just different.

GIORNO TRENTACINQUE
Two great life decisions today.  1. Ate a kebab at Mesopotamia and 2. Ate the best dinner at Acqua Al Due.  Yes, they both have to do with food, but I don't regret it.

Today I woke up to work on my 64546 blog posts from this weekend and get settled for another, but our last week of school.  It is a bittersweet concept... knowing that life in Firenze is almost over, but that I get to go home to my family and I will always have the opportunity to return one day.

It is so different attempting to assimilate to a completely different culture.  Nothing is better or worse, it is just different.  You really have to learn to respect the customs as they come to you because nothing is truly the same.  Over the past six weeks I have gone from flustered tourist, to pushy, "I hate the tourists" local.  It didn't come naturally to me, but over time you learn to just walk across the street when cars are coming, jump in front of the mob of people at the market because there are no real lines, and to get some type of hold on the slowness of the service mixed with the fastness of the life.  That may not make sense, but you will get it right away after living in Italy.

Something you notice right away when living in Italy is how much and how many people smoke.  It is almost an integral part of their culture.  They sit at dinner, order a bottle of wine, smoke, order a piatti primi, smoke some more, drink some more, order a second dish, drink some more, smoke some more, and on and on.  And the whole time this is going on over a two or three hour period, they are actively and enthusiastically talking as if they had never talked to you in your life.  This is where the slowness comes in: they have nowhere to go... just sitting there for hours, smoking and drinking their lives away.  Meals in the US last an hour, tops.  People just go, eat, and leave.  Food is an art form.  Like it should be!

I don't know if the kids grow up smoking, but EVERYONE does it.  It is like you have to, or you just aren't really Italian.  How is this possible?  Well... they eat and drink so much, so I guess smoking keeps them skinny!  It is the only thing I can make sense out of it all.  All of the over weight people I see are Americans... way to represent America!  Couldn't be more proud... NOT!

I don't know... there has to be a way around the carbs and the smoking.  I want to be skinny, but I don't want to smoke.  Well... I guess you can't have both if you want to live in Italy.  Welcome to the real world. 

Allora, today was a a casual day after our wickedly amazing weekend.  Around one, Christina, Carla, Danielle, and I went to Mesopotamia, which is a kebab place, to eat lunch.  I don't know why, but it was fantastic.  It was basically a gyro, but tasted like smiles wrapped up in a tin foil blanket.  I was happy.  After that I went back to the leather market to walk around since I only have a few more days to do that.... ahh!  That is so so scary!

On the way back we stopped at La Carraia 2 for some gelato... Only five more days to do that!!! NO!!  I can't just walk to the nearby gelateria in Gainesville for some of the best ice cream of my life.  THIS IS MY LAST OPPORTUNITY!

Anyway, after we returned to the apartment, we cracked open the bottle of dessert wine I bought from the shop next door.  Still so delicious!  At around six thirty we left for Acqua Al Due for one of the best meals I have had in Firenze. I don't even really like steak and I bought one because everyone and their moms have raved about how delicious it is.  I definitely recommend it... so awesome!  This picture isn't the most flattering picture of my blueberry steak, but it was SOOO GOOD!  And yes, I did say blueberry.  I know it sounds weird, but it's not.  There is a balsamic steak too, but the blueberry is so much better and you have to do it.

Anyway... it's been a great couple of weeks and at this point in my travels I just need to get all the last minute things out of the way: go to the restaurants I haven't eaten at yet, see the things that need to be seen, and just enjoy the time I have left because it will all be gone too soon!

Have a great night!
Buonanotte!