How many mosquitos can bite 2 people?

A LOT!! Especially in a tiny room located approximately 100meters from a river in which you forget to close the windows. And I have also learned that mosquitos in Italy make gigantic mosquito bites that itch for at least 5 days. And they multiply in your room overnight even when the windows are closed. We started out with 1 mosquito clinging to the 12-ft high ceiling. By morning we killed 6 and there were at least 7 more on the ceiling.

By the way, this is in the wonderful city of Firenze (Florence). It is actually quite beautiful and extremely walkable. Kelly and I circled almost everything on our map once again. We ARE efficient. Why go this way when that will go past 3 things on the map? We saw the Duomo, the Uffizi, the Ponte Vecchio, and the Galleria Academia. We also went to the national Italian Football Museum and got to see the Italian National Soccer team at practice. It was neat.

Interesting note about the Ponte Vecchio: It is the only bridge that wasn't bombed during WWII because Hitler really liked it. So it looks as it has for centuries. It used to have the butcher shops on it, until one of the Medici family decided it would be nicer to have the jewelry shops there. So now there's a lot of shiny things to look at that I can't afford.

What I could afford is the best steak ever!! Kelly and I decided to splurge one night and get Bistecca Fiorentina, which is the steak that Florence is known for. We found a little restaurant and started out with ordering a pasta (mac and cheese like never before - yum!) and some wine. We also ordered the steak with a lettuce salad.

Ten Tidbits of Tuscanià

1. It is located in the area of Tuscana (Tuscany), which is actually in the province of Laziò.
2. It is 150 years older than Roma, and was founded by the Etruscans.
3. It has a lot of tombs that are rather cave-like.
4. You can get excellent banana gelato at the Gelaterria to the left of the main gate in the old city wall. Mmmm!
5. There is a tiny school there at which you can take classes in cooking and wine. Think I might be back for that.
6. They have a basketball team for 14 and under. It has 8 players.
7. There is a Basilica on each end of town. San Pietro and Santa Maria. I think that a Basilica just means that the Bishop preaches there.
8. You can drink the water straight out of the fountains in the piazzas.
9. There are some streets that are narrow and end in stairs, so one must beep one's horn alot whilst backing down the street to the intersection. And don't open the car door, you'll hit a wall!
10. There are exactly 2 possible places in which one can get pizza (or actually any kind of food for that matter) between the hours of 2:00pm and 7:00pm. Neither is easy to find.

Italian, Who's Italian?

So, I should've kept my internet when I had it. I've been able to log on to check on a flight for about 5min, and that's all. No internet. Not anywhere that I was. So, in the travelling bit, we finished seeing Roma on day 2. And, got really lucky in finding the Engineering University in Roma (even while we were trying to find a church), and got to talk to some other students. Rather interesting to hear a different perspective on all kinds of things.

Kelly and I went back to try and find our friendly waiter for dinner - no luck. Instead we wandered into a little tiny street, that in the US may qualify as an alley, we found a tiny restaurant. We discovered when we paid our bill that: a. no one realized we weren't Italian and b. that we were the only ones in the restaurant that spoke English. But we got one of the best meals we had on the entire trip! During our meal, which we ate in the tables on the "street", several cars went sloooowly down the street. At one point, a car was a bit too wide, so the waiter came out, picked up our table (with dishes and all) and moved it a bit closer to the wall. We just moved our chairs along with it, and off went the car. Made for a rather interesting conversation in Italian. Luckily for us, based on our experiences the day before, we had no trouble finding a bus and getting back to the hotel.

Next stop: the tiny city (8,000 persons) of Tuscanià, which is located in Tuscana (Tuscany) as I have now explained to several Italians who've never heard of it.