Knit one, read two...

It is an absolutely perfect Sunday morning in Figline. We had the morning free until time to go to Claudio's this afternoon and a few classmates went into Firenze. I chose to sleep in so I missed breakfast in the hotel. I walked down to the piazza in search of brunch and found delicious pastries and capuccino. I really think I am in Heaven! I love the piazza! I love that everyone seems to just hang out together there. There were about twenty old men with tables pushed together talking, smoking, and playing cards. There were folks with their kids everywhere. Things were being set up for the jousting tonight at the fair. I'm excited about that! I want to live somewhere with a piazza!

Breakfast in Heaven looks very much like this:

You get it here:

When I got back to the hotel I found my classmates in the pool with a jug of wine.

SO good! And organic!

My own sort of Under The Tuscan Sun moment (not a lady bug but I think it's prettier):

Grappa, grappa everywhere...

YUM!

I don't have the recipes yet but I will share this when I do. It is zucchini layered with a creamy sauce and cheese. To. Die. For.

Lasagna:

I don't know what to call this. I'll edit later when I have recipes. It was good!

My new desktop background:

We made ice cream from one of those delicious cantaloupes.

is that I am in Figline Valdarno! It might just be my favorite place. Yesterday, between the train station and the hotel, on our way back from Florence, we came across a yarn shop. The others just left me there. I was so excited to find it! I had been looking for them in Florence. It is a small shop without a huge selection, but it is warm and kind of cozy and the selection that they have is nice. The very, very friendly lady who works there (and who speaks better English than some of my travel companions) showed me a scarf on display that is made from a novelty yarn. I got two skeins of Borgo de' Pazzi Eva to try to make a scarf like hers. I love that the yarn is made in Firenze. I have to experiment to figure out just what she was doing but it will be neat if I can get it right. Maybe I'll go back and take a picture of her scarf so I can at least ask my knitting friends. One of them will know what to do! I think it might be the boa scarf on the Patterns page of the Borgo de' Pazza website. Anyway, today is Worldwide Knit In Public Day and I am not in St. Louis to participate but this lady told me that she would be celebrating in her shop at 5:00 and she invited me and even offered to loan me needles. By the time we got back from Claudio's and I changed it was 6ish when I left the hotel. On the way across the piazza, though, I ran into a medieval fair! How cool is that?!!! Of course, I had to check that out pretty thoroughly. In my attempts to communicate with the folks there (Spanish reeeeeelly comes in handy if you get desperate) I learned that there would be a fire show at 9:30 tonight and jousting tomorrow night! I was SO excited! The yarn shop was closed by the time I finally made my way there so I started back to the hotel to round up classmates for the fair (I would see the yarn shop lady at the fair and learn that they had moved to a table there and I just missed them--and that there was a note on the door for me that I missed). We went back for the fire show, only it was a play of some kind so I figured that I had misunderstood. I hadn't, though. After the play there was a gal doing some sort of belly dance/fire show act. It was pretty neat. I loved the play even though they spoke too quickly for me to even attempt to follow. There was a lot of fighting. Of course I took pictures! I had an awesome night. I loved being here for their festival. I love experiencing this fair because it wasn't a touristy thing. I LOVE Tuscany! I don't ever wanna go home. I'd give anything in the world to have Julianne here with me. Some day... Hey, if I had "missed" my plane, I wonder if my friends would have taken up a collection to send her to me???