Okay, so loading pictures and getting into the right place is kind of a pain in the ass on this blog. That's too bad. Anyway, I want to comment on our dinner last night. First of all, let me just say that wine is definitely the drink of choice here. You can find wine for very cheap in the stores and at the restaurants. I've seen several different brands of wine selling for 2 euros (approximately $3). I've tried a couple of them so far and they are good. Well, I don't really like red wine all that much but it's growing on me. But let me tell you, we're not talking Boone's Farm here. It's much better. And beer at a lot of bars is 5 euros, so I'm definitely going to be drinking a lot wine while in Italy. When in Rome...
Anyway, back to dinner. The first course of a traditional Italian meal is usually pasta and that's what we had. I believe it was penne pasta with a marinara meat sauce. It was delicious. The second course is usually the meat. This is where things get a little weird and some people were pretty disappointed. The plates that they brought us had three slices of thickly sliced turkey, covered with a bit of olive oil, and a serving of french fries - yes, french fries. I've actually seen fries at a couple of Italian restaurants I've been to so far, so it didn't freak me out too much but some people found it weird and didn't like it. I thought it all tasted good so I didn't care that it was a little too American. Speaking of which, what foods don't seem all that American anymore? I eat Italian food all the time. Many of my favorite restaurants are Italian: Bravo, Macaroni Grill, and Maggiano's just to name a few. Anyway, the turkey and fries were followed by some delicious chocolate with chocolate chip gelato over top of vanilla. I also managed to drink about four glasses of wine with dinner, so it was a good time and I didn't have to pay a dime. That always makes things better.
Okay, I guess I should post a couple more pictures. The first couple are pictures one of the most famous buildings in Florence, the Church di Santa Maria del Fiore; a.k.a. the Duomo. The outside facade of the building is beautiful with many intricate statues and paintings. The Church was the first to be completely financed by the people of Florence and was thus designed and built in a way as to be a proud display for them. The last picture shows a somewhat close-up view of the Virgin Mary holding Jesus. The twelve statutes to her right and left are supposed to be the Apostles.
And here are two last pictures that I'd like to share mainly because of the story that accompanies them. The first is a picture of a building called the Spedale Degli Innocenti, which roughly means the hospital of the innocent. Basically, it was an orphanage where mothers could drop off their babies and they would be cared for and raised. The manner in which the mothers could drop off their babies was what I found so interesting. Apparently there was a giant wooden wheel placed in one of the walls. The mothers came by the outside wall and placed their children in a carved out portion of the wheel. Then they knocked on the wall and someone on the inside would rotate the wheel so as to bring the baby inside. This way the mother was not to feel guilty about giving up her child. I was not able to see this wheel with my own eyes, because we did not have to time to walk to the other side of the building and perhaps because it no longer exists. In the picture you can see that the outside wall facing a large plaza has several different ornate carvings of babies wrapped in blankets (there were at least 12 different carvings). The second picture is just of a fountain placed out front of the hospital in the plaza (I thought this picture turned out particularly well, except for the lady's head in the bottom of the picture).
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