Babies mit Bearden

9:11 PM >> EURO2007 >> Thursday, April 5

Day 5, or "I Could Get Used to This"
Florence, IT

Florence AKA Firenze (they don't tell you this is what they call Florence in Italy when they sell you your train ticket that says "Firenze" and so you wander about the station thinking that "Firenze" sounds so familiar since it's the name of a centaur in Harry Potter) is famous for it's artwork (David, The Birth of Venus) as well as this, known on my map as the Duomo, although it seems that's just an Italian word for "cathedral." It is such a humongous church that there really is no way you can come close to fitting the whole thing in a photograph.

We spent our first day in Firenze (yes I am Continental now) just wandering about the city. I guess Rome had higher-quality clothes, because a store there was called "Excellent" or something else that's better than "Very Good". And somewhere else was a store called "Expensive". That was a hoot to all us Americans that gathered outside to snicker.

A river runs right through Florence, and the bridge over it is lined with jewelry stores. Don't ask me why; maybe pirates used to come down the river. Once you go over the bridge, there ain't a whole lot to see except the Boboli Gardens. Now if you know me, you how I feel about pizza, so of course we were gonna have to hit those gardens.

No there was no pizza in the B-Gards. Not even any tomater plants. But this fountain was pretty cool. I took about 150 pictures of it. (Notice the Whomping Willows in the background.) We spent a good two hours wandering around this place. One of my favorite things to do in Europe is to wander around the gigantic, old gardens that were planted by the super-rich back during serfdom days. This park even had lizards and the best fountain ever (see below).

Man, do I love MONKEYS. So you can only imagine my excitement upon happening on this fountain. And this was at the very top of the gardens, in the middle of a rectangular garden than had the most amazing views of the city. Yet it took all of my willpower to enjoy the view rather than just stare at this fountain and smile. Don't ask me what that kid on top of the fountain is doing. Looks like he's trying to cut the meat off a turkey leg to me.

For some reason this day kept presenting just the best photo ops. I guess that's maybe because we were taking the time just to stroll along and really just look at things. Of course I viewed everything through my Prank Prism. Hence these photos.

Cats also love the Boboli Gardens. Look at this cat, obviously it was just sent from Heaven. This guy totally led us to Manna from Heaven which you might have mistaken for a small pile of cat food. Then we saw the grotto that was down the hill from this vision and figured this cat had something to do with it.

This grotto was far and away the Coolest Thing That Was A Surprise We Happened To Stumble Upon This Trip To Europe. I have never seen anything like this; it was like a sweet cave that we would've used as a fort when we were kids but that someone had gone into and created all of these statue and fresco-type things out of wax. Oh, and then painted a picture on the ceiling. The ceiling-paint even had monkeys in it. Man does Firenze love them monkeys!

Finally, Here are our dinners for that night. Meredith found a place that advertised "American cheeseburgers," but you still had to order the typical Italian three-course way (salad, pasta, meat all separate), so I wound up with some kick-A sausages that I squeezed lemon juice all over, and M got this salad and then the American Cheeseburger which wound up being way overcooked with some weird Italian cheese on it. But the steak fries were normal.