Rattle Those Pots

August 8, 2004

Bad news is Thom has a cold. Good news is it was his first excuse to explore a farmaccia (pharmacy) in Florence. He discovered that by saying “Buena sera,” and faking a big sneeze, the pharmacist knew what he needed. Which turned out to be…Actifed. We laughed pretty hard at that one.

Beltz Women — take note! I have discovered a magic word. A word that conjures happiness, hope, and serene fulfillment. One that appears to crop up all over town. “SALDI!” (SALE!) SALDI makes Jenny HAPPY. And Jenny discovered a big SALDI earlier tonight. Heh heh.

We walked up to one of the big squares in town, Piazza Della Republicca, again today. It’s pretty touristy in summer, apparently, but they also had a bunch of street performers and good musicians playing cello, flute, etc., so we got a gelato and sat and listened/people-watched for a while. Lots o’ fun. And gratis (free), which always helps. I have discovered, by the way, ciocolatto (chocolate) gelato, and I’m in a ciocolatto coma. It’s like a frozen, creamy, flourless chocolate torte. Hope all the walking helps…

We’ve discovered a little trick to avoid having to chat with very loud New Yorkers. We just say whatever little bit we know in Italian, and it works. They just sort of give us these sidelong glances when we’re on the same bench, but never barge in. One group asked me to take their picture tonight, and I just said the first thing I was able, “Ah! Piacere! Mi piace vedere Americani!” I could’ve said the equivalent of “Ah! I have three large pigs in the bathroom at home!”, though, and they wouldn’t have known the difference. My little new game…

Here’s a cool development: We have three little restaurants right outside our door, surrounding a tiny piazza called Piazza della Passera. One, Quattro Leone, is apparently a better-known place, but sort of crowded inside and out. (Sting, Anthony Hopkins, and David Gilmour have all eaten there, and apparently, since that’s in some of the tour books, it brings people.)

Another is a little coffee bar that we like a lot, Caffe degli Artigiani, that serves coffee, wine, and panini (tiny sandwiches). The third restaurant, Il Magazzino, has officially become a Thom and Jen hangout. It’s a small trattoria with authentic Florentine dishes, and their staff seems to be putting us under their collective wing. This is the same place that I wrote about in the first letter, where they showed us the tripe and tongue, etc., on our way out, when we’d asked about tripe. One of their waiters, Vieri, speaks English, and he’s obsessed with old-time country music, Bluegrass, and (U.S.) Civil War history. He’s actually saving up with a buddy who’s learning banjo, and is planning to move to Nashville. We laughed so hard over this unlikely news.

We went in last night after dinner just to get a quick caffe. In a lot of restaurants, when you want a coffee or vino, you just stand at the bar and chat with staff. While we were visiting with Vieri, he kept reaching up and pouring himself and some of the waitstaff outside little shots of grappa (it was closing time), and at one point he reached up to move a bottle of Jack Daniels out of the way. So Thom said “Hey! Sono di Tennessee!”, and this guy just about fell over with excitement, asking us all sorts of questions about Nashville, American music, etc.

“I’ve heard about you!” he hollered. “Luca told me about you! You live with us now on the street!” (Luca was our waiter our first night here.) We wound up staying a couple of hours, and the rest of the staff kept asking Vieri questions in Italian to ask us in English. They gave us all of our caffe and limoncella for free, which I felt sort of badly about, but boy, it sure was fun.

Luca is going to start taking English classes in September, so Vieri brokered a deal where we’d swap English turorials for Italian ones from Luca. Cool deal. Especially if it includes limoncella…We already put a feeler in about helping them in their kitchen a while down the road just to learn more firsthand, and they seemed pretty receptive, so we’ll see. The more authetic the restaurant, though, apparently, the less you see women in the kitchen (a la French approach), which is a bummer, but we’ll see what happens.

We made a trip out to IKEA yesterday to get a few more things for the apartment. We’d read in advance that IKEA in Italy is a hoot, because the stores will just be packed, wall to wall, with Italians strolling slowly arm in arm through the store, just having a grand old time — but that no one apparently ever buys anything. And from what we saw, that was fairly accurate. Very, very amusing. The folks we did see in line at the register seemed to be primarily German and Asian (and a few Americans), so those were null purchasers, we agreed. If we were used to having artisans handcrafting wooden furniture beneath our windows, though, we wouldn’t run out to buy plastic furniture from Sweden, either, we agreed.

We also went for the first time to the outdoor market they have each morning at Piazza Santa Spirito, one of the biggie markets a couple of blocks from home. Older Italian fellows kept trying to play with Charlie, and Charlie was just *completely freaked out* by it. Hope he gets more into the flow soon.

We bought a decent little bottle of white wine for 1.50 euro (about $1.90) at the market, and fantastic extra virgin olive oil for 3 euro. Don’t know why, but that just sort of cracks me up, how everyday the wine part is. People apparently wouldn’t put up with it if their simple table wines cost too much, since they have it throughout the day. Makes sense when you think about it. We managed to ask for everything we needed at the market in Italian (with free basil thrown in, to boot!), although we’re getting more paranoid each day that we seem to be making locals chuckle when we stick to Italian. They seem to know what we’re saying, but I keep wondering if maybe we’re calling their mothers less-than-flattering names without meaning to. Yikes.

Our first houseguest, Thom’s friend Trey Kish, arrives on Tuesday. I’ve told Thom that what’s going to be really funny is when Trey hits on some chick he thinks is a hottie Italian ragazza, and she turns out to be a tourist. From the bustling metropolis of…Akron.

Signing off.

Tanti baci,

Jen