Florence!

We just arrived to our little bed-and-breakfast farm cottage, Poggio al Sole, in the upper hills of Florence! It is so beautiful and peaceful here...it's like we are in a movie. We just got the keys and explanations about the buses to the city from our friend Giovani who owns the farm. A lot of Italians barely speak English and if they do, it's very hard to understand. But we are managing to get by somehow..it's always fun trying to communicate. (We think they might somehow understand our English if we speak a lot slower and louder, haha). So our room is an old cottage loft with wood ceilings and windows open overlooking the hills. Jacob is taking a nap and Mom is unpacking (really she has just set out the pictures of her grandbabies by the bed because she is having withdrawals). We took a really speedy train here this morning from Rome..it was incredibly smooth and so beautiful to look out the window and see the countryside of Italy.
Europe is so different than the states. It's really clean in the cities and very environmentally friendly. People aren't wasteful here at all. In Rome, I only saw 1 normal-sized car. People drive tiny smart cars, scooters, or bicycles. I saw one man riding a bike in a business suit while eating an ice cream cone! The serving sizes for the food here are much smaller than the states. Jacob ordered a club sandwich yesterday for lunch and the waiter warned him that it was "very very heavy." I was expecting to see some macdaddy McAllisters club sandwich, but when the waiter brought it out, it was a tiny little sandwich..about the size of a baby snack sandwich we would snack on at a wedding shower. If you order a coffee, they will give you straight espresso in a little mug the size of a thimble pretty much. Overall, people are pretty nice here. They aren't super friendly and don't smile nearly as much as Americans, but they aren't rude or mean. (Except when some taxi drivers get fed up with the dumb Americans) The weather has been perfect. It's been about 60 in the morning at evening and about 75 during the day with no humidity. We've seen so many people here wearing thick winter coats, hats and scarves because they think this weather is cold! They also think it is humid here during the day. They should visit us at home in the south if they really wanna know what humidity is. The time difference is 7 hours..we are 7 hours ahead of y'all. It is around 1pm here and we are heading to the city this afternoon for a tour of Florence. We're staying here for 3 days and spending a day or 2 in Venice. We are still having such a blast and loving all of our new experiences outside of the USA..woohoo!! Check it out.

Here we are in the train station

Check out those dreds

A cafe in the square

Resting our bags under an olive tree

The Florence flower-Iris

The view from our window

Mom's bedside table..she misses her peeps..and I guess her feet must be sore from walking!

Much love!