PEANUT BUTTER GELATO!

January 25, 2011

Today was a pretty ordinary day! In art history class we learned all about Saint Francis of Assisi and it was so extremely interesting! We were told of his life story depicted by these frescos in church walls. On Thursday we are going to go to Santa Croce and actually see the paintings in real life and our teacher said we should be pleasantly surprised by what we see.

After art history we decided that we wanted to go take our temporary internet pen drives back so we don't get charged. (I must point out that the weather predictions for Florence always seem to be wrong because I wore my sunglasses to school and when we left school it was raining and of course I thought I left my umbrella at home, but actually once I got home to grab it before we went grocery shopping it was in the bottom of my bookbag...just my luck!) Once we got back to the apartment we wanted to go back out and check out this grocery store we have discovered near our apartment called Conad. It's a pretty big grocery store, but certain prices in Florence are much higher for the simplest and cheapest things that you would find in America. But I ended up getting a brown paper grocery bag that was packed full of things, plus a big box of cereal that wouldn't fit for 23 euro...I think that's pretty awesome!

I have been dying to have a hot dog here, but their hot dogs are so small..they would barely fill 2/3 of a normal sized hot dog bun in the States. However, when we were in Conad I found Heinz baked beans, so I bought a can of them, broke down and bought the baby hot dogs, and made "weins and beans" for dinner. It sounds so simple, but it was so comforting and so yummy! I also have been trying to have warm things for dinner and whatnot because every single person I go to school with is sick...(we call it the Bubonic Plague)..and I'm determined to be the last one standing that doesn't get sick!

After dinner Marissa, Danielle, and I decided to FINALLY go down the street and buy gelato from this one place we bought hot chocolate that was so thick it tasted like we were eating Hershey's syrup. I noticed they had peanut butter gelato with chocolate and peanuts drizzled on top, so I have been dying to go back ever since...and last night was the night! I was able to get a cup of gelato that is 3 times the size of our other favorite gelato place (dei Neri) for only 50 cents more! And you even got this cookie wafer on top for free! It literally was the most delicious thing ever, but on the scale of gelato on one end and ice cream on the other, this gelato was about in the middle..it had more of an ice cream texture than the hardcore gelato we've had. But I really didn't care, and would go back every single day if my budget allowed for that!

After gelato I did some homework, showered, and got on my computer to skype mom, dad, and grandpa! It was very very very nice talking to all of them, even though I was kicked off the internet in the middle of our conversation. But hopefully Thursday our internet issues will be figured out because all 7 of us girls in my apartment are meeting with the landlord to discuss not only the internet usage, but also the unbearable cold temperature in me and Marissa's room, and our lack of kitchen supplies! Cross your fingers that something will actually get 100% fixed this time!