Sunday, April 11, 2010

GUARDA MAMA! HO FATTO GLI GNOCCHI!

Just finished eating dinner. Something like a cordon blue patty thing, corn, artichokes and cheesecake made from ricotta. Not bad!



I had a relatively exciting past few days. Thursday noi abbiamo fatto gli gnocchi con Gabbriele e Claudia, e dopo noi abbiamo mangiato quasi tutto. We all got to shove our hands into the pile of smushy potatoes and flour concoction and we kneeded and rolled until Claudia gave us the okay. She put a few kneeds in making the dough look pretty then showed us how to cut it, roll it and cut it into the gnocchi. I tried to explain how my Nonna rolls each individual piece with her fingers afterwards and she said that it was too time consuming and not necessary... they taste the same with or without the fancy design!

So, we finally go to sit down to dinner and eat our own homemade gnocchi. YUM! You could tell which ones Sam had made because they were twice as big as the rest, and I actually liked the bigger ones better because they had a denser center! Claudia had made a light red sauce with marscapone for the Gnocchi and boy were they good and filling!



Dinner was wonderful because we had a dinner guest, Simone, who was the turtle's veterinarian. Poor Gabbriele's turtle was injured and he was pretty upset about it but happy that Simone was helping them out! We had chocolate easter egg for dessert and then excused ourselves from the table because we wanted to get ready to go out. We met up with the crew at SMN then headed off to Via Faenza to find a trattoria to sit and share a few liters of the vino della casa. Nice and relaxing evening, that ended up in "Florence Pub" where we stumbled upon Sam's friend Greg from WHS. Small city Florence is!

One class on Friday, then roaming the streets all day long trying not to return to my home stay. We walked to SMN to purchase our train tickets for our next days trip to Pisa. Successful! Even on a hungry stomach! We then headed to our favorite Panini place for lunch where I got a sandwich with Salami, Rucola, Carciofi, Funghi, Melanzana alla griglia, provolone and a funghi sauce. Soooooo GOOD!

After lunch we went to check out a gallery require for class in Palazzo Strozzi, then we went to buy tickets for a soccer game on tuesday. It was a very long process, we were probably 5th in line and it took 20 minutes to get through 5 people, because documenti must be shown for each ticket purchased so that they can fill out your information directly onto the ticket to prevent fraud I guess. So that was a fun/slow start to the weekend!

When we returned home, we napped and then ate dinner. For dinner we had a little left over gnocchi from the night before, and by a little I mean we finally got a not oversized portion for the Primi. And for the Secondi we had chicken which seemed to be cooked in flour and cooked pumpkin? and peas! First meal I have eaten that I felt was of good portions, I was quite excited!



Friday night we wanted to go out, but no one else really wanted to go out for some reason, but to our surprise Alex wanted to find a Karaoke bar and sing, so of course we had to go with him. We met him and Avery in Piazza del Liberta and headed in toward the Duomo. We had no luck finding Karaoke, cause our usual place was having a private party. But we ended up at a nice little bar called Naima where I had a glass of Vernaccia di San Gimignano, (2008 I think). A nice calm night for us, got back to SMN by 12:50 where we were able to catch the last bus home and were able to get to bed at a reasonable hour to be ready to catch the train at 9:57am the next day.

Stressed out already at 9:20 because our bus was not on time and did not come until 9:32 and I was freaking out we weren't going to make our train to Pisa. So many things giving me anxiety! ah! Luckily we made it, found Anna at our track who shuffled us to validate our tickets (thank god) and then quickly on to the train... thanks mama Anna :)

Safe and sound was the group on the way to Pisa... no validation problems, no wrong train, no wrong track. Everything went smoothly. We arrived in Pisa around 11:00 and found our way toward the center by 12:00 where we were entertained by watching everyone posing on the lawn trying to hold up the tower. So much more fun to see people leaning against nothing and trying and retrying to get their photos right. I sat their entertained by this, aware that in the next couple of hours I would be the one giving the entertainment as I tried to make the perfect pose for the perfect picture that never was able to actually capture... we ate lunch in Pisa, not even worth elaborating because we are positive the food came in packages, was microwaved and then put into a ceramic bowl. I had my first nastro azzuro of the trip though and it was nice and refreshing!


After we walked around Pisa until 3:00ish we decided Pisa was kind of lame and went to the train station to get tickets to go to Lucca. I was so excited to go see the little town of Lucca and wander its old streets! We arrived in Lucca's station around 3:45, went to the Informazione to get a map of the town and then we were off to find Alla Dolce Vita.

We struggled a little bit trying to figure out how to get inside the walls of Lucca, and once we made it inside we were all in awe of its beauty. We stopped to admire the walls, climbed up to see the view and continued on toward the hotel. We went past a cute pasticeria where the girls all bought little tiny fruit tarts, I resisted the temptation and we were back on our way. Right near our hotel we stopped at a cute little market where we bought two bottles of wine, a chunk of Italian Brie and a decent sized loaf of home baked fresh wheat bread to bring back to our hotel for Aperativo!

When we arrived at the hotel location.. which took a little figuring out, there was a note on the door that read: "dear guest, please call when you arrive and we can be there in 5 minutes, Fabio" We were a little sketched out about no concierge or anything, but after Fabio arrived promptly after my phone call and he showed us our room and our common kitchen we were happy to pay 15 euro each for the night. We unpacked our things, raided the kitchen for glasses, a bottle opener and knives, then we sat down to relax and make the plan for the night. The bread, cheese and wine were ALL delicious, and just right for holding us over till dinner.



We headed up to the walls of the city around 6:30 to watch the sunset. We watched all the bikers and joggers pass us by and we admired the beautiful scenery we were gifted with seeing. As the sun set our stomachs began to growl and we headed off the wall, into the heart of Lucca to find dinner. We stopped at numerous places, one including 'il leo' which had been in the NY times and was necessary to have a reservation in order to eat, so we continued on. We found a place similar to il leo, where we also got rejected and were told we needed a reservation. Disappointingly we walked away, but then we realized the tables outside were all empty for it was a little chilly that night, but we were hungry and the price and food selection were right so we asked for a table outside and we were able to sit down to a nice dinner. I had an insalata miste for a contorni, lots of bread and scaloppine marsala and some wine all for 19 euro. It was a splurge for me and totally worth it.

We all headed back to Alla Dolce Vita around 10:30, hoping the Yogurteria across the street would still be open. We were very disappointed when it wasn't and so we retreated to our beds. Early night for us but we didn't mind. I was surprised at the amount of people wandering through Lucca's streets, voices scattering, laughter cracking everywhere despite nothing being open. Tucked into our beds listening to the outside commotion (I think I woke up every hour and heard voice having fun constantly throughout the night, it was weird for such a small town) we all went to bed hoping for good weather on Sunday, but our hopes weren't good enough. We woke up to the boom of thunder, crack of lighting and pourring rain. It didn't seem as though it would clear so we put our dreams of biking the walls of Lucca away, decided we would come back again for a beautiful day trip and we headed out toward the Stazion. On the way we stopped at the same pasticeria, which was surprisingly the only thing opened in town and I had an apple filled brioche and cappuccino both for 1.90 euro. BARGAIN! We got back on the train and headed back to SMN, and told Lucca we would see him later!

Back at home, I stayed in most of the day skyping with mom and dad and a few others. I went on a brief walk up the hill to see the Duomo and all of central florence and then headed through the gardens trying to take decent photos for class. I retired back home, Claudia made us dinner around 8:15. A cordon blue type patty thing (not homemade I don't think), home prepared artichokes and corn. Delicious as usual, but not filled up to the brim with pasta as I write this blog post is quite the change.

Baci!

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