When in Rome...

Alright dear readers... grab a cup of hot coffee or tea and a blanket and get cozy, because I think this post might be a long one.  You see, Katy and I just got back from a three day weekend in ROME!

This was our first successful overnight trip!  It was an academic field trip organized by our school, so we were both excited to be going on a trip where the transportation and lodging were already planned out, especially after our little Cinque Terre fiasco a few weekends prior.  

So, our weekend began early Friday morning meeting at the train station at 8:15 AM.  Katy and I quickly learned that we were rather a minority as we were only 2 of the 30 from our group that were from Apicius.  The rest of the student were from FUA, Florence University of the Arts (another school here in Florence that we partner with trips and other activites)

The Eurostar train got us to Rome in less than two hours and so by 11 AM we were all off the train and playing follow the leader to our hotel a few blocks away.  It was here that I finally felt some sympathy for those long strings of tourists that take up all of the sidewalk with their rolling suitcases and who I usually get frustrated with attempting to pass as I'm trying to get to class... because now, that was us.  Thankfully I had just brought my backpack so I didn't have any problems, but Katy looked like she was having a bit of trouble with her rolling duffle whenever we crossed over the cobblestones of the street.  I believe she ended up just carrying her bag over her shoulder.  

Soon we made it to our hotel and were allowed about an hour to go use the restroom, find some lunch, or whatever else we needed to do before we headed out on our first guided tour of Rome.  Katy and I quickly scanned the streets for a place where I could find a sandwich or something to eat.  Here's a photo of me with the sandwich I found.  As you can see, it was HUGE and cost me just over 8 euro... ridiculous, I know.. but if it helps any, it was pretty tasty. 

So with full bellies and empty bladders we all headed out on our tour.  We started by going to a nearby church, whose name roughly translated into english as St. Peter in Chains where we saw the tomb of Pope Julius the second and the chains that Peter wore while in Rome.  It was now at this point that I officially felt like a tourist, with a large group of people wandering around  with my head and eyeballs scanning everything greedily and taking photo after photo in hopes of getting at least one or two good ones for every 10 or so that I took.  As I've mentioned before, I'm not the most skilled photographer.

After here, we moved on to the Colosseum! It was amazingly beautiful and huge. We all purchased tickets and were able to go inside and have a rushed 15 minutes to see everything we could and take as many photos as possible.  Here's just a quick photo of the main structure.  Pretty similar to any sort of postcard you might find from Rome, but still cool to think I was the one standing behind the camera to take the picture. 

And here's another photo of Katy and I standing on the same stones that were laid so long ago by the Romans when they were building this road, called Victory Lane... and yes mom, in case you were wondering, those are the pants that you dislike so much because they're too long and I destroy the backs of them. :) Love you mom!

Our purchased tickets got us into both the Colosseum and the Forum, which I guess was essentially the original and central hub of ancient Rome where all the activity got it's start and everyday life happened.  It was very cool and amazing to walk through and think about the lives and lifestyles that had passed on that same ground so many years ago. 

After this we took one more quick tour of a few more important monuments around that area, one of which included multiple security guards who would blow their whistles at you if you sat on the steps of the monument.

After some more photos, well many more photos really, we headed across town to see the pantheon.  The pantheon was rather hard to photograph so I don't have any pictures of it, but it was still neat to see.  Basically it was just this gigantic, perfectly round building with a 9 meter hole in the ceiling, so that was the only light in the whole building and pigeons would fly in and out too every now and then.  Very cool.

We were given free time after this last stop and were also told of a great gelato shop just down the street, so Katy and I headed over there for a much appreciate sugary sweet treat.  My mixed berry and chocolate orange were delicious and it seemed like Katy was a fan of her tiramisu, coffee, and mandarine flavors.  Now all that was left to do was to pull out our map of Rome and get to navigating our way back to the hotel...all by ourselves.  Thankfully Katy has proven herself to be very handy with a map and got us back just fine.

The rest of the evening was pretty relaxed back at the hotel room.  The room was tricky at first because neither the lights or any electricity seemed to be working, and we were starting to worry that our power was out and that we'd have to go all the way back down the four flights of stairs (yes, we were on the 4th floor of the hotel room too... it must just be a theme for us here in Italy) because it was too dark to even find the phone to call down to the front desk.  However, Katy came to the rescue by remembeing something she had just learned in her most recent hospitality class about how some hotels in Europe have a little "power" slot by the door that you have to put your key card into to get power in your room.  We found the slot and -  Viola! We had power!  Hooray!  So, then after we got the lights and power going we did like I think most people do when they first get into their room, and plopped onto our beds and turned on the TV.  We were happy to  finf one channel in english with Italian subtitles so we spent the next hour or so lying around reading, watching TV and taking nice HOT showers before heading out to dinner.

Dinner was later, around 8:30 and Katy and I both had to laugh at the fixed menu they had for us.  The brochure from the school about Rome that we had gotten had informed us that we would be sampling "traditional Roman cuisine"... what a lie. It was hotel food, from their restaurant and consisted of the following: 

Dinner #1 hard and hollow dinner roll, bow tie pasta with red sauce, pork (we think) with cheese sauce and gravy, some steamed carrots, and potatoes, with some ice cream cake for dessert.  

Dinner #2: More dinner rolls ( yummy...) rigatoni pasta with red sauce, turkey with gravy, cooked spinach and potato wedges.  I don't think you have to be a culinary genius to realize that this really wasn't any "traditional Roman cuisine" So Katy and I both got a laugh out of this.  Dinner ended later, around 9:30 or 10:00 and so Katy and I, being the cool and exciting people that we are proceeded to go straight upstairs to our room and collapse into our beds! 

So... hope you are all still with me here.  If you need to go get a refill on your drink or anything, now might be a good time.  I'm about to start with day two

Day Two: began EARLY.  Continental breakfast downstairs in the restaurant of the hotel.  Pretty decent, but nothing really to write home about, so I'll just keep on writing.

We were instructed to meet at 8AM "sharp" in the lobby as we had a full morning of tours schedules.  So, of course, most people slowly rolled in a BIT after 8 as that was probably just a little early for them after whatever their activities of last evening had been...

Our first activity of the day was a tour of the Vatican Museums!  We had a tour guide and even got to use the ear audio pieces to hear everything that she had to say about the museums.  One funny thing though that I do have to note here was actually being one of those big tour groups that has to follow their guide carrying some embarrassing baton with colored ribbons or an umbrella or something of the sort.  We, in fact, were instructed to follow our guides bright blue umbrella, which Katy and I tried numerous times to name, but never found quite the right name. 

So, the Vatican museums.. in a word: AMAZING. I don't think I can even describe it. And I wont even bother putting up photos of it because they just don't do it justice.  We spent a couple good hours in there, walking through it all, listening to her speak about everything and just trying to take it all in.  It was pretty overwhelming, for sure. 

We finally made it out and took a short lunch break before heading off the see St. Peter's Basilica.  Katy and I went to this pizza place with lots of crazy topping options, so we both tried a couple different ones and shared to get a good variety.  I think we ended up with one with mushrooms and cheese, one with potatoes ( which I thought were actually pineapples and had I known were potatoes, I probably would not have ordered ) one with sausage and broccoli ( yes, Mitchel, broccoli on pizza) and then one with tuna and artichokes.  It was interesting to say the least, but really pretty tasty. 

Once we were done with lunch we walked over to the Basilica and heard some information about it before being let loose with free time for the rest of the day.  Katy and I decided to go down and see the tombs of the popes before leaving the Vatican City and then we headed out with intentions of wandering the city and hopefully finding some earrings for Katy. We got lucky and Katy found two pairs of earrings, both of which were very cute and had my approval.  Here's some photos of some of the happenings of that afternoon.  

Katy tried on some great masks in this one shop, I think red is a good color for her, don't you? 

And I found Nutella heaven at this one particular crepe and gelato shoppe. YUM!

And a few other highlights of that afternoon might include:

1. Finding a random square in the middle of the city that had ancient ruins and also seemed to double as a cat sanctuary, as we must have counted at least half a dozen stray cats inside the fenced in square.

2.  Seeing a group of boys playing a game of soccer with clothing and street lamps used for goals. 

3.  Walking into a market down a random alley complete with a band including the cello, the saxophone, the guitar and the accordion.   

4.  Running into an extremely crowded street where a political rally was being held... at least that was our best guess as to what was going on.  It was far too packed for us to venture far enough in to really find out what was going on.   

And, well, that's all I can remember for now. 

So, after a full 10 hour day of being out Katy and I returned to our hotel tired and slightly sunburnt for another late dinner and bedtime.  Hooray again for hot showers and beds that don't break!

Day Three/Sunday:

Started early again at 9 AM with the same continental breakfast and checkout of our rooms.  We had the option of going to a huge flea market or going to Mass at the Basicilia and seeing the Pope.  Katy and I chose to go to Mass and I think we both thought it was a good choice.  The Basilica was amazing and even though we could not understand that Mass, as it was in Latin, it was still really cool.  The Pope even gave a quick little 10 minute message from his bedroom window which I tried to take a picture of by zooming in a lot with my camera.  It didn't turn out too well, but it's still the Pope, so I thought I'd put it up anyways.  In case you are wondering, yes the tiny little white dot inside the window is, in fact, the Pope.   

 

The square was PACKED after the Pope's message and so me, being the newly discovered claustrophobic individual, was more than ready to get out of there as soon as possible.  So we headed over to a sandwich shop a few streets away and got some lunch before catching a very crowded number 40 bus back to the other side of town to meet up with the rest of our group for the rest of our guided activities for the day.  The remainder of our day was rather rushed as we only had a couple of hours left to get in the rest of our scheduled stops before we had to be back at the station for our train back to Florence at 5:00.

One thing we saw on Sunday was the Trevi Fountain, and here's a photo of part of the fountain.  It was beautiful, but very, very busy!

We took some photos at the fountain and threw in some coins, which were suppose to symbolize that you would someday come back to Rome, and then we quickly moved on to the famous Spanish steps, which are near where the Spanish Embassy is.  After here we headed off to see the house of the President.  It was great timing when we got there because they were right in the middle of their changing of the guards ceremony and so there was a full band playing and a procession of men in uniform marching all around the building.  It was really cool to see.  

After we left here we headed back to our hotel to grab our bags and get to the station to catch out train back!

It was an amazingly busy and full weekend that was both very exhausting and exciting.  We were very thankful for the awesome weather.  It was gorgeous all weekend long with beautiful blue skies an sun!  I really liked Rome, and regardless of wether or not I'd thrown that coin into the fountain, I know I'll definitely be going back!  

I think that Katy and I were both happy to have gone, but we also happy to be back at our place that evening to be able to rest form the weekend and check our e-mails!

  

Company for Supper

So last Thursday night Katy and I invited a classmate and friend of ours over for supper.  The deal was that we would buy the ingredients and he would cook the meal for us.  I knew Miles from my first semester back at UAA and I knew he was quite the chef , so we figured it would be a good deal for everybody.  Especially since Miles had been running low on money due to... shall we say, problems with his ATM card.  Aparently lately he'd been hoping around from apartment to apartment cooking dinners for friends in attempts of feeding himself as well.  So we thought it would be a nice gesture too on our part to be able to help feed the kid.  

Miles showed up around 6PM after he got out of his last class with a pocketfull of pasta dough that he had brought back from his most recent class.  Now we knew that pasta was going to be on the menu somehow.  After some more discussing, we decided to do something with the chicken that Katy and I still had in our fridge, so we made up a list of everything else we needed and made a quick trip to the little grocery store down the street.  Once we got back we got to work in the kitchen.  Miles got to work on the vegetables and chicken and I sat down to start stuffing the ravioli with some pesto mixed with breadcrumbs.  We had to roll out the pasta dough with a red aluminum thermos we found in our cupboard on an old wooden TV tray... in case you were wondering.  Here's some photos of our work in progress.  

Katy seemed to be the designated dishwasher and did a great job keeping up with all the dishes that Miles made, which was great because we only have so many dishes and so much space in our little kitchen here.  

Our roommate Kimberly conveniently showed up right before the food was ready and since we had more than enough for ourselves we invited her to join us.  She put some crostini's in the oven and minutes later we were all sat down to our meal.  Thankfully, our little table surprised us by swiveling out and opening up to double the size it normally is, which allowed us, and all our food to fit, quite... shall I say, cozily?  

Here's some more pictures of part of the spread we had for supper, minus the tomato sauce for the chicken and the pasta dish that I had been working on earlier  ( it's kind of hard to photograph pasta and sauce and make it look nice ) Here's also a photo of most of us around our little table.

All in all I think Katy and I both agreed that it was a nice evening and a good way to end a week of classes, so we'll probably try and do it again soon.   

 

This is the day...this is the day...oh boy was this A day!

Katy and I still aren't quite sure what the moral of the story is here...maybe it's "don't travel on Friday the 13th", maybe it's "be really careful how you plan out your trips"... we don't really know yet, and we may never know.  What we do know is that somehow, our two-day weekend trip to Cinque Terre turned into a comical and exhausting almost 12 hour day journey.  Let me start at the beginning, for those of you whose curiosity I've captured. 

The day began not all that early with a train scheduled out of Florence at 10:30 in the morning. So we woke up relatively early that day, packed our backpacks and headed out to the station by about 10AM.  We stopped at this little old man's shop that we have had to see and smell every morning on the way to school.  So, finally that morning,  I told Katy, I'm stopping.  I'm so glad we did, because I got one of the best, fresh, warm doughnuts I've had in a long time.  She got some other deep fried rice fritter thing, and we both decided we didn't even want to share our goodies with each other, as we were both such large fans of our own purchases.  Needless to say, it's probably not a good thing that I have to pass this stand every morning on the way to school and walk by 80 cents of deliciousness everyday.  But I suppose it will teach me restraint.  ( I WILL fit in my wedding dress when I come back, I WILL! )  Maybe I'll just have to find another route to school, we'll see...

Anyways, from there on, we hopped on our train and a little over an hour later ended up in sunny and beautiful Monterosso, the first town of our intended tour of Cinque Terre.  

SIDE NOTE: for those of you who might not know about Cinque Terre, it's basically 5 (Cinque) little towns (terre) along the coast of the Mediterrean Sea, which are all connected by hiking trails so that you can hike for a couple of hours and get  from one to the next, to the next, to the next, ...well, theoretically, you could do that.  In case you can't tell from my buildup of our story, that's not quite how it went for us... BUT back to Monterosso.  It was a beautiful, blue sky and sunny day when we left Florence and it only got more gorgeous as we headed towards our destination.  Here's a photo of Katy and I on the beach right outside the train station of Monterosso.   I had to set the camera up on a half brick wall to get this shot, so it's really far away.  I apologize for my poor photography skills, but I suppose I can't be a great blogger AND photographer, right? :) 

Anyways, this is where we were going to begin our journey, however, upon consulting the woman at the train station, we discovered that because it's still technically the winter season here in Italy and Cinque Terre is really a very touristy town, most places around the area were closed for the season.  And to top it off, all the hiking trails connecting the five towns were completely inaccessible at the time... great!  The lady kindly told us that the only way we would be able to get to the next town was by train.  So we bought a ticket and got on the next train to Vernazza, the nearest town, which happened to only be about 3 minutes away by train.  Go figure.  

Vernazza is where Katy had booked out hostel for the night, so we thought that now that we were in the right town, we should try and find it.  About an hour later, after walking all over the very tiny and very asleep town, we finally found ourselves following an Italian speaking man up yet another  set of stairs that we had perviously taken three times already, only to be led to the door of the woman that we had been looking for all along.  Let's keep in mind that by this time, it's still only about 2 or 3 in the afternoon.  The lady shows us our room, which was stuffed with four beds as it's supposed to hold four people, all four of which we had to pay for in the price of our room, even though there were only two of us. 

The lady gave us our key and left the room.   Katy sat on one of the beds and I sat on the one chair, and at that point we literally felt like we should just start to twiddle our thumbs, because there was nothing we could do. And we were going to be stuck here for the next, well, about 8 hours until we could even go to bed, just to wake up the next morning and not even be able to hike on to the next town on our journey, as all the trails were closed.  It was at that point, after about 20 minutes of siting in our room that we decided to take the orange peel from the orange that I had just peeled out of the trash can, grab out bags and go back to the lady and beg, or rather, argue for some, ANY, money back.  Katy did her best to reason with the lady, using her spanish, and all I caught was something about emergency and we have to go home ( this was my idea, by the way, to just tell her that something had come up back in Florence and we had to go back and could not stay so could we get any money back ) I don't know if the lady really didn't understand or if she just wanted to argue for the sake of arguing... we'll probably never know.  When it was all said and done, she finally decided to give us half of our money back, which was better than nothing.

So, after we had run down the stairs to get away from her, we headed back off to the train station to get some tickets to the last town we were intending on seeing this weekend.  We figured that at least we could take the train to it to see it, even if we couldn't hike to it, and then just catch the latest train out of that town back to Florence.  That's what we "figured"...

So, the next train was scheduled to leave the town at 5:30, it was at that time about 4.  Not a huge problem, we'd just go back down by the water, hang out and read until then.  Which we did, no problem.  The problem came when we went back up at 5:30 and confused our train with the other one on the wrong track, and consequently missed our train by about a minute.  We watched the correct train leave, just standing there on the track... not knowing what we were doing.  Frustrating, to say the least.  To keep everybody fully updated at this time, it was now late, dark, and cold, and we were hungry.  But, nothing, nothing, was open in the little tiny town we were stuck in.  Well, I suppose that's not all entirely true.  Turns out we just had to wait another hour for the next train so we ran back down to the town and found a little ceramics shop that randomly  happened to sell decks of cards too, so we bought some cards and played Go-Fish and Gin back up in the station until our NEXT train was supposed to leave.  

Here's a photo of us playing cards in the station... again, another timer photo.  Not the greatest, but we were just trying to capture our desperation of the situation. The lower photo is of Vernazza, where we were stuck for 4 hours.  Beautiful, I know, but not the greatest place to be stuck with nothing to do. 

Thankfully, we made the next train out of Vernazza onto Corniglia.  It took not even another five minutes to get there, but when we did we found out that the next and last train out of there going onto Florence was leaving in less than an hour and the actual town itself was a 15 minute walk, at least, from where we were currently at the station.  So, we settled with the fact that our hungry and rumbling tummies would not be getting any food until we got all the way back to Florence.  We passed the next hour in the small station of Corniglia singing songs, dancing about, and just acting goofy in general, mainly our of our hunger, exhaustion, and my desperate attempts to get warm.   I took a video on my camera of some of our antics in that hour, but I don't think I'll load that up, just to conserve some of the respect you might still have for us. 

 The warm train to Florence was a welcome thing and we were both so happy to finally be able to just sit down and know that for almost the first time that day, it seemed like, we were headed in the right direction. 

We finally made it back to Florence at about 10PM that night, very tired and very hungry.  We were determined to at least make it out to dinner though, so after dropping our bags back at our place we headed out to a little restaurant across the street and sat down to a warm and delicious dinner of gnocci, chicken, and stewed beef.  Warm food was a welcome feeling to our empty bellies.  I told Katy that were going all out that night, after a day like this, so we ended the evening with desserts, and chatted at our table until late in the night before returning to our room at almost 12:30. To sum it all up: what a day!  It was full of laughs and adventures.  A very memorable experience to say the least! 

Cheesecake and chocolate spice cake...always a good way to end the day! 

English movies in Italy

This won't be a very long or in depth posting here, but Katy and I still thought that this little outing of ours was blog-worthy - so, up it goes!

 It all began earlier last week, when one of our roommates, Kimberly, invited Katy and I to go see a movie in a local theater here that plays films in English a couple of times every week.  So, last Thursday after we had finished classes for the week, we joined Kimberly at the Odeon Theatre, which happened to only be about 5 minutes away from our apartment.  As you can see from the pictures posted here, the theater itself was the main reason we wanted to post this event.  Look at how beautiful it is! It's like an old fashioned theater, with amazing cloth seats, a balcony, and beautiful columns and tapestry all over.   We sat up in the balcony for the showing of Frost/Nixon, which was kind of like a dramatic interpretation of the Frost and Nixon interviews in light of the whole issue of Watergate and Nixon' pardon by Ford.  It was surprisingly well done and enjoyable to watch.  We were all impressed with how it touched us and made us think about the whole situation. 

Another very cool part to me was that there was an intermission half way through the show so that you could back out to the lobby and buy snacks, popcorn, drinks, whatever you wanted, and then they would flash the lights when the show was about to start again.  I got some of the saltiest popcorn I have ever eaten, and Katy got an iced tea, but there was lots of concession options to choose from.  (And of course by drinks, I do mean alcoholic drinks because this is Europe, folks!)  All in all, it was a fun night, and to be able to get out and see a film in english was great!  As we left the theater, we had to remind ourselves that weren't back home, but really still in Italy. Katy and I bought a Club pack of tickets for the theater, so I think we'll probably be going back a few more times throughout our stay here.    

Turning Twenty in Italy!

So, yesterday was my birthday... or should I just say Monday, February 9th was... This has been rather confusing for me... since I think my birthday actually spanned the length of about two days as I'm currently living in a country where I'm about 1o hours ahead of my birth-state.  Anyways, the point of this first terribly incorrect run on sentence ( sorry Mrs. Forstner, I know you taught me better than that...) is that I just celebrated my 20th birthday here in Italy. 

One of the best gifts was the weather! We've been having rain, rain, rain, and more rain here for over a week now, but yesterday just so happened to be GORGEOUS with blue skies and sun! So, that in itself was a wonderful gift to me.  I spent the bulk of my day wandering the streets of Florence since I didn't have any classes until 6 in the evening.  I walked all over, until I got lost half-way across the city and decided I'd better start to find my way back to the apartment so that I could change into my chef clothes in enough time to make it all the way back across town again for the class.  It's fun to meander around here, because everything is always so alive and full of life.  Even on just a random Monday at 2:00 in the afternoon, the streets are full.  There's so much to watch and see and observe.  But I have to remember to be careful just how much people observing I do compared to how much street name observing I do.  I figured the best way to find my way around is to just get lost and then find my way back out again. 

So, that was my day, rather quiet and dare I say...lonely?  Thankfully though, it got better!

Then my class at 6.  The chocolate class.  We met at the instructors shoppe here in town and got to work right away tempering chocolate and filling lots and lots of molds of all shapes and sizes of delicious dark chocolate.  It was a very fun and messy process.  I'm thinking I might need to dedicate a jacket just to this class, and then maybe when it's all over I'll just dye the whole thing black.  Class passed by quickly and before I knew it, I was meeting up with Katy and two friends of ours, Tricia and Colleen, for a late dinner at a restaurant that Katy had found after spending the afternoon diligently searching for somewhere for us to eat.  Let me just start by saying that she did an AWESOME job.  We were at this little place called Trattoria Anita, and it was cute, cozy, and delicious! The service was wonderful and the food was even better, and all at a totally reasonable price.  We all had amazing pastas for starters and then an entree of chicken or some other meat.  It was a little after 10:00 when our waiter finally asked us if we wanted any dessert, and so of course, in Emily fashion I said YES! Between the four of us we split a tiramisu and a chocolate torte.  Little did I know though, that when I had first excused myself to use the restroom at the beginning of the meal that my friends had confronted our waiter to tell him that it was my birthday and could they do something special.  So, as the dessert came out, (my tiramisu had a little red candle in it) all the the lights in the restaurant went out and the whole place erupted into singing Happy Birthday!  It was so sweet and thoughtful of them! What a great way to end my special day here in Italy.  

My delicious chicken with asparagus, with a slice of potato and a tomato! YUM!

My Happy Birthday Tiramisu! Even bigger YUM!

Posing in front of a statue on the way home, we found sweet couple to take out photo.  Katy and I are in the center with Tricia on the left and Colleen on the right. 

I do have to add though, as just a little P.S note here for all of you back home, that I am SO sorry about my stupid cell phone.  I think that in the couple of hours that we were in the restaurant MANY of you called with your birthday wishes for me, and that was SO sweet of you, THANK YOU so much.  I felt terrible when I found this out and discovered that there was absolutely no service whatsoever in that building and I sincerely apologize that no one could get a hold of me.  I would have loved to talk to each and every one of you that called.  But thank you for being persistent and e-mailing me as well. I woke up this morning to over a dozen loving e-mails, and I cried my way through each and every one of them.  It got a little tricky to read them through my tears of joy to hear from you, but I wouldn't have had it any other way. Your love and support mean the world to me here, and I'm so thankful! Thank you Alaska and thank you Italy for giving me a wonderful 20th birthday!

Weekend Fun

Can you tell who this picture is of?  Of course, it's Katy and I!  On Friday we were out and about when we happened to pass one of those men who stop and draw a cartoon-ish picture of you in "three minutes" or less, so they say.  The man we happened to pass noticed Katy, and her "beautiful rosy cheeks" and eyes and said he MUST draw her, and for her, he would do it for only 10 euro, not the normal 20.  We actually escaped him after some time, but I later told Katy that it would have been fun to do and so, believe it or not, we went back to the man and told him that if he could draw both of us together, we'd do it.  And, here's the result, a beautiful and perfect representation of us.  Well, maybe not so much, but either way it was fun and now we have something to hang up on our wall in our room at the apartment. 

Friday afternoon we met up with some friends that knew a friend of Katy's...( kind of like a blind friendship date if you will )  So we met up with them, and got some lunch at a little pizzeria and chatted for over two hours over some pasta and a calzone larger than my face.  It was nice to start to make some more friends in this strange and far away city.  After lunch we found what is known to be "the BEST" gelato shoppe in Florence and got some delicious gelato.  We were both very imressed with the place and will for sure head back soon.  Here's a photo of Katy and I, and Gracie, our new friend. 

The rest of our Friday evening was nice and simple.  We just picked up some more groceries at the market and had a quite evening back at the apartment.  We had a big day the next day, or so we thought, as we were planning to take our first train out of Florence and go to Pisa.

Saturday dawned nice and gray and rainy, just as the whole week has been so far.  But we were determined to go to Pisa none the less.  We had already bought the ticket so we knew we were going to go.  We were slightly delayed as I just simply didn't feel like getting out of bed that morning... I'm still not sleeping so well here, so we ended up leaving about an hour later than we had planned, but it didn't really matter. Turns out train leave from Florence for Pisa about every hour so we had no problem hopping on a later train.  It was a nice ride, only about an hour and really very pretty, despite the weather.  It was nice to get out of the city a little and see some of the countryside.  It make us both excited for some of the weekend trips we've been planning.  Upon arriving in Pisa, I proceeded to buy a gigantic map of the town for a ridiculous 5 euro.... big mistake.  If you're ever in Pisa, let me tell you, you DON'T need a map.  It's small enough that you'll be just fine meandering around, trust me.  We just started walking straight out of the train station, and ended up at the leaning tower of Pisa within 10 or 15 minutes.  I, of course, took one of those cheesy pictures of me holding up the tower, so here's me with the tower...  aren't I strong! 

But really folks, Pisa can totally be done in about a half a day.  The tower and the baptismal are pretty much the cities biggest attraction, so don't plan on spending too long there. We meandered the streets for a while and ended up at some local flea market where we looked at lots of different shoppes and I bought a hat because I was so cold and it was only 4 euro.  Katy got a really pretty broach from a stand we passed, no earrings this time, just the broach.  Soon after we found some food,  it started to rain again, and as our umbrellas were pretty much shot and sadly broken, we headed straight back to the station to catch an early afternoon train to Florence.  It was a nice day, but we really could have done without all the wetness. Whenever you're ready to stop raining Italy, we're totally ready too.  

We finished off the evening by checking out the local pizzeria that we live above, and we were totally impressed.  Katy and Kimberly, one of our roommates, got pizzas and I got some lasagna, it was all very delicious, but the tastiest part was yet to come.  We all splurged and got dessert after our meal. I got cheesecake with strawberry sauce and they both got tiramisu, which was divine.  It's nice to know that there's a good place just three floors below us, but we all decided we'd better be careful with how often we visit that one, as their desserts are deliciously dangerous!  So, with full and happy bellies, we headed back up to our place and went to sleep.  

Sunday was a nice day of relaxing as well.  Went to a little church here down the street, it's very different than what we're used to, but still nice to be in a church of some sort on a Sunday morning.  It's a gorgeous building with beautiful stained glass windows and super high ceilings.  After service, we went to this little American brunch spot that our roommate had told us about.  I had heard that they had pancakes, which made me SO excited, as I've been craving a stack of delicious steaming pancakes since I've been here.  So we decided to check it out.  Unfortunately I was rather disappointed with my "Big American Breakfast" that I ordered... I think you just need to be in America to order an American breakfast.  But Katy and Tricia's food was awesome and I was impressed enough with their food to go back and check it out another day.  After filling our hungry bellies, Katy headed back to the apartment to be responsible and do her homework for Monday.  I, however, went out with Tricia to a Flea market across the river.  It was fun and I was tempted by pretty much everything that I saw, but everyone should be really proud of me because I didn't buy ANYTHING! 

After that, I finally headed home to get a lesson on how to use out washing machine and do some of my much needed laundry.  

Our second week of classes starts up again tomorrow, along with my birthday and hopefully plans of going out to eat with some friends to celebrate, so I'll be sure to keep this updated with our adventures of the week to come.  Until then, Ciao to all!  

 

First week of class!

Well, Katy and I have officially completed out first week of classes here in Italy and we're still both alive and well enough to blog about it.  It was a long week, but a good week.  Classes started for us Monday morning.  Katy began at 12:00 and had two classes: Special Events Management, which she is less than thrilled about, and baking techniques, which I think she likes better, but wishes there was more equipment in the kitchen to go around.  I have a later start at 6:oo P.M.for my Chocolate and Confections class.  The teacher for that class owns his own chocolate shoppe here in Florence and also happens to be a five time world famous, award winning chocolatier... so, I'd better learn something from him, especially since he happens to be my teacher for three of my six classes.  

Katy has a break on Tuesdays without any classes.  I have one, Pastry Shoppe, which I liked well enough.  We took a walk around Florence and toured some local pastry shoppes in the area and even got to go into the back kitchen of one of them.  It was fun, but I was really hoping for some little snacks or at least some rejects that didn't make it to the display case - something! But nope, nothing for the hungry and salivating little students.  Bummer!

Katy and I both keep BUSY on Wednesdays, with a full day of classes.  We both start out the day at 9AM with Regional Italian Cuisine, where this week we made polenta!  It was fun and new for Katy, but I little boring for me, since I had been tortured back home at work all summer making batches of polenta in pots large enough for me to bathe in! Oh well, it's all a part of the job, I guess!  Right after this class we both headed off to our Breads of Italy/Specialty Breads class, where were were greeted by a man who spoke less than great english and soon began to graph the gluten strength of certain breads on a chart on the chalkboard... we're starting to wonder what we've gotten ourselves into here. I guess we'll just have to wait it out and see.

Our final classes of the day are different as Katy heads off to Traditional Italian Foods while I go on to my Contemporary Italian Cooking. 

Wednesday nights are still busy for me as I decided to check out a self defense class offered at out little mini gym - emphasis on MINI - as there is just one treadmill, one bike, and one elliptical, as well as some weights and a punching bag.  The class was pretty neat though.  There were only two of us student and the instructor, who is, I believe a police officer in town.  He's very talented and I've already learned a lot in just the first hour long class.  So, everybody watch out now - I've got the moves!

Thursdays, our last day of classes for the week, was a welcome occurrence for the both of us as were were pretty shot from the first week of everything.  We each have one class, and happened to really enjoy them, which was a great way to end out the week.  Katy was very happy with her Hotel Management and Front Desk Procedures class and I was equally thrilled with my last class of Dessert Styling.  We celebrated the end of the week with a late lunch in a great little cafe that we found on the corner where we got a tasty lunch and talked about how our weeks had gone.  It was a nice way to end the afternoon.  

Then, later that night, I tried something I had never tried before... YOGA.  Oh boy! Good story...where to start? Let's start with stating that I am not a very bendy, yoga-y kind of person.  I am no "yogi" I told Katy later that night after I had bent my body back into it's normal and comfortable position.  She was rather confused with that comment and asked if I was referring to Yogi the Bear...  Anyways, this class was very interesting.  Let me start by telling you that the instructor spoke ONLY Italian.  So, all I really got out of it were the phrases, "In" and "Ex" which I assumed translated into "Inhale" and "Exhale" followed by what I gathered to be the counting of 1- 5.  Beyond this, I really had no idea what the man was saying, let alone what I was supposed to be doing.  His chanting and breathing, however, were very clear and impressive.  Now, let me just say that I think people that can do yoga are great, and I have the utmost respect for them, I just don't think I'm one of them, at least not yet.  If I do decided to go back, there are a few things I should remember.  Like, wear yoga pants, or at least some tights under your shorts, as you're going to become a human pretzel with legs flying everywhere in the course of the next hour.  And, oh, don't wear your shoes and socks.   I was quickly informed of this as I stepped onto my mat with my shoes still on.  The instructor kept pointing to my feet clearly trying to tell me something, and I finally got it when my neighbor kindly told me that he wanted me to remove my footwear.  How I failed to notice the 12 other barefoot people was beyond me.  Oh, and those silly little mats! I don't know how people manage to stay on them so well... after like, two moves I was completely off the mat and half way across the room, I guess I just don't quite have the hang of it all yet.  We'll see how well I improve over the month.  I suppose that if nothing else, I'll learn how to count from one to five in Italian really well.  

 

Saturday Market Fun

Saturday was our first day here that we did not have anywhere we had to be or anything we had to go to.  So, Katy and I took advantage of that and spent the day walking (yes, MORE walking, it's great, you can just walk everywhere in this city... I only feel bad for Katy though, with her big painful blisters from those cute Doc Martins she sports)

Anyways, we began the day by trying to find the Post Office to mail off a permit of stay form that we had previously filled out.  The post office, once we found it, was actually quite beautiful and historic looking.  Katy and I agreed that it reminded us of the DMV because you had to take a number upon entering and wait your turn in line.  Unfortunately, nothing in the post office was in english, at all, but we got lucky and ended up choosing the right form that we needed after all.

After this we went off to just walk around a explore the streets.  A minor detour lead us to find a couple of cute scarfs and a beautiful pair of new earrings for Katy.  I learned that earrings are her weakness and I'm not allowed to let her look at them too long or too often.  I guess her excuse today was that she forgot to put a pair in earlier that morning so she really did need them.  That's okay, my weakness is shoes (well, I guess coats and bags too, really) and so I tell her to keep me away from those things.  It works out well.

We stopped off at a little cafe to get some cafes and pastries, being careful to stay standing until we were told that we could sit down without being charged extra since we'd boughten more than just coffee.  I guess you just never know here in Italy.  

Later on we ended up meandering out way down a street full of vendors selling just about everything: bags, sunglasses, clothing, jewelry, masks, journals, you name it, they probably had it.  That was pretty fun, and now we're both wondering weather you can haggle in Italy like you can in Mexico.  The shop workers seemed rather pushy though, following you around and being very, very attentive.  Before too long we also realized that the market was a lot like the Alaska State Fair in that after about 50 feet it seems to repeat itself of the products available.  Still, it was fun to walk along and see what all there was.  

After we finally found out way back out of the maze of people we made out way into another market called Mercato Centrale, or for you folks that don't know Italian, Central Market. :)

This market was AMAZING.  The lower level was full of fresh pasta, cheeses, breads, and even fresh cut flowers.  There was also fresh meats cut right before your very eyes by a real live butcher.  But that's not all! Upstairs was teeming with fresh fruits and vegetables, everywhere you looked there were apples, bananas, pears, oranges, carrots, lettuce, eggplant, tomatoes, etc. It all looked wonderful, and it was cheap, too!

Katy had a fun experience buying some fruits from a nice Italian lady... I typically let her do most of the talking as its' proven to be much safer and effective.  The lady was very sweet and even congratulated Katy on her Italian and completing the money transaction correctly: Brava!  The market was a really fun experience and we will definitely be going back next week.

After leaving this market, we went off to find an actual "supermarket" for the food items that were not at the market.  The supermarket was deceivingly small, and we soon discovered that it was somewhat similar to a river, with how it wound around corner after corner.  The real excitement, however, came when we went to buy some meat from the deli counter.  Katy and I had discussed that we are both kind of turkey meat people so we looked for something that looked most like it and hoped for the best.  Neither of us knew how to say "quarter-kilo" when we ordered the meat, so Katy said "half-kilo"... we're still eating turkey sandwiches, but thankfully, they are in fact, turkey (tacchino, aparently in Italian, for anyone who wants to know) 

We spent the rest of the day wandering and exploring.  We crossed the Arno river and went across the bridge to the "other side" of the city.  It was a beautiful night for a long walk and ended beautifully with the sound of the 5:00 church bells calling for Mass all around us!

Florence is funny because...

So after just a few hours of living in Italy, Katy and I noticed some things about the city that just made us laugh.  So, we thought we'd share them with you.

1.  Doorknobs are in the direct center of the door, and really serve no purpose as the key alone opens the door just fine.

2. It's cheaper to eat standing up at a cafe, you will be charged extra money if you sit down.

3. According to the anti-terrorist law, you cannot have people who don't live in your house sleep at your house.  Sorry girls, no sleep-overs here in Florence. 

4.  There is a specific designated quite hour from 2-4 in the afternoon.  

This is all we've come up with so far, but we'll make sure to keep posting more oddities in Italy as we discover them.  

Our first weekend living in Firenze!

Thursday morning dawned bright and early in Florence.  Katy and I, however, were not so ready to arise with it.  Neither of us slept very well in our new environment.  Between the newness of everything, the noise of the streets, and my broken bed, sleeping wasn't exactly the easiest.  Yes, I did say broken bed.  The entire underside of my bed is sagging and sunken in so much that it feels like there is a giant crater in my mattress that I'm trying not to roll into while I sleep. 

Here is a photo of the bed itself just so you can get a little idea of what I mean when I say broken bed.  We finally decided to shove a suitcase under the sag to keep it up a little bit so I don't feel so much like I am just going to fall right through the bed in the middle of the night!

 I promise I didn't do it!

  

Thursday and Friday were two days of orientation for all the students.  There were scheduled things to do and lots of information given out to help us start to get ready for the first day of school that was coming up on Monday.  We were given our student cell phones, which enables us to receive free incoming calls from the states (that's YOU GUYS) So, if you want to call us, we'd love to hear familiar voices.  Just use a calling card would be my suggestion, I think it's probably the cheapest way for you to call. 

Katy's # is 335-714-6248

My # is 335-714-6120

Over these past few days we've done a LOT of walking around, ALL over Florence.  I don't think either of us were ready for so much walking so soon.  Transitioning our legs from sitting on airplanes for 24 hours to walking all over cobblestone streets was surprisingly painful.

We went out to dinner for the first couple of nights, just to avoid finding a close supermarket to buy groceries.  The first night we just went to a little place right below our apartment with our new roommate.  It was nice to have a real meal and start to get to know the other girls too.  It was also quite the experience to order our food in Italian.  I was pretty hopeless and just did the deer in the headlights look and pointed at the menu.  Katy was a little better than me, thanks to her knowledge of Spanish.  I ended up with some chicken dish and Katy got tripe.  If any of you don't know why tripe is, well, you probably are better off that way.  Let's just say it's just an Italian delicacy...

  The next night that we went out, we took about a half and hour getting lost in order to get all the way across town to go to this one restaurant that we were told was very good.  It was very nice, a little on the spendy side, but a  real Italian experience none the less, with a huge full course meal including appetizers and even champagne on the house!  

The rest of our time seemed to pass by quickly.  We did lots more walking around the streets of Firenze(Florence), attempted to organize our new place, and met some new friends from orientation!  So far things are going well!