Friday, my girls, Ella, Eve, and Steph, and myself decided to take a day trip to the beautiful San Gimignano. It was an extremely successful journey and the medieval town is now my favorite town in all of Tuscany.
Like all of the other medieval cities that we have visited this semester, this one was also situated on a hill and surrounded by a stone wall. The unique aspect of San Gimignano is the fact that, at one point, its walls contained within them 72 towers. Though only 15 of them remain today, it is a beautiful place to visit.
The Shopping
One word: brilliant. San Gimignano is full of cute shops! Honestly, besides some general site-seeing, shopping is really all we did there. I have been stressed out this entire semester regarding what gifts I should buy people (I'm that person that always wants to buy the perfect gift for the best price. lol) and I found several in the adorable stores. I only have one more person to buy for!
The Food
We had a fabulous lunch at a random osteria. I had pici (the worm pasta that I had in siena) with breadcrumbs and garlic. It was so good!
After lunch and walking around the city a bit, we found a gelateria that had "WORLD CHAMPION" with 2 years listed in which they had won some kind of gelato competition. There was a line out the door initially so we came back and it was seriously the best gelato in the world. I got cinnamon and blueberry ricotta. Ella chose rosemary raspberry and blackberry lavender (a combination that she described as "orgasmic"). Yum!
Wedding Crashers
There was a church right outside of the osteria where we ate lunch and, while we were eating, we watched as herds of fancifully-dressed Italians gathered outside. We determined that it was a wedding when a youngish man in an all-black tuxedo drove up on a white motorcycle with a white ribbon tied to it. So, we waited for the bride to show up and marriage became a common topic of conversation for the remainder of the day. It was really sweet thing to see...especially in Italy.
We returned home to Florence after a successful day of walking, chowing, and shopping and now I am wicked exhausted.
MTV TRL Awards
I don't think I mentioned this but, a few weeks ago, Florence hosted the Italian MTV TRL awards in Piazza Santa Croce...about a 20 minute walk from my apartment. You know I checked it out! Rumors were flying about a surprise appearance by Lady Gaga but the only famous musicians there were Italian so I had no idea who most of them were. The piazza was packed full of people, though, so it was a blast! Anyone else find it ironic that the event was held right in front of a historical Florentine church? (Btw, Galileo's tomb is in that church)
GTL in the FLR
As many of you probably already know, MTV's reality show, the Jersey Shore, is coming to Florence. What many of you may NOT know is that it is causing a lot of people a lot of problems. I happen to know one of these people. I don't want to say too much because some of it has already ended up on TMZ (don't ask me how they get their info but you don't screw around with TMZ) and they have erroneously represented the events. In a few words, some girls I know have been legitimately screwed over and severely disrespected by our school and our dean of students as a result of the show moving to Florence. The entire situation would have been better had it been handled differently. And that's all I have to say about that...
Update on the Mac situation: I'm still Mac-less. I should get my computer back on Tuesday but studying for finals prior to that is going to be a painful experience. And, as far as I know, they weren't able to recover any of my data (but they probably didn't even attempt to recover it so I will find someone to help a sista out when I get home).Ciao!
-Britt
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