Long time no see! So, here’s the rest of my week with Sheena:
We did it all. My good buddy Ed from GW came to visit from where he is studying in Cairo this semester, and we all had a blast together. He updated me on his life and it was so great to catch up – he told Sheena and I how the girls on his abroad program can’t wear skirts in the streets, how he can live on 8 bucks a day for meals, and how he’s seen the pyramids and the staff Moses used to part the Red Sea (supposedly). Cairo sounds amazing and I would love to visit there someday, to see just how different it is from all of Europe. And as Ed regaled us with stories of Egypt, we hit the Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens for a full day of Medici history on Friday. We visited the gardens first, since it was a beautiful day out and you never know when rain may strike. And it was just perfect – the vast expanse of uncountable acres is full of vine-covered statues, pools with swimming ducks, fountains, lions heads and busts randomly dispersed between grassy knolls and tree-covered pathways. We explored for a couple hours, wandering through the almost deserted gardens – they are so huge you hardly see anyone else! And after, I led Ed and Sheena to their first taste of Florence gelato and we sat enjoying it in the sun. For the afternoon, we wandered the city picking up souvenirs and admiring the Duomo, Santa Croce church, and the small jazzy band serenading tourists outside Croce. As our foot were almost worn down, we dragged them to one last spot – back to the Pitt Palace, where we explored fifty rooms of paintings and royal apartments of the Medici Dukes. And to finish the day right – GustaPizza for dinner!
On Saturday Sheena and I headed out to visit our relatives for the weekend. We stopped in Pisa so Sheena could view the famous tower (my third time seeing its leaning glory) and I absorbed the drizzle on the grassy park while she visited the Pisa Duomo and Baptistry. Dahlia picked us up there and drove us to Castiglioncello, where Sheena finally met Giorgio and Stefania and we presented them with the painted Easter eggs Mom had sent from the U.S. They absolutely loved them and the toffee candy she’d made, and of course showered us with gifts for the family that Sheena was to take back home. Dahlia and Stefania took us to Riparbella so Sheena could see the house our great-grandfather built overlooking Tuscany with its olive trees and fresh eggs from the lady next door. We went out for dinner with them that night, and Bean was quite the little experimenter. It was a seafood restaurant, and Sheena ended up trying a spaghetti dish covered with crawfish, shrimps, calamari (NOT fried) and tiny baby octopuses…very interesting, but I think she actually liked it! I, of course, had pizza.
And on Sunday, they took us to Volterra, another hilltop town near them that’s known for its special translucent marble goods and an area of Roman ruins. It rained all day but we were able to view the ruins from above, looking down on a small forum with rows of spectator seats and broken pillars – my first ruins in Italy, and sure to be overshadowed by the ones I’ll see in Rome next weekend! But they were beautiful anyway, and the rest of Volterra was a cool hodge-podge of churches and shops full of dazzling, smooth marble objects – everything from jewelry boxes to plates, and hanging lamps to little marble Easter eggs. I wanted everything I saw, and am thinking of shipping an entire store of it to furnish my first home whenever that may be. Really.
After a raining day with the relatives, Sheena and I headed home laden down with baked goods, fruits and juice that Stefania made us take so kindly. We spent the night cooking bruschetta and risotto for dinner, and watching more episodes of the OC which Sheena had brought me from home. On Monday, Sheena went to see Donatello’s famous bronze David statue at the Bargello museum while I went to Italian class. She wandered some more of the Florentine markets, and when I was finished with class we grabbed delicious paninis, sat out in the sun doing homework and basking in Florence’s beauty. That night, Allie had returned from Venice with her family and Colleen was back from Paris, so we all motivated ourselves to go out again and headed to Friends Bar around the corner from our apartment. After about an hour there, we all realized how tired we really were and went home for some sleep. But not to worry! Wednesday we went out big and had a blast, after another full day of Florence fun with Sheena. We had planned it perfectly – for her last day, since we knew it was supposed to rain, we scheduled a visit to the Uffizi Gallery. Under a single half-broken umbrella (destroyed from the wind in Volterra), we splashed our way to the Gallery and beat the line with our reserved tickets. I had been there before, but only with Art History class and didn’t get to see everything. So, I told Sheena the stories I knew behind the artist Giotto’s painting of the Madonna and the myths from Boticelli’s Birth of Venus and Spring. I bet you know them – the one with Aphrodite sitting in the giant shell in the ocean, covering her body with her long blonde ponytail? And the other one in the forest with the girls dancing and the blue guy reaching down to pull the nymph into the sky to become his goddess? Yeah, you know them. Anyway, we saw those (my favorites in the gallery) and a slew of other famous paintings from the Medieval and Renaissance periods. The gallery was packed on such a rainy day, and by the time the last annoying tourguide plopped her group in front of a painting so know one else could view it, we were ready to leave. And so with that, Sheena finished all there is to do in Florence in a whopping six days of whirlwind adventure. We had a blast on her last night with all my friends and said goodbye in the wee hours of the morning on Wednesday – after searching out a 7am cab for a half hour in the dead early-morning city. Luckily, she made her plane perfectly and got home to open the pile of college letters on our kitchen table. I am so proud of her – Brown and UPenn! Choices, choices, choices…Such a lucky girl and such lucky parents too. What will they do without her home? Fortunately, I’m graduating in a year and the job market’s not too good right now, so this daughter just may be free-riding from home for a while.
But for now, I’m sticking with Italy and so happy with that. Me and a group of girl friends are going to an Opera on Saturday! We’re going to get all dressed up and go out for appertivo dinner then head to the Opera house for my first Italian opera…or any opera at all for that matter. What an experience! And in only a week, off to Rome for Easter to finally see my lovelies Eva and Anna, and of course Nick too. And THEN (it’s not over yet, nope) Venice for my birthday on the 17th! Twenty-one in one of the greatest cities in the world, what more could a girl ask for? Well, maybe just that great purse I saw at a Florence shop the other day… But really, it’s going to be the best birthday! And I’ve got sooo many purses already…
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