Jet Lagged into Eating Lardo

It amazes me that just 24 hours ago D and I boarded a plane bound from Seattle to Amsterdam and then connected to another that touched down in Florence earlier today. It's almost 10 PM here, 2 PM back in Seattle. It's Halloween and your fun stuff is all ahead. Here in Florence you'd never know that it's October 31st. No pumpkins anywhere.

It's great to be here. We arrived to cloudy skies and this evening a steady, light rain started, but it's not cold. A quick taxi ride into town and we were checked into our hotel in short order. Starving for a real meal, we met up with Laura who suggested a sandwich shop in the Plaza San Marco; she ordered for us in Italiano and we ate outside. The jet leg hadn't really hit by then and we were able take a quick tour of the Gonzaga campus (all one building, old and impressive) and then made a quick stop at her pensione, the Savanarola. I was able to off load the half a suitcase full of stuff she had me bring. Clothing, Halloween candy, and miscellaneous must-haves filled up half a dozen plastic bags which we toted from our hotel to her room at the pensione; fortunately only a five minute walk.

By mid afternoon the jet lag attacked with ferocity, even after a shot of Italian espresso downed with my sandwich at San Marco. D and I decided to take a "nap" until dinnertime. Our hotel room has a single window overlooking a side street which is quiet now but this afternoon was busy with the drone of Vespa scooters and pedestrian chatter. It didn't matter; we slept anyway and recharged ourselves enough to go out of a wonderful dinner. I'm hoping that when we go to bed tonight and sleep 8 hours or so, we'll know what planet we're on and what time it is when we awaken.

This evening we walked through the San Lorenzo Marketplace on the way to dinner at Trattoria ZaZa. We were joined by Laura's roomate Lillian, Lillian mother, who's visiting from Alabama, and Annie, another GU in Florence student. The food and wine and sparkling water (and "lardo") were fabulous. Denny and Laura split an appetizer plate of "dried meats" with salami, prosciutto, pepperoni, garnished with sundried tomato and black olives. Although not advertised on the menu, there was also a small sample of "lardo" on the plate which is the white stuff in this photo. D says he has seen lardo on many Italian menus but he's never eaten any. Curious to find out what the white stuff was, D asked "Was that lardo?" and got the affirmative from the waiter. D responded, "Bono!". His accolade was taken to heart by the waiter who five minutes later brought him an entire plate of lardo to enjoy as an extra treat. Apparently a compliment about lardo brings on much more of the same! Check out the lardo in this shot of the extra plate. Don't worry, he (we) didn't eat it although it might have been good if we'd been making another batch of traditional Christmas pudding this year.

We got a laugh out of the lard fest. Her are some other shots of our first big evening in Firenze.

Now I'm off to bed and hopefully tomorrow will bring clearing skies and lots of energy for walking the cobblestone streets and reliving the majesty of this city after nearly 4 decades since my last visit.

Ciao.