Gelato Teaser Workshop

Last Tuesday (2/22/11) after my 6-8:30 class (which generally is out by 7:45pm) instead of going to frisbee practice I took a gelato workshop offered by the school. We worked in the Apicius kitchens, Apicius is the cooking school that is affiliated with FUA (where I go to school) right down the street from where I live. Our instructor Dasey was not from Italy, which was kind of interesting, but has been teaching Italian cuisine for years. He also said on of his favorite gelato shops is on my street within a block (a frequent stop on my way home from class or after dinner). We began the class with a hazelnut gelato and then continued to make fresh strawberry gelato, next was a lemon grinata (basically more like a snow cone than gelato) and we finished with making small cookies (lady fingers).

Fiorentina

On Sunday (2/20/11) to further ourselves in the Florentine culture a group of us decided to attend a soccer game at Florence's home stadium to watch ACF Fiorentina vs UC Sampdoria. For Italians soccer is more than just a game, its a passion, which was clearly demonstrated to us. It was somewhat of a cloudy / rainy day, but Fiorentina still had their fans who most of which stood the entire game. At half time all the kids came out and played their own game of soccer right in front of us (not on the field but in the stands and the kid in the red was our favorite).

When half time was over everyone went back to their seats (to stand) waving their flags while they continued their numerous cheers.

While neither team scored ending the game in 0-0, Fiorentina was definitely close. Overall a very cultural experience. We hope to go back again, stand with the dedicated Italians and learn the cheers for our newly adopted team

Pisa

Friday (2/18/11) morning three of the housemates and two of our friends decided that we should get out of Florence and see something new. After getting everyone together we finally left for the train station. Once arriving we found that a train to Pisa was leaving in 11 minutes and then decided it was a good idea to figure out how to buy the tickets through the machine for all 6 of us. By the time we all had our tickets we had 4 min to find where the train was and to get on it. The trains say their final destination on the platforms, which made it somewhat of a challenge to figure out where we were going. By the end we were running through the station and got on the train right before the doors closed.

 
We arrived in Pisa's central train station an hour later. The ride was easy and short. Not really being prepared for the day we had no map, but found a map on board outside of the whole city (somewhat old and had blacked out spots making it difficult to make out what places actually were). After looking at it for a couple min we decided the best option was to just walk straight until we found the leaning tower. Apparently our strategy worked and about 30 min later we came upon Pisa's Duomo and leaning tower. We walked around did all the "touristy" stuff and walked back to the train station. We had herd that really the only thing to do in Pisa was to see the Tower and Duomo so we had planned accordingly with only two hours in Pisa before the train ride home.