My New Favorite Trattoria!

Hello Everyone! It's been a few days since my last post but, nothing too exciting happens during the week since I'm in class!  I'll try to catch you up!

Monday, aka Valentines Day, was delicious!  After getting ready the roommates and I started on an adventure to find a restaurant I read about in one of my travel guides. The place sounded perfect and in case it wasn't, we had two backup places on the same street!  We were venturing into a new section of the city, Santa Maria Novella, so I wasn't surprised when we got a little off track.  Unfortunately we missed our turn so instead of taking the direct route we just went a round about way.  Some of the roommates weren't happy since they made the same mistake I had made the week before of wearing heels.  We finally made it to the right street and then we just had to find the actual restaurant.  After walking down basically to the end of the street we found it!  We walked inside and were nervous since the place was alot more casual and smaller than the book had said plus no one spoke English.  We waited a few minutes for a table to free up and sat down.  The waitress came over and said RED or WHITEEE?  We were mildly confused until she started making the sign for drinking, in that case we'll take WHITEEE! haha

Next a larger man from the kitchen approached us and asked us if we were English, well duhh.  He explained that his English wasn't so good and that the only option for the night was a set menu and he was about to read it to us aka no menus.  He rattled off about 10 choices and said to pick a first course.  My head was spinning with all the choices but I settled for a seafood risotto.  Then he started naming about 10 more choices and told us to pick our main dish.  This wasn't hard for me since the first item he said was beef coins and potatos in a spicy tomato sauce, YES PLEASE!  Finally he rattled off a few choices for sides and me being so preoccupied with thoughts of the beef, ordered roasted potatos even though potatos came with my meal.

Only a few short minutes later the first courses arrived and my eyes popped out of head head at the size of the portion of risotto in front of me. The risotto was amazing and had chunks of what I believe was lobster, shrimp, and crab but it was so big I had to ask my roommates for help eating it!  The second courses came out shortly after and I had to prepare myself to keep eating since I was already on the verge of being stuffed, that is until I saw my dish.  The beef was cooked perfectly and the sauce on the potatos was to die for.  The roasted potatos came out at the same time and were also delcious so of course I ate the entire thing.  Even though I was completely stuffed I couldn't help but want to order something sweet for dessert on Valentines Day.  Everyone else agreed so we ordered some more wine and for dessert I got strawberries covered in homemade whipped cream.  AMAZING!  We were all insanely stuffed so we wobbled our way home and into bed.  I know I've said this alot but this is my absolute favorite place in Florence!  We got all this food for only 16 Euro, they didn't even charge us for our wine refills! We will definitely going back soon and frequently!

Tuesday was nothing exciting but on Wednesday I had to go to Ganzo to work the Wine Corner for my Tuscany and Its Wines course.  Wine Corner is when one of the wine class sets up a table with usually two choices for red wine and one sparkling wine.  Also available is an array of appetizers and a full bar.  Each drink is 5 euro and then its all you can eat so it was pretty fun even though during my shift which was the first one, not many people were there yet.  As we were leaving alot of people were entering so I think when we have to go back for April's turn at Wine Corner we'll go a little later.

Thursday I had class again;  Wine class was fun since we tried a white wine for the first time and it was delicious!  We also tried a dessert wine and I can honestly say I felt sick after trying it, I will never order a sweet wine!  The third wine was a red and extremely dry, not for me.  After wine class I ate some left over lunch from earlier in the day and then headed out to Italian class.  My head is really starting to spin from class, Italian is simliar to Spanish so its confusing me plus there are so many exceptions to every rule...I'm going to need to sign up for a tutor soon!

For dinner we went back to a cafe on our street that we had gone to before but has been closed for renovations.  We honestly couldn't tell what they had renovated but it didn't matter since the food was just was delcious as we remebered.  We ordered bruchsettetone for an appetizer which is brushetta with mozzerlla cheese melted ontop and I ordered gnocchi in a tomato, oregano, and garlic sauce for my entree. Both were delcious except I wasn't expected my gnocchi to be spicy!

Today we woke up really late to the sound of the cleaning lady entering the apartment.  We looked at the time and realized it was almost noon so we jumped out of bed and went to the San Lorenzo market to get the items we need to prepare dinner for the night.  It's my night to cook so I decided on Taco night! We got the meat and cheese fresh as well as the veggies needed for the filling at the market so if all goes as planned it should be a successful dinner!

Now April, Anna, Jen, and I are heading down toward the Santa Croce Piazza to get some 1 euro pizza then stroll around the city and maybe walk to the top of the Duomo!  Tomorrow we are taking a trip with  ISA to the town Assisi and then Sunday we are going with ISA to Sienna and San Gimingnano so I have a busy rest of the weekend.

Hope everyone back home is having a good time in the great weather!  Love and Miss all of you!