Spontaneous Success

Hello all!

So it has certainly been an adventurous weekend, to say the least. Rewind:

FRIDAY: Emily and I had a field trip out to Santa Brigida, the Tuscan countryside. It was a gorgeous day out and we were excited that our field trip would be hiking to a monastery. Unfortunately, the weather is unpredictable and we dressed for chilly, winter weather (sweaters, scarves, jackets) when in reality, it was summer for a day.

After yet another bus ride through Chianti (don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining), we arrived in Santa Brigida. We stopped briefly at our teacher's house and met his wife and baby - precious. Then we were off! We walked to a small church first. Here, we found a kitty friend. Always. Always can find a cat on our field trips. Then we wandered down the road to a path that led into the fields. At this point, I was seriously regretting wearing a sweater and jeans. At least I wore appropriate shoes for hiking...kinda. We passed an elderly man on the road, who we later found out was 93-years-old. I honestly thought he was 60. He had survived WWII and the Germans. His life sounded incredible, I wanted to go back and talk to him.

Simon took us past his father-in-laws house ("We don't speak. I mean....we say hi and talk about weather") and then we looked at another house. Absolutely gorgeous. I am considering real estate here. Is that a bad thing?

Onward. We began the treacherous hike up to the monastery. It was certainly not a simple Friday morning hike. It was an oops-i should have worn my sneakers-brought the biggest water bottle-and my inhaler-kind of hike. At least Simon brought everyone 2 sandwiches each from a fantastic sandwich shop in Florence, I Fratellini. Delicious! After one sandwich, we continued our hike up the mountain and over Hell's Valley.

I'll have to admit. Simon, you were right. The hike, despite the sweats, tears and blood, was worth it. We got amazing views of Tuscany. This place is gorgeous and I feel as though no amount of words can truly describe the feeling at the top.

We went into the monastery (which monks still reside in) and we wandered around.

We went into the basement to view artifacts.

Afterwards, I lit a candle and said a prayer.

Then we got to eat our second sammich. Nom nom nom.

Walking down from the monastery, I was going to be artsy-fartsy and take a picture under a ledge...until I stepped under and a bunch of lizards started crawling all around me. So maybe I'm not so outdoorsy...I liked the hike.

Walking down the mountain, Emily decided to confront Simon with the hypothesis that he dislikes us both very much. He always just looks at us and laughs whenever we're - you know - us. As it turns out, he said (and I quote) "Whenever I'm at home and think about the two of you, the biggest smile comes across my face." Of course, we don't know how to take this, either as insult as a compliment so he continued, "It's the greatest compliment. Your enthusiasm and strange sense of humor is the greatest compliment." So that settles that. We're his faves. Kidding, but only half.

So Emily and I returned from Santa Brigida and decided it was the perfect time to check out the Chocolate Festival that happens to be in Florence for the next ten days. I LOVE MY LIFE. What gets better than 1. being in Italy 2. Living 5 minutes from a Chocolate Festival and 3. Eating chocolate everyday for a week? Exactly. So the festival was actually extremely cool. I'd never been to any type of food festival like this. There was so many vendors of all different types of chocolate yummies. We settled on taste testing all of the free samples (hey, we are college kids after all). We got some chocolate covered strawberries & later a chunk of PB/choc fudge that literally melted in my mouth. The greatest thing ever.

So now it's already 5pm and Jess has finally returned home after her very own field trip Friday. So what to do now? Oh right, it's time to be spontaneous!! We decided we could catch the next train to Venice for the night. Perfect. So we booked a room in Venezia, met up with our long-lost-brother Joe, and simply left. We successfully caught 2 trains necessary to get there. However, we didn't validate our ticket which is the most important thing to remember to do when riding on Euro trains. A conductor came to check our ticket and I was sweating from nerves. However, he didn't mentioned anything (if you're found with an un-validated ticket they can charge you up to 100E in fines, as well as the full price of a ticket) so we were a very lucky bunch.

We made it to Venice around 9:30 at night.

I knew Venice had a bunch of canals and such but seeing them in real life is absolutely ridiculous. There are no cars, well, because there are no roads.

So we hopped on a water bus (literally, a boat with bus seats on it) and took it to the Rialto Bridge, after first heading down the Grand Canal in the wrong direction. We thought we had an idea of where our hostel was but after an hour of being lost in the canals of Venice, we knew we were doomed. All we had to do was find 1699 San Polo. It was literally nowhere to be found. Four different groups of people tried to help us without success. Finally, Emily called Tim (her daddyo) and thankfully Tim Google-mapped us directions for the next hour. Turns out, where we got off of the bus was actually ridiculously close to our hostel. The funny thing about Venice is that the building numbers don't go in numerical order, which was half the problem. We had found 1900 San Polo and then it jumped to 1400. We were stuck in the 1900s for the longest time. I have nightmares now.

So thanks for Em's dad, we found our hostel. We found 1699 and we almost started crying. It was boarded up! Are you kidding me!? Well, turns out they were. We tried to open the little wooden door that proclaims "I'm B&B Rota" and it was locked.

I honestly thought we had booked a false hostel. Anyways, soon enough we got settled into our cozy little room. We had a midnight dinner of Chinese food right next to the hostel because we didn't want to stray too far away.

SATURDAY: We woke up relatively early and checked out of the hostel to explore Venice. Where to go? Well, thanks to Tour Guide Emily we realized that we were living right next to the fish market.

So we took a little look at the fish market, bought some blood oranges and clementines for breakfast, and made our way to Piazza San Marco. San Marco was a very pretty place and we saw the Tower, Church, and Palace. Then we took a water bus to Murano, the glass-blowing island.

Murano is the main reason why I wanted to go to Venice. It was well worth a trip. Murano is an island north of the main island of Venice.

We were able to attend a free glass blowing demonstration. The man first made a vase. Easy. Then he made a glass horse, which was absolutely incredible to witness. He literally made this beautiful glass horse in 3 minutes. Afterwards, of course we shopped around and found the most amazing Murano glass items. Ah! They're beautiful.

After Murano, we decided we should maybe try to figure out when trains were leaving Venice for Florence. Good idea. So we took another water bus to the train station. However, this time we opted not to buy tickets because they hadn't checked any of the previous times. Unfortunately, this time was the one time we got checked. Just our luck! We gave the officers our old tickets which we previously had validated and they certainly looked confused. We could tell that they knew we didn't have the correct tickets but they let it slide anyways. Foof! Lucky us, really.

So we had some time to spare after checking train times and a nice man showed us to a fantastic restaurant for lunch. Pizza and bread+oil, delicious. Then we ventured to find gelato and wine. TG Em educated us about a fantastic wine find, where you bring in an empty plastic bottle and you can get it filled with your choice of wine for 2 Euro. This gem happened to be right around the corner from our lunch place so we found it easily. What a find it was! I was the happiest girl in Venice on Saturday. We had our 1.5 Liter water bottles to fill so of course I chose blush. There were about a dozen "kegs" of wine in the shoppe. The man was so helpful and loved our enthusiasm for wine, I'm sure. We're thinking of bringing this idea back to America. It'll be a hit. Who's in?

After wine, we stopped for gelato. For our grand finale in Venezia, we bought masks. I love our masks and cannot wait to wear it.

We made it to our train on time and returned home to Florence, after switching seats three times (due to unhappy commuters). All-in-all, I absolutely loved Venice. It's my favorite place that I've visited thus far, after Florence of course. I wish we had more time, but perhaps we'll make another visit back later in the semester. It's definitely a must-see, as simply the idea of a "floating city" is too amazing. I recommend it.

Saturday we got back home around dinner time. We had planned on going to Tijuana (Florence's Mexican restaurant) for dinner, but there was too long of a wait. Fortunately, there is the best kebab place right around the corner. Afterwards, we ended up at....NAIMA. Surprise, surprise. A great weekend.

SUNDAY: Sunday we all woke up relatively early. We had planned on a walking tour of the other side of the Arno, but the weather - once again - had lied. It was cold and cloudy. Tour cancelled, the roomies and I headed to the Diner for brunch. Delicious! Afterwards, we visited a day-cafe/night-bar called Astor's to get SuperBowl tix. Success. We spent the rest of the day lounging and eventually, Emily, Jess, and I made our way to Astor's for the big game. It was my first SuperBowl Monday! I don't follow NFL, but I did care about the commercials. Our night was fun and we came back and hung out with the rest of the roomies.

The weekend was very fun, with our spontaneous Venice trip and SuperBowl fun. TODAY: I woke up and did my very first load of laundry in the apartment. The washer fits about a quarter of a normal load in the States. I was proud to have done laundry though. Then I had classes until 1:30. I love Mondays. Afterwards, Jess and I had a productive afternoon. We put more minutes on our phones ( I love pre-paid phones...not), introduced Florence to THON!, and went grocery shopping. We even took the trash out. We're growing up so fast, I know.

So now it's dinner time here and we're all cooking up some pasta. "If I eat any more pasta I'm going to turn into a carbohydrate!!" - Jess. I think I'm okay with that. Not sure what's up for tonight, perhaps I'll continue with my productivity streak and fill out some apps. Or maybe I'll go to the Art Bar. Decisions, decisions...life is so complicated here.

Until next time!