Pizza Man, Opera Nights, Tuscan Rain

With the next few months being booked up with travel, visitors, and other plans, I have stayed put in Florence this past week or so taking advantage of as much as I can while having to deal with some rainy Tuscan weather.

And after spending the last weekend in Rome, I was able to enjoy some more Florentine specialties this week.

On Monday night for my Cultural Literacy course, my professor brought our class out to what he considered to be some of the best pizza in the entire city. There was definitely some hesitation when he let us know that the name of the restaurant was “Pizza Man” and not something a little more authentic sounding, but the final product definitely held it’s own against some of the best options we’ve tried so far.

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“Pizza has never been excluded from any group for socioeconomic reasons,” said my professor to the class. “Since it’s creation, everyone has enjoyed pizza. From the very rich to the very poor.” Considering how poor I feel after every new trip booked, this made me feel especially better.

Later on in the week though, my quest for total cultural immersion took one giant leap past pizza into the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. That’s right, on Tuesday night I went to the opera. 

I’m not sure that any of my friends or I really knew what we were getting ourselves into, but when we saw the opportunity to check out a different kind of show we jumped at the opportunity. The show we went to was called “Nabucco,” a retelling of a biblical story through an opera that was written over 150 years ago. 

The songs and presence on stage throughout the story - at points there were over 50 people on stage at once - were more than I ever could have expected from such a show. It was also a lifesaver to have English and Italian subtitles scrolling across the top of stage for the entire show, without which the show may have gone way too over our heads.

But at the risk of rambling on in this week’s post, let me just throw some quick points to further round out the shape of my most recent Tuscan week:

• The best meal I had this week easily came at a restaurant down the road from us called Acqua al 2. On recommendation, we got their famous blueberry steak, which was as delicious and confusing to the taste buds as we could have imagined.
• With February comes the promise of starting to play soccer through some school and other organized leagues. It’s been a while since I have played consistently, so I’m scared and looking forward at the same time to getting some refreshers and wake-up calls.

• Tonight my roommates and I are planning on staying up until the early morning hours to not let a six hour time difference get in the way of watching the Super Bowl. Many red bulls and late night espressos will be had.

My next few weekends in Europe will bring me farther into my travels elsewhere in Italy and throughout the continent including the Swiss Alps next weekend, Amsterdam the weekend after that, and then Venice for as much Carnivale fun we can get our hands on. 

Sometimes it really seems crazy to me how antsy my friends and I get to leave Florence and explore. After travelling so far away from home and settling down in a new city only a few weeks ago, the itch to travel is coming out strong, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

With a good group of friends, old and new, with me for every new destination we set our sights on, it makes me feel pretty good about the fact that I won’t see a full Florence weekend again for quite some time. 

I’d like to close with another line my Cultural Literacy professor dropped on our pizza night out. In talking about pizza’s history, he admitted that the history of its creation is a little murky (The French and Greeks may also have some claim). The Italians may not have been directly involved with inventing it, but that wasn’t really a worry to him.

“Italians may not have actually invented pizza. But like everything else, they certainly made it better.”

Arrivederci for now.

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