Firenze! (and more on Venezia)

I need to add more about the memorable events in Venice that I left out of my previous post:

• the weather was stunning...in the high 60s-low 70s and sunny: we are both quite tanned
• the traghetto ride across the Grand Canal was much more romantic than the bus-like vaporettos
• the churches! We saw such wonderful art at San Sebastian and San Giorgio.
• Campo San Polo: a family neighborhood surrounding a large plaza where children played, people sat and talked, and trattorias served wine and panini or pasta
• walking along the Guidecca Canal through various neighborhoods (Santa Croce, Dosorduro and Castello)
• while Mike was climbing (actually, there was an elevator) the tower on San Giorgio, I took pictures for a variety of tourists, and got to practice my French and Italian (we have seen only 2 Americans, one on the plane from Amsterdam)

Today we are having a "rest" day in Florence: it is rainy and cloudy, but still mild, in the 60s. We had breakfast at a local "bar" (ordering in Italian), bought stamps at the Tabachi on the corner where the owner corrected, politely and enthusiastically, my pronounciation of "francobolli", and, most importantly, we shopped at the Mercado Centrale where Mike bought a hat and I bought a light brown leather purse that many of you will greatly admire. We also went shopping at the regular market for toothpaste, the farmacia for contact solution, and finally, now this is exciting, we did laundry (hey, do not knock clean clothes!). A woman came into the laundromat and starting talking to me in Italian--I guessed, correctly I think, that she wanted to know how well the dryer worked. I must have given her a good answer since she thanked me.

We just love how people are so happy to hear us attempt Italian and how they also are not shy in correcting us: Mike got a lesson from the hotel clerk last night. I gave him my passport, and Mike said to the clerk "anche mio?" instead of "il mio anche?" (mine also?).

This afternoon we are in search of Deutsche Bank, since it seems that our banks are quite picky about which ATM we are allowed to use. Life goes later here for us, so we will probably walk all over till 10pm or so (it is nearly 3pm now). I love all of the walking we are doing and it reminds me how much I used to walk in Brooklyn and New York, and that I miss it.

Ciao for now!

Stacey