One Month Already?!

I can't believe that I've been here a month already! As I was walking around this morning I realized that I hardly ever use a map anymore. Unless I'm venture far out, I usually know where I am going or look it up before and find my way. I was starting to wonder if/when I would get homesick, but I realized today that I already passed that stage. I miss my friends and family, but facebook keeps me so updated I feel in the loop. I skype my friends pretty often and I have made more friends here. Aside from missing a few foods (salads, honey mustard, peanut butter), I am doing pretty well. After this weekend all of my big trips start and I will be so busy. No time to miss anyone, I only have a few more months! ;)

Since my last update I have explored a lot of Florence. For my chocolate's class we toured my professor's chocolate shop and learned how to make chocolate. Yesterday we watched Chocolat to show how chocolate positively affects people. Couldn't agree more! Italian class is still hard for me. At least I am attempting to order and speak in Italian more. But I would seriously rather be in Calculus than Beginner Italian... Food Culture and Society in Italy is great as usual. We are starting to learn about the different regions of Italy and what foods they specialize in. We made Zuppa from the Umbria region last week! Next week in Sustainable Tourism we are breaking into groups and interviewing tourists to see where they are from/ how they are traveling/ why they are here/ if they know of sustainable tourism/ etc. It should be interesting to talk to the tourist groups that I usually try to dodge when I'm walking to class.

Last weekend I had a very eventful weekend in Florence. It was mine and Sarah's "tourist weekend" of shopping, attending a Florence Festival, and being typical tourists. On Friday I went on a tour of Museo di Palazzo Vecchio with my sustainable tourism class. It was a small group tour led by a "time traveling" man from the 16th century who used to live there. I learned more about the history of Florence and how the palace transformed through the Medici family and is now currently the town hall. My personal favorite was the Hall of Geographic Maps of what they knew about the world at the time. The walls were covered with maps of the 5 continents that they knew of and what they knew about each of the lands.

Saturday, I attended Wine Town: Firenze. Great decision. I dragged Sarah out to explore with me. We started off our day Geocaching in Santa Croce. Geocaching is basically the world's largest treasure hunt. You look up online to see where things are hidden in the city and use a GPS to find the coordinates  Funny thing is that my phone is in airplane mode and can only track the coordinates when it connects with WIFI, which I can only get at home, school, and from some cafes. We spent an hour trying to find one near Santa Croce but could only get within 20 feet of it and never found it. I have a travel bug that I inherited from Missouri that needs to be hidden in a geocache, so we will go again. We are determined!

Instead we went to get some wine and gelato on a waffle for Sarah. For 15 Euro I got a wine glass and 5 points to try different wines. Started off with a Chianti Classico, my new favorite. This was spread out all over the city and each place had different live music. Headed next to some sparkling wine, and then across the river to a new side of town. Had some more wine, and then we were ready for Gusta's pizza. It didn't open until 7 so we decided to get lost in order to learn that side of town. We came across our new favorite statue:

Then finally we got our Gusta's pizza. I saw they had Spinach and Ricotta pizza on their special's board and knew I had to get that (partially because Shelley recommended it, and because I love Spinach). I also fulfilled the travelbug's (from Geocaching) mission that Gabbe gave me. This pizza was unbelievably good.

To end the night we wanted Gelato and had heard of a 1 euro place across the river. Found it: La Carraia Gelateria. Amazing. You get 2 flavors for 1 euro. I noticed thay had cookie gelato with my favorite Italian cookies and remember Shelley mentioned something about cookie gelato. I later realized this was the place she had told me about. Funny how that worked out!

Sunday I returned to Wine Town. One day just wasn't enough, plus I had more points because I had to reload my card. :)  I dragged my roommate Megan with me this time and we got to see more places of Florence and get stuck in pouring down rain. Weather.com failed me! Oh well, we ran to the grocery store and got ingredients to make homemade pizza. Since I am a professional pizza maker this was no challenge, except that our oven took an hour to bake it and my stomach full of wine was not happy! We will know better for next time.

The last eventful night of mine was when Annie and I decided to go celebrity stalking. It was Gucci's 90th anniversary and they are opening a museum in Florence. They had their big gala on Monday night and celebrities such as "Madonna and Jennifer Lopez" were supposed to be there. We spend a good amount of the night up front and center by the "black carpet" watching the fabulously dressed people try to walk in heels on cobblestone on a carpet. Quite entertaining. We also made friends with the "had-a-little-to-much-Champagne-on-his-break" security guard who kept feeding us lies about what was going on in there. He clearly had no idea. But he was entertaining to talk to. In case you are wondering we did get to see some celebrities including: Camille Belle, Poppy Delevigne, many Vogue editors, and Gucci models. I'll take what I can get.

This weekend: Mokaflor Espresso tour and Venice!

Special shout out to my loyal followers, whoever you are (especially Chelsea St. John, so glad I can entertain you at work)!