Meat, mmmkay?

Yet another morning of driving through the Tuscan countryside full of beautiful castellas and sloping, green vineyards. Ho hum. (I’m kidding. I would never get tired of this view.) “Would it kill them to plant some vines in a random, squiggly way for once instead of all straight lines, just to mix things up?” I asked, and Sandy said “Well yeah, kinda, remember, they told us the grapes are picked by a machine, and that would make it tough to do.” I nodded stupidly, pretending I remembered this information I’d been told at a tasting after probably four glasses of wine. Sandy likely retains information better because she’s less of a lush. Also, she’s driving.

But then in the afternoon we switched it up: we ditched the car and took the tram into Florence and checked into a little apartment right beside the Uffizi gallery. Vincent, our landlord, is great even though he says “mmmkay?” at the end of all his sentences like the goofy teacher on South Park. After a couple of glasses of wine with us he recommended we eat lamprodotto while we’re here- tripe sandwiches where “they boil up all the guts of the cow in a big pot, and every once in awhile, you get an eyeball or a finger mixed in there too, mmmkay? Then they stick it on bread. It’s so delicious!”, as well as the bistecca fiorentina, a massive T bone steak that weighs four pounds and measures four fingers in thickness. Dear god. There’s no way anyone is feeling mmmkay after either of these meals. But screw it. I might try them anyway.

Vincent also told us to walk up to the Piazzale Michelangelo tonight because there was going to be a big party and fireworks. We did go, walking all the way in heavy rain, and it turns out he was wrong  mmmkay, there was no party. It was pretty empty.  But the view of the city.... whoa.