watched the restaurants receive deliveries and prepare for the day ahead. Jordan found me and we had a joyous reunion! Naturally, I took him to my favorite coffee place in Mercato Centralle and heard about his INCREDIBLE adventures so far! We only had an hour together, but it was so wonderful to see him and share in his excitement at seeing Florence for the first time (He's an art history minor - firenze is mecca). I cannot wait until our adventures collide and we start traveling together! I headed home and Kelly, Sharon and I ran over to the train station to catch our train to La Spezia and then Vernazza (where we are staying in Cinque Terre). I'm currently on the train and will post when there is wifi. Cinque Terre sounds like a wonderful place to hike, enjoy the beaches, meet locals, and (of course) eat glorious Italian food (don't worry -- we eat cheaply and walk it all off). Ciao ragazzi!
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