A funny thing happened on my way home from the art show...

So, Thursday night, the last night of classes, I had a final art show at a restaurant in downtown Florence. Mauro ended up going with Christy and I to view our work. The show went great, and it meant alot that Mauro could come and share this experience with us. BUT. On the way home, Mauro asked us to wait outside a shop because he wanted to go inside and buy some chocolates because that particular shop had the "best chocolates in Florence" (he was right...) Anyways, so Christy and I are sitting on a bench, all dressed up and bundled up in our nice overcoats, just waiting. A man walks up and kind of gives me a strange look, which I happen to see out of the corner of my eye, but I just ignore him, because that's just Florence. Well, he starts digging through his wallet, and I assume he's looking for money to go buy some chocolate. Instead, once he finds what he is looking for, he walks up to me, and without saying a word presses a small coin into my hand, closes my hand around it, and walks away around the corner. I look at Christy, astonished. When I look, I realize he has given me a 20 Euro cent coin. Why? I have no idea. Was it a down payment? Did I look homeless? Was it a complement? I may never know. But, it made me sit and wonder for the rest of the night what this could possibly mean. I think I might start doing this in America. because, regardless of the meaning behind it all, it makes people think and wonder. And I kind of like that! :)

San Gimignano…FINALLY!!

So, this weekend was the grossest weather ever! And unfortunately, this weather has carried over into this week. It’s rainy and COLD, and I wish it would just snow. It really wants to, and it is snowing everywhere but Florence. But anyways, on Friday, despite the bad weather we went to Siena, a small Tuscan medieval town. It’s one of the best preserved medieval towns in the area. It was pretty cool to see all the old stone buildings with giant towers and fortresses. However, at the same time, it’s cool because the rest of the town, the more modern buildings have just sprung up around the ancient buildings, so it’s a very interesting mixture of medieval and modern. It was pouring down rain unfortunately, because from many places in the town you can look out into the Tuscan countryside, which is beautiful, even in the rain. I got sick, yet again, because it was so cold and rainy, so now I have a gross cold. Bummer. But, I have been wanting to see Siena for a while now. It’s so close to Florence, it’s one of those towns I would have been disappointed if I hadn’t gotten to see it before I left. And, since that night was one of the last nights Christy’s friends were in town, we went to fabulous restaurant across the river called Cambi and all the boys had giant Fiorentina steaks, which were amazing. They cook them for a short time on either side and then they stand the steak up on it’s bone and let the heat of the bone cook the inside. It’s pretty interesting, just to watch.
Finally on Sunday I got my second chance to tackle San Gimignano. Some of you may have read my post about trying to get there before, and if you haven’t, you probably should, because it’s quite comical and gives a little more insight as to why this trip was equally as ridiculous… Anyways, this trip was equally as disastrous, except this time we actually made it the town we wanted to see. So, we start off the day getting to the train station late, but it didn’t matter because our train ended up being 40 minutes late. You have to love the Italian trains. Actually, I really do love being able to travel by train, but the Italians can’t organize anything! Anyways, once we finally get on the train and get to Poggibonsi, we actually know what to do to get to San Gimignano this time, but since our train was late, we missed our bus and ended up having an hour and half wait in Poggibonsi. So, once again we found ourselves wasting time in this tiny town where everything is always closed! But, the bus finally came, so we get on it, with three other people and we haven’t even gone three blocks before a car hits our bus!! We barely even felt it because were in a huge charter bus thing, but this little Italian car felt it!! It really wasn’t bad, but there was a ton of paperwork to do, of course. So, that delays us even further. And, I would like to point out that these things would never happen to anyone but Christy and me!! But, we FINALLY get to San Gimignano, and it is worth all the fuss and trouble and wait to get there. This is probably one of my top favorite places in Italy now! It’s a tiny (we’re talking TINY) town on top of a hill that is still surrounded by its original medieval walls, and something like eight of the original medieval towers still exist. It was so cool to walk through this town and around this town and all over it because it’s so small… But it was like stepping in a time machine because every part of this town is original and it hasn’t grown outside of it’s original walls (atleast not much). So, as we are wandering around we find signs for La Casa de Babo Natale (Santa’s House). And, of course, we have to go in. So, we enter this courtyard and it’s decorated with lights in the trees and Christmas-y things everywhere, including a sleight and wooden reindeer. And then, Babo Natale’s house was in the corner and it turns out it was like an arts-n-crafts hut for children, so we thought we would leave it to the children, but it was fun to see. Plus, we found a tower in this courtyard that you could climb up and get the best 360º view of the city ever! Christy and I just sat up there in awe of the beauty of the scenery. I could have stayed there forever and been content. You could see Tuscan countryside for miles: miles of wine country and olive groves and the bright oranges and reds and greens that are made! It was really cool. So, despite the fact that Christy and I almost never actually made it San Gimignano, it was definitely worth the hassle!!

An American Thanksgiving…in Italy

Thanksgiving abroad was an interesting experience. Christy had some friends come in from Indiana for the week, so Mauro and Loriana invited them to Thanksgiving dinner. It turns out there was five of them, two of us, and Mauro and Loriana. If you have been to the Biliotti’s house (mom, dad, and Rach) you know this house is not outfitted for this many people. AKA it’s an apartment (above Gucci…just sayin…) in Italy. So, we set up extra tables and there were people EVERYWHERE! But, in that way it seemed more like my family’s Thankgivings. We started cooking the second I got out of class about 3:00 and didn’t stop until all the food was on the table about 8:00 (early for dinner by Italian standards. They usually eat at 9-ish…) So, Mauro and Loriana put us in charge of cooking them an authentic American Thanksgiving dinner, and that we did! Neither one of us had ever cooked a turkey before and everyone that we talked to gave us different instructions for cooking it (who knew there were so many different ways to cook a turkey?!) So, we kind of mashed everyone’s directions together and made it up as we went along. We cut slits in the skin and put butter in to keep it moist, then we covered it in olive oil and rosemary. It ended up pretty good. It was a little dry because we cooked the crap out of it because they didn’t have a meat thermometer and we were worried about it being too undercooked. But, it looked pretty and the juices made a darn good gravy. I would like to point out that we even made gravy…points for us? So, we had the giant turkey, which Mauro kept calling an ostrich because it was freaking huge!! (5 Kg to be exact…) And then we prepared mashed potatoes, my grandma’s stuffing recipe (which was a giant hit!! Loriana had like seven helpings of it!), buttermilk biscuits, and corn on the cob. Then for desert, Loriana made the best tiramisu EVER! And Christy made a darn good apple crisp, but it was most definitely shown up by Lori. So, it was really cool to be able to share this American holiday with friends and with my Italian family. We have had turkey in every form since that day…turkey loaf, turkey meatballs, turkey ribolitta…it never stops!! But, the holiday was the best I could ask for being abroad! And, now we get to listen to Christmas music and enjoy all the Christmas decorations that started after Halloween here! Plus, the guy who sits outside playing Christmas music on his flute (which is apparently called a flautist…who knew?!) is finally actually playing for the right season considering we can hear him from our window and he has been playing Christmas music since we got here…in August…