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Buona Sera Tutto! (good evening everyone)
This weekend I stayed in Florence and did a lot of different things. First on Thursday night a few of my friends and I went out to dinner at a restaurant called Zaza which we heard a lot of great things about. I got gnocchi (potato pasta) in a tomato sauce and beef with rosemary and a lot of other seasonings. Dinner was a lot of fun and pretty good although I am still on the hunt for an absolutely amazing restaurant in Florence. I think I need to go out to dinner more! Friday I just relaxed until Friday night when I went to the opera La Boheme with my study abroad program. It is one of the most famous operas and since it was through my program it was free! Unfortunately there was a slight problem, when a person from API (the study abroad program) went to pick up the tickets there were 5 less than they ordered. Chances are the opera house wanted to make more money so they sold a few of our tickets to other people for more money. Luckily she was able to get extra tickets at the theater when we got there. Since I was one of the last people to get there I got one of the extra tickets which were whatever extra tickets the theater had leftover. In the end it actually worked to my benefit and while all of the API students were on the first balcony I was in the fourth row center! The opera was 4 acts with breaks in between each one. There was a normal 30ish minute intermission halfway through as in the US but there was about a 15 minute break between acts 1 & 2 and 3 & 4. The set was unbelievable and the costumes were awesome! The singing was also excellent and it was very cool to be at an opera. They also had a screen above the stage with subtitles in Italian because apparently it is tough even for the Italians to understand everything they say/sing. The opera started at 830 and got out around midnight. I headed home and went to bed because at 7:15 on Saturday morning I had to meet my group to leave for a chocolate festival in Perugia.
On Saturday morning I took a 2 hour bus to Perugia, a small city southeast of Florence. By the time we got to the festival it was around 10:30 and we had until 3 to do whatever we wanted. The chocolate festival is a week long and happens every year in Perugia in October. Usually around 50,000 people go to opening day and since it was absolutely perfect weather and ridiculously crowded I am guessing that around 50,000 were there! The chocolate festival is made up of tons of tents for different chocolate companies, some companies even had multiple tents. There were some I recognized like Lindt, Toblerone, and Kit-Kat and then tons I didn't recognize. They were all selling tons of their products. There were chocolate bars of every kind of chocolate including all different percentages of dark chocolate. Some bars had flavors like cinnamon, pear or even pepperincini (spicy peppers). There was also chocolate in every shape you could imagine like tooth brushes, soccer balls, mice, dominos, white chocolate that looked like swiss cheese and more. Also lindt was selling their truffles normal size, and a HUGE size. The truffle was the size of a softball, maybe even slightly bigger. I chose to resist although they were probably delicious! I bought a chocolate covered apple, a chocolate brownie/cake thing, and churros (a Mexican dessert that is basically fried dough with sugar) with melted chocolate on top. Also I got a few free samples along the way which was good. As I was walking around I also ran into my friend who is studying in Rome for the semester. This is the second time I have run into her (the first was in Cinque Terre) so a very weird coincidence! I also ran into 2 of my close friends studying in Perugia just by chance so that was a lot of fun seeing them! Also while I was there I went into a tent for one of the companies where there was a huge chocolate cow! It was the size of an actual cow but all chocolate (check out my picture!) Overall Perugia was very pretty and I might go back alter in the semester to visit my friends studying there. After the day was over we headed back to Florence.
Sunday (today) I went on a horseback riding tour of Tuscany. Me, my friend Lauren and her friend from Germany who was visiting went. We got picked up right in Florence along with some others also doing the tour. We got about a 1.5 hour-2 hour ride on the horse through the Chianti classico region of Tuscany (where Chianti wine comes from). I have never ridden a horse but the tour was made for everyone, even beginners. They brought out a horse for me, her name was Giada. At first I recognized the name but it took me a few minutes to remember why. Then I realized it was the name of a woman on the food channel that my Uncle Garth is a big fan of! So the 9 of us in total (4 people from Australia, 2 from Washington DC and the 3 of us), got on the horses and did 2 quick laps to get accustom to it. After that we started on the tour. The horses were trained very well and followed one after another without us having to do too much. We rode along slowly past vineyards a few houses and through the woods. After riding we went over to a medieval castle where there is a small town inside the walls. About 40-50 people live in the town (pretty small!). We had lunch there which was very good. First we had pecorino cheese which was delicious plus a few types of meats: 2 types of salami, capicola, and proscuitto which also all very good. Also there was bread as always. Then for the meal we got 3 kinds of pasta each with a different sauce: 1 was very thick spaghetti with a Bolognese (meat) sauce, another was gnocchi with a truffle sauce, and the last was a thin/flat/wide fettuccini type pasta with mushrooms. Then for dessert we got biscotti and a soft chocolate something (not quite sure what it was). Both were very good! Along with the meal we got to try 3 different types of wine, 1 white and 2 red from the region. Also with the biscotti we had vin santo which is typically for dipping the biscotti in. The meal was great and after that we got a quick tour of the castle/area and then headed back to Florence. I got back around 3:30 and took a nap since I was so tired plus the van we drove in made me a little car sick unfortunately. Since I took the nap I wasn't able to make it to mass at the Duomo but hopefully I can go later this week.
This week I have midterms and then Thursday I leave for my fall break! My cooking midterms should be easy, Italian will probably be tough and my mafia one will probably be somewhere in the middle.
My schedule for fall break is:
Food festival in Torino Thursday-Monday
Paris Monday-Thursday
Galway, Ireland Thursday-Saturday
Dublin Saturday night-Sunday
It should be an awesome break and I'm sure I will have lots to write about when I get back! I am traveling with my friend Kim the whole week. We have all of our flights and hostels booked which weren't too expensive. Most hostels are 15-30 dollars a night and you get free breakfast with it (pretty good deal!) I am definitely looking forward to seeing more of Europe since I haven't been out of Italy yet.
Also I am very excited about the red sox! I am dying to watch the game tonight (online) but it starts at 2am my time which is a bit late..either way hopefully they win! If they do I will definitely be waking up in the middle of the night to watch the World Series.
Well I probably won't write again before fall break so I look forward to sharing my fall break stories when I get back!
Ciaociao!
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