Today’s field trip was to Arezzo, which is the capital of the region where Cortona is located. Although Arezzo has some beautiful cathedrals and one in particular with a fantastic set of frescoes, the best part of Arezzo was its famous antique market. Now, I know I have raved about more than one antique market so far in this blog, but the antique market in Arezzo tops all antique markets in the world COMBINED. Seriously, this market went every which way all over town, to the point where I almost got dizzy because I did not know what direction to go in because I did not want to miss any of the market if I went in one direction, but then missed another direction. The market was filled with the most beautiful jewelry, old antique books, buttons, furniture, toys, lace, ceramics, glassware, tools, photographs, postcards, clothes….everything you can think of. It took a lot of willpower from refraining myself from buying everything my eyes could see. I did have a plan walking into the antique market: I wanted to find a wonderful antique book and some beautiful buttons to use for book making. I found a terrific book right away: I found a very old medium sized Latin text book for young Italian students. It is filled with not only beautiful text, but interesting illustrations, diagrams, and the best part, a student’s notes throughout the pages. There was even a homework assignment tucked in the middle. I am not sure exactly how I am going to use if for bookmaking just yet, but it is a wonderful treasure. As for buttons, there were a lot of vendors selling them, but they were just way too expensive. I could not justify spending four euro for one little button. However, there was a craft market amid the antique market, and there I did find a jeweler who made very interesting jewelry using colorful buttons, bright fabric, and thin wire (shout-out to Sarah…you could totally sell your button jewelry in a craft market like this one!) And a vendor who made these gorgeous skirts out of mismatched pieces of fabric. You very may possibly see examples of these items upon my return home…Anyway, I do not think I have wandered around in so many circles in one day, trying to see everything I possibly could. Arezzo also had a department store called Upim, which is known to be the equivalent to our Target. In my opinion, nothing beats Target, but it was still a fun experience to see an Italian department store. Lunch was delicious in Arezzo. A group of girls and I went to a small Italian restaurant. I had been craving a nice vegetable pizza, because believe it or not, I had not eaten pizza in awhile. So that is what I ordered. However, that ended up being pretty boring compared to the squid risotto, the crab soup, or the wild pheasant that my lunchmates ordered. Not that I was jealous of what they were eating (I definitely was NOT! My pizza, which was the size of this computer that I am typing on, was amazing. And I ate it ALL). I also had more frozen yogurt later that afternoon, this time with rainbow sprinkles! Because I am on this food streak, I might as well tell you that my dinner was also terrific. I cooked a vegetable concoction complete with lots of red pepper, spinach, mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, onion, lots of garlic, fresh tomato sauce, and parmesan cheese. I ate this with whole grain bread, which I have discovered is very hard to find in Italy. YUM! At this point, I wish I could say I baked something too, especially because tomorrow is my roommate, Jeanette’s birthday. But we have no oven, and I have yet to figure out how to get around that obstacle.
Sunday was overall very relaxed and low-key. My roommate, Tessie, and I began the day decorating our room for our other roommate, Jeanette’s birthday. I was particularly proud of my Leaning Tower of Cake birthday card that I made. Afterwards, I went on my long Sunday run, and following that, made lunch and then caught up on preparations for teaching this coming Tuesday in addition to book making. By then, it was nearly evening, so before Jeanette’s birthday dinner, I went on a little walk around Cortona. I always like to visit a new shop each day, and today I discovered a paper store called Papiro that I never noticed before. Stores that sell decorative paper and fancy sketchbooks are becoming one of my new favorite things to browse. I ended up buying a fun sheet of paper that I will use in some way for another bookmaking project. For Jeannette’s birthday dinner, a group of us decided to try a new restaurant that specialized in pizza. So, for the second time that weekend, I had yet another delicious vegetable pizza. I love the pizza here; the pizza usually covers a large surface area, but the crust is paper thin, and there is often only a light amount of cheese with a delicious sauce and of course your choice of toppings. A bunch of people ordered a pear and walnut mozzarella pizza, which I tried and ended up loving. After dinner, we went to the café that serves the amazing different kinds of rich hot chocolate (last time I had ordered the white hot chocolate). This time I chose a caramel hot chocolate, which was just as amazing. I have no idea how the hot chocolate hear gets the impressively thick consistency. Once again, another week flew by at an incredibly fast pace.
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