Trains, Chocolate, and Dreaming In Italian

After hopping on a slow train to Florence with seconds to spare, Colleen and I arrived in the beautiful Tuscan city around noon on Friday. Rolling through theTuscan country side covered in snow was very odd; it looked more like home than any pictures I've ever seen of Tuscany. The snow looked incredibly out of place, as much a tourist as I was. But the day was sunny if not cold, and my always beautiful friend Holly was there to greet us at the train station. We had afantastic lunch near the Duomo which included bacon wrapped mozzarella balls. We wandered around the famous Duomo for a while after lunch. The Duomo is so beautiful and intricate it doesn't look real. I would have believed itwas made of cardboard over marble. Florence likes to claim the birth of the Renaissance, and after seeing the Duomo I would give it to them any day. From the Duomo Holly took us to see Ponte Vecchio, the famous Flourentine bridge. The bridge is lined with jewelry shops, which makes the entire street sparkle. It was one of my favorite walks so far.

Four other friends from my program in Rome came to Florence as well, so we all rented out a hostel called the Luna Rossa. It's hard to know what to expect from hostels, but this one exceeded my expectations. For 20 euro a night each we got three doubles on a floor to ourselves, with comfortable beds, a tv, a computer with free internet, and private bathrooms. We were most excited by the closet of extra blankets, and promptly took a long nap while the wind raged through Florence for the afternoon. When we set out again for dinner we had another wonderful meal down the street. The restaurant gave us free limoncello, a traditional sour lemon after-dinner drink. We washed the limo

ncello down with gelato (Caffe and chustnut for me) and headed to the Lions Fountain, a great pub.

The next morning we got up early to wander through the leather market. Every day, but especially on weekends, a few blocks of Florence are taken over by stalls selling leather goods, carnivale masks, glass from Venice, and more. It took a lot of will power not to come home with a leather jacket. After meeting up with our friend Shelia we wandered out of the leather market and into a square where more tents were set up and a very distinct smell had taken over the piazza: chocolate. Yes, we stumbled upon a chocolate fair. Tent after tent of chocolate of every kind, shaped like every object (anteater, monkey wrench, high heels, robot, etc) and in every form. The hot chocolate was essentially a melted candy bar. I had a strawberry, marshmallow and grape kebob dipped in a chocolate fountain. Most of the vendors were giving out free samples, and everything we tried was better than any candy I've ever had in the US. We wandered the chocolate fair for a long time, but when it came time for some substantial food

we crossed the river to Gusto Pizza. The guys in Gusto made us pizza shaped like a heart and played us a wedding march.

The best meal of the day however went to the Aperitivo bar we went to for dinner. Aperitivos in

Italy are swanky restaurants that set up buffets for about two hours, and you pay about 8-10 euro for the buffet and a drink. We paid 8 euro and had an endless supply of delicious traditional Italian food, and french fries, which were a welcome surprise. Back to the Lions Fountain for flaming lemon drops, where an Italian boy tried to write "I love you" on my hand, but spelled it wrong. That night however I had my first dream in Italian, which is huge for me. Granted I was selling organic baby food to a supermarket, but hey, it was in Italian.

This morning we packed up and set out to spend one last morning at the chocolate fair. After all, strawberries covered in chocolate is the breakfast of champions. We got a panicked call fom a friend at the train station who said trains were being cancelled due to snow, so Colleen and I ran to the station with two other girls from our program to try and catch the 11 train, which seemed to be the last one leaving all day. After trying to ask an old lady behind the ticket counter if we could upgrade our 17 euro tickets for the slow train to the 50 euro (ugh) tickets for the fast train she just shrugged and shut her window down. We ran out onto the platform at 10:55 and I found a conductor who seemed to speak some English. I took my ticket out to ask him if we could change it and he just waved us onto the train, so we played along and ended up on the fast train for Rome. We were home in an hour, didn't pay the difference, and there was no snow to be seen. Italians.