Vireggio, Famiglia in Prato, Venice

Earlier this week my Italian class brought us to a market which isn't too far from my apartment. It is called Sant' Ambrogio market. There was fresh meat, fish, cheese, fresh pastas, bread, fruit and vegetables. I decided I am doing all my grocery shopping there from now on! Everything is so delicious looking and not very expensive. I am excited to take my mom and dad there. My mom will die and go to heaven, it is truly a cook's paradise.

 I thought this weekend would be fairly low key for me but it ended up being very busy and exciting! On Friday, Kenzie and Becca's friends Lena and Sarah were in town visiting Florence from Rome so we decided to meet up and I would show them a few spots. We ended up doing a full hour power tour seeing almost everything there is in Florence. I was actually very impressed with them and their energy! We walked to the top of the Duomo (well the thing next to the Duomo), saw Piazza Michelangelo, San Lorenzo market, got lunch, and did the whole Uffizi. We ended the day having dinner at Acqua al 2 which was really amazing. I was exhausted, but it was very fun. I was glad to have met up with them.

On Friday, Frank Lupia my dad's cousin picked me up to visit another cousin Cesare, in Prato a city near by Florence. Frank does not speak English, and I don't speak Italian. It was very interesting, but it wasn't too bad! We had to call Alessandra a couple times about questions he had for me, but overall it was not too bad and we got through it together! We couldn't visit Cesare until later in the day so Frank too me to Vireggio, a small beach city famous for it's Carnivale and seafood. I was really excited he brought me there because I was planning a day trip there anyways! We walked the pier, it was a lot of fun. You could see beach from one angle and sea from another. Frank and I had a HUGE lunch together of seafood carbonara, so so good! I tried clams, mussels, these little fish that looked like baby octopus, and I liked it all! None of it tasted fishy. We also had fried fish which was really delicious. I told him "no me va" that I was full but he proceeded to order two desserts, a caramel panna cotta and pistachio cake and gelato.

After Vireggio, we visited Cesare in Prato. Cesare is very sick, he has brain cancer and they are not sure how much longer he will make it. It was hard to meet someone for the first and last time all together. He seemed very optimistic and excited to see me. His daughter Tina can speak a bit of English but does not remember much since she only learned in school. We had a very nice time talking together. It was funny because the one thing everyone understood was how my dad can only speak Belcastrese (small Calabrian town dialect) and not proper Italian. All of the relatives get a kick out of that. They sent me off with cheese from Belcastro and Tadods (spelling?) a biscuit that my Nana Ida used to make. I am really lucky to have so much family in Italy that are willing to pick me up and bring me places. I might be planning a trip to Genova to see Frank's family again in March.


On Sunday, I woke up early and met a tour group called Florence for Fun for a day trip to Venice. It was a very very long day. Unfortunately it was soo cold, windy, and rainy. I hate letting weather affect my feelings about a city but it is difficult to do. I tried to be as optimistic as I could and enjoy my time there. Venice was very pretty and I enjoyed seeing all of the people dressed up in their Carnivale outfits. One woman was kneeling behind a stroller so you couldn't see her body and all you saw was her head on the body of a baby in a stroller! As people passed it was hilarious because as people would pass she would cry or smile or blow kisses. It was a very impressive costume I would say. I never got to ride a Gondola because it cost so much...80 for only 3 people but I took lots of pictures of people in them! I just need to picture riding the boat on Lake Latoka at the cabin is a Gondola. Overall, I would love to see Venice again in the summer time without the crowds or cold weather. The city was pretty in the rain, I can't imagine how it is in the sun.

This is my last entry until March 13th! I am going on Spring Break on Friday to Istanbul, Athens and Santorini Greece. I also have plenty of midterms and things I have to be planning for. Trying not to stress is difficult but once Friday hits I know I will feel much better.

Day Tripping Away: Siena, San Gimignano, Pisa and Lucca

This past week I bought my first pair of leather boots at the San Lorenzo market for 40 euros. I was really proud of myself! I like them a lot but am worried the cobblestone streets will ruin them before Minnesota winters do.

This past weekend I went to Siena, San Gimignano, Pisa and Lucca. I loved all of them! Siena and San Gimignano are known for really excellent wine, wild boar, saffron and truffles (mushroom truffles). Thought about bringing my mom home something but I couldn't find much around that would be transportable. And affordable...

In Siena I had Spaghetti Carbonara which is pasta in a egg sauce, so good. There were these rice dessert balls, started with an f...and now I am blanking out but they were deilcious! And only 4 for 1 euro, so cheap. My friend and I split them then later had to go back and get our own. I believe they were a traditional food for Siena. Really really tasty. They sell them in the middle of one of their main Piazzas where they do a famous horse race every summer. I also had some incredible cinnamon, chocolate and dried fruit gelato in San Gimignano. I think the woman said it was a type of cake they make locally.

Two of my room mates and I all cooked dinner together also this weekend which was fun. They are both in sororities so they do not do much cooking. They try really hard to experiment in the kitchen and they are always so sweet to me when I cook for them. They are amazed by the littlest things and always so complimentary. I should give my mom major props for showing me how to use a stove. We made gnocchi with sausage, red peppers and spicy tomato sauce. It was so delicious, I was proud of our team work. I am going through a huge spicy faze right now. I put hot sauce on every sandwich I get at the deli. Earlier when I first got here I was addicted to pesto on everything. Last night my room  mates and I made spicy shrimp linguine, it was so awesome. We had wine and stayed in and talked, those have been some of my favorite nights here! 

Out of all the cities I enjoyed Pisa the least. Some parts were cute but the river was really dirty and their was not much to look at (Florence's Arno is way better!).  We had to get a picture at the leaning tower though, of course. It was really funny to see everyone pretending to push it over all around. Both San Gimignano and Lucca were cities where cars are not able to drive down the streets. In Lucca everyone rides bikes inside the city walls. We had a group of 3 and the bikes required 2 people so we decided just to walk around instead of bike. I went with my room mates Lauren and Blaire and we all loved the city so much. It was so cute, so many little restaurants, cafes and boutiques. Everyone seemed to know each other and were really friendly. I would suggest to anyone to make sure to see Lucca at least during the same day as Pisa.

Kenzie Smith, Anna Czech and some of their St. Louis University Madrid friends came to Florence on Sunday and Monday of this week. Sunday was rainy and they seemed tired from their Rome travels (I feel their pain) so we took it easy on Sunday. Monday was beautiful and they got to see Piazza Michelangelo, San Lorenzo Market, The Duomo and other sites around Florence. We had dinner at Il Gatto E La Volpe which was so good, and I made sure to bring them to a favorite pastry shop of mine as well as an amazing sandwich shop called the Green Salami (Salameria Verde).
Mom and Dad we will be going there for lunch, it is so delicious and cheap! Definitely a mom and pop/hole in the wall kind of place.

I think the girls enjoyed San Lorenzo Market the most. Except we experienced a very bad run in with a vendor who was not happen when we asked for ten after he said fifteen. He screamed at us to leave and shouted other mean things. I am hoping  won't have to see him again...some people are just not very nice! We were really surprised because even though Florentines (he may have not been Italian) have the coldest personalities, I have never seen anything like that before. Oh well, we could've given him business!

Next weekend I am going to visit one of my dad's cousins named Caesare in Prato. Prato is a city I hear about often and very close to Florence. His cousin Frank from Genoa is picking me up and bringing me there to visit. Next weekend I am spending Friday in Prato and Saturday in Florence and then I head off to Venice for a day trip on Sunday. I am not going with any friends but with a student travel program so this might be interesting! But I wanted to travel alone somehow and this will halfway give me the chance. Venice has it's Carnivale where everyone wears masks. I am really excited!

Bologna, Chianti, Loving Traveling Italy

This week I decided to stay in Italy. I feel really lucky there are so many great places I can travel to for cheap and their is always endless amounts of things to do in Florence. Outside of Santa Croce, a huge church in Florence, there was a chocolate festival this week. Everything was super expensive, it was so hard to walk through and not buy everything in sight! They had strawberries in hot chocolate, truffles, chocolate liquor, but I ended up getting a white chocolate pistachio cannoli. It was so delicious!

On Thursday night a few friends and I went out of appertivo. I am not sure if I have mentioned what it was before, but it is one of my top favorite things they have in Italy that we don't have in the US. You buy a glass of wine, cocktail, beer, coke...any kind of drink you'd like for 6-8 euros and then you get a small plate and get endless amounts of food that is set out at the bar. There is always grilled eggplant (my new favorite thing, italians put eggplant in everything), pastas, breads, pizzas,
sandwiches..anything. It is such a great deal and the food has been so great. We went to a place near my apartment called Zoe, it is really cute and you can tell it is where the Italians go. I have been trying to avoid the American favorite places, they are not as much fun and definitely are more dangerous. The drink I ordered had strawberries, blackberries and whipped cream apparently. It was so delicious...the whipped cream was a pleasant surprise. I wanted to lick my glass empty but I realized that wasn't very bella figura of me. Bella figura is the idea Italians have of looking their best always. That is why women always wear fur or expensive boots and coats. Never sweat pants.

On Friday I took a day trip to Bologna. Bologna is famous for their university, bolognese sauce, and towers. I loved it there! It reminded me a lot of St. Paul. A city but not too huge, we pretty much knew where everything was by the end of the day. It was really cool to see college kids everywhere too, we never see that in Florence too often. We climbed the only tower (I believe) in Bologna that you are able to climb. It took forever and was very exhausting. I realized how out of shape I am...but when we got to the top it was absolutely breathtaking! We could see the entire city for miles and miles. We had a huge photo shoot and the top and called a lot of attention to ourselves. After that we went out looking for lunch and found a cute place that had a small menu and we could sit outside. My friend Kylie and I ordered the lasanga bolognese (we felt like we had to try it!) and the waiter heard us wrong and brought us something else. Oh well it was still delicious but I do feel a little strange going to Bologna without trying Bolognese. We shopped for a bit, went to a modern museum, and had appertivo before we headed home again. Overall, I loved loved loved the city. It was really cute and I would love to go back someday.

When I got back from Bologna it was around 9 pm and I had missed the last bus that brings me directly home. When I was waiting I met three girls visiting Florence from Barcelona. We had a great conversation when we waited a half hour for a different bus. I went home feeling really great and happy that I met such cool people. The girls gave great advice for me and my travels to Barcelona. It reminded me that studying abroad isn't just about traveling, but also meeting people from other places.

On Saturday I signed up through a local student travel program called florence for fun to do a chianti hike, wine tasting and lunch. It was amazing! It was a gloomy day, but the scenery was still beautiful. Plus it felt good to be doing some sort of physical activity. During our hike, our leader Stefano pointed out to us many believe the hills we saw were what many people believe to be the background of the Mona Lisa! After our hike we headed back to the house of a family who has a legacy for making wine and olive oil in the small chianti town called Panzano. He served us 3 different choices of his red wine including a chianti classico which can only be from this area of chianti. We also tried 2 different liquors and some olive oil. I bought a chianti classico and olive oil, I am going to try to bring the olive oil back home. Lorenzo the home owner made us a huge lunch with lots of prosciutto, delicious white beans in olive oil, salami, bread, penne with pesto and another penne with red sauce that actually reminded me a little of my Nana Ida's red sauce recipe. Everything was so delicious and spaced out for 3 hours so we were able to take everything in and really enjoy it.

 Chianti

The pasta that tasted like Nana Ida's sauce

It has been a very good week! Next week I might try to hit the last week of the sales and find myself a pair of really nice boots. I also booked my ticket to Greece (Athens and Santorini) and Istanbul, Turkey for Spring Break. We found a great deal and very direct flights--I can't wait!

My super athletic weekend in Switzerland (this is a joke)

Last week I cracked and went shopping at San Lorenzo Market. I ended up buying a dark green super warm infinity scarf (it wraps around and doesn’t have an end to it). I thought this was a reasonable purchase since I will be able to put it to good use in cold Minnesota. I also bought a pair of leather gloves which were never on my “to buy in Florence list” but theses are more young looking and very cute. I got a pretty good deal on them too if I do say so myself…13 euros down! They also have a huge indoor market where they sell fresh fish, wines, meat, and pastries, but my personal favorite find was the dried fruit section! I spent a whopping 5 euro on a ton of dried fruit but it was delicious and I might make that my weekly treat instead of gelato.

Last weekend I went to Switzerland with a student tourist program. We went to Interlaken and then took a day trip to Bern. We initially were signed up for night sledding, but due to all of our budgets we decided we would rather do a day trip instead. In Switzerland the Franc is almost equivalent to the US Dollar however their minimum wage is 15 Francs. Therefore all meals were 20 Francs, so we resorted to having very few meals mainly eating bread, cheese fondue, and chocolate. Not too shabby of food choices when we did come around to eating. Euros look not too horrible anymore compared to Switzerland! 

We found out the hard way that chocolate fondue is definitely a tourist, American stereotype of what is popular in Switzerland. We were sent to a restaurant and walked in and found the whole restaurant full of Asians signing and dancing to their national anthem led by a white local who owned the place. My friends ordered chocolate fondue, but we realized it wasn’t very good or common in Switzerland. Lesson learned. The night was very entertaining though! We had a good laugh and couldn’t believe how many Asians were in Switzerland. However the cheese fondue the night before was delicious.

We hiked on Friday, which took about 2 hours full of pit stops to take pictures. That was the most fitness I did all weekend, but I enjoyed relaxing and sight seeing. It was beautiful although I was surprised how little of snow their was! It was also a lot warmer than I thought it would be originally, very sunny and beautiful.

In Bern, Switzerland’s capital we stopped in a chocolate shop and I ordered a Chocolate Mousse Truffle, Champagne Dark Chocolate, and Cappuccino, which were all so delicious. I was also so proud of myself for finding a Toblerone bar for half off costing me only 1.30 Francs. We walked around the city of Bern, which was very beautiful. There were so many clock towers. We were so often confused and kept telling people grazie instead of Danka or Merci.  Then we realized everywhere we go we will have to change our form of “thank you” when we are just getting used to grazie.

I never got the chance to go to Lucerne which was my mother’s suggestion but it seemed like everywhere in Switzerland is a little bit different but still really unique and beautiful. It was interesting to see how casual the people were. Their attitudes and how they dressed was very different than Italy. Everyone was all very earthy and seemed very environmentally conscious. We didn’t find one bit of trash on the ground, but also it was interesting to see that everyone smoked.

Just booked a day trip to Venice for Carnivale and then the Amalfi Coast over my birthday. This upcoming weekend I will be doing a day trip to Bologna home of prosciutto and parmeggiano reggiano (I believe…) and the next day a Chianti hike, wine tasting and 4 course meal. I can’t wait!