PRAHA!

First and

foremost, aside from weekend news, I just have

to profess my love for the sandwich (panino) shop around the corner. I'vetried a lot of panini from different places around Florence, but my favorite so

far (lucky me) happens to be around the

corner from me right by the mercato central.

It's like an Italian deli-style place. It's a tiny space with 2 high-top tables inside and there isn't even a

sign that says what the place is

called. The woman inside recognizes us every time we go and greets us with a friendly buon giorno. Anyway,today I just went with a prosciutto cotto

sandwich (it's ham, but I think it's the equivalent of parma cotta ham in the States) panino. Since it's deli-style,you pick what you want and she makes it right there. So with my delicious ham I added a black olive pate, fresh tomato, rucola, and fontina, all melted together on awesome stracciata bread. Bellisima...simple but delicious. I love how everything here is always made to order and freshly cut.

Anyway, on to my weekend. As I had posted before, I had been planning on heading to the French Riviera for the weekend. In a crazy last minute cha

nge of plans, I went to Prague in the Czech Republic with a bunch of friends through a company called EuroAdventures. To say it in a few words, I totally fell in love with Prague. Like Florence, it's easy to just feel at home there. Only problem: they speak Czech--not exactly the most convenient and widely spoken language in the world. Back to my point...I went through EuroAdventures...a company that is designed specially for college kids trying to travel and see Europe with minimal money spent. It was a very long drive (11 hours!) but totally worth the experience of Prague. The website and general market for EuroAdventures is a little sketchy I'll admit but the program was fantastic. The guys that own the company are the ones that come on the trip with you...2 of them are in their mid to late 20s and the other is probably about 30. They were great. We left Florence at 8pm on Thursday and arrived in Prague at 8am, when we took a 5 hour tour of the city. It sounds long, but it was perfect...we saw all the major sites in Prague in a day and I've

nd wasn't sure what to expect.

I've gotten so accustomed to walking everywhere the full day of walking didn't even tire me out.

This post is about to have a lot of pictures (I took about 150 while I was there) so bear with me and

try to enjoy.

PROBLEM. I just tried to add pictures to this post for you guys and about half of the writing got messed up so I just had to delete it. However, there are now more pictures...but fewer words. So I guess...make your own story from them?

I know I had posted (I think in my first post?) about the locks in Florence on the Pontevecchio bridge where couples come, write their names on the locks, and lock it around a statue in hopes of good

luck for their relationship. Anyway, aside from the amazing Lenin/Lennon

wall (pictures below...I took a picture right in front of the "imagine" part of the wall because I know Dad had taken a picture in front of the same wall not too long ago.

venezia

So this past weekend we went to Venice and I was surprisingly disappointed. It was a cold and windy day, but there were random spots of sun around the city (which we didn't see often because almost all of Venice is old back alleys)...so maybe that had something to do with it. My bus left bright and early at 6 am, we

had a 4 hour bus ride there, and immediately had a 2 hour walking tour. This tour was the strangest tour I've ever been on--my tour guide took us to

things like the Jewish quarter and outside a high school and things like that. The company that I'm traveling with (API) is pretty big so the tour groups were split up into much smaller groups and we got a weird tour gu

ide. However, the only interesting fact I learned about Venice is that only about 40% of the buildings are occupied there. The other thing was that since it's February and everyone in Europe is celebrating Carnevale, this was one of the biggest ones. After having such a long morning, all I wanted to do was get in bed after being in such a huge crowd. I added a picture so you guys could see how ridiculously packe

d it

was...and the picture isn't even just a crowded area, the entire city was this crowded and the

picture doesn't

even do it justice.

The other thing was that the main square where car

nevale takes place there, Piazza di San Marco, was flooded and they didn't put the boards over the water

that they u

sually put up for people to walk on. I tried to get a picture of myself in fr

ont of the giant cathedral there but it didn't work out because it

was way too

crowded to get a picture without someone walki

ng in

front of

the camera, so I got one of it without myself in front of it. Anyway, that's about all I have to say about Venice really. I'll attach a few more pictures of the city. In 2 days I'll be going on a trip to Nice, Cannes, and Monte Carlo. It should be a good trip.

viareggio

There was confetti everywhereeeee. For the weekend we hung out around Florence but took a day trip to Viareggio in Tuscany. Yes,

Florence is in Tuscany but it's not the typical "countryside", but Viareggio is the countryside alongside the water--beautiful. February seems to be the mo

nth of carnevale in all of Europe...Viareggio's was our first and supposedly the biggest parade/celebration for carnevale in Europe. It was gr

eat, especially since it was actually a sunny day...only the second one we've had since we got here about 2 1/2 weeks ago. The parad

e took place on a huge boardwalk next to the beach and include

d the biggest floats I've ever seen (I heard most of the makers of them start planning/building rig

ht after carnevale for the next year), most of them politi

cal satires.

We got to talking to these guys and girls that were dressed as daisies (yes, daisies) that were part of one of the floats and we my friend Hana, jokingly, asked if we could come on the float

even though spectators aren't

allowed on the floats...and they

said yes! We rode around with our new friends for a little while singing, dancing, and having a great time being an actual part of the parade. The parade lasts three hours though and we got off the float after about half an hour so that we could see the rest of the parade. I added a couple

pictures of us on the float with our newfound friends and one of when we got off the float, they passed by, an

d yelled our names out.

Needless to say, it was a great time and another unexpected event, which made it all that much more fun. I'm planning on cooking a simplified type of chicken cacciatore tonight, but tomorrow we're planning on going out for our first aperitivo, which is when you pay a flat fee (usually about 7 Euro or so) for a drink (wine, etc) and there is either a buffet or you get various appetizers free of charge. Most Italians don't eat dinner until about 8:30 and aperitivo is at 6 or so, so they use it as an appetizer-type course but we would go for dinner fo

r the sake of saving money.

On Saturday, we're heading to Venice for their carnevale. I know Venice is one of the most (if not the most) expensive city in Europe. I'll update after! Ciao!

sulute!

I'm now in the business of bringing my camera out and trying to take pictures. I realized that last time I forgot to write about the fact that we had a cooking class! It was great--we made tiramisu, gnocchi (from

scratch) with a very

simple fresh tomato sauce, and eggplant millefoglie (a tower of zucchini, eggplant, fresh fontina, topped with parmesan. I'd never made gnocchi myself but it was surprisingly easy and everything was delicious...we got recipes for everything

before we left.

Anyway, today, my friends and I stopped by Dad's favorite restaurant in Florence, Trattoria Mario. It's conveniently located a block from my apartment! Th

e specials change weekly since it's located right next to the biggest fresh market in the city and they get all their ingredients from there. I went with the pollo arrosto (roasted chicken) and it was great.

Also--per request of Reuben--I've started drinking caffeine again via espressos, macchiatos, and cappucinos...they're delicious here. I live in between two of the so-called nicest leather stores (one is jackets and one is handbags) in Florence.

The man and woman who own the bag store offer to help us with

anything we may need--questions about where to go to get a key made to tips on eating out. One of our first days here the man (whose name I can't seem to ever remember) mentioned that whenever you get an espresso drink you shouldn't sit, but just stand at the bar. If you sit they charge you a service charge of up to 2 euro (about 3 dollars) for a .50

Euro to 1 Euro c

up of espresso. It's usually pretty obvious that some of the locals try to take advantage of American tourists and/or students but all the store owners on my street are great.

In incredibly delicious news, we went to a chocolate fair today in Santa Croce--sort of Florence's version of the village in New york..where a lot of twenty-somethings hang out and

kind of trendy. There was an unbelievable amount of hand-crafted chocolates. Since I have a serious penchant for chocolate, I ended up tasting everything and spending too much money

(12 Euro...about 18 dollars) but it was definitely worth it since it's something I love. While waiting in line for Mario's, an older woman that I told about the chocolate fair was so excited she said she was going to "stay either until they shut down and kick me out or I throw up"...wonderful. I thought of Megan and Josie while I was at the fair, sure that they would have almost as much of a heart attack as I was having there. I took roughly one million pictures. Here's a couple of the displays:

Needless to say, the chocolate was amazing. On our walk back to our apartment, we caught the beginning of some sort of small parade that looked to be celebrating upc

oming Carnivale with people in crazy costumes and masks. They were banging out drums and stopped in the middle of the piazza to dance. My friends and I started to dance in their circle with them and the whole crowd joined in and I got a couple

great pictures:The first one is of Amanda (left) and Julia (right) and one of the members of the Carnivale parade.

The second one is obviously myself and the same two girls. It was a great time and completely unexpected. I'm heading to a carnivale-type cultural celebration in Viareggio tomorrow, not really sure what to expect but I'm excited.

A domani!

andiamo!

So I don't even know what to say or where to start. Living in Florence seems to be the

strangest thing ever, but not in a bad way. I had my first day

of classes today and it's strange to

casually walk by a monument like the duomo on the way to class.

I also live right in the San Lorenzo market, which is the place everyone comes to buy leather goods, scarves, etc. My apartment is bigger than I expected and definitely more decorated as well...The walls are all bright yellow with all brightly colored things (like bright blue doors and a turquoise locker-style TV stand with a TV so small on it we haven't even turned it on once.) One of my favorite things about San Lorenzo though is that the mercado central (central market--just like you assume) is literally around the corner from my apartment door, about a one or two minute walk. I haven't taken pictures in there yet but I'm definitely

going to because I know my family members will greatly appreciate the ridiculousness of the food they have there. There's an open air market outside with just fruits and veggies, but when you go inside there's all kinds of butchers and places to buy freshly made pasta (which is amazing), fresh cheeses, some prepared foods, and so much more. Next weekend I'll be heading to Carnivale, and I'm hoping the weather gets better. It's been in the 30s and low 40s here which is why I haven't been taking my camera out with me, but I know everyone wants to see pictures so I'll do it soon, I promise! Since its a nice one I

can't just keep it in my ba

g and carry it around everywhere so I've missed some good photo opportunities, but I'll try! For now, I

just have a couple pictures from around Florence. The one with the water is the Pontevecchio bridge, it separates Florence into two parts, south of the Arno river that the bridge spans is the less touristy part of Florence, where you find more locals, more authentic restaurants, and as you get further out, more Tuscan-like scenery. The second picture of the locks is also from the Pontevecchio, but it's a monument that the Medicis erected outside one of their old palaces. Nowadays, Florentines and tourists visit the site with boyfriends and girlfriends, write their names on the locks, and close it around the gate surrounding the monument hoping it will lock in their love with their significant other. Cute--but I was told by a professor that unbeknownst to these people, the Carabinieri (police) come around every once in a while and break all the locks since it's a public monument that people are defacing...but I still thought it was cool.

Okay, that's it for now. Much more to come, I'm sure.