I spent a little more than 2 weeks in Florence about 10 years ago, taking classes in Italian and living with a couple of younger students. When I arrived, I had no knowledge of Italian, and the roommates insisted that we only speak Italian (one girl was German and the other Japanese) and since i already spoke Spanish, i was able to talk to them in about 3 days' time.
Confident that I would be able to do the same this time, I had been listening to audiobooks before I went on this trip. It's helped, but most of the time I feel like maybe I don't really know what I'm saying at all, maybe that word was actually Spanish or actually Portuguese, and only regain confidence when I get back to the apartment and look up what I said.
And everyone who works in Florence takes one look at us, or hears my pathetic Italian, and just speaks to us in English.
The classes I took in Florence was right next to the leather market, and my lasting memory of Florence was that it was very pretty, but annoying as fuck because it is PACKED with tourists, and the worst kind of American tourists, the ones who have never left the country but only go to Italy because they think it's going to be accessible to them. I'm talking out of my ass, because i certainly didn't talk to any of these people, but I swear that's how they acted... Loud and loudly confused and obnoxious.
So I found a place that was on the other side of the river that separates That area of Florence from other parts, hoping to be a bit away from all of that, at least when I slept. The apartment was underground on one side, kind of like living in a wine cellar, and the owner filled it with all sorts of curiosities... Art, vintage appliances, and a shit ton of weird lighting. Cool place. And the neighborhood was spectacularly beautiful... All terracotta colored buildings, relatively few tourists. A 10 minute walk from the apartment was a plaza where we had a decent meal and engaged in what's always been a favorite pastime: laughing at other tourists and trying to imagine where they're from.
What can I say? We're horrible people.
Justin's already making faces because this was the first place we've been to together where it seemed like everyone is a tourist. We heard barely any Italian, even being in this spot far from the center of town. (It turns out that we were in another touristy part, near the boboli gardens... It just wasn't by the duomo, so it is less traveled.). There's a table of 6 next to us where one guy is speaking heavily American-inflected Italian, but the rest of the family is speaking in southern drawl, which all sounds ridiculous to us.
There's a German (?) family where clearly the approximately 8 year old kid has never successfully eaten spaghetti before... He's sticking his fork through it and the individual strand of pasta he's trying to pick up keeps slipping away through the tines. So he tries to lift it and shove that one strand of spaghetti into his mouth before that happens. Over and over again. And he's not remotely getting frustrated... And even when mom shows him how to twirl it around the fork, he doesn't get it, and just keeps trying to spear the spaghetti. That kid had tenacity.
That mom should have spoken to the American couple who sat next to them... The guy orders spaghetti as well, and asks for a spoon so he can twirl his spaghetti on it. I think that's when our very good natured, English-speaking waiter lost it... We watched him completely make fun of the guy to his face. "Why do you need a spoon?" And explains to him that the spoon is completely unnecessary. I think I'm imagining this, but he may have actually taken the fork out of the guy's hand to show him. The guy looks at the waiter like he's crazy, but the waiter eventually gives in. When the waiter comes to us, we said "a spoon? What the hell does he need a spoon for?" And the waiter says "it's better than when they cut their spaghetti with a knife," and rolls his eyes and walks away.
Tourist hell aside, Florence is gorgeous and their Duomo (church and bellflower) are spectacular to look at. We didn't make it inside, because there's a huge line and it's hot as balls outside, and justin (thank god) has as little patience as I do for waiting in a line to see shit.
We didn't see The David, either, making this my second trip to Florence where i didn't see David. There's a fake david outside the Ufizzi museum, and Justin is kind of built like The David anyway, so that was enough for me. There was of course NO WAY IN HELL I was going to climb up 400-something steps in the tower or the duomo to get a view of Florence, either. Did I mention it was hot as BALLS? I didn't want to exert all that energy, especially crammed in there with a zillion annoying tourists.
One night, I chose ristorante Dino, a quick walk from the apartment. I emailed my reservation request, for 18:00, and felt really stupid when she emailed me back and said they didn't open til 8pm, because clearly my being a calculus teacher could not prepare me for the real-life skill of ADDING 12 for military time. I meant 8pm. Seriously, I fuck that up more than the month and day being reversed everywhere.
We arrive at 8, and we're one of two couples there. 8pm, even on a weekday, is very early to eat. I've finally acclimated to eating this late (teacher dinner time is 5:30-6pm!) but it's so hot that it kills my appetite, so I'm basically eating nothing but one small cup of gelato until dinner time. And then I'm starving!
We're greeted by Sonia, the owner, after her waiter nephew can't figure out that "phillips" was a last name, needing help finding our table. He's adorable, and looks and sounds a little like an Italian Michael Cera... Very young and trying his best at his first job. Sonia walks up to me with a huge smile and says "Cindy! 18:00 reservation!" And laughs at me. I already love this place.
Absolutely wonderful food. Justin got pasta with tomatoes, garlic, and basil. Again. This is a big difference between us... I have to taste EVERYTHING, and he is so happy to order the thing that he knows he likes over and over again. And selfishly, I want him to order different things so that I can taste as much as possible! Luckily for us both, the utter joy of Italian food is that they have an almost magical way of extracting an extraordinary amount of flavor from few, simple, uncomplicated ingredients. That pasta, tomato, and basil (with I'm sure a healthy dose of good olive oil, salt, and cooking water) was so much more delicious that you'd ever expect it to be. It's because all of the ingredients have FLAVOR. Ask anyone who has been to Europe and knows anything about food... Their food just tastes BETTER. We passed by a vendor selling lemons. They were huge, misshapen, ugly, dirty on the outside, leaves attached. THAT SHIT WAS PICKED THAT DAY. justin almost couldn't believe it was a lemon.
I got the wild boar cooked in chocolate and wine. CHOCOLATE AND WINE. It's her grandmother's recipe and traditional in Italy. Maybe a little sweeter than I wanted it to be, but delicious. It was garnished with very green, very strong leaves. I picked one up and rubbed it between my fingers. It was an amazing smell. I didn't know what it was. Sonia says it's laurel. A bay leaf. A fucking bay leaf. I'm immediately going home and throwing out the industrial-sized canister of dried bay I've been using for zero reason for the last 5 years. Fuck.
Everyone else in the restaurant is a foreigner. Mostly American. Whatever, at least they're quiet, and even the girl who asks what literally everything is on the menu, even when it's written in English, is polite and quiet about it. And Sonia doesn't seem to care, so why should I? She is so friendly to everyone. Two couples order the "florentine steak." It's about 45€ and is for two people. She tells them they don't need to order anything else. She also explains that florentine steak is only served rare, and is that ok? The European girl with a serious case of resting bitch face says "um, that might be too red for me" and also sends back her wine because it "wasn't cold enough." Asshole. Sonia brings this steak out on a big wooden platter, and it's basically a T-bone steak with twice the thickness of an American t-bone, which is already pretty fucking huge. This thing was enormous, and every time someone brought one out, it was a total spectacle, because everyone has the same reaction: "what did we just do?" And "does anyone in the restaurant want some of this?" It's carved into thick strips table-side, and it is rare as hell.
Resting bitch face girl does a fine job eating her steak, and stops complaining. Well, at least, in English. We're laughing at them, and I go off to find the bathroom. I go to the back of the restaurant, where I think it is, and there's one sequestered table of about 6 60-year old women surrounding a portly dude of the same age. One woman in a southern drawl says "oh... She's looking for the bathroom," and the gentleman screams out at me in his strong accent, "honey if you're looking for the bathroom, it's back there, you missed it." I laughed and said, "how did you know to talk to me in English?" And he very loudly laughs and says, "honey, that's the only language I know!" I turn around and his friend applauds and compliments my (practically backless) dress. Well, if they're going to be loud and obnoxious, at least they are nice. And Sonia was smart enough to hide them in the back.
We've at this point in the trip realized that we really like ending a meal with an aperitivo, more specifically, an amaro (literally translates to "bitter," but it's more herbal than it is bitter), and the brand of amaro is different depending on the restaurant, and depending on the region. The amaro at Dino wasn't even on the menu, but when we asked, she perked up and brought us what she had, and just called it "amaro di Firenze." Delicious. Also exceptional was the chocolate torte, which had no sugar, no flour, and so amazing that justin, who doesn't like sweets, ate half. Sonia comes over and re-fills the amaro glasses gratis, which was more than appreciated.
Italian Michael Cera breaks a glass in the background. Sonia laughs. What a tremendous meal, and excellent service.
We happened upon another excellent meal the next night at Il Santo Bevitore Ristorante after the pizzeria justin really wanted to go to turned out to be closed. This is hilarious, because it's a running joke that ANYTHING justin likes closes. This one closed even before justin had the opportunity to like it. Also, the one time justin researches a place to eat (that's my domain) it's a no-go. So I make the poor guy wander around, because once I get something stuck in my head it's hard to unstick, and all the pizza places look like crap. After about 20 minutes, justin just looks at this random place, which looks a little nicer than I was dressed or prepared for, and convinces me to eat there. (This scenario occurs a lot more often, traveling and at home, than I am comfortable to admit.)
It's Really awesome. I have a pasta with a rabbit ragu, and justin gets a very spicy pasta dish and an AMAZING carpaccio dressed with capers and something that seemed and looked like small pieces of a sweet tomato jam. The waitress tells us that it's egg. It must have been some kind of marinated and preserved yolk situation. She really didn't know how it was prepared, but when I told her how great it was, she said, "yes, our chef has many fantasies." I didn't tell her the word she was looking for was "imagination." Besides, maybe he does have many fantasies.
The place also had a comprehensive dessert wine menu, and justin and I randomly chose two amaros... Stabilimento Chimico Farmaceutico Militare di Firenze's Anetolo for him and Villa I Cipressi's Amaro di Miele di montalcino for me. He liked that it sounded "pharmaceutical" (Justin loves laphraoig whisky because of it's medicinal taste) and I chose the one with the word "honey" in it.
I smell mine, and I am instantly obsessed with the smell. Sweet, herby, flowery, very fragrant... I know nothing about wine, and I don't know anything about amaro, but I drink this so slowly because I can't get myself to stop smelling it. The fragrance company Tokyomilk, fragrance company I really like, is known for fragrances that mix odd herby and floral scents together to smell like something out of an apothecary... Like tobacco, vanilla, and fennel together, and is is what this amaro smelled like. A Tokyomilk perfume. And it tasted exactly like it smelled, whatever that meant. I get back to the apartment and google it... Of course the company is some small, local operation and I'm likely to never find this shit again in my life. I am really sad about this, but now am committed to buying a vintage beverage cart for the living room and stocking it with various amaro from all over the world.
Poor Justin... His was a straight-up, very alcohol-ly, very clean, very crisp anisette. He HATES that. After making fun of the resting bitch face girl who returned her wine yesterday, though, he was committed to finishing it. Refused to order something else, refused to let me finish it for him (I don't mind anisette.) It took him a half-hour, grimacing at each tiny sip, but he did it. My man is no quitter.
The only other sightseeing we wound up doing was going up to the piazza michaelangelo for this spectacular view of Florence.
On the way up, we are confronted by yet another young "activist" asking us to sign an anti-drug petition. They approach you with a pen, try to guess where you're from and speak to you in your language, and tell you to sign a petition, and I'm assuming, ask you for money after.
"hey, are you English?"
"No."
"where are you from?"
"Does it really matter?"
"Ah, you're American." He rolls his eyes.
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