moving on to Florence

We hit the breakfast bar in waves and try to keep Oscar occupied

 while getting ready to carry everything to the train station.  Oscar and I lead the way because everything takes longer for us and he doesn’t like sitting still in his stroller.  As long as it’s in motion, he’s usually okay, but don’t stop whatever you do.  We’re early and he gets to run around Termini

 some while we wait, watching sidewalk cleaning vehicles go past, trying to get into the VIP waiting lounge, walking into people who are trying to make their train and busy looking at their cell phones.  After 4 days in Rome, I see why some cities  have started outlawing selfie sticks, they’re more prevalent this time and they are a serious hazard for everyone in the vicinity of someone using them.  The one moment of fear we have is when the carabinieri  ask me and Oscar if a red suitcase sitting alone is ours.  When I say “no” they move in and start

 radioing people.  Then some other officer comes to the suitcase to look at it and I think they find out that one of their own people had placed it there because it was left on a train and their lost baggage deposit is near there, but not there exactly, because they then just ignore it.  Or, they just didn’t care if it could be something ominous which I

 sincerely doubt.  We wait for 45 minutes for Termini to even announce our track and then run like hell to catch the train.  It takes us a while to board because of all the luggage and of course John and I aren’t sitting together because the tickets were bought separately, so he gets the baby for the trip while I blog.  Oscar is a semi 

 handful, but after some food and drink falls asleep before we arrive in Florence and I get a lot of blogging caught up in the process.  Arriving in Florence and getting off the train to walk to the hotel is so easy, I’m thinking about turning in my plane tickets to Paris for some train tickets, but probably couldn’t give them away.  Maybe it will be easier in Europe 

 than in the United States, but I’m not looking forward to it.  We walk past the beautiful Santa Maria di Fiore, but Oscar doesn’t even seem to care about candy-striped marble facades….While the professors and students go see David at the Accademia, Oscar takes a much needed 3 hour nap.  This is the first time that I’ve had to spend time in

  a hotel room on a trip to Europe.  I’m not against spending time in hotel rooms, but when I’m used to spending every second in Europe seeing things and this feels like a huge imposition on my time.  John tells me to look at it like a cruise where there is only so much time in port.  The rest of the time is on the ship.  So, I’m trying to few morning and afternoon excursions like they are calls at port and a chance to get out.  The main thing that I can say about 

 doing Europe this way is my feet aren’t killing me every night.  But, I have pulled some nerve in my foot because when I bend over to look at Oscar in his crib, his stroller, help him up the stairs etc, my middle toe goes numb.  It’s a very weird sensation and I’m sure it’s attached to something I did in the arch of my foot or something, but it seems to

 be getting worse and worse no matter what pair of shoes I wear and I can’t stop bending down to see what Oscar is doing.  When everyone gets back from the Accademia, John and I go to eat at a tiny little restaurant down from the hotel.  We’re able to sit outside and Oscar starts a major flirtation with our waitress.  Mom was worried about 

 Italians trying to steal Oscar, but it’s the other way around because he keeps trying to lead her away from the restaurant and take her with him.  The chef is trying to interact with him and interested in getting Oscar to talk to him, but Oscar wants nothing to do with a male, he just keeps trying to take the waitress with him and the chef finally 

gets that Oscar is a player.  John got a traditional Florentine stew that melted in your mouth on a bed of mashed potatoes and I got fettucine with goat cheese and asparagus, which worked really well together.  The goat cheese and asparagus smoothed each other out so the dish wasn’t too cheesy or the asparagus didn’t overpower, so we had

 a great early dinner at Barbeque of all names for a restaurant in Florence.  I didn’t see any ribs on the menu, pulled pork or other dishes that you would normally associate with the name, but maybe the owner just liked how it sounded.  After this, it is time to round up everyone for a bus trip up to Piazza Michelangelo across the river to have a good view of the sunset and the city from above.  Of course the bus we have to wait for, the driver gets a break and we are barely there before it’s time for the sun to go down.  Oscar seemed like the bus ride, but only when the bus was moving and he would hit it when we stopped at lights or to let people off.  At least I got to sit down for the hairpin turns (sometimes the kid pays off) because Rachel ended up a little motion sick from the fast driving on these curves that our driver was doing.  I felt like I was in an outtake from Speed or something and we should have heard the wheels squealing as we went around, but he’s made this trip a few times.   After a lovely sunset and Oscar getting to run around, pet a dog, and make friends with stairs, people and disgusting substances on the ground, we start the trek down to the river and John is in charge of the stroller because some of the walking is very steep and I would most likely have let Oscar roll into the Arno river.  Across the river which seems low this year and I always find it hard to believe that the river flooded so badly in the 60’s that the art in the Uffizi was covered in mud and water, and that’s the 1960’s.  A pretty night at the loggia and the statues lit so well make Florence seem magical.