Only 467 Stairs to the Top!

This last Thursday Chelsea Christine and our friend Katherine decided that hiking to the top of the Duomo was a must. We have been in Italy for a little over a month now and we had still yet to do it. The top of the Duomo is supposedly suppose to offer the best views of the city, allowing for you to see all of Florence. One minor detail…467 stairs to the top and at most times you are hiking at about 90 degree angles! After persevering to the top we stood in awe of the view! You had a 360-degree view of the entire city! (Which I might add is muuuuuch larger than we had previously thought; traveling to more of the outskirts of the city is going to be a must!) We picked out everything in the city we could recognize! If you come to Florence you are not allowed to leave without going to the top! After a quick photo session of ourselves…. photos to follow…we ventured to a little well-known Italian gem.

Mario’s is a restaurant that was suggested to us by our Living n Italy teacher. He said that there was no way that we could live here an NOT try what this authentic hole in the wall had to offer. Lets just say he in no way prepared us for what we were about to walk into. We walked into the restaurant to find out that there was enough seating for about 30 people. We put our names in, mind you they speak no English here and we all know that our Italian is a little shaky, then proceeded to stand and wait. Finally we were called to our seat in the corner that we had to squeeze by every local to get to. The next feat using the restroom…that was a quick trip because we found out right away that a hole in the floor…literally a hole in the floor…was not going to cut it for us. The waiter came over to take our order and we looked at her like umm menus? She kindly pointed us to the wall where a menu of about 6 dishes hung along with the daily specials. We sent Christine off to read what they served because we were not all about to get up and make a special of ourselves once again. She reported back that she could not understand a thing…. great. I looked around the restaurant and saw that people were eating something that looked like a ravioli dish with red sauce and thought that had to be a great choice. When the lady came back for the second time in all my fluster I spit out something to the effect of pasta (pasta means the same in both Italian and English so how wrong could I be?)…. Also word to the wise pasta and raviolis are two completely different dishes here and should never be confused. Five minutes later I had my dish in front of my…. some kind of noodles with the special of the day on top…DEER! Oh my god what a treat. When the dish was put in front of my I had a moment of mere panic. What was I going to do? How could I eat Bambi? For those of you who have never had deer it is, well gamy to say the least. I’m glad that we tried the restaurant and stepped out of our comfort zones. I’m sure that the place has amazing food but this dish would not be my first suggestion. Christine and I are already planning a trip back this time were hoping to not be taken so off guard. Wish us luck! I will definitely update you on what the second round entails!!