New Audrey Pictures

There are a few last pictures posted to the 12-18 month album, and now a new 18-24 month album. She's growing up too fast!

Italy Pictures

Some of our Italy pictures are now posted on PicasaWeb -- as always, all our photo albums are linked in the right column.

Florence I

Yesterday was spent traveling from Cinque Terre to Florence. We stopped off in Pisa along the way to see the so-called "leaning tower." Too bad we don't currently have the capability to post pictures, but let's just say it was worth the stop. The tower is on a campus with a church and baptistry, so we toured these as well. After another freshly made deli sandwich, we continued on our way to Florence. The evening was spent getting settled into our hotel, doing our own walking tour of Florence, and enjoying our first pizza dinner here in Italy - very tasty!

Today was our first FULL day in Florence, and I mean that in every sense of the word. We woke up early for our 9am reservation at the Uffizi Gallery, the largest collection of art in Florence. The gallery is huge and amazing. It begins with primitive-looking religious art from the fourteenth century, and progressing through the almost 45 rooms which wind their way in a horseshoe shape, ends up in the eighteenth century, so you can see the advances in style and technique unfold before your eyes. And of course, there are some big names there as well -- It boasts work by artists such as Botticelli (including the Birth of Venus), Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Rafael and Leonardo Da Vinci. It was a mentally-exhausting, nearly 5 hour tour, but a rewarding experience.

We had lunch at a delightful little wine bar, or "Enoteca" that we happened upon. We sat with our sandwiches and shared glass of wine, then after much debate and some wasted walking, decided to go to the Pitti Palace. Here, we toured a portion of the science museum which is temporarily on display, which details the scientific developments that occurred in Florence under the Medicis, including the rediscovery of Euclid's works on geometry, original discoveries of Galileo obtained using his newly-developed telescope (an original was on display!), and various tools developed during this time used for navigation, astronomy, and engineering. Our ticket also allowed us to tour the palace gardens, which consisted of well-manicured lawns and shubbery, sculptures, fountains, and a terrace with a beautiful view. This was somewhat different from what we expected (no flowers), but was still a nice escape from the bustling, noisy city, and the mental effort required by museums.

Dinner was at La Trattoria Marione. A very charismatic waiter ushered us in, and convinced us to let him surprise us with two pasta dishes. We ended up with ravioli and spaghetti with meatsauce. Both were excellent, as was the €3 wine. We topped off the meal with Tiramisu.

After a short rest at our hotel, we were persuaded to drag our tired feet out one last time to visit a unique-looking exhibit on the Impressionists just a block from our hotel. This turned out to be a terrific complement to our Uffizi tour, as it picked up where the Uffizi left off. Starting from one or two neo-Classical paintings, it walked you through impressionism, with a focus on the techniques and technology used by the impressionists to create their paintings. It also let you in on some of the controversy surrounding their work -- critics said that this new style of painting looked like mere unfinished sketches. By the end, combinded with the Uffizi, it felt like we had received a miniature course in art history.

So all in all, a very long day (three museums!). But it was worth it.

Cinque Terre

Despite last night being our first real sleep in two days, we woke up fairly refreshed at 8:00, had croissants and cappucino at the local coffee bar where we bought our phone card, and set out on our hike of the Cinque Terre. These five towns, part of a recently-established national park and World Heritage site, are connected by seven miles of hiking trail. Each town is set on a (steep) hillside by the sea, and consists of little more than a single narrow, uphill street, surrounded by colorfully painted buildings.

The first leg of the trail, from our "home" of Riomaggiore to neighboring Manarola, is called "la Via del Amore," after the young couples that frequent it. It is flat and easy, only about 20 minutes walk. In Manarola, which is prettier than Riomaggiore, we watched a short movie at the wine museum about the local dessert wine "Stracciatella." Evidently they have been making it for many centuries.

After a short walk around town, we continued on the trail to Corniglia. This trail was longer and slightly harder, taking a little over an hour. We got lots of great seaside views of the clear, blue-green water, and the amazingly regular boulders at the bottom. As we approached Corniglia, we skipped the nude beach (a decision, however, which we questioned somewhat as the day got hotter), and proceeded up the 384 steps to the town, which unlike the others is perched high on a hilltop. We bought a picture from a local artist camped at the bottom of the stairs. In Corniglia we ate our first deli-bought ham, (local) cheese, and (to-die-for) salami sandwich, which is a cheap, delicious, and fun way to eat lunch.

Onward to Vernazza! This section of trail was much hillier, much rockier, much longer (about 1.5 hours), and (due to the time of day) much hotter. Tara's flip-flops really got a workout on this one. This trail was more through the forest above the sea, so we didn't get as many views to go with our workout. We also passed an enterprising guy who set up a restaurant halfway along the trail, but since he wouldn't fill our water bottle we continued on. Eventually we made it to Vernazza, which was a little bigger and busier. We had our gelato of the day here.

We skipped the last trail segment, which is 2 hours long and even rockier than the previous one. Instead we took the train to Monterosso, which is the busiest and beachiest of the five towns. Having lost all of our posessions on the flight over, we were excited to find a few cheap clothes here -- a shirt for Tara and some shorts for Scott. After a stroll around town and some pizza focaccia, our tired feet carried us back to the train station to make our way home. Dinner in Riomaggiore was at a nice seafood place, with some amazing pesto linguini, swordfish with marinara, and a half-bottle of local wine.

We really enjoyed this day of our trip. The combination of hiking through the seaside scenery and strolling through small, tradition-filled towns was an ideal first day of our vacation.

(pictures to follow)

New videos

Okay, more videos are up! I've backdated some of them so they show up in the proper order. To see them all, click on the "videos" link on the right hand side of the page, under "labels." Or just click here.

For me?

Audrey teases.

Rocking Chair Madness

Audrey also likes to play in the rocking chair.

Wastefulness

I couple of things have contributed to this idea over the last few months. First, the recently skyrocketing price of commodities -- oil obviously, but also food. Second, the cyclically popular idea that there will soon be more people than the earth can sustain. And third, I've started reading Jared Diamond's "Collapse," which analyzes how societies can succeed or fail to overcome environmental challenges, and the consequences of that success or failure. The overall themes leading to this post are thus increasing demand for limited resources, especially food.

Now, something I've been thinking of increasingly over the last few weeks is that, while rich people can afford a doubling of food prices, poor people cannot. For example, while Tara and I are not overly wealthy, food accounts for only 5% of our monthly spending (rent and daycare are exorbitant in Boston). If that doubled to 10%, we would hardly notice. However, in poor countries many people spend the majority of their income on food. What happens to them when food prices double?

Unfortunately, while the poor suffer most from rising food prices, they also have the least control over them -- I think that rich countries essentially set the price of food. For, one of the greatest expenses involved in growing food is the fuel necessary to plant, harvest, and transport it to market. And it is rich and developing countries, with our ever-increasing demand for energy, that are driving the rapid rise in the cost of fuel, and hence, in the cost of food as well. (Note that I'm a fairly confident believer in efficient markets -- that is, for example, that the price of oil and food is more or less determined by supply and demand, rather than any conspiracy among oil companies.)

So the problem sounds depressingly complicated. But as I was doing the dishes the other day, I was convicted by the very simple fact that, in scraping some leftover food into the garbage, I was wasting food. And in cleaning out spoiled leftovers from the fridge, I realized that these, too, were wasted meals that could have been eaten. And what about meat? It's oh-so-tasty, I agree, but we eat far more than we really need, and it takes dozens of pounds of grain to grow 1 pound of meat (great article). Over time, these small acts add up, causing our contribution to global food demand to be higher than it otherwise might be. This undoubtedly increases prices by some not-insignificant amount, and we already saw that the poor suffer most for this.

So what can we do? Of course, in a nation where overconsumption of food is becoming a huge medical problem, it would be silly to advocate "cleaning your plate" if you're already full. But what if we simply put less food on our plates -- eating more, smaller helpings just until full, instead of piling the food on high initially (are you listening, Cheesecake Factory)? What if we diligently ate all of the leftovers in the fridge instead of letting them go bad? And while I have no desire to give up burgers and bratwurst, I could probably live with smaller ones.

Think about it.

Spanish Tapas

• Spanish Tortilla (a potato & onion omelet)
• Gambas al Ajillo (garlic sautéed shrimp)
• French bread & olive oil
• Manchego Cheese
• Chianti

So, I started off wanting some Manchego cheese, but Tara wanted more than that -- the rest just kind of emerged from the Spanish starting point. It really wasn't that hard -- things kind of pace themselves automatically. You slice the onion after starting the potatoes, and then do the shrimp while the tortilla is cooking, and it all finishes at abut the same time. It's a light and refreshing meal.

Grandma's Banana Bread

A recipe from my late grandmother, preserved for posterity in that great repository of deliciousness, the church cookbook. This was also an excuse to try out the mini loaf pans that Tara persuaded me to order over the holidays (it took a lot of persuasion).

• 3 mashed bananas
• 0.5 cups butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 Tbsp. Milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
  
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt

Cream butter and sugar, then add bananas, milk, vanilla, eggs. Whisk together dry ingredients and fold into wet, stirring only enough to bring batter together. Pour into greased mini loaf pans, and bake at 375 until risen and golden on top (I'm not actually sure how long -- the recipe said 1 hour, but that got them a little burned).