Everything Chocolate: From Therapy to Pleasure

I am writing this the morning after.

Today was the awaited day of my Chocolate class and I thought it would be favorite class and it certainly was. We spent the entire class time learning about and tasting chocolate. We tasted about 10 different kinds of chocolate all created by Andrea Biancini (our teacher and world known champion for his chocolate) He is so funny and kept bragging about all the championship and kept telling us which of his chocolates won gold medals in the world. I must have a good sense of chocolate because the two chocolates that won gold medals and were also my favorites were the 40% milk chocolate with salt (who would have thought salt in chocolate would be good) but let me tell you.. it's amazing! You get the best of both worlds (salty & sweet!) I normally don't like dark chocolate but the 85% dark chocolate bar was my second favorite. It is the best class ever, because I am obsessed with chocolate and that's all we learn about and we are even going to make our own chocolate in class! Check out the website.. http://www.andreabianchini.net/

Next was Introduction to Cultural Italy class where the teacher showed up 15 minutes late because her bicycle was stolen! :( This class consists of 15 hours of lecture and 60 hours of field trip. Four field trips are included in this class which I am very excited about and basically the purpose of the class is to learn more about the culture of Italy and to create journals and reflect on our experiences.

Okay, more about chocolate... Did I mention there is a Chocolate Festival in Florence this weekend... it was absolutely amazing... the whole festival is ALL ABOUT CHOCOLATE. Emily and I decided to get strawberries dipped in chocolate along with a few other treats. We were trying to control ourselves but I'm sure we'll be going back again before the end of the weekend. You can check out my Facebook pictures to see all of the chocolate.

Even though I was wearing boots (not the smartest choice) we decided to cross the river and visit the Piazzale Michelangelo. It is a slight hike but you get to see an amazing panoramic view of Florence, unfortunately the pictures do not do the view the justice it deserves. There is also another fake David's Michelangelo statue up there but in bronze. I will definitely be going back there again a few more times.. hopefully for a sunrise and a sunset.

For dinner, we decided to just grab a quick bite to eat at Ganzo but there was a special event going on and luckily we got there when we did because we were able to make a reservation. It was a four course meal for only three vouchers. My favorite course was the homemade ravioli stuffed with rabbit.

Oh, and a few more things I have been meaning to mention is that I almost get run over every day. I swear that when a car sees you, they just speed up and try to hit you. Also, when walking on the sidewalk.. some of the vans and trucks get really close to you and I have almost been taken out by their mirrors. The buses also take very wide turns and when standing on a street corner, I almost get blown over every time. It is quite scary! Ciao for now.