Week 8: Fall Break Pt. 1

10/14/19 – Monday I had my first test of midterms week. It was the one I was most nervous about, besides my Italian test of course. It ended up going super well, to my surprise. The next test I had that day was not the same case. Hopefully I did okay, though. I had a project due as well, which was the window display I had been working on. Unfortunately, there were like 3 other girls that had similar ideas to me, and one girl had almost the same exact project (ugh). The teacher seemed to like mine a lot though, so hopefully I do well on that. After class, I headed to the doctor because I’ve been having some issues with dry and cracked lips. Turns out I have a vitamin deficiency because I haven’t been eating enough meat and veggies (apparently you can’t live strictly on pasta, ugh). Needless to say I went straight to the grocery store and bought all the veggies and meat I could find. I have my vitamins now too, so hopefully I can get better again. Oops.

10/15/19 – After my test on Tuesday, I mostly studied for my Italian test the next day. That night, Hannah, Sophia, Kailey, and I went to a Beatles tribute band in the basement of the cutest café called La Menagere. Hannah and I even met the band and Hannah told them we were coming every week. So, I guess we will be there again next week.

10/16/19 – Wednesday was my Italian test, which I was convinced I was going to fail. It ended up going a lot better than I thought it would, though! I’ll be fluent in no time I guess.

10/17/19 – I had my last test on Thursday. I officially have no responsibilities for the next week (yay). Soon after I finished, my parents arrived in Florence. I met up with them to go on a walking tour of Florence, which was kind of nice because I got to learn a lot about Florence I hadn’t yet. I finally saw a wine window. In the old days, if you knocked on the small door, you would get handed a bottle of wine (sounds amazing to me). We also stopped in the oldest pharmacy, where they are still making the medicines they used to in the Medici family times (except they obviously aren’t really medicines that work). For dinner, we got some Italian food at a small, family-owned restaurant. We tried the classic Florentine cocktail, which I learned was the Negroni. I had thought it was the Spritz, but it turns out that is actually a Venetian cocktail. It was incredibly bitter, and I’m not sure it’s the drink for me, but glad I tried it. After that we headed straight to bed, because after a day of walking and a week of tests, I was exhausted.

10/18/19 – On Friday we began our fall break trip. We are taking a private cab around Tuscany to begin. First, we headed to San Gimignano, which is a medieval city. It used to have 72 towers within the city. This is because each household wanted to be the best, so they built the highest tower they could to show their greatness. After a short time there, we went to a winery in the center of the Chianti wine region. It was called Lornano, and they are known for their Chianti Classico wine. We had a private wine tasting, with a classic, Tuscan cheese and wine platter. All of the wines were amazing and I honestly loved them all. I was surprised I like the rose as much as I did, because I’m not typically a rose person. They also had won many awards like best Chianti Classico wine, and 2nd best red wine in Italy, so it must have been good (I’m on my way to being a regular wine connoisseur!). I got some of the rose and chianti classico. Tuscany is very beautiful, though, just like the pictures and everyone says. There’s just something peaceful about it and relaxing. When we finished our wine tasting, we went to Siena. It was quite a large city that seemed much more local than Florence or San Gimignano. There is a popular horse race for the locals twice each year that is based from medieval times. We also saw the Siena duomo, which was super ornate and fancy. It apparently is one of the coolest and most lavish churches on the inside, but we didn’t have time to go in. When we left Siena, we headed to our hotel in the middle of Tuscany. It’s located in Val D’Orcia, which is a national park here, I believe. It is gorgeous here with the hills and ancient buildings. Since we are sort of in the middle of nowhere, we went for a short walk around before dinner. We found a very cute old town with a small area with a natural hot spring. It was dark for our walk back. There are a lot of wild boar in Italy and our driver told us to watch out for them at night. My dad was convinced they didn’t exist, but my mom and I definitely heard one on the walk back. Apparently they can be pretty dangerous, so good thing we escaped death. Finally we finished the day with dinner at our small, traditional hotel. The recipes are based off of a grandma’s who lives nearby in town. The food was good, and the wine was great, but it was from a different part of Tuscany, creating a different flavor. Of course for dessert I had the tiramisu.

10/19/19 – Saturday morning we woke up to travel between several towns in Tuscany. We began in Montalcino, famous for their specific type of wine, Brunello. My mom and I had shared one the night before at dinner, but the waiter never told us the price. We found out Brunello can go for even $2,000. My mom was panicking a little, but I thought it was pretty funny. I looked it up though, and the brand we had was less than $100, hopefully. We walked around the town for a little bit and got some great views of the hills. It was a medieval town with a castle too that we climbed to the top of. It was super old, like built in 1300 or something. Next we winded through the roads and fields of grape vines and wheat to get to a small town called San Quirico. There was a nice garden inside and of course cute buildings all around. We stopped at a bakery and got some cookies. I picked out a kind that looked like Italian wedding cookies, as we call them in America, that I really like. They were so good. Gone in a minute and I forgot to share (oops). After we spent some time there, we traveled to a small factory that produces home-made pasta from local wheat with no added chemicals. The noodles were a much browner shade than you see in the grocery store. We got to see how they create the flour, noodles, and dry the noodles. Pici is the local traditional noodle, so we got some of those. Then it was time for our cheese tasting. It was at a local cheese “laboratory”. The common cheese of the region is pecorino, which is made from sheep milk. We got to see the process of how the cheese is made, including the aging process (where it basically sits and gets moldy, yikes). We got to sample just about every cheese they make, I think. There was regular, raw milk pecorino, truffle pecorino, pepper pecorino, hay-wrapped pecorino, leave-wrapped pecorino, and “drunk” pecorino which is wrapped in grape skin. Our favorite was the hay-wrapped, so we got some of that to go with the wine we bought. Last stop for our day was Piena, which my roommate Sophia said was the prettiest place. It was super cute and filled with plants everywhere, plus great views. We tried the Porchetta, another recommendation of Sophia. It was pretty good. Finally we headed back to the hotel and watched the sunset. At dinner, I ordered the local dish, which is pici with aglione sauce. It was like a tomato based garlic sauce with a bit of spice, and it was super good. Then I passed out from exhaustion and went to bed (lol).

10/20/19 – We woke up at 8am on Sunday to get in our car to the Florence train station to get to Venice. When we arrived, it was like a dream. The city is so unreal and like a movie. I have wanted to come here since I was little, and it’s just like I imagined it. We jumped in our water taxi to our hotel, passing by lots of beautiful buildings and gondolas. Shortly after we started our walking tour of Venice. We learned a lot about the history and visited the St. Mark’s Basilica. It was like 90% gold and had a piece of artwork worth probably $1billion. Too bad we weren’t allowed to take pictures. There was also a palace next door that was very beautiful, and my kind of place. We then learned a little about the history of gondolas. Apparently they make a decent living and their wives are “dressed in Gucci and such” (so if any gondoliers are looking……). For dinner, I got a really good pasta with crab sauce dish. Finally, the crab dish I have been searching for in Italy. It was so good. After, we grabbed gelato and strolled around the city. It is so peaceful at night because it doesn’t have cars and a lot of the tourists are gone. Seems like it would be such a cool place to live (but way too many tourists). I took wayyy too many pictures today, though. If you need me, I’ll be going through and deleting half, which are mostly repeats anyway.