The first post of any trip usually isn't terribly exciting. I'm afraid to say that's the case here. Upon our arrival yesterday, we traveled by train to Firenze, then walked about a kilmometer, bike bags on our shoulders and luggage in tow, to the apartment on Via San Zinobi. The equivalent of six flights of stairs awaited us...just what I wanted to see! After checking in, we did the first thing that anyone needs to do upon arriving in Italy: we went to the bakery! After that, everything was a blur. There was a trip to the grocery store which resulted in carrying back 18 liters of water...and back up those stairs we went, but besides that I couldn't tell you. We went to sleep and then found the energy for some dinner at Osteria Cento Poveri, one of my favorite restaurants in Firenze.
Today was much the same. Not one, but two trips to two different grocery stores and a round of the Mercato Centrale. You might think all we've done so far is buy and eat food. That's actually pretty accurate. A lot of the first day here invloves stocking up on food and necessities. We're doing apartment living for most of the trip so there are quite a number of things you need to buy when you're doing some of your own cooking and living in a foreign country for a month, not just staying at posh hotels.
We did get out for a small ride today. Really small, just to test the bikes and get gelato. Tomorrow we'll do a real ride, then hopefully spend some time seeing some parts of this city besides the local Conad grocery store.
Perhaps the most exciting thing we did today was go to the upstairs of Mercato Centrale for dinner. We got out late for dinner (10pm CET), hence this post's title, but luckily the Mercato Centrale "food court" is open until 1am. It's definitely not your average food court. It's basically an Eataly in Italy. Actually I think it kind of is. There are definitely some tourists there, but it's mostly locals as far as I could tell and the food is outstanding, the atmosphere is cool and the prices are great! By far the best eggplant pizza I've had in my life!
I guess the only other thing of note, is our slightly crazy way of storing things here. There's not a lot of space in this apartment, but since there is a sleeping loft, we were able to make use of the ceiling height. Right now, we have the bike bags hanging for the banister and our clothes line strung up as well. Might as well use the space!
Anyhow, for those of you reading this blog for the first time, don't worry, it should get a bit more exciting in the coming days. Just trying to get settled in. Time to head to bed.
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