The Carly Chronicles

Food:

The first night in Florence we went to Trattoria Anita. It was definitely a place I would not have been able to find on my own because it was down an alley that I thought looked sketchy. Note to everyone- pretty much everywhere that doesn't have a popular bar nearby seems sketchy. All the shops are closed so the streets aren't that well lit and the gates that a lot of shops have in front of them when they're not open add to this effect. Plus it's usually pretty quiet which is weird to get used to but it's only because we're going out to dinner and bars on week nights and forget that Italians have work in the morning and "quiet hours" are a thing apparently. Anyway, the restaurant was very cute. It wasn't small, but it was by no means big either. It wasn't that crowded when we went and our server was great. Every abroad guide said we had to order the balsamic chicken and I'm pretty sure all 10 of us did. There's a reason it's on everyone's abroad guide because it was SO good. While waiting for our food they brought out bread, olive oil and parm. I thought that the bread at beginning of dinner was going to be my major weakness but it 100% is not. Italians don't salt their bread aka it tastes like you're eating nothing. The olive oil and cheese help but not worth the carbs or calories.

The only time I'll eat the bread is if we eat super super late and I'm gonna pass out from hunger. I've had good bread from one restaurant: Osteria del Pronconsola. This is pretty much the only place I've eaten at in Florence that wasn't recommended or on an abroad guide. We decided to just wander and find a place to eat and stumbled across this one. Well not exactly stumbled because a guy from the restaurant came out as we were walking by and started spit firing information out about their deals and specials. A lot of restaurants do this to target the American abroad students, but that doesn't always mean the aren't legit or good. The deal was a drink and one main course for $10 which sounded good considering we checked out the menu and liked the options. I was in HEAVEN in this restaurant. After having eaten either pasta, pizza or a sandwich for dinner for the past two weeks I needed a salad desperately. They had a chicken Caesar salad on the menu, and ever better than that is that Italians really only use balsamic vinegar on salads which is perfect because that's the only dressing I'll eat. It was so delicious! Jessica and I also split pasta with oil and garlic (because you can't not get pasta while in Italy) which was really yummy. Most of the pastas I've eaten have been really heavy and flavorful (and delicious), but it was a good break to get a simple pasta.

There have been two restaurants that I've been to where the pasta has blown my mind. I'm not kidding when I say I've been nonstop thinking about these two dishes since I've eaten them. The first restaurant was called Gobbi 13. It was on our guides so we decided to check it out completely forgetting the fact that every guide said to make a reservation. So when we walked in at 8:45 (prime dinner time) with 10 girls and no reservation it was a slight issue. After about 15 minutes of begging about 3 different hosts/managers to fit us in, they said they could seat us if we split up. 6 girls ate at this high rise bar table while me and 3 others went into another room with our own table. The other table said that their service was fine, but my service was awful. The waiter pretty much despised us: ignored us when we tried to get his attention (he clearly saw us waving him over), didn't bring out plates for our bread (and we were starving to eat because he refused to take our order and give us food) and was just an overall ass. Basically I didn't have the best dining experience but the actual food was unreal. I ordered the rigatoni that everyone recommended and was in heaven. The rigatoni noodles were massive and looked like they'd been injected with steroids. They were covered in a "special" sauce that was a mix between a vodka and marinara. I think I actually licked the bowl clean. And considering that the waiter may have spit in our food and I was still in love with this dish is saying something.

The second restaurant I went to that had absolutely phenomenal pasta was Osteria Santo Spirito. Jessica and I split the rigatoni and truffle gnocchi (the one everyone says is to die for). The rigatoni was good, but definitely nothing comparable to Gobbi 13. But the gnocchi.... DAMN. I'm not a huge gnocchi eater but figured I had to have it if so many people raved about it. No joke this gnocchi was life changing. Each bite melted in your mouth and was so flavorful. My mouth is actually watering just writing about it.

Il Teatro is another one of my favorite restaurants that I’ve been to. For an appetizer we got bruschetta and this was probably the best appetizer I’ve ever had. This is saying a lot since I don’t eat tomatoes at home because I’m not a fan of the consistency. But these tomatoes were so sweet that I didn’t notice the consistency at all and was just focused on shoving as much of it as I could into my mouth because it was so damn good. For dinner, Jessica and I split a pizza and pasta (are you starting to see a trend for dinner?). The pizza was margherita with super thin crust. It tasted phenomenal once you got over the layer of oil sitting on top of the pizza, which was probably the reason that it tasted so good. I wasn’t a huge fan of the pasta. It was a pesto pasta, but the noodles were really bizarre. The menu said they were “typical short pasta”. They were these short spiral noodles, but they were really dense and didn’t go well with the pesto in my opinion. Of course we still ate it because it would be a waste of money if we didn’t (that’s my justification at least).

After dinner we headed over to Geletaria de Neiri, which is a fan favorite from past Florence study abroad students. The flavor everyone recommends to get is the cookies and cream so I got that as well as a scoop of the salted caramel. I really liked the cookies and cream, but absolutely loved the salted caramel. I was expecting the cookies and cream flavor to taste differently than it did which is why I don’t think I liked it as much. Don’t get me wrong it was still amazingly delicious, but it just wasn’t what I had in mind. I got cookies and cream gelato at another recommended gelato place, Geletaria de Carreria, and thought that it was fantastic there. It had the perfect amount of cream to cookie ratio and the cone that it came it was great as well.

I’m sort of screwed in regards to eating pizza back in America because after tasting the pizza from Gusta Pizza nothing will ever come close to being as good. You can ask for your pizza to in the shape of a heart so obviously I asked for them to make my Margherita pizza a heart. This is the sort of pizza you have to try for yourself because I’m unsure of how to describe pizza besides just the ingredients, but it was honestly fire-cooked to perfection.

Since we’ve been in Italy we’ve celebrated two of my roommate’s 21^st birthdays. For Ashley’s birthday we went to the restaurant La Giostra. Everyone recommends the pear ravioli for dinner, but we decided to get that as an appetizer instead. There were so many good options on the menu that we wanted to try so it made more sense to get it as a starter so we could all try a little bit of it. In retrospect that was dumb because the pear ravioli was freaking amazing and two or three noodles definitely wasn’t enough of it. We also got a Burratta and Ricotta cheese appetizer that was served with honey, fig jam and blood orange slices. It was a weird combination, but it worked and I really enjoyed it. I think I could have just ordered those two appetizers and eaten them myself for dinner, but oh well. I got Honey Apple chicken for dinner since my body needed a carb break (words I’d never thought I’d say). The chicken was covered in a baked cinnamon apple mix and was really good. It came with a side of sweet carrots that I didn’t think I’d like, but ended up loving. Dessert was weird. We told them it was Ashley’s birthday so they brought out this huge chocolate cake with candles and we sang to her, but then they took the cake away. We were all super confused, but it turns out that the cake is just for display and not actually for eating. It was the weirdest thing ever and we ordered slices of cake because we were disappointed we weren’t already getting it.

For Emily’s birthday we went to Acqua al 2. The recommended dish is the blueberry steak, but girls we knew who had already eaten there this semester told us to get the pasta and steak sampler instead. Jessica and I (surprise, surprise) decided to split the steak and pasta sampler (which included the blueberry steak) so that we could try everything. We were served four pastas: a macaroni in vodka sauce, farfalle in broccoli sauce, rigatoni in a pine nut and spinach sauce, pasta in an eggplant and mozzarella sauce and farfalle with vegetables. I liked the pastas a lot, but I wasn’t in love with any of them to want to order the sampler again. The steak was a whole different story. There was the blueberry steak, a balsamic steak and a rosemary tomato steak. They were all so absolutely amazing I want to go eat them all again right now. The blueberry steak was covered in a blueberry sauce that made the steak sort of mushy, but it was still great. The balsamic steak was my favorite and the rosemary tomato steak tasted more like a steak that we’d order from Wildfire. As a table we ordered a cheese sampler platter for an appetizer. I’m not sure what any of the cheeses were, but I liked all of them but the bleu cheese (which I didn’t even try because it looked weird). After dessert, which was a plate with tiramisu, cheesecake and chocolate cake, they brought out a dessert wine that was probably the best alcoholic drink I’ve ever had in my life.

I’ve only had one sandwich so far in Italy (which is really bad because there’s four more sandwich places that I have to go to), but the one that I did have was the best sandwich I’ve ever eaten. Never eating another PB&J again. Antico Vinaio is right next to Geletaria de Neri and is really cute. It’s super small, but the workers there are really funny and like to joke around with their customers. I was super overwhelmed and had no idea what to order, let alone how to order. Jill’s an adventurous eater and just told them to make her whatever they thought was good. I tried hers when it was done and loved it so I had them make me the same. It was salami, a cheese spread, an artichoke spread and grilled eggplant between two of the hugest pieces of bread I’ve ever encountered. I only ate half of the sandwich and was out of breath from doing so because it was so huge (and I was starving and ate at an abnormal speed). I’ve been craving this sandwich ever since the night I’ve eaten it, but I need to try the other sandwich places before I do repeats.

Yellow Bar is the one bad dining experience I’ve had in Florence. People have recommended it for a casual dinner that has all different kinds of foods which sounded good in theory, but wasn’t as good in reality. There was a burger on the menu so naturally I ordered that considering I hadn’t had much meat, let alone red meat, since I’d gotten to Florence. For starters, the burger was just that. A burger. There was no bun, no condiments, no nothing. It was a straight up burger patty on the plate. 0/10 for presentation on their part. That would have been okay except for the fact that the burger sucked. I know that American food in Italy isn’t going to be what it would be at home, but this burger was just bad.

I’ve only been to the San Lorenzo Central Market once, but it’s already decided that it’s going to be a weekly dinner place since it’s close to my Comm class that ends at 8:30. The second floor of the market has eateries along all of the walls and the center of the floor is filled with different dining areas. It’s very overwhelming, but exciting because you can literally order any type of food. When I went the first time I split a pizza and hamburger/fries with Hannah. This burger was actually pretty good for Italian standards and had a little kick to it, which made it different from any other burger I’ve had before. The pizza was great and was made in a fire-oven so hot that they cooked each pizza in 19 seconds, which is pretty amazing if you ask me. We got gelato for dessert because you can never have too much gelato. I got stratechelli and chocolate in a cone and was a happy camper. I went there again more recently and got half a roasted chicken with potatoes. The potatoes were a little heavy on the olive oil, but otherwise tasted good. We got gelato again, but this time I got vanilla and ricotta flavored. The ricotta was SO good. I wasn't sure if I was going to like it, but it just had the sweet hint of ricotta and was creamy goodness.

For lunch I've either been eating bars or turkey and Pringles from the grocery store Conad. I've only really eaten out a couple of times. I've eaten Antica Sosta, which is a sandwhich and salad place right by school. I went there during orientation with my friends and got a salad. They have make your own salads, which is pretty much unheard of in Italy considering the only salad they have is Insalata Misto aka salad with tomato and balsamic. I got pears, apples, cheese and turkey in my salad. It was defintely a nice change of pace and I need to start going there in between classes for lunch more often. I've also gotten a salad from La Boulangeria del Riffrullo, a cafe right next to Hannah's apartment. It was pretty good even though it just had lettuce, cheese cubes and chicken in it.

I've gotten coffee from three different places: Itit Sandwich Cafe, Astor Cafe and Arnold's Coffee. Astor is an "American" bar/cafe. I went there with my friends to do homework and it seems like a good place to watch sports game (if I did that type of thing). I got an iced coffee and while it wasn't as good as my usual Starbucks iced coffee, it was a good substitute. They gave me liquid sugar, which I had never heard of and had an awkward conversation with the waiter asking why he gave me water for my coffee when I asked for sugar. Oh well, you live and you learn. The coffee from Itit was amazing. It's the cutest little coffee place with such cool drinks. This one was the "Creativo" aka you pick which flavor you want. I got caramel and it was absolutely amazing and I want to go back asap. Arnold's Coffee is comparable to a Starbucks and isn't that great to be honest. I ordered a bagel from there once and it actually tasted so awful I refused to eat more than a bite (probably a blessing in disguise). I got a normal American coffee from here though so I'll most likely be back when I need a cappuccino/espresso break.

School:

All of the Lorenzo de Medici class buildings are relatively close to one another and where I live. One place where I have class (Strozzi) is only a 4-minute walk from my apartment and the other buildings are about 10 minutes. So far I like my classes minus the fact that 2.5 hours per class is brutal to sit through no matter how enjoyable the class is. I have class on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. It’s nice not having class on Mondays because I can decompress after travelling the whole weekend and can get my homework for the week done since the likelihood that I’ll actually do it while away is slim to none. I have a big break on Tuesday because I only have class from 9-11:30 and 6-8:30. It’s nice because I pretty much have my whole day free to either do homework, run errands, walk around, work out or nap. On Wednesdays I have class from 9-11:30 and 12-2:30. I haven’t sat through that many straight hours of class since high school so I’m not quite used to it, but at least I finish my week’s worth of classes then and start my weekend in the early afternoon.

The Rise and Fall of the Medici:

The syllabus of this class is really intense and I’m actually pretty nervous about having to take tests and write papers, but I’m just taking it week by week for now. My teacher is really nice, but so soft-spoken. And when I say soft-spoken I also mean so quiet that it physically hurts my ears to listen to her because I’m straining them so hard to understand what she’s whispering to the class. You’re actually screwed if you space out for even a second because it’s hard enough as is to know what she’s saying. The class is interesting considering how large of a role the Medici had in building Florence into the city it is today. It’s really cool to able to learn about a certain family member of the Medici and then spend the second half of that same class visiting the church they’re buried in.

Italian Renaissance, Civilization and Culture

I’m not sure what’s going on half the time in this class, but I absolutely love it. My teacher is amazing. His name is Marchello (“don’t call me marshmallow or I’ll be mad!”) and he is the sweetest old Italian man. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who could talk so animatedly as he does for such a long period of time. He loves going off on tangents, which makes it hard to stay focused because you keep spacing out considering what he’s talking about has no relevance to the actual course. Italians have a very different sense of humor than I’m used to. For example, he finds it hilarious, and not inappropriate at all, to talk about how Asian tourists are taking over Florence and take too many selfies. He also held up our textbook and said that we were either going to commit suicide looking at the size of the book or read the book and then commit suicide because we actually read it. He’s a very lovable goofball and is very passionate about what he teaches so his class doesn’t feel like 2.5 hours. So far, we’ve gone to the Santa Trinidad Church and the Santa Croce church to look at the architecture, graves (i.e. Michelangelo, Galileo and Machiavelli) and discuss the history of them. I really love being able to first hand experience what we’re learning about and am looking forward to this class a lot.

Public Relations:

I’m not sure what to make of this class so far. The first day of class was spent with our professor telling us we were dumb for wanting to pursue jobs in PR and that this class was going to suck and be boring so he wouldn’t be surprised if we dropped. It was extremely bizarre and made me worried about the course, but the next class went well and the things we learned about were interesting, if not common sense. My teacher has a dry and self-depracating sense of humor, but he’s starting to grow on me (except for he looks like a pedophile hippie).

Trends in Italian Culture and Cuisine:

This class is the best class ever if only because my teacher is the sexiest man I’ve ever seen in my entire lifetime. I need to somehow take a picture of him during class because you’ll probably faint just staring at his beauty. The first hour of this class we have to take notes about the history of Italian food and the last hour and half are spent cooking. Last week we made stuffed swordfish. I didn’t think I’d like it at all, especially since I was convinced Jessica and I had effed up the instructions (which we did a couple of times) and it wasn’t cooked thoroughly, but I really really liked it. Alfonso, aka sexy teacher man, said that it was “very nice” and then winked. I may or may not have cried from happiness.

Living in Florence:

I really haven’t done many touristy things since I’ve been in Florence. Everyone in my apartment has visitors the last week in February so I’m holding off until then because I know that we’re going to do that kind of stuff and climb the Duomo, see David etc. etc. I have done a lot of walking around though and can navigate to most places pretty well! I can easily get to my classes, the Duomo, the main Plazzas and Piazzas, the train station and have general knowledge about the layout of Italy, including a bunch of short cuts.

My apartment is on via della Vigna Nuova, which is honestly such an amazing location. If you make a right when exiting the apartment building and walk a little ways up you’re at the river and if you walk left for a short while you’re at the Piazza del Republica. The Duomo is centrally located and a 2 minute walk from the Piazza del Republica. Zara and Coin (the main department store) are surrounding the Republica and the grocery store that I go to is down the street from classes, right near the Duomo. It’s also located in a very quiet area, which is nice because Florence streets can get pretty loud and hectic. I pretty much live on the Michigan Avenue of Florence. Every nice store you could imagine is next to me: Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Hermes, Robert Cavalli, Burberry. The list goes on and on.

Nowhere is more than a 20-minute walk away, which is something I definitely took for granted. We visited Prague this past weekend and it makes Florence look like a midget in comparison. I never realized how nice and convenient it is to live in a small city. Size never factored into my decision on where I wanted to study abroad, but I can 100% say I can’t imagine myself anywhere other than Florence. I don’t think I’d like being in a big city, having to take a 20-minute bus or tram to class and not knowing my surroundings. Even if I don’t know where something is, I can easily plug it into Google Maps and recognize something that it’s by that I know how to get to.

Anyway, back to my apartment. It seems to be pretty big in comparison to other apartments because whenever people come over who are also in our program they go, “Woah! Your apartment is so big.” If I had to choose one word to describe the place I’d pick authentic. It’s definitely homey and has a rustic Italian feel to it. The floors are stone (thank goodness for my UGG slippers) and the ceilings are lined with long wooden beams. There are three bedrooms (two girls to a bedroom) and four bathrooms (the extra bathroom doesn’t have a shower).

Our apartment has amenities… but not amenities that we’re used to. We’ve had to call Dario (the “fix it” guy) an embarrassing amount of times. Our first issue was with our dishwasher i.e. we flooded it with bubbles because someone decided to put dish soap in it. I’m still unclear about how this situation was resolved, but when we actually got the appropriate cleaning supplies to put into the dishwasher, it wouldn’t work. The pod would just fall out and stick onto a plate rather than stay in place and do its thing. One of our biggest issues has been (and still is) the washing machine and dryer. We bought laundry detergent the first day we got to Florence, but as we later learned we didn’t buy everything we needed to do laundry. I don’t know what it is about their detergent, but it has absolutely no softener whatsoever in it. If anything, the detergent actually makes clothes harder. The first time we did our laundry we were sooo confused. We ran the dryer after the clothes were washed about 4 times with no results so decided to hang dry our clothes on the drying racks that came with our apartment. The clothes actually dried to the shape of the rack. If an arm of a shirt was hanging off of the rack when drying, then that arm stuck straight out when it was dried. It was a very hilarious sight. I also managed to flood the washing machine twice by overstuffing it. Dario tried to teach us what settings to use because none of them make much sense to us, but we’ve kind of just been winging it.

Jessica and I broke our shower within the first couple of days as well. We didn’t technically “break” it, but water was either coming out of the shower nozzle or the bath nozzle. And our drain is pretty slow so water was filling up faster than it was draining. It could have been quite the situation.

Here’s some things I’ve noticed about Florence:

· They are super into recycling. They have about 5 categories that you’re supposed to separate your trash into. I’m not even sure what the categories are to be honest, but they’re very serious about it. If I remember to recycle a bottle rather than throw it in the trash it’s a pretty good day, but I’m slowly getting better at it.

· The dogs here all wear sweaters. And are super well behaved. If Blue were here he’d be spazzing the hell out and sniffing everything in sight and trying to break free. The dogs here just stroll around casually and barely even glance around. It’s so bizarre. And the whole sweater thing is hilarious. There are a lot of dogs in Florence and I think I’ve only seen about two without a sweater/jacket on.

· Walking on the right side of the sidewalk isn’t a thing here. It’s a free for all. Granted a lot of the sidewalks are small, but people just walk right in the middle and don’t move even when people are about to walk into them coming from the other direction. It’s like playing the game chicken to see who will have to walk into the street to avoid being slammed into.

· I knew that Americans walked fast, but OMG do Italians walk slow. I honest to god think that they purposely walk slow. I don’t even think it’s humanly possibly or natural how slow they walk. They’d have to leave an hour earlier than necessary to get places just to get there on time. I weave in and out of the streets to get around them. Not even because I have to be somewhere urgently, but because I can’t physically make my body move at that slow of a speed.

· There seem to be no traffic laws. Actually none. I’ve not seen a single street sign indicating any type of speed limit. The mopeds here go about 70 miles per hour and I’m not exaggerating. It’s extremely scary when you step into the street to try and walk around people/avoid them walking into you and a car or moped whizzes by you so fast your hair is all over the place.

· Obviously Florence isn’t on any type of grid system so stop lights make absolutely zero sense. Their intersections shoot out in every which direction and the street lights don’t seem to correlate very well with the walk/don’t walk pedestrian lights. I’ve kind of learned to just go for it if it seems safe enough to not get hit and so far so good.

· There’s no differentiation between streets and sidewalks. I’ll be walking through an alley or side street with my friends on the way to dinner and all of the sudden they’ll be nonstop honking from a car indicating we need to get out of the way. Well I’m sorry, but clearly we didn’t know cars were allowed to drive down sidewalks. The rule is that if it’s big enough for a car to fit then they’re allowed to drive on it.

· At least twice a day a man on the street will try to sell you a selfie-stick and at least twice a day you will say NO.

· Splitting checks while out to dinner with friends in Italy is worse than it is in America. Figuring out who owes what becomes so confusing that we usually just end up splitting it equally. But then some people want to pay with cards (which takes forever because each person has to go up individually to the bar to do so) and the people with Euros usually don’t have the exact amount.

· Fizzy water is a huge thing here. I accidentally bought it and it was awful. I’m not sure why natural water is such a rarity here.

· I could probably write my senior thesis paper on the water in Italy. The water in Italy has minerals (such as calcium) in their water that my hair is not accustomed to. A side effect of this is that it makes my hair greasy. At first I thought it was that I washing my hair too much or something like that. But then an Italian woman at a store told me that it’s the hard water. I’m not a fan and like travelling because I can actually take a shower that makes me feel clean.

· Plastic bags at grocery stores are only something that tourists use. Locals all bring their own reusable bags for their groceries. They make you pay to take a plastic bag for your stuff- probably because of their whole recycling conscious stuff.

· The doors here are extremely deceiving. If you think it's a pull door, than it's a push door. And if you think it's a push door, it's a pull door. There's no way to win because the doors are confusing as heck.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Sick in Florence

Monday, February 23, 2015

Ciao Florence!