Last Week in Short....Kind of :)

Last week was a little bit of blur since I did so much in such a short amount of time!

Tuesday night was Taco Night at a pub/bar near Santa Croce called Red Garter.  Anna was still feeling sick so Jenn, April, Shelbi and I went.  When ordering the taco's, I asked our waitress what came on the taco's and she literally said what?  She didn't understand that I wanted to know what came ontop of the taco.  I was like What comes on top, lettuce, tomatos,...?  She goes oh yeah thats it.  So I order them thinking they are going to be plain beef tacos.  WRONG.  They came with beef, then lettuce, then guacamole, then cheese, then salsa.  For anyone that knows me, gaucamole and salsa are NOT OKAY.  Because of all the toppings, I was forced to scrap everything off and just eat the beef leaving me starving.  The other girls were happily munching on thier tacos while I just sat there hungry and sipping my beer.  Not a good meal.  Fortunately some friends of our showed up so Jenn and I ordered some more drinks just as happy hour was ending and we enjoyed the rest of the night giggling and chatting.

Wednesday  I had my terrible class then went shopping to make up for the bad previous days.  First Jenn, Shelbi, and I headed to the San Lorenzo market to get scarves in preperation for Sunday's Soccer Game!  The first stand we saw had the perfect color purple scarf and it was only 7 euro so I snagged it!  The other girls wandered the market and eventually found scarves too then we headed into the shopping district.  Sadly, I was having trouble finding any clothes that I liked, fit, and were decently priced.  Finally we left the small shops and headed to my safe haven, H&M.  Fortunately the store had restocked since my last visit and I ended up spending almost 100 euro but left a very happy and well dressed girl.  After shopping I headed to apretivo with April at Ganzo.  We had an assignement to taste wine and had been told by our professor that Ganzo was selling glasses of the wine for only 4 euro, perfect!  Apretivo ended up being packed but we got our glass of wine, did the analysis then grabbed some food which was much better than last time and enjoyed the music and company of our classmates.

Thursday, my wine professor played hooky but also scheduled for another professor to teach his lecture.  For everyone that is no longer is college, this is not a common thing in the States for a professor to bring in a "subsititue teacher" so I was already less than thrilled.  Then the professor began teaching and I was even less happy since he had such a different teaching method and went through slides so fast, I have absolutely no idea what he taught.  The wines were good and he was able to give us some hints as to how to analyze the wines but I got nothing out of the lecture.  I finished the day with lunch and class then got ready to go out for the night with Jenn and April.   We decided to go to a few new places we had never been before and had alot of fun.

Friday I was in a lazy mood so I slept in, got lunch, did homework, then read and layed around all day.  It was a good thing I was so lazy because on Saturday Anna and I had an adventure day!  We began the day by getting brunch for the first time at Ganzo.  The experience was very interesting since the brunch was nothing like the States or how Ganzo had described it.  There was an appetizer and dessert bar which had cold cuts, mini sandwiches, tomato and cheese, yogurt, and some other little desserts.  I ate a little and tried some things but nothing was considered good food.  Then we were asked to give our order of either eggs or pancakes.  We both ordered pancakes since the website had said either eggs or pancakes with bacon, sausage, and hash browns.  Of course when our plates come from the kitchen it was literally just one pancake with nothing else on the plate.  Apparently the only way to get the side dishes is when you order eggs, so not fair since I don't eat eggs.  The pancake was delicious since it was cooked perfectly and tasted  like apples, cinnamon, and pure heaven, too bad we were still hungry.  I filled up on juice and bread before we left for our adventure.  We had planned to go to the Boboli Gardens, then the graffiti bridge, then Fiesole, then dinner.

The Boboli Gardens were absolutely huge and beautiful.  Anna and I walked around for hours taking pictures and just exploring since they don't give you maps and there are just little passage ways all over the place.  The weather was really working in our favor since it was partly sunny and warm enough to just wear a sweater.  After we had walked around for a while we decided to leave in search of the graffiti bridge.  We found the bridge just as it was starting to rain so we went to get shelter from the rain in where else? A gelato shop.  Luckily they had my favorite, cookie!  The flavor was good but it was so sweet that half way through I was getting a stomachache.  The rain was ending but the sky was still dark and the wind was picking up so Anna and I decided to postpone our trip to Fiesole.  We went back to the apartment and got ready for dinner. For dinner we ventured to a little Trattoria near Santa Maria Novella with a set menu.  For my first course I had Tortellini in a cream sauce, for my second course I had grilled beef, for my side dish I had boiled potatos, and we had white wine.  The tortellini was good an the steak was really good but the potatos were gross since they were cold.  The night was interesting since the restuarant staff barely spoke English and we were the only American's in the whole place.   It was a nice evening and the sky was full of stars as we headed back to the apartment to get ready for an evening out.

We didn't end up staying out too late since we had to be out pretty early for the soccer game.  We met up with ISA and began the 40 minute walk through the other side of Florence to the stadium.  One the walk there, the guides explained to us how soccer can be a dangerous game since many Italians are extremely passionate about their teams and fights often break out.  We were lucky though since ISA planned our soccer trip on a day where the teams didn't have much of a rival and Florence was favored to win by a long shot.  Out side the stadium everything was decked out in purple, Florence, and Florence's symbol(the iris).  Also outside the stadium was Redbull, giving out unlimited free samples which was pretty cool.  Our seats were just past the center of the field but where the first section and we were allowed to sit anywhere we wanted within the section.  We picked seats together which were about half way between the top and the bottom making for a great view of the whole field. To the right of us was the Florence fan section which was insanely packed with people, most of whom were wearing purple and waving giant flags.  During the entire game, the section would be chanting and singing songs then booing and screaming at the ref's when the penalties weren't called in thier favor.  The stand literally went insane when Florence scored the first goal of the game about half way through the first half. We all really enjoyed the game and plan to go back for another game one weekend in April.

After the game, Anna and I planned to walk across town and then to the top of Piazza Michaelangelo to see the city and watch the sun set.  By the time we made it to the base of the Piazza the sun was already half way setting and we still had about a 30 minute hike up to the top.  We decided to postpone our trip to another night when we could take our time walking and really enjoy the whole sunset.  For dinner Anna, Jenn, Chelsea, and I went to the Osteria della Gatto e Volpe.  The bread on the table was literally amazingggg and the gnocchi quattro formaggio was good and extremely filling.  We wobbled home and spent the night relaxing and discussing our weekends.

Today I went to a travel agency and bought my train tickets to visit Mom and Joe while they are in Rome which made me so excited for when they come!  After, April, Anna and I went for lunch at Ganzo.  Lunch was good but I'm getting sick of having to order the same sandwich everytime since they haven't changed the menu in almost a month!  After lunch, April and I went to search for a place for her to get a hair cut.  We ended up at a salon that was recommened by some of the girls from ISA but we waited for such a long time before they even recognized that we were there!  Finally April got her hair shampooed and the guy who was doing her cut was really nice and tried to understand how she wanted her hair in a mix of broken English and Italian.  He brushed out her hair then whipped out a razor and went to town on her hair.  We both looked at eachother for half a second until April was like UGH WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!  He tried as best as he could to explain that it was the salons specialty to cut hair with a razor and they had been doing it that way for the past 40 years.  She decided to trust him and let him continue with the razor; it ended up fantastic!  April now has bangs and lots of layers!  On the walk home we both walked past a gelato place on Piazza Duomo before looking at eachother and deciding that we both desperately needed some.  I got a cone of course cookies and then chocolate and it was amazingggg.  To bad it was freezing out and the wind was basically blowing us away.  Tonight Anna and I are finishing up some homework and then heading to Ganzo for hopefully a good dinner!

Hope everyone had a good weekend and are having a great week!  Miss and love all of you! xo