Buon giorno Florence

April 18th--It was a beautiful morning in Nice so we were able to enjoy the views of the Mediterranean one last time before we left. We took a bus to the train station and boarded our first of two trains for Florence. This one took us to Milan. We were on a train with "compartments" which have 6 seats in a small room. Luckily when we got on, no one else was in our compartment as our luggage filled up the small storage space above the seats. Right as our train was about to leave, 3 other people joined us in the compartment. We figured out that some of the locals take the train but do not have seat reservations so they just find any empty seats they can. One of the ladies that joined us in our compartment turned out to be a great travel companion. She was born and raised in Italy, but now lives in Nice. She is a trained interpreter so she spoke fluent Italian, French and English. She was traveling with her brother and his wife who had come down from Belgium to visit. They were taking the train into Italy from Nice to go to the Saturday market to get some fresh foods. Anyway, we took the opportunity to ask her all kinds of questions about the EU, local culture and perceptions of America. It was great that she spoke such great English as it was the first "local" we had truly been able to engage in political / cultural conversation. Given that she "speaks" for a living, she was not short on words or opinions. She had some very interesting thoughts on the EU and its potential impacts on the political landscape of Europe, but her most interesting comments came when we began to speak about President Obama. Many people have asked us what the impression of Obama/the US is here and we have always answered "positive", but today, we got a glimpse of why. Her insight was that many Europeans had always looked at the US as the beacon for democracy but have been somewhat sceptical because they saw it as being ruled by the rich. However, Obama's election immediately gave hope to the middle class and minority groups that they too could one day have a voice in their young democracies. So putting political ideologies aside for a moment, the US is currently seen in an incredibly positive light and at least one Italian/French lady has more hope for a bright future because of the positive leap forward our democracy took by electing Barack Obama. Kinda cool! Unfortunately, she got off after about an hour and then we had the compartment to our selves for about an hour. We were then joined by 3 elderly Italians. I think it was a man and his wife and her mother. They were also great travel companions because they were so entertaining to watch. They only spoke Italian so we have no idea what they were saying, but the lady and her mother seemed to be constantly bickering at "Roberto". The ladies were very expressive in their speak. It was like watching an Italian episode of I Love Lucy or The Honeymooners. We finally arrived at our first stop, Milan, a little after 3pm. We then had about 30 minutes before our next train departed. This train was a high speed train with the usual seating arrangement. We had a non-eventful 2 hour ride to Florence, arriving about 5:30. When we arrived, we met the sister of the apartment owner at the train station and she walked us to our apartment. It was only about a 5 minute walk. When we entered the apartment we were immediately impressed. It is very large for what we are used to and looks "homey". We ventured out to find a grocery store since we assume they will all be closed tomorrow (Sunday) as they have so far. We picked up the necessities and then came back to the apartment to drop them off. At this point it was about 7:30 and we were all pretty hungry but set on having good Italian food. We noticed that Rick Steves' had a restaurant recommendation that was close to our apartment. Well, it turned out it was about 5o yards from our front door. We walked in and almost immediately fell in love. It was quaint but noisy (great for kids). The menu was full of great Italian choices and for 12 euros you got 3 courses plus a bottle of wine plus water! Our biggest problem was choosing which dishes to order. The food was AWESOME and we are sure we will be back here many more times before we leave. Amy decided that we could put on some pounds here if we are not careful. Luckily our apartment is on the 3rd floor (4th floor American) with no elevator. So at least we will get a little "StairMaster" time every day.