A Very Unique Easter

Buona Pasqua...err, 2 days late! The internet has been a serious downer, but I can only get so low before I remember I'm living in Florence. That makes everything so much better.

Easter was...certainly unique. Oh, where to begin. 

I woke up and knew something was off. My head was pounding and I just felt weird. I figured out the problem pretty quickly...

No, I did not get beaten up in the middle of the night. Well, actually, I guess I kind of did...by a MOSQUITO. Mosquitoes are bad all year round in Florence, and the one buzzing around our room last night got me good. Really good. 

I had planned on doing some Easter morning yoga, but I was a little distracted, for obvious reasons. I needed chocolate, and I needed it immediately. Lucky for me, chocolate is how Italians celebrate Easter, in the form of eggs:

All wrapped up perty!

Vestri, a wonderful chocolate company here in Firenze (with excellent gelato!)

300 grams of dark chocolate. Yep, this helped the puffy-face situation.

For comparison ;)

I sought further consolation in my good ole stand-by - oats!

I used raisins for the first time in my oats - I loved it! Added a really nice sweetness.

I also added blackberries and strawberries my roommate bought for pancakes. I LOVE berries in my oats, but they're not quite in season and Italians are big on eating on in-season fruits, so they're not as easy to find. Don't worry - come summer, you will see a LOT of berrylicious oat bowls around here!

Raisins, berries, cinnamon, oh my!

The puffiness slowly receded throughout the day, but I was still quite comical-looking when we ventured out into the torrential downpour for a nice Easter dinner. We went to Dante's, recommended by many students because they offer free, unlimited wine. And puffy face + pouring rain = definitely a good day for wine. 

I ordered my first pizza in Italy!

Foccaccia al salmone

Suuuper thin foccaccia (very much like naan) with mozzarella, tomatoes, arugula, and smoked salmon. Basically, the perfect bagel, with mozzarella instead of cream cheese and a different carb on the bottom. Smoked salmon + arugula is a match made in heaven.

I pretty much demolished this massive pizza, but the thinness of the crust made it lighter than it looked. The wine was nice too...but then they brought a second bottle. And then a free shot of limoncello. And then I was a liiiiittle bit tipsy.

We gave up on the idea of walking home when we looked outside and it was raining even harder, so we called a cab. Alaina generously made a crostata for our dessert that was awaiting us patiently in the refrigerator:

So perty! And quite yummy also!

However, Alaina got upset that Sam and I ate "all" of the fruit (her accusation, not my admission), and things escalated quite quickly into a full-out berry/crostata WAR. Berries in our hair, on the floor, on our clothes, and basically every other surface in our apartment was at some point or other covered in berry juice. True, not so fun to clean up...but totally worth it.

Our Easter Monday was pretty uneventful. Slept in, did a bit of shopping, and sent angry vibes to Mother Nature for not giving us spring weather. I did make a pretty sweet bowl of oats though:

KINDEREGG OATS!!!

If you have never had a Kinderegg before, please find one now. They look like this:

Made in Germany, they are milk chocolate.white chocolate on the inside with a little toy inside.

When I was little, I had several au pairs and two of them were from Germany (in fact, one of them is pregnant with twins!! SO exciting!!! Hi Tina!!) and they gave these to me and my brother a bunch - SO fun. They are huge in Europe and one of my roommates here has discovered them and is full-on addicted, and so she bought us each one for Easter. My first thought when I saw it was to add it to oats. We all have our addictions, I suppose.

So, there you have it. My Easter in Florence. Crazy, weird...and definitely one-of-a-kind.