The rest of the weekend with friends

Friday and Saturday we walked around all day and went out at night. Saturday night Madison and I prepared a feast for our friends and we all just chatted. Sunday I hung out with Madison and her Mom she just got in we went out to lunch and walked around. I spent the rest of the day and Today (Monday) studying for my midterms which start tomorrow. This is a really boring post, I apologize they will be more juicy soon because I am leaving for Barcelona on Friday wooooo!

So far this week

Monday was a boring day, I pretty much read the entire day because I had to finish "Homo Faber" for my literature class the next day. This proved to be a difficult challenge due to the beautiful weather. The last thing that I wanted to be doing was inside reading, but it had to be done. I also walked over to Hotel River to check out the room my dad is staying in for him. It is beautiful and very close to my apt. Tuesday I had class all day from 9am- 8:30pm. Fashion Marketing, Italian, Literature and then my food class. In my food class we made gnocchi! We boiled potatoes and then once they were soft you squish them through a press you then mix it with an egg, flour and some cheese. You roll the dough out and cut it into little chunks, then you throw them in water and wait for them to float. The sauce was- black cabbage, oil oil, chopped tomatoes, salt and some garlic. We put that in a pot and let it reduce. We also cooked some fresh sausage with red wine and olive oil then combined to the two and put it over the gnocchi, it came out great and I am going to try to make it when I get home. After class I finally booked some trips that I will be going on later. On April 10th -13 I will be going to Amsterdam to visit my friend Janne who lives there. She studied abroad in America at my school in the fall and I became good friends with her. I am excited to see her in her own environment, and to have her take us around b/c I have no idea how to speak dutch. on April 16-19 I am going to the Amalphi coast and capri and on April 30-May 4 I will be going to Greece! April is going to be a very busy month, my dad and sharon are also visiting the first week of April. Wednesday I went to class, went for a run and went to this new bar called Rex Cafe. The atmosphere was great.We also went to the Lions Pub where everyone was drinking and watching a soccer game on the T.V soccer is so big here they get so into it. Thursday I went to Italian and after Italian we met 5 of our friends from Champlain who are on their spring break. They are all studying in Dublin, Ireland and came to visit on there break. It was so weird to be with them in Italy, I never though it would happen. What is even weirder is that they are going to be in Barcelona the same time we are and Amsterdam and we didn't even plan it! We took them around to the sights, it was funny to wait for them to take pictures, I felt like a local (which I am clearly not) but I didn't feel like a tourist! wooooo! We went to Tijuanas obviously (it was thursday) ordered pitchers of margaritas for the 12 of us to share and had a good time. After dinner we went to The lions pub and twice, it was a good night. Our friends are here till Sunday so we will have to show them a good time.

Venice

Sunday I went to Venice with some of my roommates. It was a 3 hour train ride and as soon as you get close your surroundings change from green hills to water like that. I didn't realize how much I missed a large body of water until we got to Venice. At home I obviously have the ocean and at school I have lake Champlain. Living in Florence there is the Arno but it is a very dirty river, not the same. Anyways as soon as you walk out of the train station you feel like you have stepped onto a movie set. There is a bridge and canal right in front of you. The streets of Venice are a lot more narrow than Florence. The streets are lined with stores selling masks for carnival, there was even confetti still on the street left over from the celebrations. We had no destination in mind we just wondered around. We eventually ended up near a row of gondolas. A gondola ride is about 20E per person but we all thought it was worth it. The four of us got in the boat and met Nicola our adorable "gondolear" (however you spell it) He told us there are 425 bridges in venice an 132 churches (don't quote me on that) He also told us that he is a marketing major like me, that he grew up in Venice and plans to stay there now that he has this job. He says growing up in Venice isn't that great because there really isn't anything to do there as a child it gets boring. I asked him if the gondolears ever have battles and he said they are all friendly with one another, sometimes they have races but it is all in good fun. Nicola let us all try on his hat and told us other fun facts about Venice along our 3k ride through the grand canal. After our ride we kept walking until we reached the San Marco church. We stopped took tons of picture and continued to walk along the major body of water. This area of Venice reminded me a lot of Newport, RI with all the boats and the old buildings and the smell, made me feel oddly at home. We sat down for a while with our feet hanging over the wall and just looked at the water, it was beautiful. We decided to head back to the station and as we were walking back my phone rang and Auntie (flava flav) Renee called me (SHOUT OUT) it was a pleasant surprise. She jokingly told me I only write about food and gelato in my blogs, so I told her I would try to make them more juicy. When we got to the train station 2nd class tickets were sold out so we had to get first class tickets home which was annoying but they had nice chairs. So far I have been to Rome, Milan, Florence, Pisa and now Venice, and have to say that Venice is my favorite. There isn't much to do there, unless you are with a lover and spending a romantic weekend. Venice is so beautiful and unique, which is why I fell in love with it.

I don't want Kat to leave

All week my friend Kat from Champlain has been showing us all her favorite places in Florence. On Wednesday night we went out to dinner at Chero and Sons, one of the best meals I have ever had. I ordered a filet of beef with truffle and roasted potatoes. We drank this amazing white wine that can only be found in that restaurant, had amazing desert strawberry cheesecake and desert wine. The food was so good the second I placed my steak in my mouth I was in heaven. After dinner we went to go see a rapper named Pitbull at a club called Space. It wasn't that fun because there were so many people, so many drunk girls who were trying to grab the rappers attention. I had a dance battle with one girl who was flipping her hair in front of us and was annoying us. So I took my hair down and just flipped it in her face. Then a speaker fell on my friend which was the last straw. We moved to the back of the club because we couldn't deal with the drunk girls in front. Pitbull didn't come on till 1:45am. He was trying to get everyone all hyped up but in fact he just pissed everyone off b/c it took him so long to come out. When he finally did come out he didn't have that great of stage presence, I could have listened to the radio at home and heard the same thing, o well. Thursday night we went to Tijuanas for Tijuana Thursday happy hour our tradition and got 3.50 Euro margaritas and chicken quesadillas. After dinner we went to Moyo and then twice and danced for the rest of the evening. This morning we all slept in and when we all finally woke up we were happy to find that it was nice out, it had been raining all week. We got dressed went to the oil shope got delicious subs and walked around. We also walked across the bridge to the other side of the river and went to Piazzale Michelangelo. You walk up a bunch of steps and once you get to the top there is the most breathtaking view of florence. We took a bunch of funny pictures saw the sights and overall had a great day! Kat is leaving to go back to Burlington tomorrow :( but I am so glad she came.

VIP

Saturday my friend Kat from school came to visit. She studied abroad in Florence last spring and had to come back. That night we went all over the place because she new all the great places to go. We went to dinner at a restaurant called Yellow which is pretty much a real version of the olive garden. It is a family restaurant filled with Italians (not very many Americans) which I liked. I ordered pasta carbanara and it was soo good. After dinner we naturally went to Grom and got gelatto, I got mandarin and dark chocolate an excellent combo. I also sampled pink grapefruit, hazelnut and pear. After gelato we went to a bar called Astor and had a drink some strawberry drink that had crushed strawberries, the bar was very cool inside great ambiance. After Astor we went to a pub called Friends it is an Irish pub run by asians in Italy catered to American students which I found funny. After that we went to a club called Twice, when we got inside my friend Kat ran into a club promoter who she knew and we got VIP access and danced the night away, it was great. We could dance and didn't have to worry about the gross Italian men trying to dance with us, there was literally a guy on the platform yelling at guys to get off, we felt very bad ass. Sunday and Monday were very low key it was raining we just walked around and went into a few stores. We tried to go to "the best pizza place in florence" by cab because it was far away but it was closed. Siesta is really annoying so many stores just close at random times during the day. Today, Tuesday I just finished two classes and went to this panni shop called the Oil shope and got a chicken, mozzarella, pesto, lettuce and tomato grilled panni and it was amazing, a hidden gem. I have two more classes today one from 3-5:30 and one from 6-8:30, who knows what I will do after.