Ciao Bella

Buena Sera! It's Saturday afternoon here and it's raining. I've been putting blogging off, so now looks like the perfect time to do it.

Thursday morning, I woke up and took my first trip to an outside market with Bryn and Kimberly. I've only been here a week and I already cannot stand the phrase "Ciao, Bella." Walking through the market, I looked up and by chance caught the eye of a market salesman. This is how the conversation went: Salesman- "Ciao," Me- "Ciao," Salesman again- "Ciao Bella..." Well he ruined that one. It gets quite annoying after a while. At the outside market they sell everything from leather to scarves to Italian themed anything. The inside market was my favorite because it is strictly a huge grocery store with the freshest produce, cheeses, and meats. I unfortunately don't appreciate the meats here because I haven't been eating them. After much research and reading, I have decided to cut meat out of my diet. That's another story for another time. Anyway, here are some pics from my day:

I jumped on over to class after that where we learned about international wines and had a a dish called pasticcio, which was ultimately a random combination of pasta, pastry, vegetables and egg. The white wine we had was a 2011 Organic Riesling made by Alois Lageder which had a light yellow color and a good consistency with the aroma of white flowers and yellow fruits like pineapple and lemon. It was dry but very fresh which went well with the pasticcio. The red wine we had was 2011 Fontana Fredda Barbira which is a young wine with a big intensity but a bigger freshness than alcohol content. The aroma of it consisted of red fruits and vanilla. Overall this wine was a good combo but the best was the Riesling. 

Pasticcio and wines (I forgot to take a picture until half way through eating. SORRY!)

After class, I had some quality facetime with this guy, Phillip, who will probably hate me after this blog post, but I had too. The post was feeling a little dull. When I told Phil to go read my blog for the first time, he told me he was nervous that I was gonna embarrass him in some way. Well here we go!

Haha, alright. For dinner, we went to a small family-owned panini shop where they take their time in making your food, so I wouldn't suggest going there if you are in a rush. I had the veggie panini that actually wasn't the best because the veggies had been soaking in oil and weren't quite fresh. I'm gonna try the place again but I'm gonna try something else. 

After dinner, we got ready to go out. What an interesting night we had. We started off drinking some wine at the apartment and sitting around the table. After, oh, just a few bottles, the five of us were headed to the Lion's Den which is just a few blocks away. I really like this bar, but that may be because it's pretty American. They have tshirts hanging from the ceiling from many colleges around the US. Unfortunately there are none from Ole Miss but I may just have to take one up there one day. For the amount of people that come study abroad in Florence from Ole Miss, I feel like the Lion's Den would be honored to have it. We made friends with the bartender Nick (which is the name of my beloved dog so I made sure to tell him that) and had a great time. We went to the club around the corner and stayed there for a bit. They played "Imma Be" and I had to take a picture of the club for my friend Maggie to, I suppose, capture the song for her. It was packed and ridiculous but so much fun.

Sweet Kelsie

Valerie, Kim, and I

Brynnnnnn

Bryn and Kim

Bryn and I obviously had to write our names on the wall

I had been craving a beer. Landbier was pretty good.

Kim and her new friend

"Imma Be" pic

Always has her rose

The next morning I was feeling a bit lazy so I threw a tshirt and some shorts on and rushed to class. I HATED wearing this outfit here. Every Italian woman I have seen in this city is dressed to a tee and looks fabulous. My outfit for the day just was not cutting it. I won't make that mistake again. In class, we had yet another pasta dish called Orecchiette pasta with provolone cheese and vegetables. We had three wines this day (lucky me) which were a red 2008 Tenuta Niccolai Montecucco Rosso, a sparking wine which was a Andreola Prosecco, and a white 2011 Medici Ermete Trebbiano. Our teacher said that usually with a pasta dish like this, the overall rule would be to choose a white wine but we broke that with these three. The Montecucco Rosso ended up being the best match because the strong flavor brought out the flavors the best in the Orecchiette.

That night we went to a restaurant called Za-Za's which had menus in at least 6 different languages. We drank a bottle of their Chianti Classico and were told to get the cheese plate as an appetizer. I had the seafood risotto with mussels, clams, squid, octopus, and shrimp, which in effect made feel like the Michelin man. It was delicious but had an abundant amount of shells in it.

Risotto

Chianti Classico

Val and I at dinner

It has literally taken me all day to blog all this today. Internet is awful. But today we climbed the 463 or so steps to the top of the Duomo today and tomorrow we are going to Cinque Terre. Finally getting out of Florence for a bit. I will tell you all about it after tomorrow. I'll leave y'all with what my brother text me today.

I don't care if y'all know that I am that girl who is probably overly obsessed with my dog. Sweet, little Nickers. Miss him and my friends and family a lot. I'll talk to y'all real soon. Ciao!