Masks & Vino

Buonasera everyone!

One month down, three more to go. I can’t believe that it’s just about been a month.. it feels like I just got here, but it also kinda feels like I’ve been here forever. 

The weather in Firenze finally decided to cooperate and warm up! It’s raining today, and its gonna keep raining till Tuesday, but after that highs are in the upper 50s and lower 60s!! This place is even more fun and beautiful when its nice out, and its really making me feel like I’m living in a dream.

So this week was pretty routine.. class, nap, class, bar, class, homework, blah blah blah.. I’ve been doing a lot of cooking, which I’m pretty impressed with - Sautéed veggies with chicken, eggplant parm with pasta and (semi) homemade sauce, turkey paninis, prosciutto paninis, last week I made chicken piccata with gnocchi, lots of salad & chicken. YUM. I’m getting pretty good if I do say so myself. I want to try to make bruschetta chicken and mozzarella & pesto paninis this week.. and maybe stuffed shells? (one of the few times that Pinterest has led to me being productive) OH and this for breakfast... who would’ve thought that I could be so domestic?

Now onto the highlight of the week – Venice Carnival. I was so excited for this day and it did not disappoint. Emma and I headed over to the train station at 8:45 AM, which sucked.. but we got to sleep on the bus. We got to Venice around 1ish and then took off for the island of Morano, which is famous for glass blowing. The island is small, but really beautiful. Glass shops are everywhere and I treated myself to a cute pair of glass earrings (don’t worry, mom, they were cheap). 

Glass flowers on the entrance to the glass museum

Flower box with glass flowers

After we explored around Morano for a while we headed back to the main island and St Marks Square. As soon as we got off the waterbus we were bombarded by huge crowds of people. It was the last weekend of carnival and the weather was absolutely beautiful so everyone – and I mean EVERYONE – was in Venice.

People EVERYWHERE

Carnival is more or less Venice’s Halloween, so there were a lot of people – young and old – dressed up for the holiday. There were costumes that you would see in the states like spiderman and other random things, but the most impressive (and common) costumes were couples dressed up in elaborate, matching outfits with masks on.. I can’t really describe it, but here’s a few pictures..

She was so cute!

After making it to St Marks, we were pretty overwhelmed by the crows and we were starving so we went to a restaurant for an awesome 3 course meal with wine of course… sorry mom, this wasn’t so cheap, but it was well worth the money. First course was gnocchi with cheese sauce which hands down my favorite. Then I had steak, which was pretty good, but I kinda wish I got the Salmon that Emma got, and then apple pie for dessert as well as a carafe of red wine. It was our one and only meal of the day, but we didn’t need anything else after that.

I'd like to think that this more or less sums up Carnival.

yum.

After finishing our meal & wine, we headed back out. Carnival was in full swing and the crowds were much less overwhelming. The rest of the night consisted of drinking more wine, dancing, people watching, live music and meeting randos. Everyone there was having such a good time just hanging out with friends, meeting new friends and dancing. They had a bunch of acts on stage that resembled a circus or cirque de soleil with people jumping through fire and doing acrobatics. Carnival is just one giant outdoor party, and the people there are entertainment enough, you really don’t need much else. When you put people together with good music (and masks and wine?) you’re bound to have a great time.

Rando dancing (badly)

More rando dancing

That’s all I got! Next week I’m hopefully going to the Accadmia and/or the Ufizi, and next weekend I’m either going to Milan or doing a wine tour, so get ready to hear all about that =]