August 29th, 2003

A tiny bit of last night’s dream. About Sophia.

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So we’re staggering out of the train station on August 1, after having ridden a night car in which none of us slept too well to find that it’s a gorgeous morning, still cool but promising to be a scorcher. And I step outside and I look across the street and I see this incredibly gorgeous building and I think to myself: wow, this is what it’s like to be in Italy. You come out of the train station and are assaulted by beauty. I imagined that this building I was seeing might not even be that very special, that it might be, by Florentine standards, quite common and unremarkable. As it turns out, I was looking at the rear view of the Santa Maria Novella, one of the oldest churches in Florence and well-established in the list of important monuments. Still, that moment, that first intake of breath in the summer morning and that initial eyeful of the vast and ancient structure will stay with me a long time.

It was our first day in Florence and we went to the Uffizi, then came out to the Piazza della Signoria and picked one of the seventeen restaurants there to eat lunch. Sophia had fallen asleep in her stroller (something she would become highly adept at over the next two weeks). It was like sitting in a restaurant in Argentina, except that we were out on the Piazza. The stiff white tablecloths, the older waiters, the delicious fresh bread in its plastic mesh basket all contributed to a general feeling of familiarity that comforted me deeply. Kurt scored big by ordering milanesa. I tasted his and it was delicious, far better than the one he had the next day across the Piazza. Kelly chose a pizza, and I had some mushroom tagliatelli, which was good (especially considering how hungry I was by this time) but not stellar.

After eating we went to take a nap, at the Agli Uffizi Bed & Breakfast where we were staying. Kelly found this place for us and she did a great job. It was conveniently located, literally right around the corner from the Piazza, was comfortable and clean, and was very reasonably priced. The only drawback was that it was on the top floor of a building with no elevator. Despite the fact that I was prepared to walk all over Florence, I was not exactly prepared for toting Sophia up so many flights of stairs every time we came to the place. Worse yet was having to carry the stroller up all those steps which, thankfully, my husband did so I didn’t have to. Carrying Sophia was the better part of that bargain, because though the stroller was lighter than she is, it was also bulkier and harder to carry. I’m no athlete, but I like to think I’m more or less average in terms of being in shape and the climb never failed to leave me breathless and exhausted. However, we all partook of some much needed rest and then decided to do the thing that everyone says you should do in Florence : walk around. We wandered up toward the Duomo, to see what the hours there were and we found we were too late to go in. Then we walked in to this paper store and I very nearly decided I would never leave. I had read that Florence was famous for its high quality paper products, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the loveliness of it all. There were tiny little boxes with beautiful papered designs and a dozen short little colored pencils inside. There were delicate cutout bookmarks and heavy handmade decks of cards, serious lined journals and sketchbooks so stunning that I can’t imagine an artist wouldn’t be intimidated by them, thick marbled looking wrapping paper and rows of embossed greeting cards. There were even picture frames with patterned paper designs. I bought bookmarks for people back home and ooooohed and ahhhhhed. It was probably the best stationery store I’ve ever been in and as my tale progresses, you’ll become aware that Florence has one of these on practically every block. I was in heaven. They put all my purchase, nothing too extravagant in a beautiful bag that said “Parione” and below that “Casa fondata nel 1931”. They sealed my bag with a sticker. I couldn’t have been happier. And then we decided to stop for ice cream. Now, I’m something of an ice cream snob. I’ve always contended that Argentine ice cream is just better than American ice cream, even the high end brands that they sell in the teensy containers. Now I know why, Argentine ice cream is just like Italian ice cream, which is heavenly. My time in Italy was filled with moments that made me feel as though I were in Argentina, by the way, and it was both comforting and jarring. I chose three flavors : mint chocolate chip, nutella, and chocolate orange. When I was young I would spend summers going to the ice cream store every day and working my way through the flavors list before settling on two or three flavors as favorites. This was like that. With several dozen flavors to choose from I strolled up and down and considered and discarded and reconsidered and changed my mind until finally I had the flavors I wanted. The chocolate orange, btw, tasted exactly like eating a chocolate orange, if you’ve ever had one, and I found it delicious, if a bit rich. Sophia got strawberry, and surprised us all by eating the entire thing. I decided right then and there that I would eat ice cream every single day I was in Italy. This was a promise that I kept and savored fully.

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