Simple as That

Whoops! Guess who slept in a little later than expected? In my defense, I had a massive headache when my alarm went off at 9 that made me want to scream or split my head in half or something. My roommate and I had planned to get up and go to the Uffizi, but her alarm didn't go off, so I just rolled over and went back to bed. It felt so nice, even if I did sleep later than I intended. I'm soaking it in while I can; April is going to be insane! Exciting, but insane.

Spring Break is winding down! Come 2 AM, we spring forward, and then it's back to school. I'm looking forward to the longer days. It always gets me excited for summer.

Lazy vacation days always call for oats!

oats made with tropical juice (don't knock it 'til you've tried it!) + orange yogurt

I'll be honest, I was not a huge fan. It was perfectly edible, I just really don't like orange flavor (clementines, however, are a horse of a different color!). BUT I buy the 8-pack of yogurt to save a little money, and it includes 2 orange yogurts, so I have to get creative. And, when all else fails and my creativity expires...add chocolate. Seriously, it fixes everything.

Just in case you think I've been totally ruined for "normal" food, here is my lunch:

Soft boiled egg on toast. Sometimes - more often than not, I think - simple is best.

Check OUT my coffee today:

Swirly, almond-milky goodness!

Dinner continued the simple theme:

Whole wheat penne (~2/3 cup?), tomatoes, garlic, and LOTS of spinach topped with a heavy powder of grated pecorino romano. Mmmm, spinach :)

Ok, ok, booooorrrring post. But even in Italy, sometimes boring days are necessary. So, I will leave you with a perty picture, and promise to return with something to say!

Simple.

~Namaste~

The Talk

Well, today's the day - Florence and I need to have "the talk". You know the one I mean. I'll give you the abridged version:

Me: Oh Florence dear, we need to have a little chat.

Florence: Ok, let's do it now. Give me five minutes.

Me: No, this is important. Have you ever heard of the birds and the bees?

Florence: Well, it rings a bell - how do you say it in Italian?

Me: FOCUS dear. Let me see if I can jog your memory. Birds and bees are two different, yet similar species. And why are the similar?....

BECAUSE THEY COME IN THE SPRING. You  know spring? Primavera? That season where it gets WARM and SUNNY?????

Florence: Hmm, yes I think I'm familiar.

Me: Fantastic. Wells, here's the deal: It's March. Spring happens in March. Needless to say...GET IT TOGETHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I woke up to snow flurries, which progressed to sleet for the better part of the day. And the wind is nasty. I wanted to get out and walk around...but it was downright miserable. Oh well - snow or sleet, it's still in Italy. That automatically makes it considerably more bearable.

Breakfast involved another NaturaSi find:

Apple-carrot sauce! I had to - this sounded WAY too interesting to not try.

Whipped up some cinnamon oats...

And voila!

I loved this stuff! WHY has a U.S. company not thought of this yet????

Dear Musselman Applesauce: Please add an apple-carrot sauce to your lineup. Kthanksbye.

Really other than that little experiment, not much to say about today. Researched stuff for a paper, stared longingly out the window wishing for the sun in vain. 

I did make a pretty tasty pre-yoga snack:

Soft-boiled egg on a spelt cake - like a rice cake, just different grain. Another thing a U.S. company needs to pick up on. Come on Whole Foods, don't let me down!

This yoga class is really starting to grow on me. It's very relaxing and meditative, and I really like getting into th meditation side. It's such an important part of yoga and I don't feel like I've ever got much of a chance to delve into in during a class, so I am enjoying the emphasis on it here.

In keeping with last Tuesday, we decided that it was ethnic Tuesday again and went to a Greek place just down the street - partly because we wanted hummus, and partly because it was 2 minutes away, meaning less cold to bear.

Unfortunately, there was NO hummus on the menu - total blasphemy in my opinion! What is Greek food without some tahini and garlic-infused chickpeas??? But the pita was warm and yummy, and almost made up for the lack of hummus. Almost being the key word there. 

I ordered the octopus salad, which is basically the octo in some olive oil and lemon. Very simple, but very tasty. It did the job.

Tasty tentacles :)

This early AM class kills me - I come back from dinner, sit down to do a little more work and talk to the fam, and BAM! It's 11 o'clock. Rather frustrating. That said, I'm off to bed.

~Namaste~ 

Exhaust Fumes

I hate to start out a post on a sour note, but I have to be honest - I am NOT doing so hot over here. I don't feel sick, I just feel like I've been hit by a sledgehammer. Like someone drained every ounce of energy out of my body. Look at the weather today:

And all I can think about is bed. I'm hoping it's just a travel hangover - Rome was rougher on me than I knew. It will be an early night.

Italian this morning was a little rough. I just could NOT get myself to focus. I deal with tiredness a LOT, but even this is rare for me. Our teacher told us the legend behind panettone, a sweet bread eaten at Christmas here. She even brought some for us to try - it helped. It was delicious, and I'm going to ask around for a good recipe. It's very fluffy with a strong vanilla flavor and dotted with raisins. Even through my exhaustion haze, I could tell this was GOOD. Project: Panettone will soon be put into action.

I dragged myself back to the apartment and immediately went back to bed. I slept for a solid 2.5 hours straight, and the oddest thing is I slept fine last night, just not enough.

You don't want to hear whining, you want to see some good eats! And as promised, here is my breakfast experiment:

Overnight CEREAL!

You see, I was totally the kid whose favorite part of the bowl of Cheerios was that last bite of completely milk-saturated Os. And, being a lover of oats, I figured, "hey, why not apply the overnight soak method to regular cereal?" The results: I'm a fan! It was a consistency very similar to oat bran, which I actually prefer to oats and miss very much :) Very thick, almost pudding-like, especially after I added the yogurt. I sprinkled cinnamon over it before putting it in the fridge and it really seeped throughout and gave a great flavor boost. Now obviously if you like your cereal super crunchy, this is not for you - but it was a fun experiment and I'm definitely going to try it again!

I was still a little hungry (it was a small bowl - it was, after all, the first trial), and so I made b-fast #2:

Tea, toast & eggs. Quickly becoming my new favorite snack. And as you can see, I was much more successful with peeling this time...

Blogged a bit and did some emails while staring longingly at the beautiful blue sky, and then made some lunch:

Very light salad, just to keep my energy up for some errands.

I felt a little better once I was out and went for a short walk before yoga club. Did some window shopping...

Ooooh so perrrrty:)

 And had to snap some pics:

Oh Duomo, I'm going to miss you so in a few months!

Hit up the grocery store, came home, made coffee, went to yoga. I knew that if anything would help this exhaustion, yoga would. And it did - we held shoulder stand for a gloriously long time. There is something about seeing the world from upside down for a while that just makes a difference.

One of my favorite poses:)

Tonight was deemed Sushi Tuesday in our apartment after we tried to go last Monday, only to discover that essentially every single sushi place in Florence is closed on Mondays. I haven't had it since the day I boarded my plane here - I was ready for some maki!

We went to a take-away place pretty close by. We ended up waiting for a good 25 minutes, which seemed a little excessive considering the phone didn't ring once when we were in there and we were the only customers, and there were 4 of us. I just got a salmon roll and a cucumber roll, nothing special but I like the simple rolls more anyway. Sushi is one of my favorite meals because it involves fish and it never fails to leave me satisfied but not never heavy-full. Because we waited so long and then walked back to the apartment, I ripped into it before thinking to snap a picture! But I promise, it looked very similar to this:

(Pretend that tuna is salmon or cucumber.)

I reaaaally wanted some gelato, so I dragged a couple of my roomies out with me. The place we had in mind was some random recommendation and I didn't think it would be particularly picture-worthy (which was silly - is gelato EVER not worthy of a photo? no. silly gilly!) But the place was closed, so we went to Grom in hopes that the March flavors would be there. It turned out that the March flavors are...the exact same as the February flavors, but Grom is pretty amazing in general, so I wasn't complaining. I was sad that I forgot my camera, though :( I got pear and Bacio, which is essentially Italy's Hershey Kiss - it's a popular chocolate with a whole hazelnut in the middle. Trust me, it was GOOD. Hit the spot.

I definitely need to hit the sack soon, but I couldn't resist the call of the blog:) Tomorrow I'm going to Mercato Centrale (I'm out of my beloved pecorino! The horror!) and out to lunch to my new Wednesday spot, Sergio's. A domani!

~Namaste~