We've been skirting Italy for the last year and saw Roman's ruins and its influence everywhere, Turkey, Portugal, Spain, Croatia, England, the Netherlands, Germany, the Czech Republic, I mean Czechia. Just yesterday the Czech Republic officially announced their country's new name, Czechia. And when people say Roman, they are referring to Italy in the overall, aren't they? Italian art, sculpture, architecture. At least as influence. So finally we are in Italy. In spite of the fact that I had great expectations about this place, in spite of the fact that we've been working up it it for the last year, still it is fabulous.
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| Door from, or it is to, the past? |
Even Project Fi, Google's international phone network, is weak where we're staying. It worked even in Czechia's tiny Český Krumlov, but not here. The Renaissance began in Florence but, at least at this point, it seems to be a bit of a technological backwater.
And, while I'm on a grind,I might as well add that it's been hard to find oatmeal at a decent price. That, of course, drove M. Lee (the oatmeal fanatic) to look up the history of oatmeal in Italy. Seems you could easily get it 30,000 years ago. The first evidence of humans eating oatmeal anywhere was discovered in a cave in Italy. I hope I'm wrong but, at least so far, Italy seems like an oatmeal backwater as well.
Italy also sucks when it comes to getting a big giant American cup of coffee. Europe in general doesn't do coffee like we do coffee so no surprise that even in this otherwise very cool airbnb the "big" cups hold about two sips. I say big but only compared to the other regular size cups, the thimble size espresso cups. But these are trifles. Florence is fabulous.
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| My morning cup of coffee |
5 comments:
I live in Germany and I am from the states. I agree with you on coffee! When I first moved here and ordered a large cup of coffee, I thought to myself, "that is a small!?". I want my big old American cup of coffee!! :)
YES! And keep it coming. Lots and lots of refills, until I'm floating in coffee but sadly no. No refills either. I don't think I've ever gotten a refill of coffee outside of the US, well maybe once. You can imagine how thrilled I was with my "breakthrough moment" this morning. I actually got enough coffee in one sitting. It's amazing I didn't do this earlier. I think the extra small cups here are the reason I finally had to think outside the box on this one or, you could say, outside the cup. :)
Americans do SOME things right. Coffee. And some music. Mostly the stuff with the African origins but still. Where did coffee come from anyhow?
Coffee. Ok. I looked it up and was surprised to read that it did not originate in the "new world" but Ethiopia in the 10th century, at least according to Wikipedia. You'll have to go to the link for the details. I always thought it came first from the Americas. So, the continent of Africa for both music and coffee. Now it all begins to make sense.
I just had a weird thought. (shaddap) Imagine an alternate history of the United States if there had never been slavery, never been such a huge influx of Africans and the resultant influence on our culture.
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