17: Leiria and My Wonderful Family

As I'm sure you know, I'm back in the United States already.  I still had two more posts planned for this blog, but unfortunately after my previous post my schedule got rather hectic:

First, there was exam period, where I suddenly had quite a lot to review and study and a 10-page paper to write on the book "Eurico, o Presbítero" and how it reflected Portuguese Liberalism during the 19th Century.

Second, there was the very short period of time after exams that was dedicated solely to packing and saying goodbye to the amazing people I met while abroad.

Third, there was the few days I had at home when I finally got back to the United States, which were filled with unpacking for Portugal, seeing friends, and repacking for New York City!

And now, for the past two weeks, I have been running around the island of Manhattan for my internship with an off-Broadway production company AF Productions, which is currently producing "The Magdalene: A Musical" at Theater at St. Clement's this summer (shameless plug, I know).

Though through all of this business I have literally thought about closing up this blog every day.  But such work requires two blog posts, I believe, and so I will start the first one now with my travels with my family at the end of my semester:

So to say that I was nervous to encounter my family is a grave understatement.  I was absolutely petrified to see them, though not because they are in any way unpleasant but because I did not want to make a fool of myself with my terrible Portuguese.  I'm sure you all remember my first meeting with my cousin, which left me completely disheartened about any sort of language skill I formerly thought I possessed... and now it was time to confront these insecurities again.

The first meeting was only a day trip to Leiria that I mentioned in my Queima das Fitas post.  Amy and I took a bus on Saturday morning and met with my tia (aunt) Arminda and tio (uncle) Joaquim.  Tio Joaquim is my grandfather's brother, and they recently moved back to Portugal after moving to the States in the 1970s.  Tia Arminda might be the only one of my great-aunts and -uncles, either in Portugal or the United States, who speaks English very well, so I figured that if my Portuguese completely failed, at least I would be able to get by speaking with her in English.  That being said, I was still completely terrified.

Tia met us at the station and started speaking to us in English right when we got off the bus.  I felt relieved but also a little embarrassed.  Did she assume that we wouldn't be able to speak to her in Portuguese?  After introducing Amy, she walked us around downtown Leiria a little bit and then brought us into Zara, which is like a much nicer European H&M.  Out of nowhere, Tia told me and Amy that she would get us something from the store as a thank you for having come to visit her.

How could I have been scared of coming to visit my family?  This was only the first of so many moments of kindness and generosity.

It was a surprise, after we finished at Zara, to find out that we were meeting my Tio Artur (my grandfather's youngest brother) and his wife Tia Gabbie for lunch as well.  When we arrived at the restaurant, the Portuguese began... and it was completely fine!  I understand the vast majority of what they were saying, and with Tia Arminda sitting across the table from me, it was easy to clarify a sentence or ask for vocabulary.  In true Portuguese fashion, my family fed me as if I were supposed to have the appetite of three teenage boys.  By the time we left the restaurant, I had eaten soup, duck, potatoes, vegetables, a bowl of fruit, and more bread than you can imagine.  And this was with my refusing quite a lot more.

For reference

After lunch, we wandered around the city of Leiria, which is about halfway between Coimbra and Lisbon.  The county of Leiria is actually where most of my family is from.  My cousin and her family still live in the little town where my mother lived before emigrating.  It really is a tiny little place, and when I underwent my language placement test at the beginning of the semester, the professora told me that she in fact knew Tojal and told me it that it was no wonder my family left as the town of Tojal was a miserable place to live.  What a very pleasant woman.

Inside Sé Leiria

We stopped at a cafe, where the tios and tias had café and Amy and I drank galões (thrust upon us of course, as we were still too full to move properly).  We then hiked up the hill, passing Sé Leiria, a beautiful catedral, on the way to the Castelo de Leiria, the ruins of a 12th Century castle that was partially reconstructed in the 1970s.  Tia Gabbie even bought me a book about this castle after hearing about my interest in medieval history and ruins.  She stayed behind at the entrance though, as there was quite a lot of difficult climbing in and around the castle.  We rambled over the rocks and through the little passageways.  From the top of the towers you could see a magnificent view of the city of Leiria, both old and new.  I definitely fell in love with that little city while I was there.  As much as I love Coimbra and Lisbon, Leiria is the birthplace of my family and I was proud to be from a region with so much beauty and history (more on this later).   Tia Arminda told me that she was happy to come up here again: she hadn't visited the castle for more than thirty years.

View from Castelo de Leiria

Pastéis de Leiria

After the castle, we visited a cute little museum that was dedicated to visual movement.  Along with quite a lot of old cameras and video equipment, they had a really neat display of optical illusions.  My tios and tias seemed to enjoy that exhibit a lot.  After the museum, we traveled back downhill and stopped in another cafe, where my aunts and uncles bought us Leiria's famous pastries.  It seems as though all cities in Portugal have some sort of "special dessert," though they are all some variant of egg, flour, and sugar.  These were pretty good, and seeing as Amy and I enjoyed them, my family made us eat three before we left.

Tia Arminda, Tio Joaquim, myself, Tio Artur, and Tia Gabbie

After the pastries, we hopped into Tio Artur's car and drove over to a church on the edge of the city.  I can't remember its name (alas, what happens when I wait too long to blog) but it had a special legend about the numerous steps that led up to to the church.  There the tios and tias showed me the new hospital, which they had spoken about several times throughout the day already, and another great view of the city.  There we took pictures together and then hopped back into the car.  They wanted to show me Batalha.

Amy and I outside o Mosteiro

Pastéis de Batalha

I had visited Batalha when my family came to visit Portugal in 2008, but I was excited to go back.  The monastery there was definitely one of my favorite places in Portugal.  Unfortunately by the time we arrived, the Mosteiro de Batalha was closed to visitors, so we (in true Portuguese fashion) found a cafe, sat down, and had yet more coffee.  My aunts and uncles ordered Amy and I the special pastries of Batalha, of which I do not have fond memories.  Whether it was the amount of food and pastry I had already consumed that day or the strange texture of the pastry that made my entire body want to reject those pastries from Batalha I do not know, but I struggled to get those down and I think Tia Arminda noticed.  By that time, Amy and I were both slipping with our Portuguese.  We hadn't spoken English since before lunch, and our brains were exhausted.  Of course, Tio Artur's son Ricardo, with his wife Inês and son Tómas, who was just as tired as we were, came to meet us.  I had never met them before, as they weren't available when we visited years before, but they were very nice and their son might have been the cutest little boy I have ever seen.  But I'm afraid my language skills probably didn't impress them too much.  Exhausted and all Portuguese-ed out, Amy and I didn't have much to say after they arrived.  It didn't help that the conversation changed to real estate and economy either.  Soon it was time for Amy and I to get back to Leiria to catch our bus back home, so we all left the cafe, scrambled into the car once again, and jetted back to the station.  It was good that we did too, as the bus that we thought left at 8:30 actually left at 8:15, and we were just able to grab our bags and jump on the bus before it left.  My aunts and uncles lined the street and waved as our bus pulled out.

It was a fantastic day, and I was happy to be able to see them the next weekend as well.

I took a bus that next Friday afternoon to Leiria, though this time a few things had changed: 1) Tatiana was accompanying me this time, 2) I was set to be in Leiria for the entire weekend, and 3) I was not only visiting with Tia Arminda and Tio Joaquim, but I was also going to visit my cousin and her family from Saturday night to Sunday afternoon.  The butterflies returned, but I remembered my day in Leiria all too well and was much more excited than I had been before.

My pile of shrimp shells

When we arrived in Leiria on Friday, Tia Arminda and Tio Joaquim were waiting with Tio Artur and Tia Gabbie.  They were excited to bring Tatiana and I to some sort of seafood restaurant outside of Leira that Tio Artur loved, but when we arrived, it was sadly closed.  So we continued driving south and ended up in Nazaré, a fantastic beach town that I had visited previously.  Nazaré is divided, with part of it on the top of a high cliff, and the rest sprawled out down the hill and around the beach.  We went to a great restaurant on the higher area of Nazaré, where Tio Joaquim taught Tatiana and I how to shell shrimp both with our hands and with utensils, and Tio Artur told a very racist joke about Chinese food.  After dinner, we strolled over to the edge of the top part of the town, where we could see the beach and the rest of Nazaré at night.

Back in the car, Tio Artur drove us to the lower part of town, where he and Tia Gabbie had an apartment.  We stopped at their place, took a tour, and left with two large bags of chocolate.  Their apartment building is right on the main stretch of beach, so we walked down along the board walk for a little bit.  It was starting to get late and Tatiana and I were already pretty tired, but we still several other places to visit before we were able to sleep.  We drove back to Leiria, where we stopped at Tio Artur and Tia Gabbie's house there and took another tour and received a cake.  Then they drove us back to the bus station, from which Tio Joaquim and Tia Arminda drove us to their house outside of the city.  Somehow we were dead tired but my aunt and uncle were wide awake.  We passed some sort of fair along the way and Tia Arminda seemed to be entirely genuine when she asked if we wanted to stop by.  Tatiana had fallen asleep in the car at that point, so we decided to go ahead and get home.

Now, Tia Arminda and Tio Joaquim's house is like a mansion.  It's seriously one of the nicest houses I have ever seen in my life, and it is all built with money that they earned while working in the States.  I didn't have much time to admire it again when we arrived though.  Both Tatiana and I practically passed out as soon as we finished helping Tia Arminda make our beds.  We had gone to a river beach in Coimbra beforehand, but we were too exhausted to care that we smelled like river water.

Fatima

The next morning, we showered, ate some fruit and some of Tia Gabbie's cake for breakfast, and then drove to Fatima.  For those who don't know, Fatima is probably the holiest place in Portugal.  In 1917, the Virgin Mary appeared several times to three Portuguese shepherd children.  Of course, no one believed them for a very long time and, as Tia Arminda said, they suffered quite a lot.  I won't get into the whole story of it all, but I'll link the Wikipedia article here.   Now, it is a huge sight for pilgrimages and it is safe to say that 90% of Portuguese households have at least one statue of Our Lady of Fatima somewhere in their homes.  This was my second time at Fatima, but it was still amazing.  The complex is absolutely huge, with a huge cathedral on one end opposite another more modern church.  Between is all paved with white stone, with several smooth pathways for pilgrims to crawl on their knees toward the site where Mary appeared.  She originally appeared under a tree to the three children, and the tree is still there.  However, its been moved a few feet away from its original position, where a chapel with the figure of Our Lady of Fatima now stands.  I love this place because as soon as you enter the complex, you can feel that something very special happened there.  When she appeared, Mary also gave the children three prophetic secrets that foretold the upcoming World War I, the conversion of Russia, and the attempted assassination of a future pope.  The third secret was withheld from public knowledge until Pope John Paul II was almost killed in 1981.  Now there is a statue of JPII there whose toe is already worn with the touch of thousands of people.

We went into the cathedral, which is lovely inside.  The three children are all buried next to the altar, though I don't remember Lúcia, who became a nun and died in 2005, having been buried there yet in 2008.  Tatiana and I visited the official Fatima shop, where I finally got my Portuguese Bible, and then we left the complex and wandered through the maze of gaudy religious shops before Tio Joaquim picked us up and we went to have lunch.

After lunch, Tia brought us to the Grutas de São António, these fantastic underground caves near her hometown.  We were the only ones there, so we had a great time with our tour guide (who Tia Arminda instructed to only speak in Portuguese).  The caves were absolutely gorgeous underneath, and it was a nice break from the heat.

Inside the Monastery

After the caves, we returned to Batalha again.  This time, we were able to visit the inside of the church and monastery.  I didn't know previously, but my grandmother both went to school and was married there.  We visited the church, where King João I, Queen Phillipa of Lancaster, and their (kinda famous son) D. Henrique and his siblings are buried, then went into the cloisters, where we witnessed the changing of the guard ceremony at Portugal's own Unknown Soldier grave site and visited a small museum about the Unknown Soldier site.  We then passed behind the monastery to visit the unfinished chapels, where the touching grave of D. Duarte and his wife are forever holding hands.

Grave of D. Henrique (Henry the Navigator)

The Cloisters

Anyone remember "Timeline" when they see this?

With our Galo necklaces

After our visit, we met up with Tio Joaquim and Tia Gabbie again.  I had noticed a few people in the monastery dressed in period clothing before, but it was only when I got back outside that I realized that Batalha was hosting a Medieval Faire that weekend.  We wandered around the booths and watched a few musical performances.  One of my grandfather's old friends runs a souvenir shop near the monastery and gave me a little pendant of the Galo de Barcelos for free, which was so nice of him.  Tia Gabbie then bought me a chain and since then I continue to wear my Galo every chance I get!

Musicians at the Medieval Faire

My time with my aunts and uncles was drawing to a close, however.  We dropped Tatiana off at the bus station and then headed to Tojal, where my cousin (recently back from Hungary) and the rest of her family was waiting for me.  We arrived a little late to dinner, which only made me a little more anxious about the coming day-and-a-half.  But after saying goodbye to Tia Arminda and Tio Joaquim, I joined my other family for dinner.  At the table were my two cousins, Joana and Ana Rita (who acted as my translator throughout dinner) and Joana's boyfriend Tiago.  Then there was my uncle and my Aunt Maria do Carmo, who is my mother's cousin.  Her parents were also there: my great-aunt, or my grandmother's sister, and my great-uncle, or my grandfather's cousin.  Very confusing stuff, right there.

Speaking with this side of the family was much more difficult than speaking with my other tios and tias.  Perhaps it was because they had a stronger accent, but I found it very difficult to understand very much of what they were saying.  I had special trouble with my great-uncle, whose accent was impossible for me to decipher.  But my aunt Maria do Carmo was so nice and was very concerned that I like everything she had made for dinner (which, of course, I did. It was delicious!).  After ice cream, Ana Rita had to leave for a late shift at the club at which she worked, and I found out that Joana and Tiago were going to bring me out that night and visit the club.  Once I was just with them, though, I felt much more comfortable.  Tiago was playing The Killers (his favorite band) as he drove us back to Leiria and was very pleased that I was a fan.  We visited a Middle Eastern-themed tea shop which specialized in a whole bunch of flavored teas before heading over to Ana Rita's club.  It was pretty early so it wasn't very crowded.  We didn't stay too long either: Joana and Tiago had gone to the beach early that morning, so everyone was pretty tired.  Tiago dropped us off at Joana's house for the night.

Joana and I at Nazaré

The next morning was gratefully lazy.  We got up and hung around the house for a little bit.  I ate breakfast with Joana while my aunt continued making lunch.  I watched a little TV, got on the computer.  Ana Rita, who had obviously worked very late, got up just in time for lunch.  Tia Maria do Carmo had made chicken AND bacalhau for lunch, as she wasn't sure if I liked bacalhau or not.  After eating basically two lunches, we hung around the house a little bit with Ana Rita.  Tiago came by and we drove back to Batalha, where we explored the on-going Medieval Faire again.  After some coffee, we returned to Tojal, grabbed our beach stuff, and headed out again.  We stopped by a local assembly-type place, where Tia Maria do Carmo was already busy cooking for a party that night.  There we borrowed my uncle's car and drove to Nazaré.  It was a long drive, and by the time we got there it was already late afternoon.  We lazied around the beach for an hour or so before driving back to Tojal, changing for the party, and then heading over to the community party where I met quite a few new faces and ate dinner.  The food was delicious, of course, and after dinner my aunt and uncle told me that they would be driving me back to Coimbra themselves, as Joana was heading back as well for a summer internship.  Unfortunately Joana didn't live close to the University at all: instead, her apartment was across the river in Covões, where the hospital and medical school is located.  After dropping off her stuff, we headed back into the heart of Coimbra.  Despite my protestations, they all wanted to walk me all the way back up to my apartment.  I felt so bad, as of course my uncle wouldn't let me carry my suitcase myself.  After the long hike uphill, we said goodbye and parted ways.

Sadly I wasn't able to see my cousin after that, even though she was much closer.  Right afterward, finals began.  The next time I was able to contact her was a day or two before I had to leave, and she had work of her own that she couldn't abandon.  But I did have her and Ana Rita promise that they would visit the States as soon as they could so I could show them around MY home country.  Plus, they paid for everything when I was with them, and I need to pay them back! 

And thus ends this account.  Now THAT was a long post!

13: Spring Break Part 1 - FLORENCE

Before I talk about my particular adventures in Italy, I first want to say that I have again failed to be a normal girl in my preference for romance languages.  French doesn't do it for me, and Italian just sounds silly.  Throughout my total of six days in Italy, every time I heard the Italian language, all I could think about was this:

Even Spanish isn't having the effect it used to... and I can't seem to tell the difference between it and Catalan... Maybe Romanian will impress?  Otherwise its just Portuguese.  I might be biased.

So it is safe to say that I easily resisted the charms of the Italian males, though whether they have very much "charm" is also something to be decided.  Here are my favorite pick-up lines that I heard while walking around Florence and Rome (in order).

1. Hey baby girl.  Wanna have my babies?
2. I want to know you.
3. OH MY GODDDD (though, of course, the "God" sounded more like "Got" with the accent)
4. Bella!/Ciao bella! (standard)
5. Hiiiiiiiii!
6. Hey baby!

Italian men were particularly adamant about showing their affection in Florence, where I was traveling with a few other girls.  Thankfully meeting up with Dan drastically reduced the amount of cat-calling.

I arrived in Florence via Bologna last Wednesday.  My friends had all left the weekend before to start their vacations earlier, but I decided to stay behind and maybe catch any classes that we would have on Monday and Tuesday.  Of course, all of these classes were canceled and I ended up doing quite a lot of reading.  One day I even went into seven different Chinese discount shops.  I also made a video a lá Paris, Je T'aime's "Arrondissement," which I will be posting sometime this week.  Safe to say that I was very happy to get to Florence and meet up with my friend Ora for some good human contact.

I arrived in the city rather late, so I didn't get much of a feel for Florence until the next morning.  Unfortunately Ora still had class during that week so she wasn't able to show me around much.  But that was completely fine, as her roommate from last semester, Melissa, was visiting her at the same time.  We were instant travel buddies and, with the help of the ever-helpful Rick Steves, we managed to see quite a lot on Thursday.

First view of the Duomo... nice.

After eating delicious sandwiches, Melissa and I headed into the historical area of Florence.  As we walked from Ora's apartment to the Duomo, the city suddenly turned into that mental image of what Italy should look like: golden houses, tiny winding streets, and suddenly: the most ornate church exterior I've ever seen.  Though it is known as the Duomo, its technically named Santa Maria del Fiore and was built sometime in the 1870s.  It was absolutely beautiful, with green and pink marble, statues, paintings... so beautiful.  Unfortunately I was wearing shorts so we couldn't go into the church that day.  We tried to walk in and were promptly kicked out by a very strict Italian security guard.  We checked out the Baptistery, where copies of Ghiberti's famous bronze doors replace the originals (which are now in the Duomo's museum).  The copies were still amazing though.  It's insane to think that they are basically two-dimensional.

The front of the Duomo

The side of the Duomo

Ghiberti's bronze doors

They weren't very wealthy...

After ogling the bronze doors, Melissa and I made it up to the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi.  I had had enough time away from the excessive amounts of palaces in Sintra and I was ready to see the interior of one belonging to one of the richest and most famous families in European history... and the palace was fantastic.  It was later owned by the Riccardi family (hence the name), who definitely were not strangers to wealth, and the interior showed it.  The Chapel of the Magi, which is instantly recognizable to anyone with even the smallest amount of art history knowledge (like me), was fantastic.  Inside there was also a ballroom with the most gorgeous painted ceiling I've ever seen and mirrors lining the walls, all of which were decorated with paintings.  Melissa and I definitely took advantage of the paintings and took, perhaps, the classiest Myspace photos known to man.

It would be weird to have this in my future house, right?

After the palace, we wandered a few backstreets and found the Casa di Dante, which was disappointing.  The tiny museum was expensive and crowded with excessive information about almost everything but Dante himself.  Oh well.  At least I can tell Mr. Healy, my high school World Lit teacher, that I went to the house where Dante maybe? probably? lived.

Actual Dante portrait though.

With a bit of a information-headache, Melissa and I continued our walk through Florence, passed the Orsan-Michele, and arrived in the Piazza Signoria, where the Palazzo Vecchio stands in front of the Uffizi Gallery.  We didn't go into either of these buildings: the palace because Rick Steves told us it wasn't worth it, and the Uffizi, which was far too close to being closed at that point to stand in the ridiculously long line.  We did pop into the Palazzo Vecchio's front courtyard and the outdoor statue exhibit, which houses the original Rape of the Sabines by Giovanni Bologna.  Very cool.

View of the Arno River from Ponte Vecchio

We then walked over to Ponte Vecchio, which was crazy crowded and full of GOLD!  We crossed to the other side of the river, had a coffee and received a free pastry, and then walked to the Piazzale Michelangelo.  From this square you can see all of Florence.  Definitely one of the most magnificent views I've ever seen in my life.  Photos seriously don't do it justice.  Looking over Florence like this might have been my favorite part of the entire trip.

Me and my travel buddy Melissa at Piazzale Michelangelo

After the Piazzale Michelangelo it was time to return to Ora, get dinner, and head out on the town.  All I will say about that night is that it involved too much tequila and I now owe Ora quite a few favors.

Lion Friend #1 of Italy.  

The next day, Ora borrowed a few of her friend's museum passes and we beelined for the Bargello, which was amazing.  The sculpture in that museum, which used to be a prison and police station way back when, was incredible.  Since we never made it to the Uffizi, this was definitely my favorite museum.  There, I made my first lion friend of my trip.  The amount of pictures I have with stone lions is starting to get a little strange.




After the Bargello, we went to an "American Diner" owned by a British guy named Valentino in the heart of historyical Florence... but it worked.  Best BLT I've ever had.  And then... things started getting a little strange.

First, there was San Lorenzo market.  I was pretty excited to go to there and find a nice leather handbag despite the fact that I always seem to be targeted in flee markets and other outdoor markets all over the world.  Apparently I look very gullible and scared, which somehow translates into possible profits for very adamant vendors who speak very little English.  I was purusing one little shop and found the perfect bag, though I was a little confused as to why the strap was so small.  A young Italian man came over to help me and seemed very confused as to why I wanted a larger strap on the bag.  After I explained about shoulder straps, he said to be very seriously, "But that's a man's handbag."  I almost laughed in his face and quickly exited the shop.  Oh, Italy.

However my buzz from this ridiculous moment soon disappeared.  I was still looking for a bag when a very friendly middle-aged Italian man came over and ushered me and Ora into his shop.  He was very adamant about the selection and quality of his bags, but after a little bit of haggling I decided I wasn't particularly interested.  Unfortunately he took this as a sign for further haggling and continued to lower the price until he suddenly blew up in a fit of self-important pity.  He started lecturing us on all the work that he does, all the designing and leather working and how all the other shops are copying his designs with lesser value.  He accused us of making him drive down his prices until he would basically make no profit and started pin-pointing Ora's bag, which she had bought in the beginning of the semester, as work far lesser than his.  Of course Ora wasn't going to let him talk that way about one of her purchases, and I just tried to slowly back away before he tried to show me another handbag.  After all his declarations of designing and quality, I thought it might be a bit rude to simply tell him I didn't like his bags enough to buy one.  We finally escaped and thought that our bout with crazy people was over and done with for the day.

And then Accademia happened.

The Galleria dell'Accademia is where The David (you know, just a little famous) lives, so of course we had to go.  Armed with the museum passes (which gave us free tickets), we went in and tried to get free admission.  At the Bargello, the ticket person had barely looked at the passes and given us tickets, but at the Accademia, the woman behind the studied the passes and proclaimed, "These are not you!"  Ora angrily insisted that they were ours, but the woman didn't believe us at all.  She even rejected Ora's, which actually was her pass.  Melissa and I tried to insist as well, but I am not actually Korean and Melissa did not have red hair, so our lies were pretty pitiful.   The woman behind the counter began screaming about how we were committing a crime, how we were stealing someone's identity (though we hadn't stolen a thing... we had been given their identities very freely), and suddenly yelled, "I'm calling the police!"

Of course we began freaking out, pleading with her to just let us pay for the ticket.  But she stomped out of the ticket booth and pulled aside a security guard, who looked at our cards and said thoughtfully, "Well these aren't you."  Yes, we had established that, Mr. Security Guard.  After quite a lot of arguing and yelling, the security guard finally convinced the ticket woman to just sell us tickets.  She practically threw them at us and we retreated into the museum.  We sat down, heads still whirling from our almost-arrest, when suddenly Ora leaned forward and said, "Oh look.  There's the David."  I don't know what it is about the statue that makes it so amazing, but I truly stood in front of it for ten minutes, mesmerized.  Something about the facial expression on that statue is just mind-blowing.  You think you know a work of art until you are standing right in front of it...  I wish I could have taken a picture but, of course, they want to sell lots of prints and postcards so that wasn't allowed.  The rest of the museum was just okay, though they had a pretty neat exhibit of gilded paintings.  The David was worth the drama and ticket price though.

I ate this entire pizza.  I'm not ashamed.

We walked back to the Duomo after that and began our food tour: First, we got some delicious gelato from Grom, and then headed back to Ora's apartment.  That night we trekked to Florence's best pizzeria and ate the delicious pizza in a rather sketchy park in a slight drizzle... and yet the pizza was still amazing.

Secret croissant

We returned to the apartment, napped, and then headed out again late that night to find a "secret bakery."  There are apparently several of these in Florence.  Our specific secret bakery is, by day, some sort of import/export business that bakes pastries at night and then ships them during the day.  The workers who have to bake all of these pastries so late at night are apparently very distraught by the unfair hand they were dealt (baking pastries for a living... rough), so they sell pastries at night through their backdoor.  At 3 AM, we got in a line in front of a close door, which a worker in a chef's jacket occasionally opened, took orders, and then handed out nondescript white bags full of croissants.  We had to pay in cash (no trace!), received our croissants, and then ate them as we returned to the apartment.  They did very well to distract us from the multitude of creepy Italian men.  What they did not realize is that a chocolate-filled croissant (or in my case, two such croissants) is far and away more desirable than their company.

Me with il Porcellino, who bares a striking resemblance to my dog.

Me and my buddy Machiavelli

The next morning was my last morning in Florence, so we got up super early and tried to go to the Uffizi but were conquered by a three-hour-long line.  Instead, we took pictures of the statues of iconic Italians outside the museum, got the best hot chocolate in Florence at Rivoire, and finally made it inside the Duomo, which was beautiful and very cold.  We also walked over to the Mercato Nuovo, where I finally found my leather bag and received lots of luck from il Porcellino, the iconic boar statue in Florence.  After a sandwich run, it was time for me to board a train for Rome... But first, a few more photos:

Locks from Lovers on the Ponte Vecchio

Inside the Duomo... so beautiful

I was a little obsessed with my new bag...

And thus marks the end of this particular post.  Far more fun times to come in the next one!  Roma!