cioccolata

*side note* saturday was the groundbreaking for the Rome temple!! President Monson came out to preside. Pretty awesome day for the Italian saints. It'll be even more exciting to see as the building comes along, and when it is dedicated!

We went to Perugia to check out eurochocolate, an international chocolate exhibition.

Verdict is this:

chocolate is tasty

Costco is very generous with their samples whereas this exhibition was not

chocolate can be very very expensive

and Janene still strongly dislikes big crowds of people (especially when they don't have the American sense of personal space).

pericoloso = dangerous
goloso = glutton, or tempting, or greedy, all of which seem to fit

this poster was up in siena too, that's how we found out about the event.
ps, that piece of chocolate jane's feeding me is a dark chocolate with chilipeppers. tasty indeed, mmm, good chocolate, and then, whoa! burning! hehe...


it got more crowded than this around the actual chocolate booths. i didn't even dare stop to take my camera out sometimes.

found an overlook that let us breathe for a while. one, it was beautiful. two, we actually had room to breathe.


Jasen! i finally found the minor bars in italy! might have something to do with it being an international chocolate affair. milka and lindt were in on this shindig as well.


Jasen! doner kebab look alikes! yep, chocolate. they shaved it off and served it tucked in some kind of pastry, just like you'd serve the meat. fun, no?


they love their dogs, wouldn't want to leave them out of the festival.


even the clothing stores got in on the chocolate celebrating.

bacio - a kiss
- also a wonderful piece of chocolate
(that if you have never tried, you need to locate and taste)


awesome yellow-colored wall +stairs + arch + plant-covered staircase in the back


this little red guy got squished.


sorry you've got to put up with my random building pics. really, pictures don't do these buildings justice. it is fun that everywhere you walk, down these tight little streets, if you look up and around, you're rewarded with shutters, window-boxed flowers, fortresses, walls, lanterns...

neato squeato! thanks to Kelli who was paying enough attention to realize it was a face. anybody curious as to how this face would look at night? not sure how i feel about glowing eyes...


minimetro!! says so, right on the little metro car. i've never before seen them above ground! the nice parking garage man who pointed us in the direction of the train station and the center of the city actually mentioned the metro, only to say that taking the bus was a better idea.


i still love to see the cities like this.
perugia is actually in umbria, not toscana. i have to admit, from what i saw while we were driving, umbria's hills are prettier. lots of green :)


leaves, changing color! i love fall!


outside the city center, almost to the train station. what caught my eye here? there is only one window with laundry out to dry. just a little outside the 'norm' i've grown used to.


just remember, someone is always watching.

Fish days!

I found out Osteria del Gatto has a facebook page. Hehe, how awesome is that?! Anywho, the special event right now is fish. Everything fish!

And so, that's what I've been experiencing this past week.

First of all, this is the extent of the kitchen. I'm at the back wall. You get more than one person in there and it's full, so when Federico, Marco, Fabrizio or Tommaso, and I are all there... close quarters indeed.

I trimmed the spiny little sides off these crustacean guys with scissors :)

it seemed like every morning there were a few more different kinds of fish.

this is the same guy as above, only after Fabrizio cut him into steaks

these kept staring at me.

then one of them moved.

it was the wrong move.

now he is no more.

So, let it be known that I do like fish. BUT, goodness, the smell when I arrived in the mornings was always a bit much! And here these fish are in their full forms, yay. And the ways they fix them? Uh, sometimes not exactly what I would have been excited to recieve on a plate, but probably 'cause I'm just not used to it. What I've tried has been great. Example: shrimp, raw, with an orange juice sauce on top. I didn't want to, but Tommaso 'made' me try it. It was so different!! They've got to be a different kind of shrimp than I've ever had in the U.S. Texture was not what I expected at all, it basically melted in my mouth and it was sweet. Mmm...

But sorry Ryan, these dishes I don't think I'll be replicating ;)

pit stop in Pisa

what with train rides to and from Cinque Terre, we couldn't help but make a small stop in Pisa on our return trip. had to see the tower, we're in Italy after all. i've liked many other cities better than Pisa, but it was fun to see this famous icon in real life. strange how a mistake can become so widely-known and admired, eh?

piazza dei miracoli

la torre pendente di Pisa - the leaning tower of Pisa

the bell tower of the cathedral (di Santa Maria Assunta)

maybe it's just me, or just this photo, but the tower makes everything else seem to be a bit tipsy as well. don't look at it too long...

it's not super elaborate, I like it

.

it's me! or rather it is I! and I am at the piazza dei miracoli, in front of the leaning tower of Pisa, for real. does it get much cooler than that? let me venture to say, 'no, not much'.

just look at how far this tower has leaned! just look! it's only slightly crazy.

Cinque Terre

This past weekend I went to Cinque Terre, in the region of Liguria.

Oh my goodness, beautiful! We could not have been more fortunate with the weather, the hostel, trains; everything worked out very well. First of all, Friday morning, we took a bus from Siena to Florence, and there caught a train to Riomaggiore. Our hostel was in a teeny town, Biassa, outside of Riomaggiore (about the midway point between Riomaggiore and La Spezia). That's just to give you a briefing, so you have an idea where this lovely adventure took place.

Can I just say that riding the train really is not so bad when you're not riding solo? Much better experience this time around. I love having friends. This is Kelli, my roommate, with me.

I may or may not have broken Mary's little flashlight thingy that was attached to her backpack. In my defense, it apparently was already handicapped and not functioning as it should have. But Dad, if I were still small and we were in the store, I would have had to hold your hand. ;) If I go around messing with things, something's bound to happen... Thankfully Jane was there with her handy-dandy tool and we were able to kinda fix it, hehe.

I'm not sure I can describe how nice it was to see some mountains again! Yeah, I miss 'em a little. Good thing they'll be right there waiting for me when I get back.

At La Spezia we had to change trains, to take a seven-minute train ride to Riomaggiore. Yes, we stopped at McDonald's. Uh, best euro I've spent yet! I don't even know when I had last had one of their burgers, but I tell you what, the McDonald's here in Italy are very much spiffed up. From the wall decor, to the chairs and the food, it all has such a different feel. We couldn't pass it up.

Riomaggiore!! small train stations, gotta love 'em.

And this is Riomaggiore. I love the colors of the buildings, and how they just spill all over. All the little cities in the area seemed to be built like so. It was fun to see this; it's a bit different than the cities here around Siena.

Ryan, I vote we have a view like this someday. When we're old. We can sit in those chairs. I'll hold your hand, we'll soak in the sunshine, and we'll watch the sunset. :)

We made it to our hostel! Ostello Trimonti. It treated us well. Hehe, bunkbeds and roomies, buffet breakfast and renting towels, good times.

We took a ferry to Monterosso al mare so that we could spend the morning at the beach (the only relatively sandy beach) and make the hike back to Riomaggiore, stopping in all the cities along the way. Definitely the right decision to make. It was so fun to see all these places from the sea, and then be hiking, and seeing it all from a different perspective.

This is where we swam and relaxed. :)

Like I said, we lucked out this weekend: beautiful weather.

The perks of traveling with people: you end up with pictures of yourself when you swap photos. There's the beach where we swam behind me. Just down the street is where we found the BEST peach gelato ever! Um, we may have gone twice because it was so good...

here's what I was taking a picture of, I just loved the colors.

I want you all to be very grateful for public restrooms, ok? Be grateful you don't have to pay, that there are toilet seats, and doors that close, and that it's not difficult to find such restrooms.

And so we began our hike, yes HIKE, back to Riomaggiore. Gorgeous views of the coast, sea, and cities made all the up and down so worth it. I am so glad we went.

typical street of these little cities.

notice the vineyards. there they were, everywhere we went.

Random gate, miiddle of nowhere? I'm not entirely sure what purpose it serves. Anybody?

Looking back. Yep, still gorgeous!

What is Flip doing in Italy?! Really, when I saw this cat I almost laughed out loud, it was so much like Flip. I don't think I've mentioned before, but I see dogs everywhere. It seems the Italians like their dogs, but you don't really see cats much.

And speaking of cats, there was this hole in the door in one of the cities. Homemade kitty door?

Olive grove along the trail between two of the cities. I think the green is netting of some sort that they stretch out to catch the olives. We actually got talking about the Savior and the Garden of Gethsemane and I was very glad to be traveling with friends with whom I could talk about those things.

I still love the colors of these buildings, and the randomness of how they're strewn on the hillside. Jasen, the colors and lighting remind me of that photo you took at the beach in Oregon.

When you hike along the coast, you have a nice view of the sunset, in case you were wondering.

The weekend before we were there, it rained a lot and there was enough landslide that one of the trails, between Corniglia and Manarolo, was closed. So, we took the train at Corniglia back to Riomaggiore and saved the last walk, between Manarolo and Rio for Sunday morning. This walk is called Via dell'Amore. I say walk because it wasn't a hike like the rest. And all along the way are locks and graffiti. Locks symbolizing people's love, and many other expressions of love in graffiti.

Hanging out in Riomaggiore before we caught the train to Pisa, we started playing around with camera settings, resulting in pictures such as this.

Mission accomplished. We made it back to Siena, safe and sound, all in one piece, didn't miss any trains or buses. The only casualty was my travel-size facewash that I think I left at the hostel. I'd say this weekend away was a big success!