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!

Barcelona and Iron and Wine!

January 24, 2011

It’s the second week of school! It seems so unreal because I feel like we have been here for so long! Italian class is so wonderful because the more we learn the better off we are going around the city – we are all so eager to know how to communicate with everyone around us. I only have Comparative Media once a week which means the class is 2 and a half hours long…I honestly don’t think I could last much longer than that! I feel like Fabio (our teacher) is a great man, but I feel like I just don’t have enough previous knowledge to understand what he is talking about, or answer the questions he asks. Hopefully everything will fall into place, and it’s not like I don’t have friends in the class that are communication/journalism majors that can help me out. Our European Issues teacher terrified everyone in our class last Thursday by saying her class was difficult and so literally more than half of our class dropped out. I think she realized she put forth such a strong impression that she started off class by saying she is here to support us and help us out with every single one of our worries and that if we come to class every single time then we should be more than fine when it comes to test days….that made me feel a thousand times better about that class! And I actually really enjoyed her lecture and found it to be extremely interesting and I was able to pay attention the whole time. When we got home from school Marissa had found a crazy crazy cheap flight to Barcelona, so we decided to book it because all of us are dying to go to Spain and the price was so good that it would be stupid not to book it. Now we can check that one off our list!

Our roommate Claire’s friend Nick and his roommate Ryan invited us over to their house tonight if we were interested in going to Pompeii this coming weekend or if we were interested in going to the Iron and Wine concert February 12^th in Bologna. They told us they would cook us pasta and veggies if we wanted to bring something over to contribute. Only Lauren and I were interested in going to the Iron and Wine concert, so we made our way over there, but when we got there they said we were too late for our dinner contributions (onion and tomato) to be added to the pasta, but they still made some for us to eat. They talked about their Pompeii trip and then Lauren and I realized we wanted some gelato because the best gelato place is right down the street from their apartment. Jesse (one of the other roommates) took me and Lauren to the gelato shop and I got probably the greatest combo of gelato in the entire world…Nocciola di Soya e Nutella in a waffle cone! YUMMMM! When we got back Ryan showed Lauren and I how to buy our concert tickets for Iron and Wine and for some reason Lauren’s credit card wasn’t working, so we just wanted to come home and figure it out here. Jesse walked Claire, Lauren, and I home and we ended up figuring out the ticket situation…success!

Tuscany Wine Tour!

January 23, 2011

Today was another early morning! We had to meet at the train station at 8 a.m. to get on our “Private Coach Bus” as a group. Once we got into the train station and the location they told us to meet at we realized that we were basically the only college students and we would be traveling around Tuscany with a Brazilian couple who wouldn’t stop kissing, two girls from New Zealand, and quite a few cute old ladies. On the bus they explained where we were going and informed us that parts of the Twilight movie New Moon and the movie Under the Tuscan Sun (or as the Italians say it, “Under the Sun of Tuscany”) were filmed in areas where we would be walking today. So on our hour and a half bus ride to Montepulciano they played the movie New Moon – in Italian! Haha. But the scenery on the bus ride was so incredible! We were among the rolling hills some of which were snow covered, some were extremely green, some were covered by farm land, some covered by houses…it was beautiful! Our bus ride was awfully curvy going up hills, down hills, around hills, spiraling every which way. 

When we stepped off the bus in Montepulciano there was snow covering the roofs of buildings, the hills, the trees…it was truly a winter wonderland! The streets of Montepulciano are practically vertical and are very curvy and you will notice that the buildings in the city curve with the streets and the roof of one building could be at the same height as a base of another building – that’s how steep the streets are! But walking the streets fulfilled every single vision I have ever had about Italy. We walked along this one street where if there was a break between buildings on the left you would overlook the hills, and if you looked to the right you would normally find steps that would lead higher and higher behind buildings. We made a stop to use the restroom and to warm up at this coffee shop which had the most delicious-looking pastries – it was the oldest coffee shop in Montepulciano that had an amazing view! 

We continued down the streets as our tour guide would tell us different little stories about the city and the streets and we found ourselves at Rosso and Nobile di Montepulciano for a wine cellar tour and tasting! We were each given a wine glass with a white napkin for the tasting after being explained the incredible wine cellar’s history. We learned the white napkin is to judge the color of the wine, and we were also given bread with olive oil throughout the tasting. We had 3 different wines, all of which were of different age which gave it the different flavors. Not only did the wine contain grapes, but there was also plum in the wine as well. The first one which was the youngest wine was my favorite, but the older two weren’t bad either. After our tasting we walked more and wound up in Piazza Grande in which the parts of the movies were filmed. The one building in the Piazza was a courthouse and another was a church in which Danielle and I both lit two candles. We had free time to go explore more and get lunch. We ate at this little trattoria where I got Zuppa Toscana soup. Let me just say that Olive Garden’s Zuppa Toscana soup is nothing like what I had! My soup was kinda like a bean soup and was so extremely delicious and filling, but I still tried a piece of Lauren’s pizza which was topped with spinach and ricotta. I ended up getting this apple pie-ish pastry from the coffe shop and ate it on the bus to our next stop which was Pienza. 

Pienza was an extremely small town with not a whole lot in it, but our tour guide explained the church which he was disappointed to find was closed, so we couldn’t tour the inside of it. So we walked to this cheese shop for a tasting of Pecorino cheese, and I could smell the cheese at least 500 feet before we actually entered the building! We got inside and a woman had prepared three different versions of Pecorino cheese for us to taste: one cheese was partially seasoned, one was seasoned for 6 months, and the last was seasoned for longer than 6 months. The more aged the cheese the harder and more crumbly it was and the stronger the taste..I kinda only liked the partially seasoned one because the others were a tad dry and strong for me. Since the church in Pienza was closed they decided to take us to this church that was in a valley and was of a romantic style. It was crazy to think that earlier in the morning we were freezing because of the snow, and once we arrived at the church it was so green and sunny! Lauren and I had an epiphany walking around the church because everything around us was so beautiful and we couldn’t even imagine what our lives would be like if we never visited Europe, or came here on this trip! I have realized that I would take out 12 loans if I had to in order to come here because this experience is worth more than anything in my life. 

After our pit stop at the church we made our way to our second tasting and last stop on the tour! We were greeted by the owner Mario who was a precious old man. We were shown the bathroom which weren’t inside the building, but rather just inside a little door from the outside which meant the toilet seats felt like ice cubes! We went inside and after our tour guide translated what Mario said we found out that Mario’s shop is not only a wine cellar, but also a museum that contained very old tools. He showed us the huge stainless steel containers where the grapes start becoming wine. He explained the green glass pieces that sit on top of the wooden oak barrels. The glass piece shows the amount of wine that is inside the barrel because it will continue to evaporate and more wine may need to be added. Also, water is placed on the top tier which allows gas bubbles to escape the barrel, but won’t allow air from the outside to enter. After the tour of his enormous wine cellar he took us through this underground tunnel into the area in which we had our tasting. 

They had these two tables all decked out with 2 large wine glasses, one small wine glass, silverware, and a little plate with bruschetta topped with olive oil and tomatoes. Our first wine was the youngest wine called Rosso di Montalcino, and was placed into the smaller glass. We then went on to taste the same wine called Brunello di Montalcino, but one was a 2005 and the other was a 2003. It’s crazy how a two year difference changes the taste so dramatically! All throughout the tasting of these wines we were brought out a tray of three different meats and a large basket of bread. Before our last wine we were given Pecorino cheese and a shot of Grappa which put everyone over the top! The owner Mario passed the mini shots of Grappa around and counted down for everyone to take the shot at the same time. Grappa is the nastiest and strongest alcohol I have ever tasted in my entire life and it made everyone instantly warm! Our last wine was called Brunello di Montalcino Vigna “Piaggia and was considered the daddy of all wines. It was a tad too strong for me, but I could tell it was definitely a really nice wine, especially with the company of the Pecorino cheese. I ended up buying the 2005 version of Brunello di Montalcino, and Mario gave us an extremely good discount on the purchase. We gave our thanks to Mario and his wife and headed back to the bus for the ride home. They ended up playing Under the Tuscan Sun on the ride home and it was really good, but we weren’t on the bus long enough to finish it, so hopefully when I get home I can watch it again! I would definitely claim today as the best day in my entire life, I have never seen such beautiful things or be at such a loss of words…I just can’t believe I feel this way and it’s only the 3^rd weekend we’ve been here! :]

You can see how the buildings curve with the winding streets of the city.

The bell ringer on the top of the clock tower.

Snow capped buildings!

This street was much steeper than the picture portrays!

The amazing view through the small breaks between buildings.

Montepulciano!

Rosso and Nobile di Montepulciano (the place of the 1st wine tasting)

Inside the wine cellar.

Part of the piazza in which New Moon and Under the Tuscan Sun were filmed.

The church in the same Piazza.

The doors that Bella and Edward ran through during New Moon (inside the Townhall)

The candles Danielle and I lit inside the church.

Zuppa Toscana soup!

The lady freshly cut our samples of Pecorino.

Cheese, jams, and wine.

The mutli flavors/aged versions of Pecorino.

The three different types of Pecorino we tasted.

Down in the valley.

The beautiful Romantic-style church.

Snow earlier in the day, the bright beautiful sunshine just a few hours later!

The sunset at our last stop!

The place of our last wine tasting.

Owner Mario explains the vinification process with the large stainless steel barrels behind him.

Mario explains the toppers on the wooden oak barrels.

Our three wine glasses and the beginning of the meat and bread selection.

It only took one shot of Grappa!

Roomies at our first wine tasting! (Lauren, Marissa, me, Danielle)

All of the girls and Mario!

Leaning Tower of Pisa!

January 22, 2011

Today my roommates and I woke up really early to catch the 8:28 train to Pisa. Our teachers recommended we get to the train stating between 30 and 40 minutes before our train is actually supposed to leave until we’re comfortable with the trains. So we got there extremely early and saw there was a train to Pisa departing at 8:05 and were debating whether or not we should take that train and ended up deciding we would rather just wait for the train we initially wanted to catch. Well, 8:15 rolled around we aren’t seeing any train to Pisa departing any earlier than 8:53, and the 8:28 train was heading to a town we had never heard of. We ended up asking people and we got all confused and conflicted and ended up just waiting for the 8:53 train. We all validated our tickets, and boarded our very first train! It was about an hour or so train ride and was rather quite relaxing. 

We got off at Pisa and made our way out of the train station discovering we had no clue where the leaning tower was located in regards to the train station. We ended up finding a map and this guy came up to us explaining where the tower was located on the map, and little did we know the guy was actually hoping to get money out of us so with a general idea of where the leaning tower of Pisa was located we took off in a quick trot across the street. It ended up being basically a straight shot to the tower and we quickly realized Pisa was a small town that was extremely quiet and seemed very deserted. We crossed a bridge which we ended up figuring out is actually the Arno River, the same river that the Ponte Vecchio crosses over. It seemed as if we were walking down the street when all of a sudden there was the church and leaning tower of Pisa! It was HILARIOUS to see all of these people standing on top of these short cement posts with their hands out either pretending they were pushing the tower down or standing it back up. Like literally these posts line the entire street practically and almost every other one of the posts had someone standing there posing…it was great! However, honestly that’s why everyone goes there, so we soon accepted the humility and started posing on the blocks with the tower. When it was my turn on the block somehow Marissa offered or was asked to take pictures of this one girl who seemed to be by herself. We got her all set up and posed right and started talking to her and realized she’s a student for the States that is studying abroad here for a semester as well! Her name is Kaila (of course I was happy to find another “Kayla” with a different spelling) and she’s from Arizona. She didn’t come here with anyone else from her home school and told us that her college here in Italy is full of foreign students who she can’t really communicate to, so she has been traveling alone! Luckily she found us and we brought her in under our wings. 

We all went out to lunch (it was hard finding a place that was actually open!) at this cute ristorante. This Italian man welcomed us in, but when we walked in the workers there were eating lunch themselves and our waiter was in sweatpants. I guess we got there earlier than their actually lunch time, but they still brought us in and made us food. I saw this menu special posted outside the restaurant and decided to get it..it was a 3 course meal for 8,50 Euro…what  a deal! It ended up being Penne al Bolognese (pasta with meat sauce) as the first course, a huge hunk of chicken, a slab of pork (or lamb?), and potatoes as my second course, and a fresh fruit cup filled with banana, kiwi, apples, and blood oranges and my dessert or final course. Let’s just say that my meal was definitely enough food to feed two parents and their one child, but of course I ate every single morsel! We realized that there really was nothing else to do in Pisa, so we went back to the train station and just came back to Florence. 

Danielle and I relaxed for a little bit, and then headed off to English mass at the Duomo at 5. We entered the Duomo all bundled up and in jeans after learning our lesson the first time, but we were seated in a completely different section in front of a completely different altar. The mass only lasted 45 minutes, which we realized is probably due to the fact that they don’t play any songs, which I find highly disappointing. Danielle and I both lit candles before leaving which was really nice and sentimental (Danielle lit two and I lit three; one for Grandma Phillips, one for Grandma Snay, and one for Grandpa Snay). We thought there was a Florence Wine Festival going on which we planned on going to after church, but Marissa called us right before we got into church and told us we looked at the dates wrong and it was in November, so we just stayed in and I skyped with mom and dad and Joe until I realized I needed to shower and get to bed so I could get up early for our Tuscany trip!

This cute little church was built right into the bridge along the river!

The Arno River in Pisa

The infamous Leaning Tower of Pisa

For those that know me, my mouth is definitely big enough to blow it over.

But I felt bad for blowing it over, so I picked it back up :]

First train ride! (Lauren and I)