Mezza Maratona

Half Marathon

Well, I finally did it!! I completed my very first Half Marathon. Of course, the day of the Marathon it was raining like crazy. It was wasn't just sprinkling, it was POURING thunder and all. It was sort of ironic because the day before was absolutely beautiful and I actually went out and bought a short sleeve running shirt because all I had were long sleeves. So, at the last moment I had to change my outfit from short and short sleeve shirt to pants, long sleeves, and jacket. Unfortunately, even though my jacket was a wind jacket, it definitely wasn't waterproof. After the first lap which was about 6 miles the jacket was so heavy it probably weighed about 5lbs. Luckily Maurizio had mapped out positions where he would stand and see me coming. When I came up to him I tossed him the jacket and even he said he couldn't believe how heavy it was.



All in all i finished the race in 2:07:31 chip time and I was very pleased. My goal was to finish the race in 1:15:00 so I definitely did better than I expected. Even though the weather sucked, it was a fun event and I am glad I did it. I placed 1,020 over all out of 1105 that finished. Maurizio said he saw quite a bit of people quite. It wasn't about how well I did compared to everyone else, I was just glad to finish!
See a small video of the event below:

La Biancheria

The Laundry

There may be a few things I will miss when I leave this beautiful country of Italy but I must say with the utmost certainty that I will NEVER miss doing my laundry here.

I am actually lucky when it comes to Laundry, Maurizio and I found an apartment, which does have a laundry machine. Well, this said machine we have had to pay over 200 Euros for various repairs but still, we have one. There are many rental apartments that don’t have one at all. And even luckier, we actually have a small space to keep our machine, a sort of laundry room. A lot of apartments just stick their machine anywhere they can and more often than not it is located somewhere in the kitchen in plain sight. Makes sense, cook some dinner, and finish some laundry. I guess it works! For me, I much prefer these types of appliances to be hidden out of site.



So that being said, I am still a girl from the USA. I am a girl who has been spoiled by all of our modern day conveniences and large over the top appliances. I am the typical American girl who thinks bigger is better. Okay okay, maybe it’s not best for the environment but I prefer a MACHINE, not a trinket, which can handle at least 6 towels at one time. I mean c’mon, is that really asking for so much???

Well, over the past week and a half I have allowed our laundry to pile up and since today is my “rest” day before the half marathon this weekend I have chosen this to actually be my Laundry Day. I started this process 1 hour and a half ago and I probably wont be finished for another 4 hours. My little trinket of a machine only holds about 3 full size towels and a few kitchen towels at a time. This means my laundry takes double the time. We, like most people, change our towels often so it’s going to take me at least 2 loads to finish washing the towels. Then I have to move on to the whites and darks. Total, this should equal up to 5 loads. Each load on “economia breve” which means the economy brief cycle still takes at least 1 hour just to WASH the clothes.


Washing the clothes is the easy part, just throw them in and sit back and wait. The fun part comes next when you have to sort the clothes and put them up on the line, or as we do, the collapsible drying rack. If we dried our clothes outside it would definitely take a lot less time because, if sunny, they would obviously dry much quicker. However, if you dry your clothes outside on my little enclosed patio space you are taking great risks.

We live on the 1st floor (in Italy), which is actually the 2nd floor (in the USA) and with this apartment comes a small little patio, sort of like a courtyard. It’s surrounded by 4 walls of the other apartment buildings and barely gets much sunlight because the walls are high. There are 3 other apartments, each on its own floor, in our building.
At the highest point on one of the sides some pigeons have made a nest and we will regularly see massive amounts of bird crap and feathers in our patio space. Before I have had the clothes outside, whites of course, and have come home to find diarrhea explosions all over Maurizio white work shirts. AWESOME!!! Of course I had to spend another hour re-washing those and some I have had to throw away because it wouldn’t come out.


Directly above us lives a family from, we don’t know where??? They definitely aren’t Italian! We can’t make out what language they are speaking. We have had a lot of difficulty with this particular family and I am almost 100% positive that they hide illegal people in their apartment because every week it seems there is someone new living in there. Anyhow, it must be part of their culture that they think its perfectly okay to empty their garbage, hair from their hairbrushes, and various other disgusting things into our patio. Seeing our clothes hanging on the line doesn’t stop them I actually think it encourages them to dump more of their waist into our space.

Another factor of hanging your laundry outside is obviously the weather. The weather here in Florence can sometimes be like that in Florida where a quick rainstorm can begin, as quickly as it disappears and with me, it never fails as soon as I leave the apartment it would rain!!! I would find myself racing home to bring everything inside before it got soaked and therefore would need to be rewashed.

So, these are the reasons I have opted to doing smaller loads of laundry regularly throughout the week. You would never be able to enter my apartment without finding our drying rack in tact full of clothes. Now, because it takes so long to dry the clothes and I can only fit so many on the rack I basically have to do laundry every other day. The day in between is a day of waiting for the others to dry.


Today, because I have waited so long to keep up with my laundry I will most definitely have to haul my clothes down to the self-service laundry facilities and dry my clothes. On occasion I will do this but it costs 3 Euros for 30 minutes, which adds up overtime. I have to load up my roller carrier; the one I use for groceries, and drag everything only about 3 blocks away and wait for the 30 minutes. I guess it beats having all this laundry located all over my house. This is sometimes a sort of treat for me because if I dry my towels they become soft and unlike every other day when they act as an exfoliate. You must remember that line drying causes stiffness or crunchiness.

Anyhow, the next time you are having your own “Laundry Day” you can think about me here in Italy and remember things could be a hell of a lot worse!!

STOP è una parola universale!

Stop is a universal word!

My Easter weekend was pretty uneventful since Maurizio had to work the whole weekend. Luckily, however, he was able to make it home Easter Sunday by 9pm so we had our own small Easter dinner together. We had a roasted leg of lamb, some mashed potatoes, and asparagus. Pretty simple, but very tasty.


Anyhow, I am writing this blog to talk about my recent argument over the weekend. Saturday and Sunday were my last “long run” training days. The runs weren’t really “long” but I have tapered down leading up to the race this weekend. On Saturday I ran 6 miles and on Sunday I ran 8 miles. Usually when I run in Florence I do my absolute best to stay out of the city center. There are usually just too many tourists around to be able to move for even 2 minutes without stopping or dodging someone who has stepped out in front of you.

Here in Florence, at the end of my street, starts a large bike path that basically circles the city. Practically every run I embark on starts and finishes on this path. For the most part, it’s the safest area to bike and run around Florence. The path is clearly marked and there are usually bike green and red lights between the streets. Where there are no bicycle traffic lights, the streets have stop signs, which give the pedestrians and bikers the right of way. So, the problem arises with these streets because apparently 8 in 10 of Italians do NOT know what a stop sign is.

I have had many problems on these streets and I know which ones are the worst therefore I pretty much double take and ease with caution on these streets. I worry about people who aren’t as familiar because if they don’t know, its possible they will be involved in an accident. On several occasions I have had to slam on my breaks (leg breaks) to avoid being hit by a speeding car or taxi. Most of the time, the drivers are more scared than me. If they make the mistake of not stopping, they usually signal to me how sorry they are. You can tell there is a sigh of relief that I saw them first because it was very apparent they weren’t looking out for me.

One major problem occurred this Saturday when I set out for my 6 miles. Everything went smoothly until I was on my way back home. I was only about 6 minutes from my house. There is a particular dangerous street, Via Ghibellina, where I have been almost hit the most. I was running as normal and I was about to cross the street. I looked both ways and saw to my left a taxi coming. He definitely saw me and since I have the right of way, I continued across. I kid you not, that taxi sped up when it saw me and slammed on its break almost hitting me stopping me dead in the middle of the street. Then this driver, with his window rolled up, started screaming at me. I got super mad and stood in that street and started screaming at him pointing at the bike trail (which is clearly colored bright red) and pointing at all the pedestrian signs nearby. Obviously, this guy couldn’t hear me with his window rolled up and I realized how pointless this argument was. It made me so angry. On the rest of the way home I started thinking about: “what if I had been a child???” I told Maurizio about the encounter. I couldn’t tell at the moment if there was even a yield sign for that traffic and Maurizio told me I should have a look and document it since this isn’t the first time this has happened. We agreed that we would write to the Commune (the city council) and tell them how dangerous it was.

So, Sunday while I was running along the same path on my way home I decided to better inspect the signs along the roads where there were no bike traffic lights. One by one, each street had a stop sign. When I arrived at the street in question, yes, it too had a stop sign. The stop sign is also further back, if that driver would have stopped at the sign there could have been no way it could have even come close to hitting me. If the traffic would first STOP at the sign and then ease up to see if there was pedestrian traffic it would be so much safer. See for yourself how dangerous it is in the video below!

Mentre Andavo in Libreria

While on my way to the bookstore

This morning Maurizio and I woke up at 9am. Today, he didn’t have to be at work until 11am so we decided to get in a quick 2 miles. Maurizio has just started to run again so we are taking it little by little. He did really well. It was also good for me to get up and going early since my race is only 9 days away!!!

Since I was already up and today is my “rest” day I decided to go into the city center to buy a new book. I just finished reading Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray and I wanted to find a descent easy reading book in Italian. I ended up getting a book by James Patterson, which seems easy enough since each chapter only has like 7-8 pages and the words are printed with large print. Plus, mysteries always seem to be less eloquently written and therefore easier to understand especially when being read in a foreign language.

So, to get back to the real story, the sights along the way to the bookstore were quite interesting. While I was walking on one of the major streets that basically connects my apartment to Piazza della Republica I came across an interesting British family. They were composed of a mother, a father, and two small boys. The father was playing a quite repulsive game with his two boys. The father was BURPING as loud as he possibly could then he had the boys rate his burps on a scale from 1-10. I seriously wanted to vomit right there in the middle of the street. It was so disgusting and I could tell the other Italians around me weren’t amused either. He saw the look of nausea in our faces and said in his English accent “oh….scusi”. I figured this guy obviously wanted some publicity so you will see his picture inserted below. There you go mister… I rate your intolerable rudeness and lack of manners a definite 10 on my scale! I only hope that my fellow Italian residents realize that just because you speak English, you are definitely not American. (but, lets be serious I am sure we might see something similar on American soil)

yes its the guy with the yellow shopping bags

Later along my route when the street changed from Borgo degli Albizi to Via del Corso I came across a couple that was apparently lost. I was tempted to help them right away with directions as I noticed their book was in English but found it much more interesting the watch them. I saw them pointing in the book then looking at the street name, then looking back in the book. I saw the man walk down a bit further to see what he saw and the women run up with the book again. They spent a good couple minutes trying to figure out where they were. In the mean time, I had to take their picture also because it was just too funny. Yes, I should have also been less cruel and just asked if they needed assistance. But, as I had noticed that they were reading a book in English, I had also noticed the title of their travel guide. It was a travel guide on ROME!!!!!! So you see, I wasn’t being cruel, well perhaps I was, but it was just so entertaining watching this couple try to read the maps of Rome and apply them to Firenze!!! Some people I just don’t know how they get around. I have had someone ask me once, while crossing one of the bridges over the Arno, where the Piazza with all the pigeons was. I replied, “are you talking about Piazza San Marco” and they said, “yes, that’s the one” to which I replied “that’s in Venice” them “okay”, me “we aren’t in Venice”. Then, they looked at their Venice travel guide and said “huh” and I said, “We are in Florence.”
So you might find yourself wondering if this could really be true and I can personally assure you that this happens.

Oh Bella Firenze how I love you!

Pesce d’Aprile

April Fools Day (Litterally translated as Fish of April)

Just like in other countries around the world, Italy also celebrates April Fool’s Day with practical jokes. Traditionally small children will often cut out small little fish and attach a piece of string and a piece of tape. Then, they will tape this fish to the back of another fellow students back. This student will then be teased: L'hai visto?—Chi?—Il pesce d'Aprile! (or Have you seen?—Who?—the April Fool!).


Like in USA, you will also hear pranks about banks being out of money or someone giving out free money or goods. Usually the day after you will hear on the radio or news who had the best joke.

When you are walking around stores it is not uncommon to see cookies or chocolates in the shape of fish. There are even Italians who will have fish for dinner. Tonight Maurizio and I will be eating fish but this is actually not on purpose but at least we will be keeping up with the others!



One particular prank that happened in Firenze in 1967, was that the Agency for the Recuperation of Abandoned Felines posted flyers throughout the city stating that all cats were banned from the city. Some say that people went as far as to throw their animals into the Arno to avoid from breaking the new law. (paraphrased from this months Florentine)

(the following is from http://italian.about.com/library/weekly/aa032801a.htm)
Including the word pesce (fish) is fairly common In Italian, no doubt due to the peninsula being surrounded by several bodies of water. Fishing, sailing, and seafood are all vital to the Italian culture, from which have sprung many piscine idioms. These terms include:
• buttarsi a pesce — to make a dive for, to begin an activity with enthusiasm
• chi dorme non piglia pesce — the early bird catches the worm
• i pesci grossi mangiano i piccini — the big fish eat the small fry
• non sapere che pesci pigliare — to be at one's wits' end (or at a loss), not to know which way to turn
• pesce grosso — bigwig, big shot
• trattare a pesci in faccia — to mistreat, to humiliate
• un pesce fuor d'acqua — a fish out of water
• un pesce lesso — a boring person

Happy April Fools Day to Everyone!

Livorno Ferraris

This past Saturday Maurizio and I caught the 8:35 train to Milano, we then caught our 12:15 connection to Livorno Ferraris where we stayed with Maurizio’s parents. We were going to visit with the family, this was my first visit since December so it was well overdo.

When we arrived to Livorno Ferraris Maurizio and I had decided that I would go ahead and do my long run so I could get it out of the way before Sunday when all the family would be coming for lunch. I don’t know the roads very well at all near his parents’ house. Maurizio’s parents live in the country and there are just miles and miles of fields. They are famous here for growing rice.







Before we had left Firenze, I had already mapped out a route with Maurizio’s help. We weren’t exactly sure where we were going but in order to cover the full 12 miles we had to pass through 3 different cities (small towns). We started off and things were going okay. The roads were quite different here than in Florence and I had to run on everything from asphalt, to muddy trails, to grass, and on streets made of pebbles. It was quite treacherous on my feet. We had no problems finding our way with the map and Maurizio was, again, on bike so he could go ahead and make sure we were going the right way. By mile 8 things went DOWNHILL! We came to a street where we were supposed to cross the railroad tracks but they had recently put up a gate so you couldn’t cross. We had to go further down the road, and literally hop and hike over some small streams and muddy hills in order to find another spot to cross the tracks. Once we crossed the tracks we were already lost, we had to go a bit backwards and find the street we needed to take. After a little work, we found our street and we were back on our way for miles 9 and 10. We were doing fine again but we must have missed a turn because next thing we new we were already close to another city and near the autostrada (major highway). We had crossed a river and we could just barely see the town where Maurizio’s parents house was. We were seriously far away. We had come to the end of some trails and met the river again. The crossing was way to wide to jump across and we couldn’t find any way around it. We needed to be on the other side of the river. So, our only choice was to turn around and go backwards. By this point, I had already been running over 2 hours. I was getting exhausted and my feet were killing me since I wasn’t used to the terrain.





We started back and when my watch got to 2hr 15mins I just couldn’t take anymore and I had to walk. It took us another 30-40 minutes to walk the rest of the way to Maurizio’s parents house but we finally made it. Those country roads can be quite hard to find but in the end we were home and I still got my run in, even if it was a little disastrous. So, how many miles did I actually run, we have no idea. I am pretty positive it was over the 12 miles that I intended to do.


I made Maurizio hand over the bike at the end and do some running! :)

Saturday night we were both exhausted and we didn’t get back to the house until around 5:30pm. Thankfully, we planned to make pasta and I was able to get some good carbohydrates back in my body. Maurizio and made this awesome baked ziti, it was so good. Maurizio’s dad, who doesn’t eat much, even had seconds. I was pretty happy. After dinner and some much needed showers we went to bed early.

The hours just changed here in Italy and we totally forgot so, Sunday morning when we got out of bed at 9am it was actually already 10am and the whole family was to arrive at 11am. Whenever Maurizio and I go to his mother’s house we always have to cook the meals and plan the menus so getting a late start was really a bad way to start the morning.

We immediately got to work preparing the antipasti (appetizers) and secondo (main course). Rosanna, Maurizio’s sister, had planned to make the pasta, which was spaghetti with a salmon cream sauce. For appetizers we had toast points spread with herbed cream cheese and then half were topped with bresaola (cured beef) and half with smoked salmon. We also had plates of cured meets, carne tritata (which is raw ground beef to this we added lemon and garlic) and nervi (nerves) marinated in olive oil and spices. It might not sound so appetizing (the tritata and nervi) but they are seriously delicious!





After the antipasti we moved to the pasta that Rosanna had prepared. Even though I was reluctant to have salmon pasta and Maurizio hates Salmon, we both enjoyed the dish. For the Secondo, Maurizio made two beef tenderloins, one he simply roasted with herbs and the other he made beef wellington. For Contorni (sides) we had roasted asparagus and baked tomatoes.

Finally it was time for dessert and since we were celebrating the birthdays of my niece (Francesca, 18) and nephew (Davide, 10), we had birthday cake. Along with the cake we had fresh cut strawberries tossed with a little bit of sugar and lemon juice. It was delicious but too much food, as normal.



After lunch we proceeded in watching the two open their gifts. The 18th birthday here is a big deal. In the USA for the most of us, the first really significant birthday is 16 years because we get our drivers license but here in Italy, the first one is 18. Francesca was absolutely darling!! As soon as she read the sweet card from her grandparents she was already in tears and when she opened their gift, which was a brand new laptop computer the tears of joy just started flowing. She was so excited and you could tell how surprised and how happy she was. It was so sweet. She said her birthday was better than Christmas, besides the computer she got a new digital camera (from us), some money, a Tiffany’s bracelet from her parents, some ear rings, and some other small gifts. She was so thankful and grateful for everything. She truly is such a sweet person; she is so open and has such a big heart.





After presents, Maurizio and I took our niece Matilde (6 years) and our nephew Davide for a walk into the town for some ice cream. This gave all the parents a little break and most of them were able to get some naps in.







When we returned from town it was getting close to dinnertime and we needed to re-set the table and get ready to start all over again. For dinner we had a much smaller selection and no antipasti or primi (1st courses consisting of rice, pasta, or soup). On the table we had: leftover contorni from lunch, bresaola topped with raw marinated artichoke salad, leftover nervi, and meet stuffed artichokes. We followed dinner with more cake and strawberries and by about 8:30-9pm, everything was cleaned up and everyone started to part for their own homes.


I finally got a shower, I hadn’t had enough time that morning, and I packed our bags. We hit the bed and woke up at 6:45am the next morning to catch our train at 8am back to Firenze. We had a really nice 2-day visit and after about 6.5 hours of traveling we finally made it back to Firenze.

Cena con I Nostri Amici

Dinner with our Friends

I am one of those crazy organizers, the ones who don’t really live on a whim and I like to have everything planned out. Sometimes this is great, but when things don’t go, as I like them, I get irritated. I like to plan because I want things to run smoothly and the more things are organized the less room or error or mistakes. I think this habit I picked up from my years working in the hospitality industry. Regardless where I got this habit, it has stuck.

Anyhow, last night, after arriving back from Maurizio’s parents house, we had planned to have dinner with friends. Currently, our friend KK whom we met through my sister is visiting Firenze. Her daughter Kelsey was lucky enough to come here on a study abroad program and now KK is making her Italian debut. Knowing in advance she was coming I had suggested that we plan a dinner out together. I wanted to make sure Maurizio was able to come as well and the only night he wasn’t working was last night. So, being the organizer that I am, I had Maurizio make reservations in advance at a lovely little restaurant on the Oltrarno in the San Niccolò area called Il Rifrullo. They had asked him if we were going to be just having aperativo and Maurizio said no that we wanted dinner in the restaurant.

We had decided to meet KK and Kelsey directly at the restaurant and not wanting them to have to wait for us since they weren’t exactly sure where to go, we made sure to get their early. While we were waiting for their arrival, we had a spritz and enjoyed the perfect night air. The weather here now is absolutely beautiful. When they arrived, after getting a little lost (which made me feel terrible), we all went inside to the restaurant. The restaurant was basically empty and the upstairs garden was closed off and there were only 2 other tables with people dining. I didn’t really think much about it because it was only Monday and there aren’t usually many people dining out on a Monday. While us girls were chatting and since no one had approached the table, Maurizio went to look for our waiter. After speaking to the waiter we were told that they didn’t offer, currently, the restaurant menu and they only had a limited menu, which consisted of club sandwiches and burgers. I was so angry. Not that the restaurant was very far out of the way but it was not close to either my apartment nor the hotel and apartment of KK and Kelsey. I had wanted to plan something special for them. We had called in advance and everything and here we were with NO menu. This makes me so mad. Anyhow, I refused to take them for dinner with a menu like this and we decided to leave.

I wasn’t sure where to go on a Monday night, a lot of restaurants close on Mondays. We set off back across Ponte alle Grazie to search for another restaurant. We had decided first to go to Osteria dei Pazzi (where we had our rehearsal dinner) but it was closed so instead we went to Osteria de’ Benci. We had a very good meal of Tuscan crostini, salamis, and grilled steaks. Even better was the company. After not having my plans turn out exactly in the way I wanted, the most important part which was sharing a good time in good company couldn’t have been better. It was another great evening in Firenze. I guess it just goes to show that sometimes life just can’t be planned.