our newest obsession: stovetop espresso

When we first moved to Italy we went out and bought an espresso machine. You know, the kind where you pop a pod into the machine, hit a few buttons and espresso magically drips out the bottom. Recently, however, we've switched to a good 'ol fashioned stovetop espresso maker. Not only do we think the espresso tastes better, but it's saving us a lot of money. Live and learn, I guess!

little slices of heaven

Our fridge stocked with prosciutto, gnocchi, cheese and veggies...



The essential espresso machine...

ciao from florence, day three

(We could dedicate an entire blog to cool Florence doors)

WOW, this day was busy. We're super tired, so this post will be short.

We spent most of the morning wandering around, enjoying some hidden streets and neighborhoods. At Rob's insistance we visited, Il Micio, a shop we had both read about on The Sartorialist. To call this guy a master craftsman is a huge understatement...it was like walking through an art gallery!

Next, we waited out a rainstorm in the one place we knew we'd be safe (OK, that's a lie): Gustapanino. Don't judge us -- this place really has some of the best panini in the city!

After Gusta, we visited a great coffee shop a few doors down. Bob Marely was playing and there were great books to read everywhere. We can't wait to go back to this place.

After coffee we took a break to do some work back at the B&B. Then, we met our rental agent to look again at one of the apartments we saw on the first day here. It's our favorite and we have started the process to rent it -- in Italy, you make a rental offer much like you would to buy a home in the U.S. Hopefully it will all work out! We thought about not writing about it in case it does fall through, but we know from the many future expats we've heard from that our honesty is very helpful...so whether we get it our not, hearing our experiences will help others!

This may or may not be a shot of the street that the apartment is on ;-)