Venice Trip, March 4-6

This title is slightly misleading as I actually did not end up going to Venice. My housemate Jon Cooke and I were all ready to head off that Sunday, had our bags all packed, all showered and woke up at the crack of dawn (well 9:00, but still felt extremely early for us). After leaving the house we started sprinting for the station, only a block away, in order to catch the 9:30 train to Venice, but when we got to the ticket counter, we were taken aback by the fact that all the tickets for that day to Venice had been sold out. Apparently we did not make the correlation that when the Carnivale is in town, a lot of people from all over Italy want to go see it, especially on a weekend. So after that devastating blow, we stood and looked around aimlessly for a couple minutes trying to come up with any alternative solutions to making it to Venice. There weren’t any. We then picked up our chins, and walked over to a café near the Duomo, called Astor, where we indulged upon a fine American breakfast for the price of 7euro. It was quite refreshing to get a little taste of America once again, and for the price of 7euro where we got eggs, sausages, pancakes, bacon, toast, and your choice of a fine coffee. Unfortunately an iced coffee for whatever reason was not included in that price, so I got an iced espresso assuming it would be equivalent. Well it wasn’t quite the same, so I was quite surprised when they brought Jon’s steeping hot cup of American coffee and then my drink which was essentially a very pretty, and girly coffee martini. Very tasty, but not the most masculine of acts; probably the reason the group of girls at the table next to us were giggling quite ruthlessly. Following breakfast we were walking back and we ran into a couple of Jon’s friends from Marist (studying in London for the semester) who were visiting for the week. In an effort to redeem ourselves from our misfortunes with the Venice fiasco, we accompanied them to climb the Duomo. The climbing of the Duomo is definitely a worthwhile feat, but it is not for the lighthearted, or well those who easily become closterphobic, easily dizzy, or have trouble walking up 463 steep steps. It’s interesting how the outside of the Duomo is very architecturally impressive, while whoever designed the inside must have been the apprentice to the town baker. It is one of the most ridiculous, unorganized, and just silly passage ways I have ever climbed. You go around and around this spiral staircase for an eternity, and then you start zig-zagging throughout the inner workings up around the cupola. There is no way that this would pass any sort of fire inspection in the U.S. Nonetheless, it took a little over an hour to climb (I’d assume it’d be twice that long during the summer/tourist months which would be unbearable with the heat), and the view was amazing and definitely worth it.

What it looked like essentially

Essentially, that was my week, well the only eventful part of my week since that Friday I came down with some type of bug and didn’t get rid of it till that Tuesday. Although part of me felt disappointed I didn’t get to go on another adventure through Italy or Europe, it was quite relaxing and satisfying that I finally got to spend another weekend just enjoying myself in Firenze. On a side note, we did have a delicious meal in my culinary class where we made, three different types of dishes opposed to our normal two. For the first we created a Focaccine ai porri, where some of the primary ingredients included sweet gorgonzola cheese, shallots and leeks; all put together was absolutely marvelous. The following meal was titled Cialdine con mortadella e mele, which was a sort of very crispy, thin pistachio cookie with a slice of a fried green apple and a slice of fresh salami placed on top. This was perhaps one of my favorite dishes I have had, it was such an interesting and enjoyable taste, as the pistachio cookie, salami and green apple all yielded varying tastes but came together to produce such an amazing, delectable flavor. Lastly, what would an Italian meal without some pasta. The Triangoli di pasta fillo al pollo actually resembled more of an Asian type meal, as you stir fry the chicken, pepper, onion together, and then take fillo dough sheets and wrap the stir fry mixture in it to make triangles and place in the oven for about ten minutes. Needless to say, again this meal was absolutely fantastic.

Didn't take this picture, but felt like this blog needed some more pizazz to it

That Thursday night when my housemate’s friends from London were here so the three of them and my entire house had a very enjoyable meal at Il Gato el Volpe, a very typical Tuscan, family style restaurant that cost only 15euro per person. With that price, you got unlimited house wine and water, and your typical Italian courses, a platter of salami, prosciutto, cheese, then a platter of chicken liver pates, then fresh mozzarella and tomatoes, and then you move onto the two or three different types of delicious pastas. Before we even got to the pastas though we were full beyond belief, but persevered and finished the meal with our heads held high.