Santa Brigida With The One And Only Simon Young and SPONTANEOUS TRIP TO VENICE!

Last week's school week was pretty uneventful besides the fact that we started booking trips. I have to say it's a lot more stressful than I would have ever imagined. Trying to coordinate with everyone's different schedules is one problem and then there's the whole problem of trying to figure out places that everyone wants to go...since everyone has a different list of the places they want to hit. Our trips thus far are:
Amsterdam next weekend for our roommate Amanda's birthday, and spring break where we're going to go through Barcelona, Ireland, Scotland and Belgium ending with Sensation White in Belgium -- google it. It's  Europe's biggest rave HOLLA!

cuhrayzeeee

So nothing happened last week...until Friday where Simon Young showed his fabulous face once more. For any who have short term memory loss, Simon Young is my History of Florence teacher, a bizarre little English man that walks at the pace of a running cheetah and has hair that legitimately sprouts from the sides of his head. There's no better word than sprouts to describe his hair.

Simon Young preffing us for our climb

Anyway this past Friday was our field trip for History of Florence: Story of a City. Simon Young took us to the top of a mountain in Santa Brigida. He told us it would be a nice walk outdoors and not to worry. Let me put it this way. One girl in our class had severe asthma and legit was as red as a beet and had to sit down gasping for air. IT WAS IN NO WAY A SIMPLE WALK. It was a hike if I ever saw one....and a hard one at that. Simon Young kept telling us we're only as fast as our slowest person so me, Christine, Jamie and Anne had a great time bringing up the kaboose.

the whole class in front of us...seriously struggling

There was a church at the top of the mountain (which really didn't have much to do with anything we've learned about in class so I'm pretty convinced Simon Young just scheduled this field trip to hang out with us on non-school time) and the view was B-E-A-UUUUTIFUL. It really was. Check out the pictures of us at the top of the world....or just at the top of Florence.

Oh - at the top when we finally got to sit down and breathe Simon Young pulled out his satchel of paninis for us for lunch. They were from I Frattelini...this ahhhhhmazing sandwich shop on the streets of Florence. It was opened in the 1800s and has remained a family name ever since. It's so European and chic! Basically it's this little booth on the side of the street. It has no door and you can't walk anywhere it's legitimately these two guys standing behind a booth serving paninis and wine. If you walk by during lunch time the street will be packed with italianos standing on the sidewalk panino in one hand, glass of wine in the other. SO CHIC! The sandwiches were unreal. Look how happy we are in the grass in the sun with sandwiches! This is really the life.

yummmmm

So we got home from our trip around 3 and decided it was too nice out to not take advantage of it. So Christine and I walked to Piazza di Santa Croce where an international chocolate festival is on for this entire week! It was incred. We shared fresh strawberries doused in warm chocolate, some chocolate peanut butter fudge and a sip of chocolate rum. I plan on going back every day this week. We got home around 4 and found Jess back from her field trip. After an hour of facebook stalking together on the couch someone mentioned Venice. We debated for a few minutes and then decided to take a spontaneous trip to Venice for the night! We weren't doing anything else, right? We contacted our good friend Joe and he was in so we threw some stuff in a bag and headed to the train station to catch a 6:40 train.

so excited for the train ride!

We arrived in Venice at 10pm and after taking some pics (in complete darkness and of nothing visible) we tried our hand at the boat taxis. We bought our tickets and boarded all excited for our first boat trip. After two stops we realized we were headed in the wrong direction so we jumped off and switched lines. We got off at the Rialto stop -- what seemed to be closest to our hostel and started on our journey to find it. Having a map might have been a big help but our spontaneity prevented us from getting one before we left and once we realized...all the stores were closed. We wandered around Venice the four of us for two hours with our bags trying to find this stupid building. For anyone planning on traveling to Venice in the near future let me give you a tip --> Venice does not have street signs and the numbers are completely out of whack. I actually had to dial up Daddy Tim in NYC on the phone and have him googlemap us and lead us to the hostel. It was that bad. Also there were no police in sight. Thank god Joe was with us or I would have been a leeeeetle nervous for our safety. But Daddy-o came through as always and we finally arrived at midnight. The building was a sketch-parlor to say the least but we had a room the 4 of us alone together and it had its own bathroom and we were only there for a night so it was fine.

how sketch it looked in the day time

After checking in we grabbed some chinese food next door cuz we were too nervous to wander farther. It was surprisingly good!! Brought me right back to ChopStix in Scarsdale. Missssss thattt placeeee.

The next day was much  more successful than the previous night. We woke up, had breakfast at the hostel and headed out. Weather.com told us it was going to be 53 and sunny in Venice and it was most definitely not. I had to pull out all the clothes I brought and put them on in layers to keep me warm. Plus me and Christine bought gloves at a small shop for 5euros so those helped too.

Let's see....Thanks to my ever-trusty walking tour book we had a great route set out across the different venues of Venice. We started out in San Polo where our hostel was and worked our way to Santa Croce and San Marco and into Desoduro. After checking out the sights we took a 20 minute boat ride to Murano the GLASS ISLAND. Hopefully all you know that Venice is known for its blown glass. We got to go see a glass blowing factory in action and then browsed the gift shops with the million dollar gorgeous chandeliers. I was thinking about charging one to my dad's credit card and shipping it home with a note that read happy belated birthday!! but i decided against it. YOURE WELCOME DAD.

walking tours are what we do best! SAN MARCO

glass blowing in action

look out for it in the mail dad!!

We had a delicious pizza lunch and then stopped at a small store that allowed you to bring empty water bottles and fill 'em up with delicious good venetian wines for 2 euros a liter! Then on to a carnevale mask shop. I got 2 liters of pinot noir and a great mask and came home a very happy girl.

water bottle wine!

so many masks

The rest of the weekend was a normal weekend here in Florence. We went out and had a good time and spent Sunday wandering the streets of the chocolate fair. All in all, being spontaneous in Italy turned out to be a great success.

CIAO FOR NOW REGAZZIII

ROMA - A City That Should Remain Back In History

SO - the reason it's taken so long to update is because the roomiez and I decided to take a little adventure to Rome this past weekend and I forgot to notify all my loyal followers about my impending absence. SORRRRRYYYYYYY I wasn't aware that so many people were so interested in this. Now that I know that I've got groupies I will definitely try and update more.

Upon returning from Chianti we started packing for Roma. Thinking it was stressful to get my family of four ready for trips, it was ten times that trying to get 10 twenty year old girls ready for the train station. It was hectic to say the least. Finally we were off!

.....but halfway out the door we realized we all had to stop at the ATM to get some euros. Turning around in the opposite direction we got to the ATM only to realize it was broken. NOTE: SIGN ONE THAT WE SHOULD HAVE TURNED AROUND AND GONE HOME.

On the way to the train station, our one roommate Kristie, who hadn't been feeling well lately almost fainted and decided to turn back and brave the empty apartment alone for the weekend. SIGN TWO THAT WE SHOULD HAVE GONE HOME AND STAYED WITH HER.

We run to get to the train station and not miss our train --> navigate our way through the crowds to the ticket machines and somehow get 8 tickets. We met up with the two other apartments that we were traveling with and headed to the platform. Italy boasts that their trains are never late and we've been told countless times by teachers at Palazzo Rucellai to arrive at least half an hour early to ensure a seat since they fill up and leave exactly on time. Our train was delayed 45 minutes...along with the 30 extra minutes since we were there early. No benches in the station meant we were standing in the cold for that whole time. SIGN THREE WE SHOULD HAVE STAYED HOME.

finally on the train!

We finally got on the train and after an hour we were in Rome. We headed to our hostel The Yellow and checked in. We had broken us up for 5 in one room and 4 in the other...since the limit was 6 or 8. However, they gave us 2 rooms...one with 5 girls in it and one with 2 girls in it. The two girls were already in a room filled with 6 boys. It was our first hostel experience so this was definitely not O.K. FOURTH SIGN THAT THIS WHOLE TRIP WAS A BAD IDEA. We ended up negotiating with the front desk woman and getting 3 in one room and 4 in the other. We decided, however, that no one was comfortable with sleeping in the boys room so we all just doubled up in beds and slept together!

the YELLOW

On Friday, we arrived, checked in and went to a delicious dinner at the restaurant right next to our hostel. We got free wine and champagne so that was nice! Afterwards we went to a club called Gilda...supposedly the hot place to be. Unfortunately we hadn't been told that Rome is UBER expensive so we found out the hard way that drinks were 10 euros a piece. We left soon after and went back to the hostel to sleep.

DID I MENTION WE HAD AN ARGENTINIAN ROOMMATE NAMED NICOLA THAT STAYED IN THE ROOM ALONE WITH THE EIGHT OF US??? he was fab. I'm still awaiting his friend confirmation on facebook!

roomz with nicolas - our argentinian roommate!

On Saturday we went to the Vatican which was one of the most incredible places I've ever been. Check back later for pictures!

Saturday night there was a lot of roommate drama and I ended up chipping my tooth when someone ran into me at the bar (hence the title of my facebook album) DONT WORRY (if you're family/david) it's not big and you can't see it unless you lean verrrryyyyy close in to my face! Thank goodness it didn't injure my permanent retainer!

WAH!!!

Sunday I led our apartment on a walking tour of the Roman Forum/Colosseum which took 5 hours. It provided great pictures which I will add to this post tomorrow since I'm too tired to do it tonight.

We came home Sunday night after navigating through a train strike and a lot of police officers. I was very happy to be back in Florence seeing as I didn't really like Rome all that much.


CHECK BACK SOON FOR PICTURES AND AN UPDATE ON THIS WEEK THUS FAR!!!

Chianti Field Trip!

My apologiez for the late posts BUT you'll understand why after reading the next few. This one is dedicated to LAST FRIDAY's day trip to Chianti with the school!! Palazzo Rucellai split up its students into four groups (mainly based on university back at home) and bussed us out to the countryside to learn about wine making, wine tasting, how to live in a castle that has no heat or light, and which part of the chianti landscape makes the best background in pictures.

My fellow Penn Staters and I piled onto our coach bus and began the ride. Christine and I were our usual energetic selves while everyone else around us was getting nauseous from the ride and/or the aftereffects of their previous night...

It took about an hour to get to Chianti. We pulled up in front of a magnificent stone castle where we were ushered into an outdoor courtyard and met an English speaking woman who led our tour. There she warned us not to be scared if we saw a weird little guy and surely we did. She introduced us to a strange little man dressed in garb one would expect from a time long ago.

hottie

We learned that this little man (whose name escapes me) is 87 years old and has lived at the same castle since he was 20. He was signed into service at the castle for the family living there at the time in a contract that bound him to the land and to his work there. When the property passed to the next family they released him from his contract but he decided to stay, opting to wear the same exact outfit every day for the next 50 years. How weird!

what a cute couple!

We went on a tour of the castle which I have no pictures of because it is still inhabited by a family and our picture snapping wasn't allowed in their private residence. What I CAN tell you is that it was unbelievable inside. Tall ceilings and all stone everywhere. There's 37 rooms in the castle (classifying it as a SMALL castle...to whose standards?!?!) and a small church where they have services for just the family! As beautiful as it was inside I don't think I could rough it like this family clearly does. There's no heat or light in the castle. Each room has a gargantuan fireplace. One was lit and running and it did make the room quite cozy but nothing like real heat...

After we exited the living quarters of the castle we headed to the basement/dungeon where the olive oil refinery/winery was. I've never seen the actual machinery that goes into wine and olive oil making so that was really interesting. It felt like we went down stairs for hours before arriving at all the different rooms. All I kept thinking was how much fun me and ceeceewayans would have had in this place when we were younger.....who am I kidding? we still would have a blast.

After the tour we were escorted to a delicious lunch in the castle and learned how to wine taste. Thanks to my wine connoisseur parents I already knew the techniques! Christine and I labeled it Swirl, Sniff, Sip! The lunch was deeeelish as would be expected. cHeCk iiT 0uT!

YUM!

After lunch we made a quick stop in the gift shop selling house made wine and olive oil and then headed further into the countryside for some photo ops. Even though it was pretty silly that they bussed us out there just to take pictures for an hour, it still was really beautiful.

roomz in chianti!

Then we came home! On to the next post!

Mom-Friendly Post...Again

Here is my second part of last night's post to go along with convincing all of you that I am not just a wild party animal (...or am I?) and that I'm sitting at my laptop diligently doing homework (...or so you think...). Anywayssss I wanted to write this in the middle of the day today (it's 4pm here) to elaborate on my cultural literacy class that I spoke about yesterday and to fill you in on my culinary adventures here in Italia thus far.

Cultural Literacy is everything I hoped it'd be! Sarah Barker is the name of the cute little Australian woman who teaches the class and she's wonderful. Today we went to a cafe and sat for an hour and a half drinking coffee/hot chocolates/milkshakes and talking about what we've observed of Italian culture since arriving here. It was great! Completely relaxed atmosphere and fantastic conversation.

OKAY. Now on to the yummy stuff...literally. As most of you know, my skilled mother Virginia is a very accomplished cook. Her ways in the kitchen must have rubbed off on my hands picking at the dinner before it was done because it seems I have a talent in the kitchen (if you can call the closet with a stove that we have here a kitchen) here in Italia! Living with 10 girls can be rough but one thing I'm glad we've got into the habit of doing are family dinners. My one roommate Jess and I go to the market almost every day and pick up groceries for whatever dish we've decided to prepare that night. Then the rule states that you pay your share of the dinner groceries (it usually only comes out to about 3 or 4 euros) before you get your plate of food. Everyone gets fed a delicious meal (if I don't say so myself!) for less than it costs to order WATER in a restaurant! Woohoo!

Here is what I have made so far and a quick writeup of what I did to prepare it. Weeeeeeeeeeee.

Parmesan Encrusted Chicken with Sauteed Veggies on the Side
This I must give a shoutout to my roomz back at Penn State for. We found this recipe one night on the foodnetwork and decided to try it out. It ended up being totally easy and totally amazing! It's really the simplest thing ever. We just seasoned the chickens with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and parmesan cheese and threw 'em in the pan for 7 minutes on each side...until the cheesey chicken is a scrumptious brown. The veggies we just kept on low heat in the back while we cooked all 12 chicken cutlets so they cooked slowly in oil and a lot of minced up garlic. YUM. It was a perfect first family dinner and totally got me a reputation as culinary genius with the ladies.

Zee Best Drunk Food We've Ever Consumed
Sorry parents but this has to be said. One night we came home from the club and were starving. This place isn't like college where you can order Are You Hungry or Gumbys and it comes to your front door within 5 minutes at 3 in the morning. We have to fend for our munchies ourselves here. So we get home and raid the kitchen. I don't even know how it happened but we combined everything we had into the most amazing tasting pasta slash THE ABSOLUTE BEST drunk food I've ever consumed in my life. I don't have a picture because we were more concerned with consuming it so you're going to have to take my word for it but my roommates can vouch for me. It was divine. We talked about it all the next day and realized we probably wouldn't be able to re-invent it in the kitchen. We'd just have to live with the fact that one night we came home and prepared a culinary masterwork of art...lost forever to the sober world.

Chicken Caprese
Basically I was sitting in class last week brainstorming about food (it was history of food class, my brain couldn't help but wander!) and I was like mmmmm there's nothing like a delicious fresh caprese salad and then I was like mmmm chicken and then I was like BAM!!!!!!!!!!!! HOW GREAT WOULD IT BE TO PUT TOMATO, MOZZ AND BASIL ON TOP OF CHICKEN. So then I got super excited and Nisha, my roommate who's also in my class, was like calm down we still have half an hour. The minute class ended I rushed to meet Jess, we went to the market and bought fresh delicious ingredients and went home. After a nap and some homework I embarked on my vision. Sidenote: we should really be given a medal for providing delicious meals for 10 girls in this small kitchen. We have a stove but no oven which nixes out a bunch of recipes but we've been managing. The most annoying thing is the stove, like everything and everyone else in Italy, is small. So we can only make like 2 cutlets at a time. 15 minutes cooking each chicken through and 5 shifts of 2 cutlets means a long time spent preparing these meals. Keeping them warm is an issue but we've really managed well. Chicken Caprese turned out amazing and looked even better. CHECK IT.

Mashup of Everything Leftover In the Fridge
Another night we had forgotten to go to the market and were sitting around at 6 complaining that we were hungry but not moving. So we got the water boiling dumped in 2 boxes of pasta and set out to create something to go on top. I had previously yelled up the stairs to have all the roommates come down and donate some type of vegetable or meat or anything that could be used in pasta. Together we had accumulated 2 bell peppers, 1 large cucumber, some of Christine and Allie's leftover prosciutto, 2 cloves of garlic from Jess and some leftover sauce from Nisha. Combining it all together we somehow managed to make a delicious sauce that worked great with everything in it. It was the perfect dinner...especially because we were all rushing to get ready since our naps had all gone into overtime. Success!

Chicken Saltimbocca and Homemade Bruschetta
This is what we made last night and O. M. G. Mom, you've made this before so I tip my hat to you because this was incred. It looks so difficult but it was actually really easy and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone looking to impress their future in laws or just to please themselves. Jess is my designated sioux chef but since all the girls have been telling their moms what I've been cooking, they've been told to take a few pointers as well! Sooooo there were three chefs in the kithcen last night. It was tight but having Ariana in there definitely helped it go a  lot more smoothly and the division of labor was a lot easier to handle. For the bruschetta we bought fresh tomatoes, basil and a baguette. We "parboiled" the tomatoes...a phrase I had never heard of before last night. Basically you boil water and once it starts boiling you remove it from the heat and drop the tomatoes in for like two minutes. Then we removed them to ice water and peeled the skins off. After quartering them and removing the insides we chopped 'em up and added them to a bowl of garlic, oil, balsamic vinegar, chopped up basil and salt/pepper to taste. We sliced and toasted the baguette and voila! Delicious. For the chicken we needed the cutlets, prosciutto, freshly grated parmesan (that we grated ourselves!) and spinach. The recipe called for frozen spinach but why would we use frozen when we have the freshest market five minutes away from us. I don't know if they have them in the states but we bought these spinach balls. It looked like cooked spinach that had then been balled up and somehow stayed in that shape. We wbought two, broke up the spinach with some olive oil and seasoned it. We seasoned both sides of the 12 cutlets with salt and pepper then laid 2 or 3 slices of prosciutto on top of the chicken. Then we spread some of the spinach mixture on top and then some of the Parmesan. Here's the fun part. We rolled up the cutlets so that they looked like little jellyrolls and threw them in the pan. We forgot to buy chicken broth so we had to improvise with the sauce a little but they came out SO delicious!! It was a great meal.

Tonight seems like a pasta and sauce night since we're all about to nap and then want to get ready to go out. I'm about to go for my nap and then probs just heat up some sauce and some pasta before heading out. Ciao for now!!

School? I Think Not.

I've decided to dedicate this post solely to my school experience thus far so that my poor mother (who I know stalks this religiously) and whichever other adults are reading this don't think that my time here has been spent entirely on boozin' and cruisin'.

School is not real. Sorry mom, dad, and anyone else who claims to be an adult, but it's not. Let's start with the basics. The school that I attend here is called Palazzo Rucellai. It's on Via de Vigna Nuova, an easy five minute walk from my apartment. Classes take place in two locations -- either in the actual SCHOOL (one floor of classrooms and like six administrative desks) or in the LIBRARY (another entrance just around the corner from the school). The building is literally a palace dating back to the 15th century when this guy named Rucellai (pronounced Roosh-eh-lAIII) accumulated a s*!t ton of money and decided to make a name for himself and his family in this sweet townhouse. Over the years the building has been passed down through the family hands and broken into pieces and inherited by different parts of the family. So when the education institute finally got their hands on it they only got two floors of it...one floor for the actual school and one floor for the library. This means that when we climb the stairs to get to school each morning, we're literally passing people's homes when we pass their floors.

What didn't hit me until the other day when my History of Food professor made us stop and look around is that we're literally sitting in a 15th century palace. Everything is original. The artwork on the encasing walls is intricate and covers from floor to ceiling. When you gaze up your eyes are met with gorgeous frescos dating back to when Rucellai commissioned them himself! Corners are filled with shields of arms representing the different families that have controlled the palace since Rucellai himself. There are warnings on all the doors to not slam them and handle them lightly since they are originals from the FIFTEENTH CENTURY and probably prone to breaking....ya think? It's truly spectacular...and something to not be taken lightly or forgotten or looked over as I'm sure so many have. 

chillin in my palace

casually engraved ceiling. nbd.

So, now that we've gotten how amazing my school is and how jealous you all are of where I get to sit every day...let's move on to actual school work. I know, I know...how long can it actually take to get to speaking about school work????? SORRAY MOM.

As you should all know if you are TRUE blog followers...I'm taking 5 classes. I added one since last time - don't be surprised. Here they are!

1. Beginner Italian 

2. History and Culture of Food

3. History of Florence

4. The Business of Art

5. Cultural Literacy of Italian Culture

I can't even tell you which is my favorite since they're all incredible. I CAN say that my favorite TEACHER is probably David [; )] He teaches my Italian class and he is absolutely precious. I love his teaching style. We only just learned the actual alphabet like yesterday but I already know so much! It's based a lot on immersion. He just speaks to us in Italian and teaches as he goes along. I know a bunch of phrases already and I feel like I'm picking it up really quickly!

The other class I had today was History and Culture of Food. It's taught by this little German man whose accent throws me right back into Andrea's house (if you're reading, ciao!) Today when we got to the classroom he had us all stand up and walk outside. We proceeded on an hour and a half tour of food markets in Florence! We stopped in at a really famous gelateria called GROM and my teacher treated all 26 of us to free gelato! Talk about a way to learn!! Things to look forward to in this class: a field trip to a chef's house who will teach us how to prepare a meal, wine tasting in class, more outdoor excursions, and lots of talking about food. YUM.

famous GROM

My third most interesting class is History of Florence taught by Simon Young. Simon is a 30/40 year old English professor learned in history and philosophy. A very bizarre yet incredibly interesting mind. The class meets for three hours on Wednesdays (thank god Christine is in class with me). Now, we're studying abroad in Italy. We want to go exploring and take advantage of every minute we have. So when we found out we'd be in class from 3-6pm every Wednesday we were pretty bummed. But after last week's class my mind has been calmed. We meet in the class room for the first hour and a half and then the second part of every class is a field trip...to somewhere outside in the city. Let us really get assimilated into Florence! Wonderful! Last week was our first trip. We took the bus (first bus ride!!) to Fiesole, a small town on the outskirts of the city, to see the Etruscan/Roman ruins. Despite the early start (the trip got moved to Friday morning at 9am) and the bitter cold and biting wind, Christine and I returned even more excited for what was to come. The ruins were amazing. Standing outside, the wind whistling around us, it was really incredible to imagine what it must have been like to be living in ancient times...walking up to this stone slab now just sitting in the middle of a grassy field, but back then used for sacrificial offerings....or taking a stroll to the social bath houses where you would meet your friends and get scrubbed down by slaves. The weather brought the trip down a considerable amount. I really can't even describe to you how cold it was. Needless to say we were both very excited to get back to our rooms and under the covers.

Christine and I at the top of Fiesole overlooking Firenze

in the amphitheater 

rUiinZ

The Business of Art seems interesting and very much unlike what I expected it to be. It's about the inner workings of the art collectors/dealers circle...how pieces of art are priced, how prices stay up (even if unwarranted), how collectors go about choosing pieces, etc. Since so much of Florence's history revolves around art I'm excited to learn more about this circle that I've never known.

The last class on the list is my cultural literacy class. I just signed up for it so I haven't attended yet. It's only a one credit class and meets once a week as well. All I know about it is that it is taught by a FABULOUS australian lady who tries to teach us how to separate ourselves from our American lens and start looking through an Italian lens. It sounds really interesting and the teacher really seems like the cutest little lady. I'm sure I'll love it. Plus it's a one credit once a week class that helps me better understand the people I'm surrounded by for the next few months...so it most definitely can't hurt.

Anyways! That's all for now. The roomiez and I are all caught up in planning spring break and weekend travels so it's a little stressed here at the apartment. Until tomorrow! Ciao!!!!!

the inevitable has happened.

I'm sick. meh. Living the life in florence has finally caught up with me. This means that I slept all day (literally all day, I've consumed one meal) in hopes to get better by tomorrow. Which also means I do not have the energy to update 6 days of my life that I am behind in. Sorry peeps - I'll do more tomorrow. But, I won't leave you hanging too much. Here is a recap of my first europtrip with the roomiez....to Pisa we go! (slash went...yesterday..)

Our train left the station at 9:28am so we decided to take it easy the night before. Luckily the train is right down the block from our apartment so we walked, met up with our friend Joe who was joining our lovely lady group for the day, and grabbed some breakfast at the station. There was a little confusion on how to validate the tickets and proceed with the boarding of the train but we figured ourselves out and got situated. WEEEE our first Italian train ride!!

roomskis first train ride!

The train took an hour and we arrived in fabulous Pisa! Pisa, as wonderful a city as it is, really has not much else going for it besides the little-known Leaning Tower. So - to make sure we didn't waste 12 euro on a day of seeing one site, I navigated my way through my trusty little guidebook and led the girls on a great round trip tour of the little city. Here are some of the other things we got to experience in Pisa....

Chiesa di Santa Maria della Spina

crazy vending machine pizza/pasta

and a trip to Europe's oldest botanical garden!!

Of course...the reason why you travel to Pisa, and the reason my profile picture is as cliche as the other 27 people on facebook that have the same one....the famous Leaning Tower finally came upon us. The piazza where it's located is pretty breathtaking...simply because it's not just the Tower standing alone. There's the Tower, the majestic Duomo (no rival to our own in Firenze but magnificent just the same), the Baptisteria and the Camposanto Monumentale.

il Duomo

group photo in front of the Baptisteria

The weather was pretty awful and it started drizzling almost as soon as we got there so we got to posing for pictures ASAP. Luckily, since there were 11 of us we were able to commandeer the best spot for "holding up the tower" pictures and shove everyone else out of the way. Check it, homez.

saweeeeet!

Wow...I almost forgot to talk about what it was actually like IN THE TOWER!! It was 15 euro to climb it and so far has been the best 15 euro I've spent. After checking our bags in lockers at the ticket station we embarked on our adventure up, up, and away. As all of you should know, the tower leans. Laugh you might but one of my roommates (I won't name any names but coughJESScough) put up her pictures this morning and named the album "I survived the LEADING TOWER OF PISA." When confronted she was truly confused. Needless to say she's one of the good ones ; ) Entering the tower was great...the door was even lopsided. Ascending the stairs was the weirdest experience. You could actually FEEL the lean of the tower.You found yourself against opposite walls or sidestepping to regain your balance. The 287 stairs (Christine and the internet say 294 but I counted OUTLOUD 287) were a hike and we were all pretty out of breath...that's a lie I was completely out of breath and others were wheezing...once we reached the top. The stairs were a spiral staircase that never seemed to end. The last 20 or so steps were outside and pretty treacherous. Ari was wearing heeled boots so we had a buffer zone of 5 people in front and behind her in case she fell. Haha...always looking out. The top was unreal. Even scarier since now you were standing on the top of a building with only a handrail guarding you from the ground...whilst leaning at a definite angle. We made our way cautiously through but the danger was completely worth it when you saw the view. I mean...talk about a VIEW. I can't even begin to make you understand but hopefully these pictures do it some justice...

the whole fam!

We had been toying with the idea of making the Pisa day trip into a Pisa/Lucca day trip since Lucca is only 30 more minutes by train and my guidebook has a fantastic bike tour for it BUT since the weather wasn't up to par and since we had a pretty planned out night ahead of us we decided to head home. The Tower is legitimately at the farthest spot from the train station that could be picked so we picked up the pace to get back to the station in time to catch the earliest train. We stopped on the way, however, for what Frommers claimed was "the best gelato in Pisa." Indeed, Frommers, my trusty friend, you were right again. And I, as well as my roommates, would venture to say La Bottega del Gelato is better than any gelato we've picked up here in Florence as of yet. I got Nutella and Tiramisu and mmmmmmm it was to die for.

zee bestest gelato een town

Our plans ended up falling through last night so we headed over to Naima...get used to this name as it has become our favorite night spot to frequent in Florence and we have become regulars. The owner, Sergio, even knows us! It's a really great bar..not rowdy but a very nice ambiance...perfect for hanging out before going to the clubs or just getting a drink with the girls and going home for an early sleep. Love it!!

our favorite bartender!

I woke up this morning (does 1:30pm count as morning?) with a terrible sore throat and absolutely stuffed up. I bundled up and ventured outside to get some sustenance and then got immediately back into my jammies, made some tea and hung around the apartment. Hopefully a good night's sleep tonight might help me recover by tomorrow!

Until then,
arrivederci!

I TAKE IT BACK.

Remember yesterday when I said those prosciutto, mozzarella sandwiches we made were the best thing ever? Jess and I just made them again (since we really do have a lifetime supply of prosciutto) and instead of just putting oil on the bread we put oil and garlic on each side of the bread then put it in the frying pan for a few minutes until it browned and THEN put the prosciutto and mozarella on. I've never been more satisfied. What was fantastic yesterday was 26 times MORE incredible this time around.

Note to self: If I ever open up my own cafe or restaurant or something that has some type of sustenance...THAT will be on the menu.

this is what it looked like yesterday....so multiply that by 26x deliciousness and you'll get what just entered my mouth

Now I'm going to go sit and bask in my happiness and wait for my roommates to come home so I can tell them about our incredible meal. Ciao.