EuroChocolate

I had been looking forward to this event ever since I signed up for it with my roommate back in September! I was on a strict no chocolate diet for two weeks leading up to Europe's BIGGEST chocolate festival ever! The Euro Chocolate festival in Perugia, Italy was epic! A huge group of us met FlorenceForFun at the trains station Saturday morning and we boarded a FULL train to Perugia at 8am. I sat with four wonderful gals Hannah, Katie, and Jackie. We got our Choco map and free Chocolate bath gel sample on the way there! When we arrived we took a bus from the train station and then took about 4 escalator to the festival from the bus stop (much more convenient then in cortona, that's for sure!) They were handing out free baby size cans of coke zero along the way which was pretty cool! When we arrived at the main festival we were overjoyed!! CHOCOLATE EVERYWHERE!!!  We weaved our way through the crowd to our first "free choc giveaway" spot and picked up a HUGE bar of free chocolate! "This is going to be a great day!" we all said to each other. Booth after booth, with mounds of tempting chocolaty goodness as far as the eye could see!! The crowds in Perugia were absolutely RIDICULOUS. There were sooooo many people there that everyone just pushed and shoved their up to the booths. We tried to follow our choco map to the next place listed on our Choco discount cards and we eventually picked up all our free goodies except two. One of which we couldn't get to because one required taking a bus out of the city to get and the other was the free hot chocolate! The minuet we got our choc discount cards and saw that we got free hot chocolate we agreed to find that booth first! For whatever reason we couldn't find the hot chocolate booth and finally our last stop before heading back to the bus was a free hot plastic cup of what i like to call liquid gelato! I was very good! I saw a ton of yummy treats I wanted to buy for myself and for people at home but I resisted the temptation and only got a few things with my choc discount card. I even got my mom some chocolate covered goodies but those didn't make it farther then the train ride home! :-/  hehe  oops I was feeling really under the weather the entire day but I still had a great time with my friends and I enjoyed the delicious chocolate! The train ride back was even more full then the ride there so my friends and I sat in between two cars on the floor and just laughed at the situation. It was a wet and cold walk back to our apartments and when i got back i went into a chocolate coma and didnt wake up till about 11:30 am this morning. Now that I have almost polished off the majority of the chocolate I bought at the festival I have to go study for finals! I really want to go back to eurochocolate and get more chocolate... :-/

Under The Tuscan Sun Life truly is Beautiful

Saturday morning at 8am we left for Arezzo again with the fabulous LUCA as our tour guide! It was just a short 45-minuet drive to the little medieval town but of course everyone was passed out before we even got to the highway. Once in Arezzo we did a short walking tour with a lovely local tour guide. She showed us several beautiful churches and talked a lot about the architecture and history of the buildings and town. I especially enjoyed two churches out of the handful we saw that day and the countless number I have seen in Italy already. One of the churches I liked the best was a very simple Gothic style church with little fresco design and very high ceilings. My second favorite was not only because of the beautiful architecture but really the beautiful music they were playing in the church! There was a wedding there that evening and the musicians were practicing!

We saw the famous café and spot where part of the movie “Life is Beautiful” was filmed and after that we had a little free time for lunch.  Hannah  (from ISU) and Beatrice (from California) and I decided to get a sandwich at the little market in the square and take our lunch to the spacious park overlooking the town below! We enjoyed each other’s company and the weird Italian sandwich we had, very much. We got some fun pictures after lunch as well! We found out that we all had a lot in common, especially Beatrice and I! We’re like kindred spirits I guess you could say. God definitely had his hand in brings us girls together!

Our next stop on the agenda was Cortona, which is where the book and movie “Under the Tuscan sun” was based. The winding, twists and turns of the drive up to Cortona were breath taking and nerve racking at the same time!  We unloaded the bus and hiked up hill to our hotel. What a work out!! We were staying in a beautiful little 4 star hotel that used to be a monastery! Hannah and Beatrice and I lucked out and were able to room together, which was wonderful sense Hannah and I didn’t know Beatrice before the trip so we were able to get to know each other better, not to mention our room was AWESOME!!   

There was a large bed when you walked in and then a staircase that took you up to a little loft with two twin beds and another closet and two skylights that opened up! Once we were settled in to the hotel, we strapped on our  “hiking boots”… (I wish) and we went on a walking tour of the village, which began, with a huge cone of gelato complete with 4 different flavors, which was apparently included in the trip cost!  Now, THAT is my kind of trip!! Luca said we would need the gelato for energy to get up the hill!?! I can’t even explain how high the evaluations of the streets were in this town! But it was a good work out, great experience and we were able to take some beautiful pictures!

After our hike, we got all dressed up for our 5-course dinner. That’s right, I said FIVE-course dinner!! We met outside on the tarsi for the Aperitif (which is a European custom sort of like appetizers before dinner that includes a drink and snack buffet). This Aperitif included a glass of sparkling white wine, mini pizzas, mozzarella cheese balls and some other little baked appetizer. It was a fabulous start to stuffing myself silly and I even put a few mini pizzas in my purse for later. (DON’T JUDGE ME!! lol) 

We made our way into the restaurant to “unthaw” (it was really chilly outside) and took a seat  for dinner.  I think the easiest and best way to tell you about my evening in Cortona is to just post pictures of every course we ate because there is really no explanation needed. I ate so much I couldn’t move and the four of us sat at the table for over an hour after everyone left and had an intellectual discussion. It was a GREAT Dinner!!



 So here it goes...

Course-one was a Zucchini Pudding.

Course # 2 (Risotto

number3 (Fresh Ravioli)

Course 4 (Florentine Steak)

Last but not least course #5!!

After dinner we wandered around the town a bit to work off some of the food and we went back to our suite room to get comfy. The next day we had a great little breakfast in the hotel and talked to a nice couple from Boston who had just bought a house in Cortona the day before. They were still a bit shell shocked I think, and rightfully so!
After breakfast we took the bus to Pienza, the city filled with cheese and then we spent the rest of the morning at the CUTEST little cheese farm! He walked us through the entire process of making Pecorino Cheese a kind of sheep milk cheese, which is produced in Pienza. After the tour of his little family owned cheese factory we got to taste the cheese and for the next hour or so we got ridiculously full on cheese, fruit and oiled bread then we all lay on the grass to soaked up the warm sun, talk and few people befriended the farmers animals! It was lovely! We didn’t ever want to leave! It was quiet, peaceful; there were good things to eat and beautiful scenery!

Reluctantly it was back on the bus for a short drive to Montepulciano where part of Twilight’s “New Moon” was filmed. We walked around the city square, I bought a few little souvenirs and then we went down to the world’s most beautiful wine cellar where they make the famous local red wine “Vino Bobile”. Lastly we had a private wine tasting of the Vino Bobile and ate more cheese and bread and many students walked away with bottles of their favorite wine mostly for gifts, then we loaded the buses early to head back to Florence.  It was a great relaxing weekend in Tuscany!

FOOTBALL!!

I went to my first Fiorentina football game this past Sunday! I wore my new purple Fiorentina shirt and a purple scarf! We asked for tickets in the "rowdy section" (what ever that means) and we took the bus a few hours before the start of the game to "tailgate".

Fiorentina Fans are CRAZY and there is not one ounce of fresh air in the whole stadium but it was neat to see practically the entire city together, wearing or waving the purple color and cheering on their team. We didn't win the game which was a bummer, but Breanne and I ended up meeting 3 really cool guys. One guy was from Scotland and the other two were from Ireland! I feel like sometimes the people I meet have more of a lasting impression on me then the place were I met them!

"The Floating City"

This weekend I went on my first real adventure, to the beautiful “floating city” of Venice. It is the city of water, masks and blown glass masterpieces. The term marionette was coined there and the city is famous for its grand Carnival! My friend Hannah has wanted to go to Venice for a while now and it seemed like the perfect weekend for me to go with her. So we walked to the train station Wednesday and tried to buy tickets from the automated ticket machine. The only tickets we could find were around 80 bucks round trip and that price was just over what we wanted to spend. We decided to wait in line to speak with a human to make sure there was no cheaper way to Venice. That was “good decision” number one of I don’t know how many over the course of the next 3 days! We ended up getting round trip tickets to Venice for 50 some Euros all together! ... What is the catch you ask? We had to take 3 different trains to get there but we didn’t mind one bit!

My class got out at 2:45 Thursday and we had a 3:08 departure from Florence SMN (Santa Maria Novella Train Station). We asked some nice Italian girl how exactly we were supposed to validate our ticket and we hoped on the train. The transfer from one train to a next was a breeze and before we knew it 3 hours had gone by and we were waiting in Bologna for our last train to Venice. We had about a 45-minuet layover in Bologna so we found the platform listed on the departure screen and waited for the “free bathroom”, aka our train to arrive. The minuets ticked by and we started to wonder were our train was. Hannah checked the screen with 2 minuets till our scheduled departure and notice that our train had moved to track number 9! We booked it down the stairs and up to the next platform just in time to jump on our train, find two seats and have the doors close behind us. We sat and looked at each other dumbfounded at what had just transpired! We had no idea that trains switched tracks once they had been listed on the departure screen and we never thought to double check. We learned a valuable lesson and luckily we learned it the easy way… Always, triple check the track number of your train.

We stepped off the train in Venice still thankful we hadn’t missed our last connection and when we came down the train station stairs to the waters edge we were overjoyed out how pretty it all was! We took a seat on the steps and called the hostel for directions. That was unsuccessful; needless to say the person who answered the phone spoke less then satisfactory English so we resorted to “Plan B”. “Plan B”, was to ask the cute guy behind the counter which way to go. ;-) This plan ended up being our best friend and most effective means of getting around that weekend! After asking a number of really nice, helpful Italians how to get to Fucina along the way we made it to our hostel. We even met the COOLEST couple on the bus rid there! Their names were Claudia and Greg and they were from Glasgow and that wasn’t the last we would see of them that weekend!

Some cute Cuban guy checked us into our camper/hostel and after an AMAZING pizza margarita and french fries with Italians version of ketchup, (which tastes more like cocktail sauce), we climbed into our slightly damp beds and went to sleep. 

Our day started with a small breakfast at the hostel and a ferry ride to the main island of Venice. The weather wasn’t ideal but we made the best of it. We walked in and out of stunning churches and visited the Piazza San Marco where we had a mini photo shoot, took some famous bird pictures and went to the top of the bell tower. We did a TON of walking and a lot of window-shopping. I tired on maybe a few hundred Venetian masks and we drooled over the beautiful glass chandlers and figurines most of the day. Our night ended with a little play about the Story of Venice, It was really neat to learn about the history a bit and the production was fantastic! I was especially nice to sit down for an hour and rest my feet. We wandered around the quiet and creepy streets of Venice, “asking” our way, back to the bus deposit where we eventually ran into our Scottish friends again! (Like i said before, simply asking how to get somewhere is SO much easier then reading a map yourself!) We figured out that we would have to wait 45 minuets for the next bus, so I grabbed some McDonalds and we chatted with our new friends while we waited! We couldn’t wait to get back to the hostel for some pizza Margarita dinner!! When we go back to Camping Fusina we found the pizzeria had close 35 minutes early!  I luckily had grabbed some food at the bus stop before that but Hannah hadn’t eaten since breakfast! There was nothing open at 10:30 and now were to go and eat! We were at a loss and really had no options until on our way to the bathroom we ran into Claudia again she was carrying a bag of left over food!! Being the wonderful gal she is she shared more then half what she got from the bar tender for free and took the rest back for her and her boy friend.

Day two in Venice was beautiful! We ate at a little restaurant along the water (well actually we sat along side a French couple, who were seated along side the river… lol) but we had scoped the place out the day before and decided it was just right for us! For desert we went to this cute little gelatoria called Mela Verde “ green apple”. I had gotten an amazing crepe nutella there the day before and so I decided to order his specialty and signature desert this time! Gelato con crepe nutella!! I had a hot crepe nutella, with chocolate gelato on top for just 5 euro! Words cannot describe how tasty it was! Since the gelato was so cheap there, I even got a little cup of strawberry to eat on the way to the train station later on! So I left Venice with a full belly, a few souvenirs and a hand painted Venetian mask! All in all it was a WONDERFUL weekend away! 

A great Saturday in Florence!

The sound of camera “beeps”, winded breathing and quite conversation filled the cool morning air. We looked out over all of Florence, the place we now call our temporary homes, and we took the fresh air into our polluted lungs. What a relief it was to be away from the noise and smell of the crowded streets below.  But this was only the first patch of flat ground on our ten-mile up hill hike through Florence and we still had 4 more hours of beautiful scenery to go. I said out loud, “I am SO glad I decided to sign up for this hiking trip. The view is just spectacular from up here!”

The excursion began with all us American college student piling on Italian bus #7, which took us up further into Florence, although I couldn’t really tell you where exactly we were… all I know is that we took bus # 7 to get there. The first stretch of road we walked after getting off the bus had a pretty steep incline and after about 5 minuets I was trying to pretend like I wasn't sore already! After a few more minutes we got to level ground and were able to look out over the city. We hiked up hill for what seemed like an hour. We walked on the pavement, we walked though grass, we walked down hill on stone, and gravel and dirt and we even went uphill through the mud! I met some awesome girls on the trip and I was baffled to find out that one of the girls from WI is living the dream, dating a nice Italian boy and is now studying here full time! I was shocked when she told me!

Saturday night I spent out on the town with a girl I had met earlier in the day hiking and two of her roommates. We stopped by the beer festival so they could try a few samples then we did a little window shopping, stopped at their apartment for bit and then headed across the river for dinner at Dantes Restaurant. I had wonderful boneless pork and potatoes main course and student’s beverages are free there so we all got a free glass of water and a can of coke!  After a full dinner they took me to their favorite gelato place and I got a MASSIVE cone of chocolate hazelnut nutella on a chocolate dipped cone covered in nuts!  Oh how painful was the walk home for me, let me tell you! I was sooo full, but It was well worth it! I had a great day and it ended with a great night!