Florence, Italy: Poetic Justice

I knew I shouldn’t have written that last entry; I just knew it. I had the fresh wind and now I have to deal with the fresh rain. What a night! After finishing our week of classes, Brett and I decided to go out for dinner. We went to my new favorite restaurant in Florence, Trattoria La Madia. Stephanie, a friend who studied here last Fall, recommended it to me and it has yet to disappoint. It’s tried but failed. I’ve been there three times now and the first time I had their Lasagna. It was phenomenal as Steph warned me. Each of the past two times I’ve gone with other friends from the TCU group and each time I’ve ordered both the Lasagna and the Pappa e Pomodoro, which is a tomato and bread soup. It’s been phenomenal each time, but each time they’ve also forgot to bring me the Lasagna. I can’t complain since the soup fills me up enough as it is; but still, the Lasagna is SO good!

So, at the end of our eating at La Madia, while Brett was in the bagno, the couple next to us started talking to me. They’re from Monterey, Mexico (their names are Juan Luis and Alma) and we talked about everything. Juan Luis, it turns out, went to undergrad at MIT and now works in the oil industry and their son is working on his MBA at Rice. When Brett came back we talked for at least 20 minutes more. Luckily for us their English was better than Brett’s Spanish, so the conversation was great!

After the dinner we met some of the TCU girls at a Jazz cafe. I’d seen this cafe with some of the other girls while walking around and it’s a pretty nice place. They went for the first time last Thursday night when I was getting ready for Venice and they loved it. Tonight, however, the combo performing was also recording, so we couldn’t really talk besides when they were on break. Nevertheless, the combo was great and the five songs that I heard were definitely recording-worthy. The trumpet player was using a mellophone most of the time, so it added a lot to the atmosphere of the club.

The poetic justice of the night happened on the way back. Brett and I were striking up a conversation and just as we reached our street, a street sweeper approached. It didn’t have it’s cleaning brushes on; but, it was flying by at a fast speed (meaning it was going to park for the night since the driver was done). At 12:30 at night the streets are abandoned of traffic, so it was dreaming of being a race car. Does anyone know the problem with street sweepers driving fast in an area after heavy rain? Yeah, that’s right, Brett and I got sprayed. It wasn’t just a slight soaking — my pants, the ones that I was proud were dry this afternoon, are soaking wet. It looks like I’ll have to do laundry again this weekend. Oh well, at least the rest of the night was splendid!