ALMOST THERE.

I finished one of my classes today! I got a 97% on my presentation and I am so ecstatic about sleeping in tomorrow. I will sleep in forever, I promise. So I know I didn't post yesterday, but I went to some of the coolest places. First, I went to Lucca. Lucca is a city that demonstrates a "built environment". A "built environment" is a city that has everything within walking distance so you don't actually have to drive anywhere. Lucca is surrounded by a wall for protection. In the past, Florence and Sienna would frequently fight. Lucca built the wall surrounding the city to protect itself from any attack on their town. Now, they have a park ontop of the wall where you can walk or ride a bike. It's actually a really cool sight.

Also, we found a restaurant that had a chef with an AWESOME name:

Lucca was beautiful and a peaceful break from busy Florence. After walking around and shopping in Lucca for a few hours we headed to Pisa to take pictures at (of course) the Leaning Tower of Pisa. 

I had to take a stereotypical picture so I have one of me blowing a kiss (and blowing over) the Tower. 

I capped off my night with an iced coffee before finishing my assignments and heading to bed. 

This morning I had a presentation bright and early. My presentation was on Health Promotion and Disease Prevention relating to the Mediterranean Diet. I did a section on diabetes and if you ask me I will tell you all of the benefits to eating a Mediterranean Diet for diabetes prevention. Before our presentation my group and I went and got coffee at our favorite spot (where I got the iced coffee above) and prepared for the presentation. My friend got a cappuccino and they decorated it with the symbol of Florence:

With all of my assignments due today I didn't get to do much in Florence. However, after my last class I finished off my night with a wonderful Japanese Iced Tea. AKA one of the coolest drinks ever. 

I can't believe the program is almost over. I wish I could stay here longer and every day that passes I get more and more upset about going home. That being said, I can't wait to see you all. I've missed everyone terribly. :)

Crunch Time...

Most of my day today I spent studying. That sounds awful when I say it. However, to be honest I don't mind studying in Florence. There really isn't a bad place to sit and get some work done. Also, our school's buildings are so beautiful it would be a shame to NOT use them. For example, this is where I studied today: 

I studied on a terrace over looking the river. I really don't think you can beat that. This was the area below me:

You can't see the whole thing but that tree in the middle is the only existing palm tree in Florence. On the first day our teacher took us to the highest peak in Florence and had us find the palm tree. It was like a Florentine "Where's Waldo". On a completely unrelated note, I was the first one to find the palm tree. No big deal or anything. Another awesome thing about the school... We have a dog that just roams around the courtyard. He's pretty chill. He just sleeps all day. Not too much of a guard dog, but whatever he's adorable. 

He just loves that Florence sun... On my way back from our library there was a carriage parked in front of the Duomo. I thought it would make for a pretty candid photo so I nonchalantly took a picture as I walked by so I wouldn't be that annoying person that causes 20 people to run into each other.... This is the picture I got:

Honestly, props to this guy. He not only successfully photo bombed my picture, but it's actually not a bad picture. It's kind of cool with the horse in the back. Sorry guy, if I knew you I'd totally tag you on Facebook. This is pretty profile pic worthy. 

I don't know if I've mentioned Fedora yet but it's our school's bakery, (this school is also a culinary school so you know it's amazing) but I successfully had all three meals today at the school. 

Breakfast:

Yeah, I was totally sick from all these sweets after.

Lunch: 

 DELICIOUS.

Dinner was at the school restaurant and I did not take a picture of it unfortunately... However, I had a zucchini flower and roasted red pepper risotto. It was amazing. I did take a picture of my dessert though...

By the way, a special note to my parents and my aunt... I will be taking you here when you come to Florence... And you will love it. I guarantee it. 

Also, we have a meal plan at this school kind of like the dorm meal plan. Except instead of crappy buffet food THIS is the stuff I can get on my meal plan. Yeah. You can go ahead and be jealous now.

For one of my classes today we went to a grocery store. At grocery stores in Italy you can also get bulk items like you can in the US... It Italy though THIS is a bulk item:

 WHO NEEDS THIS MUCH OLIVE OIL. SERIOUSLY THOUGH.

 That's really all I have for today, but as a final note here is the gondola picture I promised: 

 

Candid. Flawless. Perfect. Good night.

Sorry I didn't post yesterday!

So... I was exhausted yesterday and the pictures were taking too long to load so I'm just posting yesterday's today and I'll do another one later tonight (hopefully).

To be honest this week is actually pretty terrible for me. I have a project, two presentations, and a research paper all due Wednesday and I am basically dying of sleep deprivation, so I sincerely apologize for not being able to write on my blog every day. It's just been a tiring week. I've had a couple exciting days though! Yesterday, I got to go to a wine tasting at Montepulciano. The wine was amazing and I got to see where they filmed the second Twilight. Now, I'm obviously not a Twilight fan, but it was still pretty cool to see where they filmed it. No there weren't any crowds of people walking around in red. However, FUN FACT, the fountain they had in the middle of the square in the movie isn't a real thing. It was added just for the movie. Kind of a buzz kill right? Nah, it's still beautiful. 

Of course we had our wine tasting after that and I learned how to properly tell what quality a wine is. Basically I'm coming back to America a total wine snob. 

As with everywhere else the landscape is quite wonderful.

I'm never getting sick of this beautiful landscape. Later on we all decided to go get ice cream, as we were walking to get ice cream we walked right through a marathon through the city. Let me tell you how bad you feel watching people run a marathon while eating ice cream....

So naturally I took a photo of the ice cream with the marathon running in the background.

It was a pretty cool day. :) 

The next day started with my first shot of espresso! It was an early morning... Therefore it was a necessity.

We had a long train ride to Venice. I didn't even fall asleep this time. Since I only have a little over a week left in Florence I realized I need to thoroughly enjoy every site I can while I'm here. I don't want to miss anything. Venice was beautiful, but sadly very crowded. Unfortunately, it was hard to enjoy the beauty of the city with tourists crowding every attraction. We were able to take a walk on some side streets, which were nice, but Venice was not everything I expected it would be when I dreamed of going there. I rode on a gondola, which was the highlight of my day. I didn't take any photos with my phone on that so I'll have to upload them when I get home. But here are some pictures of the rest of beautiful Venezia: 

 You're actually supposed to pay to take pictures of these people so I snuck it as I was walking by... Thank god they were turned away.

 This is St. Mark's Cathedral, I believe this is the second or third largest church in the world. (The Duomo is right behind it :D)

That's all I have to talk about. :) Now I'm running to the library to finish up my research paper! 

Ciao!

ALL THE COFFEE

So I had a lot of coffee today. And it was great. I forgot to take a picture of the first one but it was amazing. It was a nutella mochaccino latte and I will always ask for that when I go in from now on. The second coffee I got was the best iced coffee I've had in my life. So foamy and SOOOO sweet. :) It kind of tasted like Mama D's coffee punch. 

The place we got it at had a book that all of us signed before we left: 

The rest of the day I just spent working on my paper. I spent a good amount of time in our school library. Since this is Italy, of course it was renaissance, and beautiful. 

It was a good day. Now I'm going to bed to head to the wineries at the crack of dawn! Good night everyone!

FOOD FOOD FOOD

Remember that one day I said I had tons of food? Well today I had ten times more. We cooked in my sustainability class and I was in charge of cutting the tomatoes (with a dull knife).

Not too shabby for a dull knife right??? :) We made farro salad which was the best thing ever. I will totally be making it repeatedly when I get back. Then, we made our group dinner tonight (5 courses--yeah, A LOT).

Since we had left over money we all went out for gelato... Then we decided to binge and got more gelato. I HAD FOUR SCOOPS OF GELATO AND A HOMEMADE CONE TONIGHT AND I DON'T EVEN REGRET IT. I am pretty exhausted again tonight so I'm going to have to cut this real short. But I'll leave you with the view from my school window: 

Halfway There!

Today marks the halfway point through my program. Although there were some rough patches I can honestly say that I will be legitimately upset when I have to leave this beautiful country. I am already planning a trip back because I am already missing it. This country is beautiful and I don't think I will ever live in an apartment again that has a perfect view of a historic monument (the Duomo). I will always miss hearing the beautiful bells ringing down my street during the day, I'll miss my Italian espresso, I'll miss walking next to horse drawn carriages on my way to class, and most of all I'll miss the gelato (of course). BUT... It's not over yet. :) I am going to soak up these last days I'm here. 

Anyways... I got to see how pasta is made today! So I guess that's exciting! It's a pretty interesting process! 

They used all old age equipment so it was really cool to watch. FUA (Florence University of the Arts) paid for us to have a pastry and coffee after the visit (free coffee was probably the highlight of my day). 

I finished the pastry before I got to the picture taking... Whoops. We were in Chianti for all of this, which was absolutely beautiful! Yes, that is where Chianti wine is made, and yes I tried Chianti wine IN Chianti, and YES it was AMAZING. 

We finished off the day by getting all-you-can-eat apertivos later that night. Which was also pretty amazing. Of course, because how could all-you-can-eat NOT be amazing?

Anyways that's pretty much all I did tonight, I desperately need sleep now so... Arrivederci!

I'm in love....

With this amazing country. Yesterday I forgot to write on my blog... Sorry about that. I had two equally fantastic days. Yesterday I had a beautiful fruit cup to start out my morning. Probably the best decision all day. 

I had some gelato later from a place that is becoming a favorite of mine: "Grom".

After that I had a game night with some friends, it was a pretty regular day. :) But still equally fantastic.

Today I woke up at the crack of dawn to go taste test olive oil (gross right?). Exactly what I thought. It is. It looks pretty ridiculous as well. When tasting olive oil, you put a few drops on your tongue and then suck air in through your teeth--we all looked real weird.

During the tasting they served delicious Chianti wine. This was at 10:30 am. That was a little intense. 

Also, I don't know if I said this enough... But the view here is pretty great:

Later I went on a field trip to the fontanella (water fountain--yes we actually took a field trip just to see a water fountain). The water was pretty delicious so it was worth it. I made a few friends along the way...

The dog actually would not stop following me. It was precious. It had an owner or I totally would have taken it back to the US (sorry Mom). Some other dogs started getting close and he stood in front of me and growled at them to get away (seriously this dog was way too cute). I guess I should go ahead and stop talking about animals now because you know I could go on for days about these two cuties. Anyways, I found the flower of Florence or "Firenze" as it's called here.

Almost as beautiful as the city named after it. To finish off the day we had a delicious dinner later at our school's restaurant. We got the VIP seats on the upstairs patio... We all felt pretty special. Wait, I mean we all ARE pretty special. 

Just a pic of the rooftop area. (I didn't want to make everyone move for the picture lol.)

Leaving this place is going to crush me, but I just have to make a promise to myself to return pronto.