Day of Accomplishments!

February 4, 2011

This morning Marissa and I woke up feeling ready to go accomplish things because today is the day we have titled “The Day of Accomplishments!” Being here for a few weeks we have drummed up a little list of things that we have been wanting to do, so today is the day we set out to check those things off our list! All of my roommates and I woke up early, got ready, and headed to the Duomo because checklist item #1 is: Climb the Duomo. There are 836 stairs leading to the top of the dome of the Duomo and you better believe that we climbed them all. Lauren has been extremely nervous to climb the steps because she is claustrophobic and thought we would be pretty confined going up. We started off climbing normal square steps and noticed there were these neat cutouts in the wall that you could see the city from which showed you how far up you have gone so far. After the square steps we encountered the dreaded spiral stairs which twisted so hard and abruptly that you got dizzy walking up like 8 of them! We got to a point where it was like a platform and there were statues of people as well as statue-type things on the wall. We took a few pictures of them and it was back to climbing more stairs! There were signs all over saying “Do Not Write On Walls,” but there was writing all over the stairs and walls of the stairwells. We were walking along and got to more square steps that we were extremely steep, but nothing compares to one of the last set of stairs that was practically vertical! Thank goodness there was a railing because it was definitely a hike to get up them, and once at the top of the vertical stairs we saw about 5 or so really tall steps with light at the top! We made it! We came at a really good time because when we reached the top there weren’t many people around the dome and walking along the stairs wasn’t crowded at all. We started soaking in the view of the entire city around the dome (and soaked in the sunshine…it was about 57 degrees)…it was BREATHTAKING! 

And the stairs begin!

Level #1

Level #2

The platform with the statues.

The start of the spiral stairs!

All of the signs said "Do Not Write on the Walls"...and notice all of the graffiti behind my head.

The section of cathedral where Danielle and I go to English mass.

The paintings along the inside of the dome.

Lauren looks to see how far we are.

We're getting close!

The vertical wall of stairs.

Almost to the top!

We finally made it!

The Bell Tower.

We took a ton of pictures even though most of them all look the same – red roofs on buildings with mountains in the background. We were able to find and point out quite a few things like Santa Croce, the Arno River, Santa Maria Novella (the train station), and many other landmarks in town. When you looked over the rail at the people in the streets they looked like ants..we truly were on top of the world. At one point we were into action shots of each other with the view in the background, so we would jump and try and get the person in mid-air, and this Italian man stood and watched us and laughed and laughed when Marissa was trying to take a picture of Danielle jumping and each time Marissa would be like “Dang, too late…try it again…Whoops didn’t catch it, one more time! Yep, I missed it again, can you maybe pause in the air?” It was hilarious! But during our picture taking of each other we had this group of Asian guys come over to us and we thought they were asking us to take a picture of them as a group so were like “sure!” and reached for their camera when we realized that they were asking to get a picture WITH them, and they had this one girl take a picture of all of us…too funny! And then all of a sudden we see these Asian girls approach Marissa and ask for a picture with her, and then with Lauren and it was so funny to watch them pose because they would always throw up the peace sign! We giggled so hard, but it was definitely something eventful to add to our list of accomplishments! Once we were all pictured-out we decided to walk back down the stairs which we thought would be easier than walking up, but we were definitely wrong! Once we reached the bottom and were outside we all tried stretching out our legs…they were so sore and so tight! 

Lauren's nifty photographer skills!
(did you see Danielle, Marissa, and I sitting on the bench in the background?)

One of the crazy action/jumping shots!

Hahahaha.

Our Asian friends who I have nicknames the Asian Beatles plus their groupie in red.

Roomies!

Climb the Duomo...check!

Me and Marissa looked at each other after stretching our legs and said that all of that walking worked up an appetite, therefore, it was time for the second item on our checklist: Eat a Tripe Sandwich. Tripe seems to be a pretty customary thing here in Italy and Marissa and I have been determined to try a tripe sandwich because we want to do as the Italians do! Boys from our school told us that they have tried it with barbecue sauce on top and reminds them of a pulled pork sandwich. We headed to the inside market because we thought they sold tripe sandwiches in there, but couldn’t understand their menu, so we headed outside of the market to the little stand at the end of our street by the market that sold tripe sandwiches. I went first and told the guy I wanted a tripe sandwich and he asked me which kind so I told him whatever one is more popular, which I guess was the Trippe alla Fiorentina (or something like that?). He asked me if I wanted everything on it and if I wanted spicy and I told sure, load it on! 3 euro later I was holding a tripe sandwich, and too afraid to try it until Marissa had hers. There were these 3 guys standing by the stand eating their tripe sandwiches and were giggling at me and Marissa as they saw us being extremely hesitant to take the first bite. We both dived in and our first thoughts were, “Hey this isn’t too bad!” My first few bites were really spicy and I didn’t really think I was eating tripe, UNTIL a few bites into it I bit into a chunk of something white that was really tough and there was  no way I was eating it, so I spit it out and then it got to my head that I was eating cow’s stomach…like what was I thinking!? Me and Marissa looked at each other and both agreed that we had eaten about half our sandwich so we could officially claim that we ate a tripe sandwich and check it off the list, but it was now time to throw these things away and get a pop to wash it down and get something else to eat because we were still hungry! We were near this little kebab shop so we ordered one kebab (basically like a wrap with shaved meat in it and lettuce and a few other things in it) and decided to split it. We took our kebabs and pop outside and started eating it when I said “Why are we so stupid!?”…the kebab meat was almost the same consistency as tripe..what were we thinking!?

About to check off #2!

Marissa dives in with a look of fear.

"I can do this!"

"What am I doing!?"

Clearly we needed something else on our palettes, so we headed to item #3 on our list: Chocolate Fair. From February 4 through the 13^th there is a chocolate fair in Santa Croce, which isn’t too far from school or our house. We ended up walking near a place where I found some lotion for a reasonable price (finding lotion in general is a big enough issue itself!) on our way to Santa Croce, so I definitely bought one bottle…bonus accomplishment! Before we knew it we were at Santa Croce and saw these huge white tents with a ton of stands underneath of them, and a ton of chocolate! There was hot chocolate, chocolate with nuts, chocolate truffles, chocolate covered fruit, chocolate shoes, chocolate rum…chocolate everything! We were running around to every stand and were able to get a couple samples, one of which was a sample of the chocolate rum. At first we were like wow this is good chocolate, and then all of a sudden it was like wow that’s definitely rum! After we basked in all of the chocolate it was time to figure out what we wanted to buy! Marissa and Danielle got chocolate covered bananas rolled in nuts, and Lauren bought chocolate covered strawberries. I was frantically looking around for this one stand in particular that had dark chocolate covered almonds, but with all of the stands practically looking the same I thought I would never be able to find it again, but all of a sudden Lauren pointed me in the right direction and I got some dark chocolate covered almonds, milk chocolate covered nocciola, and one dark chocolate truffle…YUM. The truffle melted in my mouth, it was unspeakably delicious, as were my chocolate covered nuts! It was definitely hard to refrain from eating all of them! 

Chocolate tools!

Chocolate Rum!

Truffles Galore!

Chocolate shoes!

A Chocolate Kebab

Chocolate ducks? Playing instruments?

Do you want to fondue?

Dark chocolate covered almonds, milk chocolate covered nocciola (hazelnuts),
and a dark chocolate truffle!

Can you say YUM!?

Go to the Chocolate Fair...check!

Once we had our chocolate fill we decided it was time to move on to the fourth and last thing on our list: Climb to Piazza Michelangelo at Sunset. We made our way across the Arno River and found signs leading us in the right direction. We reached this arch over the street and as we looked through we noticed the street was a pretty steep incline. To top the street being practically vertical, we got to the point where the signs pointed us left and when we looked to our left all we saw was more STEPS. I started to think that maybe today should be titled “The Day of a Million Steps” instead of “The Day of Accomplishments.” The steps were weird long steps that slowly were inclined..it almost was if you weren’t really walking up steps until we got high enough and discovered more steps that were actually steps! However, once we reached the top we agreed that every single step was more than worth it! We had a view of the whole city as well as the countryside and once again we were at a loss for words. We stood just gazing for a while and took a few pictures just soaking in everything as well as the sun. We decided to walk to the other end to see more the trees and countryside and discovered a man playing his guitar..what a way to add to the beauty and peacefulness! We decided to take a break on this bench where Danielle discovered her name carved in the bench…I think it was meant to be! We sat for a while and took some more pictures when we decided to start looking at the vendors. It didn’t take long before we figured out that the prices of the items up here are like half the price of the vendors down in the streets where we live! We took advantage of that and I bought this zip up Italia hoodie for 10 euro, as well as a little gift for Aunt Kay because it was too cute and too perfect to not buy it! We walked around a little more before we walked over to the steps that led down to another level and sat on the steps and basked in the sun for quite a while. What a beautiful place we live in! After a while we decided to head back down and go home.

The beginning of the inclining steps.

Once we got to the top of the inclining steps we discovered...more steps!

Look at that view!

Another statue of David.

The Arno River with all of the bridges, the closest one being the Ponte Vecchio.

Danielle with her name carved into the stone bench.

Soakin up some rays on the steps.

Livin life on top of the world!

Roomies!

Our list is complete!

Of course we walked up an appetite again so I decided to try and make pasta with the sauce we were taught in our cooking class. It turned out pretty good, but still wasn’t quite the same as at In Travola, but I practically ruined my whole dinner when I went to drain the noodles, and not realizing it was angel hair pasta, almost half of my noodles slipped out the lip of the pan and into the sink. Luckily Danielle had some extra linguini noodles from the other night that I was able to use. After dinner Marissa and I wanted to go the train station to look up ticket prices to go to Cortona tomorrow for a day trip. Aunt Lisa Phillips has persistently told me to go to Cortona and find Bramasole (the house in Under the Tuscan Sun) while I’m in Italy, and I’m more than willing to go and find it for her because I know how much she loves that book, and because I know Cortona is going to be beautiful! We discovered in the train station that tickets are only 7.30 euro each way, so we were sold on the idea of going to Cortona tomorrow! On the way back Marissa suggested we get some gelato and pointed out this one shop that she said is never open during the day, only at night, so it must be a hidden secret and must be good, right? So we went in and I got 2 euro cone with half Oreo and half chocolate with hazelnuts mixed in it. After Marissa saw how skimpy the woman put my gelato on the cone she decided she didn’t want any. We walked out and I told her my gelato really wasn’t that great..there were like ice chunks in my oreo gelato. Marissa said we should go to our favorite little place near our house and to make up for the fact that it was her idea to go the first gelato shop in which I got crappy gelato she would buy me a new cone. We got to our favorite little place and there was a new flavor, Rose Water, so of course I had to try it…but I kinda wish I wouldn’t have because it tasted how roses smell…it wasn’t good! Marissa asked me if that’s what I wanted on the cone she was buying me and bluntly I said “NO!” and the guy working the counter (who of course knows us by now) burst out laughing. I got half peanut butter and half strawberry which reminded me of a PB&J sandwich. The strawberry was out of this world! I’d say it was perfect ending to a day of accomplishments with accomplishments in mind for tomorrow!