History lesson and day of churches

Today we met Sara. We knew the forecast called for rain, so we dressed accordingly. We were walking towards the train station where we were to meet Sara, and Arrigo got a text message from her. She told him she arrived at the station early and just as he read the text, Sara was in front of us. Arrigo had never met Sara before, and I definitely hadn't, but we have seen pictures of her, so we recognized her right away. We greeted her in typical Italian style - a kiss on each cheek. We spent the entire day with her and had a great time, and at the same time learning about the history of Firenze. The first church we went to was Santa Maria Novella, but it wasn't open to the public yet. We wandered over to Santa Croce, which is also a museum, and on the way we stopped at one of the oldest pharmacies in the world called Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella. It was established in 1221, and it's where the rich go to buy their lotions and potions. The museum and church at Santa Croce are amazing, just like all the other churches here. Michelangelo and Galileo were buried here. There is so much history here in Florence, not unlike all of Italy. The churches here make churches in Edmonton look like houses. The Basilica in Edmonton would be a corner church here. Even the corner, out-of-the-way churches have prcieless works of art by Michelangelo and other masters of architecture, painting and sculpture. From there, we went for lunch at a small (like a lot of restaurants here) cafe right beside the Ponte Vecchio Bridge. By this time it was pouring rain and it was nice to be inside and stay dry. We had soup called Ribolatti - a bread and bean soup that is boiled over and over again. The more times it's boiled, the better it tastes. This soup was like a meal. I also had pici, sort of like broad spaghetti noodles> I forget what kind of sauce it had, but it was delicious. We showed Sara some videos of the family, the same videos we showed Fanny and Pierina. Well, staying dry only lasted as long as it took to eat lunch; it was raining hard outside, so I bought a cheap rain poncho for four euros.