Guest Post by Momma Hones!

Hello faithful followers – Since I’ve come all this way, I’ve asked Meredith if I could do the posting to give you an idea of what we’ve been doing since I arrived. So, here goes!
In the beginning – Which day is it? After flying all night and not getting any sleep, I arrived in Florence ready to hit the ground running, as long as I could stay awake. Meredith met me at my hotel (which was just around the block from her) and out we went from there. It was immediately apparent that she wasn’t just a college student living & going to school in Florence – she had become one of the locals. While I politely waited for the “green walk lights” at intersections, said “Excuse me” to everyone I seemed to run into and stumbled through trying to use my “limited Italian lingo” (instead of English, which most people speak!), she was easily maneuvering through a sea of scooters/bikes/mini-cars, communicating with minimal gestures & phrases and navigating the city like a seasoned pro. I, of course, was dazed & confused, but so amazed at all she had accomplished in just a short 9 weeks.

DAY 1 – A quick tour around town to “see” where everything was and to make mental notes for a 2nd, longer stroll to “get serious.” First things first - 1) their favorite gelato shop (Festivale Gelato), where the triple scoop (yes, I said 3) is a must and much cheaper than BR! An added plus – gelato is soooo much better for you than regular ice cream, so there’s really no guilt in multiple visits! And with a store name like that, well, no one goes away unhappy. 2) their favorite sandwich place, The Oil Shoppe, which is conveniently right down the street from their apartment. The chicken chunks with marinara and the meatball sandwich get high marks, but you must get there early in the day because when they run out of bread, the shop closes. 3) Mama’s bakery – needs no introduction. It’s actually owned by an American but the goodies are nothing like your average donut. There are many others to elaborate on, but that will be for another post. At the end of the day, I thanked God for my safe travels, for my family who supported me and for Meredith (who I think was pretty glad to see me!!).

DAY 2 – After a great night’s sleep, it was time to get moving. Florence is a city rich in art history and architecture and with so many museums & churches to see, I left it up to my tour guide to steer us in the right direction. A quick history lesson (as I learned sooooo much) – our 1st stop was the Uffizzi Gallery, once home to the administrative & judicial offices of the duke of Tuscany. Under the patronage of the wealthy Medici family, these offices later became the home of this now famous art gallery, housing paintings, sculptures, drawings (from Medieval times to the modern ages) by such artists as Raphael, Botticelli, da Vinci, Caravaggio and Michelangelo. It was clear to me the moment we hit the door that Meredith was drawn to this place. She had studied many of these same paintings in previous art history classes at UK, but now she was reliving them in person with the original right in front of her. Her intimate knowledge of the subject matter, the time period & context in which it was created, and the artist (I came to find out that Raphael was her clear favorite) just blew me away. I’ll never look at a painting the same way again!! From there, we headed to the churches – and just about every corner of the city has one. The most famous, the Duomo (or Florence Cathedral, or Santa Maria del Fiore), was just jaw dropping. It is MASSIVE – all marble (pink, white, pale green) towering over the piazza (which means plaza or gathering place). Its intricate carvings inside and out, fresco paintings, & real-life sculptures take worship to a whole new level. Its characteristic “red dome” (actually 2 domes built on top of each other) is the landmark of the city center and you can climb to its observation deck – WHICH WE DID!!!! It’s an agorophobic & claustrophobic’s nightmare, but when you get to the top, you are rewarded with a spectacular view whose beauty never seems to end. Following a few hight 5’s on the way down for overcoming our fears, we headed out to see 5 or 6 more churches throughout the city, each truly unique in there own way. We ended our day at the train station to buy tickets for our next excursion – 2 days in Rome!! Stay tuned.

DAY 3 - All aboard. To do justice to Rome in only 2 days, well that’s not possible, but we gave it the “ole college try.” Our first decision was transportation – Road Runner-style “fast train” or Coyote-style “slow train.” We opted for the fast train (1 ½ hrs) to Rome and let me tell you, I don’t know what we were going in mi/hr (the marquee in the cab said 230 km/hr) but all I can say is “WHOOSH!” The return trip the next day was a bit more relaxed (still faster than highway speeds, taking about 4hrs) and by then our legs were in need of some serious recovery time and it did just the trick. With suggestions from Meredith’s 2 roommates (who had just been to Rome with their families), Rick Steves’ Italy guidebook, my best research efforts and Meredith’s recall from an earlier trip when she first arrived in August, we were ready to go. Needless to say, I’m usually very comfortable trying to navigate new places with map in hand, but here, I was overwhelmed and soooo not prepared!!! We hadn’t made hotel reservations (but had several options), so we just headed out with addresses and our maps in hand!!! IF YOU”VE JUST SAID “OMG”, that’s OK. SO DID I!!!! But Meredith didn’t flinch. We eventually found a great place on the 3rd try and it was only 3 blocks from the Colosseum. It was quaint, the perfect location and even had a bathroom in the room. (Yes, this usually ISN’T the case in smaller hotels – you have to request it). Once our backpack (no suitcase for us) was unloaded, look out. We went to the Colosseum, the Forum, Capital Hill and Palantine Hill for the rest of the day. Now since Rome wasn’t built in a day, we felt that to do it justice, we should stay until our legs gave out, which they eventually did! The Colosseum was SPECTACULAR. I couldn’t believe I was actually walking through a piece of history where gladiators fought each other to the death, for sport, while >50,000 people cheered them on. And even though I vaguely remembered studying this long ago, this time, I couldn’t get enough of it. Give the Romans props, they knew how to build something that would last. I was overwhelmed by its sheer greatness. Descriptions of the games, or fights, while gorey to say the least, also gave a fascinating account of what society was like in those times. For ½ a day, I couldn’t get enough of the Roman Empire. Our trip over to the Forum was equally spectacular. Only ruins dot the landscape but they are right there where they would have been back in 300 AD!!! Lots of memory recall to the days of Julius Caesar. Olive trees lined the pathways & the stone paths we walked were the remnants of the original ones unearthed in excavation. Like the Colosseum, the ruins were massive – arches & columns from temples that led into the city seemed to reach to the sky, until our guide told us that what we saw may have only been 1/3 the actual size!!!! I went to bed that night, exhausted, exhilarated and excited about tomorrow.

DAY 4 – The Vatican/St. Peter’s Basillica. We woke early to catch a bus from our hotel to the Vatican to pick up our reserved tickets. Once inside, it was just not a direct route to the Sistine Chapel. We began by touring several exhibits – papal stamp & coin collections, memorabilia from papal visits all over the world, outdoor gardens, etc. and then we hit the meat of the Vatican museum. Rooms and rooms of Greek & Roman statues, rooms dedicated to statues of sacred animals, a whole wing dedicated to original woven tapestries, a whole room of fresco paintings dedicated to depicting the various regions of Italy, additional rooms of elaborate guilding & fresco paintings depicting everything from religious scenery to great battle sequences - and most of these were done on the ceiling!!!! Next came rooms with paintings dedicated to individual artists and once again, Meredith couldn’t wait until we got to the “Raphael room.” She already knew which paintings were in there and gave me quite an education on her favorites. I had never seen anything like it. As soon as you moved from one room to the next, you were more overwhelmed than the place you had just been. Of course all of this was leading up to the one room that everyone was dying to see – the Sistine Chapel – and it didn’t disappoint. This is Michelangelo’s greatest work and it was breathtaking. The room seems dwarfed by the massive scale of the “Judgement Day” fresco and from floor to ceiling was everything the Bible had to say and so much more. If you think you know your Bible 101 back and forth, you are not prepared for what you see. The way you enter the room was specifically meant to bring the art to life and leave you awestruck. AND IT DID. I felt as though each panel reached out, grabbed me and left a part of itself with me. For that, I was not truly prepared. And if you don’t come away with a neck-ache, you just haven’t looked up long enough. Following that we headed out to St. Peter’s Basillica and St. Mark’s Square. Again, the sheer vastness of both of these places is overwhelming enough, but even with that, I was awestruck at every turn by the great detail dedicated to these monuments. St. Mark’s seemed as vast as the Colesseum, with statues to former gods, Emperors, & enlightened thinkers of their time lining its walls, but also seeing where the Pope would normally stand to hold worship with thousands of ordinary people brought you right back to reality. At times, I felt that continuing to say “OMG” was just so cliché. Our walk back to the train station (yes, WE DID!) was exhilarating and our ride home uneventful, but the day was unlike any I think I will ever have again.

DAY 5 – Today we took the day to decompress and enjoy the laid back atmosphere of Florence. We hiked across the Arno River to the Piazzale Michelangelo, high on a hill overlooking the city. This park really emphasizes the motto of the Italian people – sit back, relax, celebrate life and enjoy just being with each other. The view is SPECTACULAR – a word I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve used more than once. But words don’t do the landscape justice. We found all the places we’d visited, picked out all the great landmarks and just enjoyed the fresh air and being together. Oh, we also took our copy of the Advocate Messenger for our “vacation picture” so look for that soon in an upcoming edition. There was a gorgeous church just up from the piazza that we investigated and ran into a soon-to-be bride and groom taking wedding photos. According to Meredith, this is a popular picture spot and an even harder spot to actually reserve for your wedding. On our way back, we strolled through the shopping areas to plot our strategy. So many vendors, so little time to make decisions, but once again we were up for the task!! In the late afternoon we went with Meredith’s roommate Olivia and her boyfriend Bill (who also was here to visit) to a small hill town called Fiesole. The view was tremendous overlooking all of Florence and it has easily become a favorite place for the girls to go visit. Plus it doesn’t hurt that there is a great bakery with a raisin bread to die for and a great restaurant for pasta and pizza waiting for you after you’ve gotten some great photos of the Tuscan sunset.

DAY 6 – IS PASTA MAKING REALLY THAT EASY?? Today we had arranged to take a 3 hr cooking class, which we assumed from its description, was HANDS ON. And it was. Each of us got a pretty plastic white apron and rolled up our sleeves to get busy. Our chefs were Fabrizio and Alessandro and they were great. There were 12 of us in the class and it was up to us to make the lunch. As we channeled our favorite Food Network stars, we tried out best to appear that we knew what we were doing from studying their every technique. We made 3 homemade pasta recipes – ravioli stuffed with eggplant/ricotta/parmesan cheese in a sage butter sauce, fettuccini with tomato/garlic/basil sauce and papparadelle with a Bolognese (meat sauce). In addition to that, we also made panna cotta, a boiled cream/milk mixture that sets up like firm jello in the fridge (But let me tell you, it in NO way resembles jello at all!!!). Meredith was quite the hit with her ease in the kitchen and she drew special attention from our instructor. I think she probably could have instantly become his apprentice. The best part though was that once everything was made, WE GOT TO EAT & WE ATE IT ALL. There was a small, quaint dining room in the basement of the cooking school with all the ambiance you could want. We got recipes and are determined to re-create our scrumptious lunch in our own kitchen. After a brief rest period, we headed out to do some shopping with our list in hand. That of course was no problem and Meredith was again ready with helpful tips. We also strolled through the San Lorenzo market, a large piazza filled with carts and carts of vendors with everything from silk scarves to leather goods to typical souvenir stuff. Too many choices to do it all in one day, so we paced ourselves over a couple of days.

DAY 7 – Today was our last big excursion day. We did have 2 other big trips planned, to the 5 “hill towns” of Cinque Terre and to Venice, but the weather did not cooperate. A big weather system of “HEAVY RAIN, 90% chance, Gusty Winds” derailed our plans to visit these great sites. And even after doing our best rain dances, we just couldn’t move the system off of the entire Italian map. But always ready with a backup, we grabbed our rain gear and umbrellas and headed to Pisa today. Yes, the home of the famous leaning tower. And boy, does it lean!! To the tune of a 15 degree angle! Many attempts have been made to help stabilize it and to some degree it has worked but it will never stand upright. Funny thing is unless you get a really straight point of reference in the picture you can be fooled that it doesn’t really lean – but trust me it does. There is also a beautiful Duomo and Basillica there that we were able to tour to keep us dry for awhile. Our trip back was relaxing and after dinner we saved room for that trip to the gelato store.

I know that I’ve only touched the surface of what Florence has to offer but this has been an experience of a lifetime. Meredith and her friends have grown up way beyond their years and they are having the time of their lives. I feel so fortunate that she has been able to do this and share some of her thoughts with everyone along the way. We just keep buying memory cards for her camera because she is truly making memories of a lifetime. I love her beyond words and can’t wait to have her back home. But until then, I look forward to her next post and will relive each of her future journeys with her as she has shared a special journey with me.

Ciao - Julie

(Meredith is going to make an album of pictures from just my visit on Picasa...just copy and paste the links!)
Pisa: http://picasaweb.google.com/113048706261520001448/Pisa?authkey=Gv1sRgCODbl77C8pC2cA&feat=directlink

Rome: http://picasaweb.google.com/113048706261520001448/MomSTripToRomeAndTheVatican?authkey=Gv1sRgCJDckZ-Dx97sWQ&feat=directlink

Cooking Class: http://picasaweb.google.com/113048706261520001448/CookingClass?authkey=Gv1sRgCLSjoJnZ-eG4VA&feat=directlink

Florence: http://picasaweb.google.com/113048706261520001448/MomSTripToFlorence?authkey=Gv1sRgCKz8n7qD2erMKQ&feat=directlink