too good to be true

We have a long break from field trips for Helen's class (thank god, a break) so we've been able to roam Firenze a bit more and see what the city has to offer. Turns out there is a lot. Last weekend was the Vintage Market. If you ever have the desire to see EVERY single Italian hipster all together in one location, this is the event for you. It was awesome to see everyone all decked out in their old duds and taking pictures with their super old cameras. whoa, dude, super vintage.
I was a bit disapointed because everything was obscenely expensive, but I guess that's normal for vintage stuff right? It was worth it to just look and feel totally unwelcome (i unfortunately am nowhere near trendy enough to be perusing this market) and be overwhelmed by all the stuff and all the characters. As my Italian gets better and I feel more at home here i find myself trying to be less and less AMERICAN. I speak in Italian as often as I can until I exhaust my vocabulary..which is limited...but growing everyday. I can follow conversations and know mostly what is going on around me at any given time.


Thursday commenced the LONG awaited Chocolate Festival. This is the most amazing place in the world. It fills the Piazza Santa Croce with white tented vendors and the smells of hot chocolate. All of the chocolatiers go balls to the wall for this festival. There is chocolate molded into any and every shape you could imagine. Winnie got a chocolate pipe and 2 white chocolate sheep yesterday. Katie got 2 mint truffles and I got un'etto di tartuffo chiocolatta scuro. Unfortunately we ate all of our chocolates last night. Fortunately we are going back tomorrow to stock up on the last day.
The hot chocolate is unlike any hot chocolate i've ever had. It is thick and pretty much straight up melted dark chocolate. Con panna or senza, it is AMAZING. Kind of like pudding, but better. Swiss miss will always have a place in my heart, but jeez. This is bringing some heavy competition.


Tonight Katie, Winnie and I are having a little house party so we bought dark chocolate at the festival. The guy had it shaped into giant legos. What a fabulous place. So we bought the chocolate, and this morning we finished our ingredient purchases with mascarpone cheese, sugar, ladyfingers, eggs, espresso (i'll post later on how using our Moka went...), and Prosecco! Tiramisu here we come.

<3 until later