Monday! Another
week in the beautiful city of Florence!!
I never want to leave! In
food and wine pairing class, we watched a movie called Dinner Rush that was all
about Italian cooking and the Mafia.
I actually was really into it!
During our movie, Marco cooked us a fabulous Italian meal taken directly
from the movie. So, while we were
watching the movie we could smell all of the yummy aromas floating through the
room. It was neat watching a movie
about cooking and then being able to smell the dishes in the movie! He prepared a dish with sautéed
peppers and sausage, a spongy loaf of bread, some spaghetti with a creamy
tomato sauce topped with fresh buffalo mozzarella, and a delicious chocolate
tart with a raspberry on top. Oh
my goodness. YUMMMMMMMMMM. After class, I blogged around until
dinner time. The roomies and I met
up with some API kids at a sports bar called Astor to watch the EURO 2012
soccer games going on. We enjoyed
some good ole Italian aperitivo and conversation with our friends. I’m going to miss moments like that so
much!!!
Tuesday was an adventure filled day. The roomies woke up with intentions to
go to the Tuesday Market, but unfortunately it was raining! So, we just went back to our apartment
and slept instead. Yay sleep! We
cherish sleep so much here in Italy.
We are always drained! In
class, our theme was cooking with wine where we learned about some regional
Italian dishes based on wine. Our
dishes we cooked were Arancini di riso all’Alcamo Bianco, Risotto al Barolo,
Scaloppine al Gavi di Davi DOCG, and Zabaione al Marsala con lingue di gatto. Mmmmm. Always a good day in Marco’s class. After class, we met up with SARAH REID
to go to Pisa!!!! Sarah has been
studying in Florence this whole time as well and we finally were meeting
up! I love this girl! We met at the train station and started
our voyage to the land of the leaning tower. On the train ride over there, we were able to catch up and
tell each other all about our experiences in Italy. I love when fellow Aggies come together all over the
world! When we got off the train,
we marched straight to the leaning tower of Pisa. I was so impressed with Sarah because she injured her ankle
before coming to Italy and has to wear this boot around. She was just trucking right through all
the ups and downs of the uneven walkway like it was no big deal! On the way to the leaning tower, we
decided to get some NOMS and chowed down on some PIZZA in PISA. We thought this was necessary. Haha. After some pizza, we continued on our quest to find the
tower. It was nice coming on a
Tuesday to Pisa because the streets weren’t crowded at all! It was quiet and quaint. We turned around our final corner and
saw it. THE leaning tower of
Pisa. You always see pictures of
it, but gosh it is incredible to see in person. Truly a work of art!
We did our little poses around the tower and snapped some cute pictures. This task is actually way more
difficult than you would think!!
The wind was blowing wildly so our hair was going everywhere, and it was
definitely a challenge to place hour hands and arms perfectly. The weather looked as it does right
before a storm (I love right before storms) so that made the pictures look kind
of creepy but awesome. Even though
it was a Tuesday and the town of Pisa was pretty empty, there were still a good
number of tourists performing and perfecting their absurd poses. I was laughing so hard at some of the
random poses people were doing.
After our leaning tower of Pisa pictures, we sat down at a restaurant
close to the tower, enjoyed a glass of wine, and babbled for hours about life,
Fish Camp, A&M, etc. This was
my favorite part of the day.
Talking about things I love with people I love. I guess we were having too much fun
because we look down at our clocks and realize we only have ten minutes to
catch the next train. We busted
our booties to get to the train station and arrived exactly five minutes too
late to catch the train ride back to Florence. This was luckily the second to last train, so we still had
hope to catch the very last train which was departing at 11:19 p.m. Sarah, Shannon, and I were literally
the only ones in the train station at this point, so it was an eerie feel. Luckily we were in the best moods ever,
so we weren’t worried or anything.
We wait and wait and wait.
Nothing comes up on the screen that the train is actually coming. We wait more and more. Ten minutes until the train is supposed
to come and these two Italian boys run up to us. They also want to catch this train back to Florence. They hop up and down the train tracks
to ask this single lonely worker if the train is coming. Let me also mention that these boys
speak about three words in English.
We communicated through lots of hand motions. Hahaha. They somehow
let us know that there was no train coming, but a bus was coming at 1:12
a.m. At this point, it was
freezing outside and the train station began to get super creepy. There were a lot of homeless people
hanging out, some were wrapped in blankets and sleeping, and there was this one
woman who looked like she was trying to light this imaginary cigarette and
doing weird voodoo arms around her head.
Oh gosh. Hahahaha. We found the nearest hotel, snuggled
into the lobby chairs, and took a nappy until the bus arrived. Our little Italian friends that were
helping us ran and came to get us when the bus was arriving. They were so helpful!! A little blessing from God! We sprinted to the bus and plopped in
our seats. We ended up arriving in
Florence a little after 3 a.m.
WOW. What a night!!! That will be a memory Sarah, Shannon,
and I will talk about forever.
Wednesday, I slept in till the very last minute until
class. After a rough night like
the one before, I needed all the beauty sleep I could get. Wine and food pairing class this day
was so much fun! Our group was
assigned to make rice fritters…mmmmm yummy. We made this rice pudding with raisins soaked in rum, lemon
zest, and sugar. Then, we fried
them and covered them in sugar. I
guess it wasn’t my favorite dish, but one of my favorites to make! Anyways, after class I did some
blogging and lounging around. I
was still recovering from the night in Pisa. At night, the roomies and I met up with other students from
Lorenzo di Medici to go to a concert called Tuscan Sun Festival. We got to enjoy some absolutely lovely
music from an Italian orchestra with featured artists: a violinist, a trumpet
player, and a pianist. I
absolutely love all kinds of music, so that was special to me!! After the Tuscan Sun Festival, we
skipped on home and rested for the night.
On Thursday, Christin, Torri, Shannon, and I woke up early
to go see the Boboli Gardens.
Boboli Gardens is a park behind the Pitti Palace across the Ponte
Vecchio that is home to sculptures of marble and stone, wide gravel avenues,
luxurious fountains, and lots of greenery. We met up with our friends Michelle, Sarah, and Dana and
explored the vast number of gardens and pathways. I honestly felt like I was in a dream or movie. It reminded me of a combination of the Little
Princess, The Hunger Games, and the Secret Garden. If you reach the very top of the Boboli Gardens, you get a
magnificent view of the city of Florence.
I loved the Boboli Gardens.
On the way to our wine and food pairing class, we were walking across
the Ponte Vecchio and I hear, “Are you Michael Muller’s sister?” from a boy in
a crowd of high school kids touring around Florence. Two seconds later, I turn and see MIRANDA ROUGH!!!!!!!! I still have no idea who said, “are you
Michael’s sister?”, but BOY was I SO HAPPPPPY TO SEE MIRANDA!!!! I honestly almost cried. Miranda has been one of my very close
friends from Austin High School who is two years younger than me and was on her
graduation trip in Italy. This was
one of the most GOD BLESSED moments on the trip! What were the odds of Miranda and I crossing the same paths
in the entire country of Italy on the same day? Truly a blessing!!!!!
I LOVE YOU MIR!! For class
on Thursday, we took a field trip to the Vernaccia Winery located in the San
Gimignano region of Italy, about forty-five minutes away from Florence. The Vernaccia Winery was the most
gorgeous winery I’ve been to in Italy.
It had a country feel with barrels, wheels, cabins, and flowers. Vernaccia di San Gimignano is one of
the best known wines in Italy and the world. The owner of the winery allowed us to sample a white and red
wine with some of their assorted breads topped with their olive oil. Yummmmmmy!! After our field trip to the winery, we rushed back home to
pack for our trip down to the Amalfi Coast with our “Florence For Fun”
program. We were going to arrive
in Sorrento on bus Thursday evening around 3 a.m., spend the day in Capri on
Friday, Positano all day Saturday, then Pompeii on Sunday. SO EXCITED!!!! Can’t wait to tell you all about my
weekend in the Amalfi Coast!
Tanto Amore,
Diane
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