DAY 63: Baby Mice

Luigi woke me up at 7:30 a.m. to be fed... I love getting up in the morning and hacking up baby mice. Rabbit just got over pneumonia and I have residuals left over from the last time I was in Rome, so baby mice were being coughed up left and right (Gross yes. True no.)... Ann had to leave the room. We grabbed some corn flakes and coffee before bidding our new favorite trio (Huey, Dewy & Looey) farewell and metroed it over to Roma Termini. We boarded the 10:15 Eurostar to Florence and arrived an hour and a half later… on the ride, Annie told us about “Betty” from Wisconsin, who sat next to her on the flight over and was overly enthusiastic about fields. “Deed yaw see that Hank? Eet’s a veenyurd! Those theere are veenyurds!” (Spoken in Chris Farley’s “Ravioli? Holy Canoli!” voice). Midwesterners are easy to pick out of a crowd… make-up-less faces framed by un-plucked eyebrows and blunt hair cuts set off by elastic wasted Mom-Jeans with strands of plastic rosaries dangling around their Palm Springs Invitational ’86 sweatshirts with attached polo collars… don’t forget the fanny pack that they won at the same Invitational 24 years ago, with a Rick Steve’s guide sticking out… and of course the white Velcro geriatric sneakers with flesh colored socks that don’t stay up.

Upon arrival we witnessed, what might be the funniest skeptical of the day: a girl “running” through the station to catch a train (hopefully, otherwise she just looked a’ fool)… we concurred that this was her first attempt at athleticism in her life- she has definitely never moved this fast- EVER. Her empty backpack flopped behind her as her platypus feet slapped the platform… we thought she was going down like a sack of Idaho spuds with every step. It was like witnessing a train wreck, we just couldn’t look away. (Yes, I am a horrible person- well aware. We all need to be able to laugh at each other and ourselves… humanity as a whole is a real kick in the pants!) After being enthralled by the “welcome wagon,” we hit the trail towards the American Consulate… no, we aren’t in trouble… yet. I connected with a friend of a friend of a friend, “Riccardo,” who invited us to stay with him for a few days and works for the A.C. FYI: This guy is a brotha’ from anotha’ motha’… I feel like we may have been pals in a past life… he is LEGIT. And funny to boot… we collected our envelope marked “CONFIDENTIAL” with our map and house keys and made our way down the Arno to the center of the city… couldn’t have asked for a better location. Could’ve asked for an elevator because 88 steps later, I contemplated giving Luigi up for adoption. After a “swass” session (ass sweat), we found Ricky’s rooftop terrace and decided to celebrate our victory over the staircase with a bottle of Prosecco… the thermometer hit around 65 degrees when we decided to quit dilly-dallyin’ and see the sights. And eat, of course.

I took the girls to 2 Brothers sando shop where I consumed a fresh goat cheese, Tuscan salami and rocket sando with a micro glass of Chianti for 2.50 Euro… might be my favorite place in Florence… since the portions are smaller, I introduced my favorite gelato shop, on the corner of Chanel and Yum, to my besties… unfortunately, “Helga” the scooper who had hands that rivaled Goliaths (certain she chopped lumber on the weekends), gave me a toilet bowl full of almond and woodland berry gelato… for 8-stinkin’-Euros! I pawned half of it off on the way to the leather market where we took in the swindlers of lamb and scent of boiled cow… sniff sniff, mmmmm….

After taking in the sights and sounds, we headed to the Bargello, errr, our “hotel” to enjoy some vino with Ricky before he took us out on the town… he took us to a local place, “Giovanni’s” where Giovanni himself waited on us (apparently they take all the U.S. Big Rigs here- if only you knew their stipend… glad my tax dollars are treating Pelosi to a 5 course Italian meal). We started with an anti-pasta platter of warm goat cheese, prosciutto, artichokes, mozzarella and fried bread balls (?) with a bottle of Chianti. I went with the special of the evening: Wild Boar with mashed potatoes… great flavor and hearty… not what I expected, but D-Lish nonetheless. Annie got Ta’Die4 pear tortellini and Rab got mushrooms with black truffle ravioli… hello yum? They gave us Grappa, a raisin biscotti loaf and a glass of sweet wine for dipping…after a fabulous dinner, conversation and service, we returned to the apartment with our new friend, Beatles Rock Band… I have never played before and I am officially, from this day forward, hooked. So fun… but the rooftop terrace was calling our names… we schlepped our box-o-wine upstairs and took in the phenomenal view of the city… How lucky are we?! We had a yearbook review which took precedence over Ricky’s beauty sleep… he’ll LOVE us in the morning… FAB day in Firenze… We heart Italia- busy day tomorrow! Ciao!!!