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!