Routine

We don’t have one yet, but we’re faking it until we do. Now that we’re no longer lacking in

the luggage department, we’re starting with the basics and that means exercise. So after sleeping for some irrelevant number of hours (who’s counting when you have a baby, in Europe?) we get up with the dawn, put on our tiny fast shorts and go running. That is, I attempt to run without dying on streets that haven’t been paved since the Roman Empire fell out of vogue and Lindsay and Julia head out on an adventure of their own.

So far this has mostly meant ending up down by the Arno River (Latin for: streets Arno-t made for running) and seeing where we end up. Purely by chance, yesterday morning Lindsay and I both ended up, albeit 12min apart, up on the Piazzale Michelangelo overlooking a still somewhat sleepy Florence. I’m not sure what it was like for Lindsay on the descent, but I’m going to guess it didn’t involve scaring the absolute shit out of a middle aged woman running by herself and not expecting footsteps coming up from her 6. My rather muddled combination of “ciao scusi ciao” didn’t do much to placate her, but that also could have been due to the high velocity sweat that hit her around the same time as my apology. Hey, Italian summers are brutal. If you come at the champ, best bring a sponge.

But it was all worth it when Lindsay took us to Melaluca for breakfast which, I gotta say, knocked our socks off. Thank god Julia doesn’t wear socks right now, otherwise that meal would have cost us 3 pairs. I’ve had ricotta pancakes in the US before but, turns out, I hadn’t really had ricotta pancakes. So now I’ve had ‘em and I can’t go back.

We also bought pasta at the Mercato Centrale. Really really good pasta. The fat flat kind that they normally serve with pork or boar or something and probably a little red sauce. But the ladies in this house don’t eat meat (Jules doesn’t eat much of anything other than milk right now, but the statement still stands) so instead we just cooked it perfectly, because that’s what you do in Italy, and paired with a truly spectacular pesto. Two ingredients, one stellar meal.

Maybe tomorrow we’ll go to a museum.