Our Travels

Our last stop: Florence. We were here a whole month, I had planned in day trips and a week trip to Rome at the end of our stay, though I sort of burnt out on some of those plans, more on that later. In Florence we had a roommate, which was interesting. She was actually Canadian, but had spent about ten years living in Florence. She was nice, we sort of kept to ourselves. Our apartment was in a fantastic spot, we were close to everything, within walking distance of the Duomo, restaurants, and the market. The down side was that Florence was HOT while we were there, our room of course didn't have ac, but we didn't even have a fan. Also, we had to keep our window closed at night, otherwise birds might fly in, which I was terrified of. It doesn't cool down at night either. Our apartment was so old fashioned, there were actual shutters on the window, and no screen, it was sort of perfect, it really added to the experience of living in Florence.

And that's what i love about Florence, how diverse it is, meaning no two buildings are the same, everything has a handmade feel to it. The tiny sidewalks and streets have what look like hand made stones, and what looks like was hand placed. Everything is so unique, so old. We really didn't do all that much sightseeing, we saw the duomo, some cathedrals, the David (which was fantastic, even after the 40 minute wait) and the Uffizi gallery, which was all renaissance art (what else? We were in the heart of the renaissance after all). Other than that, we just lived, we walked the streets, got gelato, fresh fruits and veggies at the market. We shopped, both at H&M and the huge Florence market which was full of good stuff. We people watched, and most of all, we ate. The best restaurants are in Italy, I'm sure of it. How is the pasta so good? It doesn't even make sense, it seems so effortless, but it is SO good. Same goes with the pizza, it wasn't fancy, it was just simple, fresh ingredients. I could go on, and let's just say it was hard to go back to american pasta and pizza after that. However, in Seattle we found an AMAZING pizza place in Capital Hill that imitated Italian pizza to a perfection. Now I miss that, this is how things work I suppose. Still haven't had pasta anywhere as good as the pasta there.

I did start to get homesick, and I had a bout of anxiety while there, but looking back, it was a really great time. Good food, long walks, and shopping. Before I show you the photos, you should know that I had been there only a few days when my digital SLR camera broke. What else broke? My 35mm film camera only a couple days later. I realized this on top of the Duomo, after climbing ALL those stairs, I had no way of recording the amazing view from the top. Needless to say I was not a happy camper. I realized that the roll kept advancing after way too many shots, I opened the back of the camera, only to find the film wasn't advancing that whole time. Bummer. So all I had left was a holga and a 35mm toy camera, not very reliable cameras. We had no choice but to buy a cheap little digital camera. The silver lining is that it had video, so we were able to get video of our trip, instead of just pictures. Seth did most of the filming, and I put together a dinky little video of all the clips.

The few shots I was able to get on my SLR before it stopped working:

The rest are from the little digital camera or one of my toy film cameras

Sometimes when we wanted a snack, we would walk a block down from our apartment to a room full of vending machines. For some reason, these chips were so good, they tasted kind of like lays, but way better.

I can't remember where this was:

Spent one day at the gardens of something something...forgetting a lot of things, sorry.

Duomo:

Lovely details of Florence, hand painted signs, so cute.

This is the meal that changed Seth's life forever. Gorgonzola cheese with honey and bread. It was amazing, and Seth still talks about it. I will say eating in Europe did change some of our eating habits, and honey with cheese? That's become a staple with us.

And lastly, a little video:

Florence from Maddy Lucas on Vimeo.

When we moved here, a lot of people asked us why, and we didn't have a great answer. I mean, we didn't move for a job, and we have no family. So I wasn't sure how to answer except, we like it. When we were dating, Seth and I came to Seattle to visit some friends. It was a great trip, and we really liked this city. It was also at the beginning of our relationship, when everything was new and we were really excited about this new thing we had. So I guess in a way, this city is sentimental to us, it was a place we both fell in love with, our first trip together. It was the only place that made sense to go after graduating. Because we had no idea where we wanted to go. Salt Lake seemed like the obvious choice, but also the most convenient and I needed to get out of there for a while. So we came here, and Seth has loved living here, I came to realize I miss having family and I'm not sure I really love the vibe and energy of the city at times. But, I do love the city itself, if that makes sense. So taking our family around to all these places we forget to go bc we live here, I felt proud of our little Seattle, the place we've called home for the last 11 months.

The nice thing about visitors is you do things you overlook when you live here. We hardly go to the Pike Place market, but even though it's full of tourists pretty much 24/7, it's an awesome market.

We got lunch at a chowder place in Post Alley. It was so good. Ever since moving here, I have rediscovered how amazingly good Clam Chowder is, this place had all different types of chowders (I worry that once I leave Seattle Chowder just won't taste the same).

Cool bathrooms in Post Alley:

There are two places we never miss when going downtown, Beecher's mac and cheese, and Le Panier. Beecher's has the best mac n cheese I've ever had, and Le Panier has really good citron and some other good french pastries (I prefer the macarons here in Ballard at Honore).

Beecher's:

Hanging out at Le Panier:

One place we thought the kids would like is the Gum Wall, which Seth and I haven't been to since we came to visit a few years ago. I know it's gross, but I like how colorful it is.

Cannon looks a little unsure about it all.

Cool wall near the gum wall:

After that we did some shopping, and we found this cute Map store Seth and I never noticed before. We did end up buying a really cool map. We need to get it framed but we might wait until we move (it's a really cool map, did I mention that?)

Another thing we did with my family, that we haven't since we came to visit, was go to Gasworks Park. I don't know why we haven't gone here since living here, it's an awesome park, definitely something to do when you come to Seattle. You can see the whole city. It's just awesome. Plus, Seth and I had a really good time coming here the first time, revisiting it again years later was really, well, romantic. If you do go here, I suggest coming right before sunset so you can see the park, and then the city lights at night.