Time's a racin'

I have less than one week left in Florence before I head back to Brisbane for (hopefully only) a few months... and considering I stopped working at the pub a week ago, I have had all the time in the world to get to see all the parts of Florence that I haven't gotten around to before... like Michelangelo's David... or Chiesa Santa Maria del Fiore (the Duomo; only the 4th biggest cathederal in the world... and maybe the biggest tourist attraction in Florence)...

 

I also had a going away dinner party on Tuesday night which was a heap of fun.

Helped to show me how many amazing people I have met this year!

 

So thanks to everyone that has made this year a blast... Hopefully I will be back soon enough to do it all again!!

The Dags strike again...

I'm still alive! I have been having a merry old time here in Florence over the past month, from eating myself stupid over christmas (for literally 3 days straight) to dancing on tables at new years to finishing work at the pub and getting ready to head back to the land they call Oz.
This post however, is dedicated to my family... the only one I have... thank god, or there could be trouble. As my family were completely spread out this year- my sister in Singapore, my brother in Perth, my parents in Toowoomba and me over here- yet wanted to keep with our dress up tradition (where we draw a name out of the hat and then buy a costume for that name for Christmas day) we organised costumes and shipped them off to their future wearers. We didn't take into account that Italian post is the slowest post I have ever come across and the last package arrived today, nearly 2 months after being sent!!!
So today we had some Christmas cheer over Skype... this was the outcome...

 

  

Unfortunately the photos aren't of a great quality (what can you expect taking a photo of a computer screen!!) but the tradition was there and it was alot of fun as always, only a little bit late!

Cambiaaaa tutto cambia.

This weekend was my first introduction to the Dolomites. Mountains. Snow. Ski. Mountain food. Mountain grog.

The View from our apartment- before snow.

The ski slope in view of our apartment- that I didn't attempt.

The View from our apartment- after snow.

 

Together with Lorenzos cousins Erika and Cristiana, Cristianas husband Giovanni and Giovanni's son Lorenzo we rented apartments in La Villa, a small ski town in the Dolomites, for 4 nights. My ski teacher (Lorenzo) was tough but fair, and at the end of my second day I was skiing and falling with confidence. Perhaps somewhat ambitiously we took the ski lift up to a higher slope where I fell numerous times, bruising my hand and legs and drawing blood under my chin... spectacular fall if I do say so myself.

The professionals!

 

 The owners of the apartments were saying that this year is the worst year they have seen in terms of snow, obviously enough to ski on- because they make it at night, but the snow was very sparse on the surrounding hills. However Monday afternoon the snow came and it was just beautiful! Better late than never right!

 

The Girly Weekend

Remember the girls from my Italian class? Well a couple of weekends ago Amelia (American) and I went to visit Sofia (German) at her house in Dusseldorf!

We arrived late Friday night and stayed up stayed up to the wee hours catching up and drinking bubbles, which consequently meant it was a very relaxed start to Saturday. Sofia treated us to a good hearty German breakfast before taking us into Dusseldorf center to see the sights.

  

 

 
Together we saw the city, drank some gluhwein, took a walk along the Rhein, tried reibekuchen (potato cakes, something like hashbrowns or rosti... but made fresh infront of you and served with apple sauce... strange, but amazing), walked through the Christmas markets, ate currywurst and pommes, went to the top of the Burgplatz tower... to get a coffee... went to the port to see the crazy architecture by Frank Gehry, had more gluhwein, tried alt bier (at this point I'm giving up trying to discuise the fact that all we did was eat and drink) went out for sushi (because Dusseldorf has a huge Japanese population and therefore some amazing Japanese restaurants) followed by a glass of wine... then a movie at home with a big bowl of icecream, chocolate and more bubbles...

 

 

Although different from the party weekend I had imagined with super late nights and a few too many to drink, it was a fantastic girly weekend that I haven't had in ages, thank you girls!!

Photo-less updates

I know photo-less blogs are boring however my new camera is broken (hooray). SO no photos today, but because is has been some weeks since I posted I thought I should give you an update...

Nothing much has been happening at all in these weeks that I have felt the need to share, the weather is getting colder (1 degree last night) but the days are still (touch wood) beautiful and the sun makes everything ok.

My debit card got cloned last week and they took a nice hunk out of my bank account, so I'm in the process of disputing and hopefully getting my money back for that.

I went to about 6 different patisseries last week to try and land myself another stage (this time focusing on pastry alone) but turns out the laws have changed since my stage with the Hotel and now I need to go to a school for at least a month in order to participate in a stage... and considering I only have about 2 and a half months before I make my way back to Australia, there isn't a whole lot of point in that.

Hotel Brunelleschi have offered me a job from April next year as their patissiere, which depending on visas (which as always, nobody knows how to apply for let alone know what visa I actually need) I am seriously considering.

My time has freed up alot since I finished my stage at the hotel so I have been working at the pub more regularly in these weeks and consequently my daily routine has changed to exclude mornings and the days here have been slipping away. It's hard to belive it's nearly Christmas!!!

Anyway, I will leave it at that. Hopefully the next time I blog I will have a camera and photos!!

COOKIE MONSTER UM YUM YUM.

Yesterday was the 14th birthday of Rebecca (the girl I live with) so I decided to make a cake...
When I get an idea in my head that I really like I find it really hard to change, so even though Sesame Street is pretty well unknown here, when I saw a picture of this cookie monster cake... I had to make it! It was a bit of a hunt to find blue colouring, but all worked out in the end and Rebecca even knew the character!! Amazing!

Caccia

Updates...
As usual I don't have a great excuse for not posting for the last... month... but I will try and excuse myself as best I can....
Partially I haven't been doing much out of the ordinary lately, and therefore I don't have many photos- a post without photos is like no post at all!
Secondly, the weekend I did actually do something, the card for my camera decided to die and I lost all the photos...
And then I'm just going to throw in that I haven't had a whole lot of motivation to post... sorry.
So here is an update of the last month (breif and without photos, because I lost them).
After 3 months, my stage at Hotel Brunelleschi has come to an end. They have offered me a contract as pastry chef for next year starting April if I am so inclined, however at this stage it looks like visas may dictate this one rather than what I actually would like to do as it is not an easy process to hold a working visa.
The weather is getting alot colder. i was a little disappointed that there wasn't so much of an inbetween time, we seemed to go from hot hot days then a week of hot days with cold nights and then straight to cold. Now it's raining. Better get used to that though I spose because it's going to get alot colder!
With the changing of the seasons comes the changing of style of living here, all the outdoor dining is now moved inside, outdoorsy bars are closing and nightclubs are opening, the river is rising and hunting season is open.
This weekend with Lorenzo his Dad and his dog we went hunting. We were up at 6.30am to driving an hour out of Florence into the hills. We then walked up hill for about half an hour through the woods in order to reach their hunting... "hut" (which is more like the tree house every kids dreams about) where we spent the next few hours... without seeing a single bird (a part from the ones they set up).

 
In my opinion, this Caccia (hunting in Italian) is an excuse for boys to be boys. Hiking through beautiful woods, sitting in your tree house and holding a gun, then when you get hungry, lighting a fire, cooking and eating with your hands (then wiping your hands on your pants without complaint from anyone... because you're hunting). If you ask me... there are no birds.