She’s writing about food again.

The chief reason I spend so much time writing about my gastronomic adventures is that I want everyone to understand when I arrive back in Utah weighing 50 extra pounds. I should perhaps mention here that the correct reaction will be based on Tom in BJD, viz “Bridget! You’re looking thin.” (Is it bad that I use BJD in the same “everyone surely knows what that means” way as, say, “KJV”?).

Some very special foodie experiences:

Hemingways: It’s a chocolatier’s – big pictures of Hemingway on the walls (not sure what the connection is), and books about chocolate in cabinets (which is actually kind of annoying – I want to be able to READ the books about chocolate. Possibly lick the pictures. I had some beautiful little cioccolata torta thing with chocolate in many forms–white, dark, mousse, ganache, praline. The kind where you savour every mouthful and slow down when you approach the end because you can’t bear to see it disappear forever.

Vestri – also a chocolatiers, the kind with foodie magazine articles about itself posted on the walls– I had the cioccolata freddo. You’d think it would be like chocolate milk (like when TLC ordered an iced steamer and the waitress rather snottily said “so you want a glass of milk?”), but it’s not. It’s richer and more chocolatey, and mmm….

Vivoli: Some say the best gelato in Florence. I can’t say I’ve tried EVERY other place to compare, but it was definitely way up there. I had mine on a warm day after visiting Santa Croce. Cioccolata ricci (are we spotting the theme?), pere caramellata, and fragola. I ate it leaning on a stone pillar looking at the basilica, enjoying the sunshine, and giving directions to the Accademia to an American lady and her daughter. I really hope they made it there – they didn’t have a map and kept calling the Duomo the “Dromer” so I’m a little worried for them.

Caffe Loggia dell’Albizi: It suddenly started raining heavily on the way home from the supermarket, so I ducked into this caffe that I’ve wanted to visit for a while. I ordered a cioccolata, and a chocolate croissant. The hot chocolate is that gorgeous thick kind, and comes unsweetened, so you get to dissolve your little packets of sugar in it and taste the flavour coming alive as you do. The croissant was even better than expected. The chocolate was melted on the inside, so I ended up getting it messily and deliciously over my fingers, and got to lick them off because I’m in Florence and it's not like my mum’s watching.

The Friendliest People in the World

You thought I was talking about Italians, didn’t you? Ma no, mi amici, it’s Indians. I was told as much yesterday by one, and I have no evidence to the contrary. He’s super friendly and sweet, if slightly overwhelming. I met him on the way to the supermarket; he came grocery shopping with me (“I am Christian – you are ok with me”), and tried to buy my groceries for me – we compromised on him buying me a drink.

“you have very beautiful figure…I have apartment in San Marco. I am not married – no girlfriend. Do you have boyfriend?”

WHEN am I going to learn to lie?

“Um, no.”

“Good! You have no boyfriend, I have no girlfriend, I like English people, we are good for each other.”

“But… I am several years older than you. I am OLD.”

“We are in Italy – only hearts matter. I have good heart. You have good heart. I am taller than you. “

Can’t argue with that.

He likes to cook Indian food (doesn’t like Italian pasta), speaks Hindi, English, and Italian, goes to the gym regularly, “I am strong!” (shows me his bicep). And likes cricket (shows me his cricket ball scar). And David Beckham.

“You are Christian, I am Christian – I think we are good for each other. You are first England girl I talk with.”

“Really?”

Very seriously: “I swear on my mother.”

Oh, the “really” was more, er, rhetorical, actually. No need for that.

“Do you like beer? I can get you beer. I have scooter. We meet and go to discotheque. I pay – I have money. We walk hand in hand in the streets.”

As Dave Barry might say, I am not making this up. But I do quite fancy a curry.

This is why you’re not getting postcards. (Bit of a lengthy post, sorry)

It occurs to me that there’s been a bit too much sweetness and light in here lately, so I thought I’d remedy that before it all gets rather Stepford Wives-y.

I should mention that this episode was entirely in Italian, which on one hand I’m quite proud of, but on the other hand is very dispiriting, because clearly I was missing some vital element of what was going on, and I don’t know what that was.

I went to the post office for an envelope and stamps, and started at the window of the grumpy old man I bought stamps from the other day (stamps are francobolli, which I think is a delicious word). He wasn’t grumpy just with me, I saw him being snippy with some perfectly sweet American girls.

I asked him if I could pay him for my envelope, and he said no, and pointed at the opposite counter.

“and the stamps?”

“Afterwards,” nodding and waving at the same counter.

Grazie.

I got one of those little numbered tickets for a place in line; the tickets are subdivided by the kind of service you want – deposits and withdrawals, forms, post and packages. The descriptions are in English as well as Italian, which was helpful. I THOUGHT.

So, I waited my turn, and it was busy, so it took a while, and then brought my stuff to the lady at the counter, and asked for stamps.

“Stamps?” (You’d have thought I had asked for a kilo of prime rib, by her expression). “For stamps, you go there,” pointing to the grumpy man.

“But-he told me here…”

She turns to him and has brief discussion in fast Italian. He looks at me with loathing.

“There.” She points again.

“And this?” pointing to my envelope.

“Over there,” waving to the opposite counter.

OK.

I went back to Grumpy, and he totally ignored me while he leafed through his book of stamps.

I waited.

And waited.

“Excuse me?”

“Wait a minute,” he snarled (honestly – snarled).

“I’ve BEEN waiting twenty minutes.”

Ignores me for a few more minutes, then finally gets me my stamps. I once again tried to pay for my envelope, and he again waved me to the opposite counter.
Grazie MILLE.

So, I went over there, and tried to pay for my envelope, and she waved me to the opposite counter. Seriously.

“But, but….” Italian was definitely letting me down at this point, and she didn’t speak English. “They told me…”

“Over there.”

I got out my 50 eurocents, plonked it down on her counter, and walked off, with her calling after me.

Then I went to address my envelope. I finished, and the man next to me asked if he could borrow my pen. I handed it over while I licked stamps and sealed, then realised that he was filling out the longest form in the world.

Now, I completely realise that this is when I really should have just LET it GO. The pen, after all, is not a vintage Cross, Waterman, or Mont Blanc. In fact, now that I look at it, I see that it has “Trailer Sales, Shelley Idaho,” written on it. There are other pens in Florence. I’m pretty sure I could have walked out the door and found one quite easily, perhaps with a picture of the Duomo on it. But I knew I’d need my pen again in a minute, and didn’t WANT to buy another simply because this man lacked the foresight to bring one to the post office, even though he had presumably come here expressly to fill out his epic form.

“Sir? Sir, I have to go – my pen?”

He says something about “can’t you wait?” He carries on writing.

“Sir?”

HE TOTALLY IGNORES ME.

“Sir! My PEN.”

He hands it over with very bad grace.

It was as I was stalking out the door that I realised I wasn’t entirely sure that I’d paid the correct amount for my envelope. This means that, somehow, tomorrow I have to go back to the post office where everyone now hates me, hoping that they don’t recognise me (sometimes it is inconvenient to be 5’10”, red-haired, and foreign), and if necessary, find some way of sneaking the extra 10-20 cents onto someone’s counter, because there’s really no way that I’m going to be able to explain it in Italian.

I think I’ll just throw it and run.

Santa Croce

I visited Santa Croce and got to see Giotto’s fresco of St. Francis, with those astonishingly solid-looking figures and expressive faces. I remember drawing a copy of that fresco from a book in school, so feel a special affinity to the lines and characters. It is thrilling to come across these jewels. Some time I must have heard that the Death of St. Francis was in Santa Croce in Florence, but it clearly didn’t mean a lot at the time, as when I saw it, it was totally unexpected. I wanted to point at it to all the other tourists. Look! Giotto! He’s a friend of mine…sort of.

Couple more

At Hestercombe.

More pics from England

Near Clevedon pier












The Theatre Royal, Bath. The Last Confession, with David Suchet in the lead. It's going to the West End next, and I want everyone to see it.








One of the lambs is lame, poor little thing! Its front legs are all shaky and it spends most of its time on its knees (foot rot, Pa D. suggests?) It’s pathetic-looking enough to be written by Dickens.





Winchester Cathedral. Met my bro and sis-in-law for picnic here.

Close to Solstice

How many bookstores do you know that have a shelf dedicated to witchcraft? Maybe one or two little obscure places? Well, how about one that has multiple shelves, subdivided by “Spells and witchcraft,” “High Magic,” “Wicca,” “Golden Dawn” (or Golden Goddess or something) and similar? If you do, I’m guessing you’ve been to Glastonbury – spiritualist/hippie capital of England, if not the world. It’s a place where people walk around wearing robes and carrying staffs, and you can smell incense in the air.

It’s the old Isle of Avalon, and King Arthur and Guinevere were buried in the Abbey (at least, it has the most credible evidence of his burial, but I prefer to believe that he’s still sleeping in his cave, ready to help with a Great British Emergency).
It’s also where Joseph of Arimethea planted a staff that grew into a tree, and where the Chalice Well is found. Add these to Glastonbury Tor, which just LOOKS mystical, and you have a place where you can buy crystals, Giotto-themed Tarot cards, and tie-dye clothes, if one likes those, which one might have done once upon a time, in one’s teens.

They also have really bad singers on the streets. My dad: “What’s that bl--dy noise?”
Bookshop owner a few minutes later: “Oh good, my busker’s gone. I can open the door again.”