Too sore, too sick Tuesday, two Davids and too tartare

I was pretty impressed with the two of us getting up and ready early this morning. We headed out around 9 AM for breakfast and a plan to visit museums on the other side of the Arno from where we're staying. After breakfast, though (which was delicious - little pastries at a bar), Alex was too sore to walk around the city and elected to go back to the apartment. I took him there to let him in with the keys and wound up staying in myself, feeling too sick to venture out in the drizzly morning. Both of us were back in bed by 10, and we stayed there until early afternoon. Clearly our bodies were telling us to slow down and do some healing. 

After my morning nap, I headed out to explore closer to home base, while Alex elected to stay in and read. On my adventures, I ran into both Michaleangelo's David and Donatello's David in the Accedemia and Bargello museums respectively. They're both jaw droppers in their unique ways, differing greatly in size, materials and treatment. Florence is art, in every alleyway, museum, cafe, building. It's saturated. Other highlights of my travels included Dante's house, a lovely little Etruscan museum, and a very old and empty museum of anthropology. I was alone with the mummies and relics and specimens, encased in antique displays with rippled glass and descriptions in Italian only. 

Speaking of Italian only, I experienced a minor success later in the afternoon on my journey to the post office. Alex and I decided to mail some of the supplies we no longer need back home to lighten the load for the rest of the trip. Goodbye to sandals and swimsuits and shorts. At the post office, I was confronted with a bureaucratic system similar to what the DMV is like in the U.S. My first obstacle was to pick the service I wanted at a ticket dispensing machine, which assigned me a number. That was tricky, since the descriptions were in Italian only. I've been studying Italian for a bit over a year now, on my own, with an audio system called Pimsleur. Today all of that work paid off, as I managed to suss out which service seemed most appropriate and then communicate in Italian only with the postal worker (45 minutes later after my number was called). I was able to ask about prices, the type of boxes they had and how to fill out the 3 (jeez) forms necessary to mail the package. The man helping me seemed a bit impressed with my ability to communicate, and I was actually pretty suprised myself. Parlo l'Italiano molto bene oggi.

I picked up Alex to grab dinner after my successful post offfice experience. We found an organic 'farm to table' restaurant to try out a few blocks from home. The local chees platter we started with was excellent. And then we ordered our main courses. I had a pretty decent risotto, and Alex (to my minor surprise) ordered beef tartare and when it came, he was quite surpised to see a plate of raw minced meat with a raw egg yolk on top. Apparently, Alex thought tartare was a sauce, not a preparation. He shrugged and used the logic that if he ate lamb brains at the Funky Gourment, he could eat raw meat in Florence. And he did. About half of it before he looked a little off color and said he'd prefer not to finish his meal. Tartare was too much for him and honestly for me, just looking at it. I mean, it looked like an uncooked hamburger with a raw egg cracked over it, which I guess is exactly what it was. Alex's adventures with food have been pretty remarkable on this trip. 

Steroid treatments for Alex's back start tonight, having confirmed the dosage with his doctor. And I continue to battle a pretty intractable cold, sitting in my chest and sinuses, but it's not gonna get me down. We're in Firenze after all!