Mac and Cheese :)

Alright... it’s been a little while.. time for a new update.

Last week we spent our time trying to get back into the swing of school and not travelling. Tuesday was carnavale and instead of having Italian, we had a dance party. They really get into it here – it’s like Halloween but for more than a day. Haha. We had our first run through of our studio projects due on Wednesday, so Tuesday night was the closest to an all-nighter I’ve pulled this semester. :( But we’ve done it before, and we survived.. just in time for Wine Wednesday. It was a nice relaxing night-people came over, sipped on a little wine, and just hung out for the evening.

Thursday morning was the market – the first one we’ve gone to in about 2 weeks! It was like Christmas! We stocked up on food and enjoyed the beautiful weather that was given to us. In fact, it was so beautiful that our Italian teachers let us have class outside! After class the beautiful weather pulled me out to the rupe. I decided to take my chances running it. The hills will get you, but I pushed through and hit a 35 minute time. It was quite the workout to say the least.

Friday rolled around and that meant the second trip to Firenze. The tour with Marco was focused on the Uffizi museum. I’m not much of a museum person, but this one was pretty cool. A lot of altar pieces from different churches and cathedrals in Italy and a LOT of statues. After the museum we went out to explore on our own again. Piazzale Michelangelo was the first stop since last time it was grey and foggy. Today it was so clear and beautiful; you could see for miles! It was absolutely gorgeous. Worth the trek up the stairs.. Again.

View from the piazza

After this we made our way to the baptistery since we didn’t have time to go in during our last visit. This was the most incredible baptistery I have ever been in. Ceilings and walls of gold. While we were in there the sun was in a perfect position so it was streaming in through one of the windows. It was one of the most glorious sites I’ve seen in a long time. Definitely glad we decided to go inside this time.

Inside the Baptistery

Our last site-seeing stop was to see the statue of David by Michelangelo. We had seen fake David and pictures of the real David, but actually seeing him was amazing. It was the most incredible statues I’ve seen. It was HUGE, and the detail was unbelievable. I couldn’t even begin to fathom how Michelangelo was able to accomplish such a feat. Also in this museum leading up to David was a series of statues Michelangelo worked on, but didn’t quite finish. Being able to see how he transformed the marble into these sculptures was amazing. This guy truly was a Renaissance man!

After our sight-seeing commenced, we made our way to our dinner reservations at Tijuana. Yes, we needed our Mexican food fix! I got a chicken burrito that was filled with cheese, lettuce and pico. It happened to be happy hour while we were there too, so a strawberry margarita it was! This was probably the best Mexican dinner I have ever had (imagine that… in Italy!). We were miserably full at the end, so we knew it was good! We loaded the train and headed back home to spend the beautiful weekend in Orvieto.

Best Mexican food!

Saturday was sunny and 65 – perfect weather for a trip to the market, a stroll up the bell tower to overlook Orvieto, and a climb down St. Patrick’s well. There were parts of Orvieto we hadn’t had the chance to explore; so now that it was so amazing outside, we took the opportunity! After our exploration, I came home and had a great lunch… Mac and Cheese my family had sent me! It was just as good as I remember! :) We left after that to go kick the ball around and play a little soccer. When we got there a group of Italians were playing and asked us to join; we warned them we weren’t very good, but played anyway. They were definitely better than us, but it was a lot of fun playing with them – I did end up scoring a goal!

View from the bell tower

After our sporting adventures we decided to keep exploring and go into some shops with hand made goods. We went into a leather store with handmade bags and wallets; all the leather came from Florence. They were beautiful. Then we went to a hand-made ceramics shop. This was so cool. The lady had a table set up right in the middle of the shop where she made the pottery, fired it and painted it. It was all her original work and design. There were some pretty incredible pieces in the shop.

From the bottom of the well

We decided the weekend had been pretty awesome so far and would be better with a great dinner. We had gotten an eggplant at the market, and although I have always been a little skeptical of eggplants, I decided to go with it. We had eggplant parmesan with bread, salad and a glass of wine. Probably one of the best homemade dinners since we got here.. and it may have topped my mac and cheese for lunch.. haha. The day was great, and we still had another one coming!

Dinner!

Sunday was more of a relax kind of day. I got up to work on my journal, went to church service at the duomo (which never ceases to amaze me), walked the rupe and planned more of spring break. As much as I love travelling and seeing all these new places, having a weekend to relax and catch up on life it pretty awesome too.

So far this week has just been school and continuing the catching up on everything drill. Trying to get ahead and get work done before the week long north trip and week of spring break roll around. Speaking of… I should probably go get back to work now. This weekend we are heading to Assisi and Perugia. Excited for another adventure!

Until then… Ciao!

Mac and Cheese!!!!!