And here it is!

Finally, the internet is up again!

Here are some of the pictures I took on my weekend trip to Tuscany:

View of the Duomo from the Campanile (bell tower)
Oooh, aaah, Tuscan light!
The veiw from the hotel room I shared with my little sister

Blue sky! It rained and was completely overcast for most of the weekend. This too is the Duomo
Inside of a church built in 700. No, not 1700, 700.
Man with pigeons.

I'm posting this picture, because there's a semi-ironic story that goes with it: my host family and I went to their friend's house for dinner Saturday night, in a small town in the rural area just outside of Florence. We had a very traditional Tuscan meal, so of course we had pasta, with some kind of meat. It was really good, but I couldn't recognize what kind of meat it was, so I asked Margherita, the daughter of the family. She spent 6 months in Las Vegas on an exchange, and speaks English. She replied "pigione" but I didn't make the cognate connection. So she said it in English: pigeon. The image that popped into my head is the one shown above: the cute old Italian man, feeding the pigeons. And the pigeons in Florence are polite, they're not noisy, don't fly too close to you, and there isn't pigeon excrement everywhere, like you would expect. My little sister was a little shocked that we were eating pigeon, too, but hey, it was good.

Since I took the pictures below on Saturday night as well, I'll contine describing the day. We spent Saturday afternoon in Florence, then drove out into the Tuscan countryside just as the sun was setting. By the time we got to the friend of the family's house, it was completely dark. The friends of the family are named Simonetta and Luca, by the way. We went into the house, chatted for a little bit, and then all piled into my family's car, and went to a vineyard. It was dark, so we didn't actually see the vines, but the owner of the vineyard showed how they make wine, and where they store all of it. It was actually pretty interesting, although I don't remember much of what she said. I was too busy thinking about Poe's "Cask of Amontillado." All of the barrels are stored underground, in windy hallways and caves under the villa.

These are the grapes they use for Vin Santo. According to the owner of the vineyard, the Vin Santo produced at her vineyard was judged by the wine gurus to be the best in the world. She let me taste it. It was the first time I tried Vin Santo, and it was really really sweet, but good.

My host parents being photogenic.
Ponte Vecchio! I knew that Ponte Vecchio existed, and that there were little shops on it, but I didn't know they were all jewelry shops!
My host father in the last stretches of a Marathon that he ran while we were in Florence

I have SO, SO much to say about the trip to Florence, but we're having dinner soon! Soo, I'll just write about the highlights.

Friday morning, we woke up, had breakfast, and were out of the house earlier than we expected, only to run into traffic. My host parents decided to drive to Florence instead of taking the train, which was fine by me! Taking the train to Florence takes about 4 hours. When my host father drives, it takes 3. We got to Florence, parked the car, and took a taxi to our hotel. Our hotel was in the Piazza Signoria. It wasn't really a hotel, though, it was more like a bed and breakfast. Without the breakfast. There were only 6 rooms, and we had 2 of them. We put our things in the hotel room, then went to the Piazza Santa Croce, where there's an old, important church. I don't remember details, and you really cant blame me, considering there's an old, important church on every corner in Florence. I remember that Michelangelo was buried there, and that it was the first Monastery for the Franciscan monks.

We saw several other statues, etc, and went to dinner at Florence's oldest trattoria. A trattoria is a small, small restaurant, with home cooking. The place we went was so well known, my host father made reservations a month ago! You can't eat there without reservations. I sampled several typical Tuscan dishes, including a specific kind of bruschetta, which I ate several times that weekend, only to find out later it was chicken innards all mashed up, blended with vegetables. We did some window shopping, and walked back to the hotel, and went to bed.

Saturday, we went sightseeing, and I saw Michelangelo's David. The real one. Made by Michelangelo himself. That was probably the highlight of my sightseeing, but we weren't allowed to take pictures. After all the sightseeing, we returened to the hotel, to rest. I wasn't tired, so I wandered around the city by myself. Of course, I got lost. I asked a random guy for directions, and he asked me out to dinner. Really, mom, I think it might be a good idea to dye my hair brown. Anyway, I got back to my hotel just fine, my host family and I took a taxi to get our car, and drove to Luca and Simonetta's house. A funny thing about Tuscans is they don't have a hard C sound. Instead of saying Kuh, they say Huh, so Luca isn't Luca, he's Luha. I found the phrase "che cos'è" particularly entertaining, because when Tuscans say it, it sounds like "Hey, José."

Sunday morning, we slept in a little, got breakfast at a little bar, and walked around a bit. I went to Mass while my host mom and sister did some shopping, and my host father ran a marathon. After I found my host mom and sister after Mass, we waited and watched for my host father, to cheer him on. Finally, after changing our position a few times, he passed us. He had run about 24 miles by the time we saw him, but he was still able to smile and wave and yell at us. My little sister ran along side him for a bit, too. He kept running, and my host mom, sister, and I went in search of a good restaurant for lunch. We found a little trattoria, where the tortellini were homemade, then we went and climbed the campanile. The timing was just right, we got to the top just as the clouds were clearing, and the sun was beginning to set. The veiws were completely breathtaking, better than any of the art or sculptures I had seen all weekend. It was the perfect way to end my stay in Tuscany, but I know I'll be going back, hopefully more than once!

All in all, it was a fantastic weekend. I enjoyed every moment of it, but I wished my family could have been there too. Perhaps the best part of the whole weekend was when my parents introduced me to people: they would explain that I was the American girl staying with them, but then my host father said to someone "but she speaks Italian." Aha! According to my host father, I speak Italian! Woo!