Chocolate Festival

Saturday was the chocolate festival in Florence, Italy.  We had a rough start since everyone was trying to get tickets to leave for either the Chocolate Festival or the Antique Fair in Arezzo.  There are no workers at the train stations on Saturdays.  There are two machines at our stop to use, and it was most people’s first time using them, so the machines kept freezing and we ended up missing the 9am train, and instead waited a couple hours for the 11am train.  Unfortunately, the earlier train was only an hour, and the train we got on stopped at every station we passed, doubling the time.  So after two hours, we finally arrived in Florence.  Next time we plan on buying tickets far in advance.

We headed towards Santa Croce where the festival is held, and stopped on the way at this (literally) hole-in-the-wall Panini stand.  There was enough room behind the counter for two men to stand, and that was all.  I peeked behind them, and there was a very steep stairway leading to a lower level, where they must store everything and access a real shop.  Panini was yummy.

We arrived at the fair where there were at least 40 stands of different venders, giving samples and selling quite the variety of treats.  We met up with the Orvieto girls, and then made our way around the stands.  I got a chocolate and nut covered banana on a stick, delicious!  There were also chocolate shoes, tools, chocolate covered fruits, fondue kabobs, and even marijuana flavored chocolate.  There was chocolate beer, and shots of absinthe out of chocolate shot glasses.  Don’t worry, mom and dad, I stuck to the fruits.

After we explored the chocolate a bit, we went shopping.  There is a ton of shopping to be done in Florence, and we are excited to go back.  I bought a new leather purse that was 50% off, hopefully it’s real leather, I can't tell the difference.  There are so many leather shops, with purses, coats, wallets, coin purses – beautiful stuff, all far out of my price range but fun to look at.  One of the shops offered Kelsey a 400 euro discount on an adorable jacket, and it was still pricey, but it was so cute we’ll probably have to check back another time.  There was also a store called Coin that looked like a Forever 21 and had a lot of cute stuff, and we almost got lost in the store it was so big. 

After shopping we headed back to the Chocolate Fest for some people watching.  When evening rolled around, the amount of people at the festival seemed to double and triple.  It got crazy trying to see all the stands, so we went to the steps of Santa Croce (CROW-chay, since I’m sure you’ve been saying something Oklahomian), and watched all the chaos.  After a while we started to hear drums, and then it seemed like a band was forming, but we couldn’t see on the other side of the tents.  Soon there was marching coming around the corner, men and women in tights holding flags or playing an instrument.  We have no idea what it was but it was pretty entertaining.  There were some talented flag twirlers. They even threw them up in the air, and there was one guy doing tricks with three at a time.

As it started to get dark we headed towards our meeting spot with the rest of the group I was with, and we chose a restaurant to eat some dinner.  It was a birreria (brewery) and I had some spaghetti.  We got wine for the table and I added another page to my wine journal, yay!  By the end of the night I found some red sauce on my jacket, don’t know where the rest of the noodle went but that’s your spill of the day. 

We took a train back to Castiglion Fiorentino and hiked up to our study center.  My roommates and I slept for a long time, since it was such an eventful weekend.  We found that in Florence, most people you come across speak English, especially the shopkeepers, obviously.  This was very different from my town, where almost nobody speaks English.  If they do, it is usually very broken English, or they mix Italian and English together.  I have been so used to speaking in Italian that I didn't realize when the shopkeeper said, "Can I help you?" and I replied with, "Si, quanto costa?"  It will be interesting when I get back to the states and say, "Scusi, Grazie!" 

Ciao,

Cara Marie

P.S.  While I have been writing this there has been a soccer game going on outside.  They have almost constantly been banging drums and cheering, and now it is quiet except for lots of cars honking horns. I guess we won! Yay!  Tonight I will be watching the Super Bowl at the Velvet Underground bar, they are keeping it open until the game is over.  We'll see if I can stay up that late!