Today we took the train from Venice to Florence. It was a pretty easy trip, the hardest part was riding the vapareto to the train station. That was really only difficult by the mass of people that got on and off at each stop. There was some yelling at americans to move to the back to create room but it wasn't yelled in our direction.
Prior to the train I got to ride on a traghetto. A traghetto is an old gondola that you can pay .50€ to ferry you from one side of the grand canal to the other. In the travel shows we had seen of Venice they always showed people standing in them and riding them across. Angie wasn't too excited to try this out so she waited while I took a ride. I was fully intending to just stay in the boat and then have them take me back for another .50€, however once I was in it I realized how dorky I was being and decide to take a quick walk away from the traghetto to look like I was actually doing something. I walked around for about 2 minutes and came back and then rode it back the other way. Being me I'm due at least one geeky thing a day and I guess this qualifies as it. I had my whole "gangsta" thing the day before. I'll save writing about my geeky thing from Sunday night for another day but Angie and I still laugh about it every day.
Lately we've been sort of skipping lunch or just grabbing a piece of pizza from a shop, this has helped to deal with the expensive food prices as we can still have a decent dinner. Last night for dinner we didn't have the best meal but Angie and I can honstly say we had an authenticate Italian meal. We walked over one of the bridges crossing the grand canal and found a small Trattoria (family restaurant). We weren't looking for anything in particular this place just seemed to look nice and rustic. The waitresses were a grandmother and her daughter, while the other staff we saw appeared to be grandchildren. The grandmother seated us. She didn't appear to speak english, or rather she just kept speaking italian to us, but she seemed to get we didn't understand much. We were seated at a table that could hold 6 or 7 people and later during our meal they seated a woman with her son at the same table. At one point Angie noticed one of the waiters (the teenage-esq grandson) acting sort of silly and carrying a plate over his grandmother's head. When he went past she spanked him! The food was very homestyle and decent, we would recommend it more for the ambiance/experience than the quality.
Tonight we ate at a restaurant called La Posta. It is next door to some big building called Posta in doing an internet search quickly I couldn't figure out what it was though. The dinner was very good. Angie said she considered it the best meal we've had so far but I would put it behind Galileo's in Venice. We had a really good chicken in a porcini mushroom sauce as well as some really tasty bruscetta. Angie had an asparagus risotto with hers and I had a beef tortellini dish. Dinner was a bit expensive but it appears that Florence will be less expensive than Venice. Although we had some crazy 6.50€ gelato tonight.
To Allie and Lisa, no shopping yet because we are too busy eating! Angie has plans for buying some stuff tommorow, I might buy a fake italian watch from one of the street vendors, we can start a pool going for how long before it breaks.
We'll have some more pictures tommorow.