From Puccini to Pasqual

Oof, what an action-packed weekend! Lots was done, seen, and eaten - and plenty of fun was had to boot!

We started out Saturday on a day-trip with our study-abroad program API to the city of Lucca and an olive oil tasting. Lucca is a bit to the north of Florence, only about an hour or so away. I had actually been here several times already because the summer before my freshman year in college, my family rented a villa for a week just outside of Lucca. It was a great vacation, and I was happy to return! [Have I mentioned I love Tuscany? Cause I do. A lot.]

We began, as most of our API trips often do, with a guided walking tour of the city. It was a bit on the long side, but our guide was a little whacky, which always makes things more interesting! I do wish that the tour had been shorter so we could wander around more, but alas, it was not to be. I did learn some stuff though! The city is surrounded by a big old wall built (medieval era, I think - don't quote me) to protect the city from the warring larger city-states nearby (like Firenze!). They even built a moat around the city and got all prepared for a HUGE battle, but on the day that the battle was set for, their opponents never showed up because they decided Lucca was too small to bother with! All dressed up and nowhere to go and no one to fight, they just kept the wall as is, and now it's what Lucca is known for. I thought that was cute!

The amphitheatre (anfiteatro) here is actually one huge elliptical-shaped piazza! It was built in 2 AD and did look like a traditional amphitheatre (think small-scale Colosseum); in the Middle Ages, houses were built over the ruins that remained. You can still see a lot of the original wall layers here and there. How cool would it be to live over a Roman amphitheatre???

We also got to see the musical school that Puccini, who was also born in Lucca, studied at!! He went to the Boccherini Institute of Music, Boccherini being the dude that statue is of. I looove me some Puccini - my favorite Broadway musical ever is RENT, which is based on his opera La Boheme, but he also wrote Madame Butterfly and Tosca, to name a few. This may have been the coolest thing I saw in Lucca [music nerd alert!] ;)

This tower has a pretty cool story too. Those trees you can see on the roof are in fact growing out of the building - if you climb to the top room, you can see the roots in the ceiling! Unfortunately we didn't have time to do it. Next time, right?

For a small town, Lucca sure has plenty of churches!

Actually, in the 2nd-to-last church we visited, I got rather angry. Just inside the church--a beautiful, centuries-old place of worship--were racks and tables of souvenirs and postcards. Inside the church. Really??????? Aaaargh, it was just so outlandishly wrong to me, I couldn't handle it. That just seems beyond inappropriate and downright offensive. At that point, I was ready for the tour to end. And what better to turn my mood around than food?!

I ordered, of course, one of the local specialties:

Minestra di farro (spelt soup)

I actually had this first on our little day trip to San Gimignano, and adored it! This one, however, was a bit too "soupy" for me - I only like soup that is suuuper thick, otherwise I just feel like I'm eating water and it's just not as fun for me. The flavor was good, and the bread helped (what doesn't bread help, really?), but I think I will stick to Sergio's & Mario's for my Italian soup fix.

It wouldn't be a complete trip without gelato!

Raspberry + soy vanilla

The raspberry was just ok - a little artificial-y tasting, but the soy vanilla was really good! It was without sugar, which I think hlped because it let the nautral sweetness of the vanilla flavor to really sing. Not quite as good as Perche No in Florence, but that would be near-impossible to beat. I have been noticing soy vanilla/chocolate gelato flavors more and more, and I think it's great! Eating too much processed soy is something to be aware of, but in general it has a lot of benefits. And I really like the flavor of soy ice cream - creamy with a really nice nutty taste. I was content.

After our [short] afternoon in the city, we hopped back on the bus and headed for Fattoria il Poggio, a nearby  farm we were visiting for an olive oil tasting!

Though this would be my second olive oil tasting, at the first one we didn't get much guidance as to how to go about tasting the oil or what to look for in the taste. At this one, our guide explained that the best way is to take some oil on a spoon and let it go directly to the back of your mouth/tongue, then roooooaaarrr like a lion! The roaring will send the oil closer to your nose and you can feel/taste/smell the fresh aroma of the olive oil. It was, needless to say, a very amusing day at the farm.

These are the machines used to make the olive oil! [Below is the cold press the squeeeeezes the olivey goodness right out!]

Olive trees galore!

Much like my first tasting, we were served bread and other little snacks to enjoy with our oil. No complaints here!

Olive oil with a dash of balsamic in it, sundried tomatoes, olives, and some the best Tuscan bread I've had yet. And I have had a loooot of it. I will admit, I liked the olives/oil from the San Gimignano farm better, but this bread was whoa-so-good.

Salami! Took me back to when I was little and would go to a little Italian specialty shop in my town with my mom and they would give my slices of cheese and salami over the counter. Food memories are the best kind :)

This is a kind of salami specific to Tuscany called finocchiona because it is dotted with fennel seeds. Now while I am generally at all interested in any kind of meat except seafood and the occasional turkey or chicken bite, this was delicious. I made a mental note to seek this out in Florence--it would make a phenomenal sandwich!!! I need to describe it as I eat it because the flavor is so different and complex I can't find the words, but just trust me - it's good.

We finished with the classic Tuscan dessert of cantucci (basically Tuscany's biscotti) and vin santo, a sweet dessert wine.

These are little bites of almondy sweet wonderfulness. They are not obnoxiously break-your-tooth crunchy but juuust soft enough to really bite into and then crumble in your mouth. 

This vin santo I actually really didn't like very much; too alcoholic-acidic and not very sweet. I have had vin santo before and really enjoyed it, but this was meh. Blame my underdeveloped palate, I guess.

I am planning on trying this again in Florence [pretty much any restaurant you go to in Tuscany will have this on their dessert menu], just because I know I've had it before and liked it. And those cantucci rock!

We returned to Florence for a few hours and then went right back out - to our first soccer match!!! I was SO excited. Soccer is the sport here, and Florence's team Fiorentina is like the Red Sox to Boston. They were playing Milan's team Inter, who have been doing reaaaallly well and if they beat us tonight they would go on to  play for the championships. All donning our purple Fiorentina gear (I wore my Firenze sweatshirt), we took the bus to the stadium and let the games begin! I didn't bring my camera because they warned us about the intense security checkpoints and I was afraid they wouldn't let me in with it or something [you just never know in Italy], but it was lots of fun! I forgot how much I love soccer, both watching and playing. I guess a lot of people find it boring to watch because it takes a lot longer for a team to score than in football or basketball, but that is what I love about it! It's so tense and keeps you on the edge of your seat, but not for too long, and I really like the fact that they have to work so hard for just one goal. It makes it all the more exciting when it happens! It was so fun to be in the stadium surrounded by the Italian fans and feel the atmosphere (and learn Italian swearwords). The game ended in a 2-2 tie. I also developed a major crush on defenseman Manuel Pasqual- #23, because he was reaaallly good and wore neon yellow cleats. 

It was the neon cleats that really did it for me.

My weekend adventures took me even further north on Sunday...stay tuned!

~Namaste~

This, That, and Gelato

Having class on Friday completely threw me off. I had no idea what day it was. But regardless of the day's name, it was a pretty good one.

My Food & Culture class was taken outside of the classroom and into Mercato Centrale for a little taste of some on-field research! We all were sent off to walk around the market and surrounding streets and take note of what the market is selling, who is shopping, who is selling, how they are marketed, what ethnicity products are of, etc. We had to interview a vendor, which made me sooo nervous. I'm such an introvert. BUT, I interviewed a fresh produce guy who did NOT speak English and I conducted the whole thing (um, all 2 minutes of it...I couldn't think of many interesting questions) in Italian. Woohoo! It was a really interesting experience, and I really enjoyed the time to just walk around the market expressly to study it closely. Such a fascinating place. SO touristy. It's really a shame, it gets treated essentially like a museum - just another site to see for tourists. Because of Florence's traffic situation, getting to the market for non-locals is a huge pain and often just too inconvenient. It's so sad, because supporting local businesses & farms is SO important, but convenience prevails. It's definitely an issue in the U.S., but awareness seems to be growing bit by bit. It's quite the money-saver too; the amount of produce I can get at the market for about $5 is enough for most of the week for me. And I think it's so much cooler to be able to buy an apple from the person who grew it--just takes the experience of eating to a different, more personal level.

In between classes, I stopped at my favorite cafe for the best cappuccino EVER. The perfect between-class activity!

My music class also took a field trip! We went to the Accademia (home to the David) to see their special exhibit of musical instruments collected by the Medici (Ferdinando specifically, I think). It was pretty cool; there was an elderly gentleman playing one of the harpsichords! It was nice to go with my professor to, who is so knowledgeable about everything music! But, about 3/4s of the way through my body started whining at me for having 2 classes mostly on-foot and no food. Being the clever gal that I am, I went to my sandwich place between classes and snagged a sandwich, which I scarfed down the minute I got home from the museum (which is literally 2 blocks away from the apartment). No picture - it disappeared before Frida could get a word snap in edgewise, but it was the same thing as last week (with some added arugula...mmm!)

It was another BEAUTiful spring day!! 'Bout time, too. Alaina and I did a bit of shopping around town - I needed some batteries before our weekend travels! When she gets hungry, Frida shuts down. Literally. And a shut-down camera is just no good in Tuscany.

Dinner was pretty basic, mostly because it was what I had on hand:

Lentils + some kind of leafy green I bought at the market + garlic + pecorino. Simple and delish. The bread was wonderful as well - a kind of whole wheat sourdough we found at the market. Perfect paired with the lentils+cheese!

Later, after a long struggle with flakey internet, I got restless and talked my roommates into a gelato field trip! (It usually doesn't take much talking ;) I was dying to try Grom's new grapefruit sorbetto, and I was definitely in the mood. To Grom we went!

Pompelmo rosso (red grapefruit) + Limone

The grapefruit was...well, grapefruit! Grom's fruit flavors are incredible because it tastes like the exact fruit and nothing else. I looooved the lemon - like a tastier version of those Minute Maid push-up pops (which I also quite like ;)! Hit the spot.

Bit of an uneventful and low-photo post - but I promise, it is just in preparation for the weekend to come! Lucca for an olive oil tasting on Saturday followed by a soccer game back here in Florence (VAI FIORENTINA!!!!), and then a hiking tour of Cinque Terre on Sunday. Good thing I happen to be in love with Tuscany, no?

~Namaste~

Chocolate Anger, Green Contentment

 I mentioned a slight kink to my lovely day in the sun yesterday - a sudden cloud cover, if you will. Downright stormy in fact. But this was not a storm of hurricane winds or torrential rain. This was a technological cloud of doom - my internet was gone. Now, you might say "oh, kids these day, they  lose their precious internet for an hour and think the apocalypse has come" - but I am NOT finished. My internet was gone because there was supposedly another person using my internet account, and of course that sent me into a tailspin of questions, like "if they got my internet password, what other passwords could they have??!!" My dad later explained that it was probably just a router reboot issue, and the "other user" was probably me, it just hadn't logged me out correctly - but this was not something I knew to consider. Angry and powerless, I turned to the one thing that always helps: baking.

Some people run when they get angry. Others listen to loud music. I make cookies.

These were the cookies we made in my first cooking class and they were so incredible, I've been craving them ever since. We had all the ingredients on hand, and thanks to my mom who sent me my food scale, I was all set. A little too much flour (they were a little bread-y), but I halved the recipe so I think the proportion may have been off. Instead of dark chocolate chips, I chopped up some of my egg left over from Easter. Delicious, brownie-like, and not even very damaging from a nutritional standpoint. I felt quite a bit better.

I didn't have a lot of time to focus on the internet issue anyway because tonight we had tickets (thanks to my study abroad program) to MoMix, a modern dance company performance! We had heard that it was awesome, and very much like Cirque Du Soleil (which I adore), so I was pretty excited! It was a very interesting performance - modern dance goes a little over my head, but I can usually get it for the most part. It was just such a cool experience to see it! The music was really good, and the dancers really did a beautiful job. I think I like Cirque a liiiittle bit more, but this was really cool. Such a fun way to spend a Wednesday night!!

After that, I convinced the roomies to get gelato because they had yet to try Perche No!, which is where my other roommate and I went over Spring Break and declared it our favorite Florentine gelato so far (although Vestri may tie up the competition...).

After falling in love with their soy vanilla flavor, I tried the soy chocolate - and was not disappointed! It was very cocoa-y, which I love. Sometimes when I'm having a chocolate craving, I just have a little spoonful of cocoa powder. It sounds weird, but it works - my theory with chocolate is, the darker the better! I also got mango because, well, I'm pretty much obsessed with all things mango. SO good!

We came home and sampled my cookies (I think they were approved of...), and then my internet issue came flying back at me. I was not in the best of moods. And it only got worse when I broke my tea mug, and then seconds later remembered I had a report for my cooking class due tomorrow, which was actually today as it was already past midnight. Not gonna lie, I had a bit of a breakdown. I pulled it together (although another cookie may have been eaten), cleaned up the mug shards, wrote the paper, and got to bed. Unfortunately, that didn't leave me much pillow time, and I am feeling it today.

BUT, Italian was more or less painless. I left actually pretty excited because yesterday we gave oral presentation about our favorite books and I chose:

Ruth Reichl is one of my very favorite authors. This book is about her time as The New York Times' food critic, and it is just a completely charming, funny book. I've read her others, which I like almost as much as this, and just started her newest one, Not Becoming My Mother. ANYway, my Italian teacher went out and bought it after she heard me talk about it! I love spreading the foodie love :)

Today continued to make up for last night's ick-factor when I came home, made a big cup of coffee, and discovered my internet to be restored. And all was well again. Honestly, I think my issue last night was lack of sleep more than anything else. It's just been a bit of a tough week sleep-wise. And really, when I look back on my semester here, I am not going to remember the internet-less nights of stress; my trip is going to be marked by my sunny afternoons spent lazing in Piazza Indipendenza, making fun of the pigeons and talking to the dogs.

The ladies who lunch sit.

Lazing in the piazza is exactly what I did today - after my cooking class, of course! Today was a "green class"   - lots of antioxidant/fiber-filled goodness!

Patate agli spinaci
This was very interesting. We took boiled potatoes and peeled them--you want to boil vegetables with skins on because if you peel them first, the water will take and dissolve all the nutrients! Of course, you can do this to create a vegetable stock - all the nutrients seep into the water. But for this purpose, boil-and-peel! The potatoes were then riced (I am pretty sure it was a ricer?) --you could probably grate them too-- and mixed with spinach that had been sauteed shortly with olive oil and garlic. This mix was put in a pastry bag and squeezed onto a baking sheet into perty potato-spinach flowers and sprinkled with parmesan cheese (which got all crunchy and golden and delicious!), and baked. They were pretty tasty, although I feel like they could have used a bit more oomph. More salt maybe? I feel like potatoes and spinach are two more or less bland-flavored veggies (don't get me wrong, though, I love eating both!) and they needed more than just the herbs and cheese to make these really *pop.* Ok, I just talked about potato-spinach flowers for about five minutes, NEXT plate...

Trofie al pescatrice e pesto
Holy WHOA this was SO yummmmmmy!! We used trofie, a type of pasta that looks like it's been stretched and then twisted, and is popular in Liguria which is near Genova where basil is grown for pesto! Nice little linkage there, no? We made the pesto, but instead of using water like last time, we used some ricotta cheese to make it creamier. Normally I don't like super creamy pesto, but it went so perfectly with this dish! Into the pasta also went cubed pieces of fresh swordfish...oh dear, how I love fish. I'm pretty sure my eyes lit up when he said we would be making fish! The fish taste was not at all overwhelming and was perfectly balanced by the sweet and creaminess of the ricotta-pesto, and the pasta choice of trofie worked really welll. Something about the thin shape and soft denseness really seemed to accentuate the pesto flavor and the alternate texture of the fish. Definitely had 2 servings of this! Could have happily drowned in it.

Foccacia agli spinaci
They made the foccacia from scratch, of course, so the chances of this being amazing were pretty good from the start. We used mozzarella instead of the usual scamorza, because the mozzarella is fresh and less fatty. They sauteed the spinach in olive oil and garlic and then stuffed it inside the foccacia (btw - that is not an easy to word to spell) and baked it. Towards the end of baking, Marco (our teacher) brushed olive oil and white wine on the top so that it would turn a nice golden color. The secret to making foccacia in under an hour? Use a pinch of sugar in the dough. The yeast loooves sugar and will grow faster with the addition of the sugar.
This was out-of-this world good!! It was just salty enough and suuuper doughy (a very good thing!). I had extras on the crust because it was just. so. good. I just love bread. You start with yeast, flour and water and yet the variety of different results you can get from those simple ingredients is infinite. So cool.

Finally, my team's dish:

Bet you can't guess!

Sfogliatine di pomodori verdi (con sorbetto di limone)
This is basically a jam made of green tomatoes, lemon juice, and cane sugar inside puff pastry. We de-seeded and cubed the tomatoes and cooked them in a pan with the sugar and juice of half a lemon, and towards the end of cooking added crumbled pieces of panbrioche (a sweet bun, basically) to thicken it. We brushed milk (instead of egg yolk) on top of the sealed pastry triangles and sprinkled them with a little more cane sugar. Pop them in the oven for 20 minutes or so, and you're good to go. We served them with a "dollop" (my teacher was very proud he remembered that word) of lemon sorbetto, which put these over the edge! It may sound very odd, but it worked so well. The green tomatoes are higher in acidity, and paired with the sweetness of the sugar and the sweet-sour sorbet (plus that hot/cold contrast), this was one of the most uniquely tasty dishes I've ever had. The jam was SO easy to make; definitely worth a try on my own! (Or your own - if you want the recipe, just leave a comment!)

After class & said-park lounging, the roomies and I decided on aperitivo for dinner. I have given up trying to takes pictures in Kitsch because it's just too dark, but just image a nice glass of prosecco and various little appetizer tastings. Always lots of food and nice prosecco for the low low price of 8euro. Hard to beat.

We have make-up classes tomorrow  - whatever classes we didn't have on Monday (we got it off for Easter). I know I am going to the market for my Food & Culture class to walk around and talk to the vendors. Should prove to be quite interesting at the least!

~Namaste~

Nothin But Blue Skies, Blue Skies Do I See!

Despite yesterday feeling a little blue, this morning I woke up to a very different kind of blue:

There is nothing in the world like opening the window in an apartment in Italy and letting the breeze and sunshine soak in. Definitely a cure-all for blah moods.

While walking to Italian this morning, I remembered my epiphany from earlier in the semester. Why bother mumbling and grumbling about what isn't perfect in life (now there's an exhaustive list) when you can slow down, take a deep breath and just enjoy where you are in that very moment. No "I'm going to be late", no "if I don't get home right now I'll starve and die", no have-tos or should'ves. It was with that thought in mind that I went to the market right after class. Because I was up, I was out, and because there is no rush. There is something about the personableness, the conviviality of the market that just leaves me feeling more content and calm than when I entered. It should probably be studied or something.

Blue skies calls for more blue, and what better way to do it than with...

Blueberry yogoats! If these don't chill you out, nothing will ;)

I mentioned yesterday being a bit off. I'm never quite sure how to approach "off" days on the blog. I want to be honest, but I don't want to bring everyone down! I was just feeling very...unsatisfied, I suppose. Maybe it was just a bit of homesickness in disguise. Or maybe it was the shopping trip on Monday - there is nothing like walking around an upscale Italian department store to make me feel unstylish, unattractive, and "un" everything else that I "should" be. And that got me a little angry. Why should I let some impersonal hoity-toity store dictate my self-esteem? How stupid. I happen to like my style; it's not hot off the runway, and doesn't fit any stereotype. It just fits me. I don't like jeans, never have, and I think I do a darn good job of making myself presentable. If someone can explain to me why wearing yoga pants everyday is any weirder than wearing leggings that look like they've been sprayed on or wearing low-rise jeans that dip so low you wonder where exactly the "rise" is, then I will happily listen. But I can't be anyone else, and I am determined that no one or thing will tell me otherwise or give me a guilt trip about it. So there.

And yes, I realize that society still judges and there are forces out there that even the greatest self-esteem can't conquer, but in my experience, being comfortable in your own skin gives a kind of confidence that makes other people look past, or even not see, the outside. Easier said than done, of course. But it can be!

I tried to turn my day around:

Chocolate-raspberry yogoats. Not sure they helped my mood, but my tastebuds sure were grateful :)

Ethnic Tuesday: Sushi, take-2
tuna roll + seaweed salad
Quite depressing sushi, actually. The tuna was unimpressive and the salad was too sweet and too spicy. And it was overpriced in general. BUT, this place delivered and the rumored "good" sushi places here are sit-down restaurants and a little pricey, so subpar sushi it was.

Ok, no more crappy Tuesday talk, let's get back to the present!

 I've been meaning to check out the San' Ambrogio market, another big food market in Florence. It is not quite as old or big as Mercato Centrale, but you know, variety is the spice of life and all. And it's such a beauuuuutiful day!!!

Funky angles, no?

This market had all of their produce stands outside - it went on forever!

Beautiful South African pears. I had to get some. I loved it! Very nice cinnamony-sweet taste. And so perty!

This market was fun; the old man at one of the cheese stands liked me and gave us lots of samples :) I also bought this monster:

This pepper was 1,50 euro. That's like 2 dollars of BELL. PEPPER. Did NOT see that coming. Whoops.

I liked this market a lot, but Mercato Centrale remains my favorite. More to see there, I think. Either way, it's hard to go wrong with markets in Italy!

We did a bit of shopping in San Lorenzo and stopped for what remains to be the best cappuccino I've ever had before lunch at Sergios! My Wednesdays will be just a little empty when I can't come here for lunch.
Although I woke up thinking about their wonderful soups, I ended going a different route once I took a look a the daily menu...

Melanzane alla parmigiana - Eggplant parm!
What I love about the eggplant parm I've had here is that it is nothing like the breaded, buttered, deep-fried, cheap-cheese-covered American version. The eggplant has a melt-in-your-mouth texture on the inside, but the skin gets crispy and crunchy in the oven, and paired with wonderful parmeggiano and provolone cheese and fresh tomato sauce, it tastes like nothing you'd ever expect to come from just an eggplant and some cheese. It's really a toss-up between my first eggplant parm  at Dino and today's...mm, yummylicious. And it was a perfect little lunch portion too. Cute food is more fun to eat ;)

Because of the gorgeous weather, the roomies and I grabbed a blanket and headed to a piazza nearby to do some much-needed sunbathing. I took my book...but ended up napping in the sun instead. I almost wish everyday were this wonderful, but then that would make it less special, and what's the fun in that?

Taking pictures lying down is fun!

[That would be Alaina's foot.]

Spring has sprung!

I came home on sunshine and nap high, fixed myself an enormous salad...and that's about when my lovely day in the sun got cloudy. But this is such a happy post, I'm not bringing it down! Let's just say - to be continued.

Wonderful food, warm spring weather, and a nap in the middle of a piazza. Life is good.

~Namaste~

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.