In the Heart of Tuscany

Yesterday Kari and I arrived in Florence and took a van to our hostel, Heart of Tuscany, which is about an hour outside of the city, in the hills. The weather wasn't great, we were tired and the car was jolting us around as we climbed higher and higher into the mountains. We were giggling with weariness and anxiousness. This hostel was supposed to mark the beginning of our vacation half of the trip and yet we had no idea what to expect. When we arrived at the hostel we began to relax. It is beautiful, I mean really, absolutely beautiful. The villa looks over an entire valley and you can see scattered towns and houses in the hills. There are vineyards with grapes and olives everywhere and the trees are classically Italian, growing thin and tall. Apparently, the man who owns the villa has had the estate in his family for over 900 years, or something crazy like that, and he still lives here. His father was the cardiologist to Pope John Paul and the Pope even stayed here a few times! The people who work here are all on the younger side, two of them grad students at Vanderbilt (Kari was psyched about the TN connection), one is a psychology student from Sweden and the other guy is from upstate New York and has been traveling the world for several years. There's a job opening for this summer, which was very appetizing, but Kari and I are pretty pumped to get back home and see all of you so we decided to pass. Maybe next summer!

The only problem with this place is that they do not serve lunch, dinner isn't until 9ish and the towns around here close for siesta between 1-4pm, equalling two very hungry girls. We made friends with the employees and mooched some cookies and crackers out of them while chatting and watching Italian-dubbed Friends. (Speaking of tv, we saw SATC and it was so great and made us fall in love, once again, with where we live. NYC: we will be back to you soon!). Anyways, on to dinner. I, being the intense foodie that I am, was very, very happy after eating last night. We both decided to go big, so we got the four course meal. I started with an antipasto, which was made up of salamis, prosciutto, sundried tomatoes, olives and toasts with different cheese and olive spreads. Kari had the pasta appetizer and that was a helping of a rigatoni lasagna and one of a long pasta with garlic, olive oil and tomato sauce. Both dishes were flavorful and fantastic. We then got salad and a meat course, which was fresh pork ribs which were baked with a simple mixture of spices. Dessert was strawberry ice cream, which may have been homemade, along with fresh strawberries. There were only 7 of us at dinner so we all sat together, sharing life stories and wine. That elaborate description should suffice until the next fabulous meal. After dinner we hung out with the other guests and then played cards down by the pool with some of the guys who work here.

This morning was a slow one for us and we didn't get out of our room until 12pm. We then came across a dilemma because, as I mentioned before, there is no food here and everything shuts down at 1pm. Driven by hunger, Kari and I hopped onto bikes, which I think were children sized, and set out to maneuver the roads of Tuscany in search of a grocery store. We arrived at 12:45pm and had lunch and dinner planned and bought by 12:55pm. Mission accomplished. With the errands out of the way and nothing to rush back for, we found ourselves enjoying the ride back much more than the one to. The sun came out and it hit me, we were biking through Tuscany...Tuscany! That's mostly how it's been for the two of us, we follow schedules and wander through cities and every once in a while we remember that we are exploring the unknown, in Europe, and doing a damn good job.

A week and a half left and then we will be back to you all!

(Venice pictures are now up, scroll down you lazy bums!)