weekdays with italians

this week we had the opportunity to hang out with 2 of our favorite italians: valentino and mario.

this week all the national monuments of italy are free to everyone because it is "cultural week", and on wednesday ryan's student valentino suggested that they walk around the boboli gardens in florence for their lesson. of course ryan accepted and invited me and we had a wonderful afternoon in the gardens together.

the beautiful boboli gardens

this was the citrus garden, all of these are lemon or orange trees

me and ryan

ryan and valentino

there was an archery stand and ryan had never shot a bow and arrow before so valentino insisted that he try. he was really good! (valentino called him "ryan-hood" for the rest of the day)

then on thursday for our avanti visitation we went on a little trip to a small town about an hour away from florence called reggello with mario, one of the patriarchs of the church of christ in florence. we wanted to spend some quality avanti time with him. ermenita had read about this restaurant there and mario is a connoisseur of sorts when it comes to good food, so we really wanted to impress him. he has also been EVERYWHERE so i think they were trying to find a place that he possibly hadn't been before.

needless to say the food was (dramatic pause for emphasis) INCREDIBLE. so worth the drive from florence! we had wild boar pasta and fried seafood (strange for a place in the mountains but they claimed theirs was good and oh my goodness, it was the best i've ever had)

the restaurant: osteria masaccio...go there, everyone, now!

the group at lunch (mario is the one in the blue shirt in the back right corner of the picture)

the ladies of avanti (always ready for a photo)

the church

after lunch we walked through the church there and then got back in the cars and drove through a beautiful little woodsy town called vallombrosa. there were just forests of beautiful pines that almost remind you of a national park in (dare i say) arkansas, perhaps blanchard springs. there was this 1000+ year old pond for frog and fish mating. in fact we discovered these really cool looking clear tubes of frog eggs all over the pond (i know i'm nerdy but they were awesome).

the pond

then we drove back to florence in time to prepare the usual thursday night simple supper and bible study. it was 2 great days and a really great way to get us back into the swing of things after having to say goodbye to my parents. thank you valentino and mario!