So after the Super Bowl I woke up nice and early to go on a quick jog to piazza Michelangelo where the views are still amazing. It wasn't raining at the time so it was a nice run. I took a quick shower and ate some breakfast. I stopped at my local cafe with my roommate for a caffe latte before meeting at piazza Santa Croce for a food tour. At first our tour guide gave us some sweet cookie that I thought resembled pie crusts with powdered sugar on it that is only served during carnival season (which it is right now). She then took us to a cafe that was in the piazza called finisterrae and bought us some coffees. Since I had already had one coffee today, I got a straight espresso, but the cappuccinos looked really good as did the treats:
After the coffee our tour guide, took us by two pizzerias that were really close that are apparently really good, but it was 9 in the morning so we weren't getting pizza, instead we headed to the local market. At this market, farmers from the countryside of Tuscany all around Florence bring their crops and sell them for really cheap prices. Inside of a building at the center is butchers, cheese makers, seafood experts, and bakers. Everything was incredibly fresh even if it didn't smell great. There were fruits and vegetable stalls:
Yes, they even sold cheap socks at the market:
Inside was where the good stuff was:
One of the most popular dishes for Florence is tripe (cow intestines). I plan on trying this but we'll see.
We stopped at a shop and the owner have us free samples of prosciutto, cheeses, and olives. I was given a whole box of olives 
So much diversity:
The baked goods here are bounissimi:
Some of these dishes are just made by Italians and then sold cold so you can hear them up and eat them later. I will begin investing in them (they are homemade by Italian women!).:
So many cheeses:
Gina loved it:
As did Maria (and Lauren):
After the market we headed to a wine shop that was right by my house. It was closed, it's closed on Monday, so we went to another one. At wine shops like these they are owned by a vineyard in Chianti (like 30 minutes outside Florence), and the store just sells wine from that vineyard. It's really fresh and if you have a bottle, you can just come here and have it filled back up for a small price. The wine is apparently really good:
Also the vineyard makes limoncello and grappa:
Afterwards I was off to Italian lessons. We learned a little bit about verb conjugations but really nothing too important. Afterwards I decided to go to Fiesole, which is a small town on a mountain that overlooks Florence. I had read about it in a few blogs and therefore had a general idea how to get there. I asked everyone if they wanted to come. A few people expressed interest and we decided to meet at the Duomo at 2. Unfortunately only 2 people showed up so we waited until 2:15 and then decided to go anyway. The two people that came were Lauren and Darcy and none of us are amazing at Italian. We walked from the Duomo to Piazza San Marco where we were told by AIFS to catch the number 7 bus. All of the number 7 buses were headed to one location: La Pira. Which I had never heard of. So we decided to wing it and go anyway. Somehow we were able to buy tickets and we just got on. We were a little worried we were standing at the wrong place because there were like 4 bus stops in Piazza San Marco, so that made things a little bit interesting. It turns out that the only reason these buses all said La Pira was because San Marci was the last stop for bus 7 and La Pira was the last stop the other way and La Pira is actually the name of the square. So on the bus I started to get a little nervous about what Fiesole would be like when we got there and I knew it was on the Mountain but I didn't know where (like on the top, or the middle, or towards the bottom) and I was really nervous. So one of the stops was something Domenica and it said "Fiesole" underneath inparentheses and a lot of people got off at that stop so I decided to as well. It was the wrong stop. We looked around a little and realized it was definitely not right. So we attempted to walk up the mountain to get there. It's 6 miles. Up a mountain. Safe to say it didn't work out. We decided to catch the bus at the next stop but even halfway up the mountain the views were amazing:
We eventually got there just fine. And the views were amazing:
Imagine the view from this bed and breakfast in the morning:
Lauren and Darcy were really good to travel with:
It doesn't get many tourists so there isn't many English speakers there and the town is so small there are only 2 restaurants in the whole town.
It doesn't get many tourists so there isn't many English speakers there and the town is so small there are only 2 restaurants in the whole town. The views of Florence were spectacular though:
Well after all this sight seeing and walking we got a little hungry and a little thirsty. There's only two restaurants in town. One was a fake Irish pub and the other was a sit-down restaurant that looked really expensive. We're college kids. You can guess where we went. We got some beers because the guy said they weren't ready to start. So we got some drinks and we're looking at the menu. We then tried to order something and the guy was like we don't have that. He did that for everything we asked and then we asked what he did have and he pointed to two things on our menu: wings and French fries. It's safe to say we left after that. It was still a good time though
So off we went to the fancy restaurant. The guy spoke formal Italian so I got a little scarred. But we only got one dish each and a bottle of house wine :) it was really good. I got wild boar sauce on pasta which the waiter recommended. P.S. I understood his Italian. Cause I'm the man.
It was so good and we had a really great time:
We then went up to the top of Fiesole to the Monastery and looked out at Florence at night. I took some pictures but really it doesn't do it justice at all. It was amazing. I could never put into words how great the view was. It got me think how fortunate I am to be here. I'm so blessed that my parents gave me the oppourtunity to come here and study because I doubt I will ever get a chance to look and see something like this. It's a hard journey here but I believe that anyone that comes to Florence should just come to Fiesole and give it a chance. It was truly amazing. Enjoy the pictures at night:
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