Bella Primavera!

Spring is here and it is truly glorious. These photos don't capture the essence of what I am feeling, but they will have to suffice for now.

You just can't understanddddd! It's. so. damned. pretty. right. now.

Take Two

So I mentioned that Bloom (my little fishy from the markets... aka: Fish Finger) was a little sick... or rather very sick and he passed away during the night... or sometime during the day... not really sure, after only 5 days with us... We mourned Povero Bloom (his full name, meaning Poor Bloom) for a good week, and then we went and bought Bloom Macchia (which means Stained Bloom... because he has a stain on his head)... Anyway point to the story is that I got a new fish and I didn't want to jinx him by blogging about him. I have now had him for about 3 weeks and he is still going strong!!! So I thought it was time to introduce him to the world...

After seeing that I may actually be capable of keeping another living thing alive, on Monday I went and bought a friend for Bloom Macchia... I wanted to call the new one Snow Bloom... or Bloom Neve... but we decided to keep the Bloom name sake just for the golden gold fish, so we called our new white golden gold fish Otto... Because we bought him on the eighth... original right!

Otto playing dead... oh how those kids love to play.

So we are very happy to have 2 loving gold fish now. They are great friends and swim merrily together all day long.They are two ends of the spectrum really, Bloom Macchia is very shy and likes to hide in the vegetation, Otto on the other hand is quite the little poser! He's always stealing the limelight!

I secretly think that Bloom Macchia is a much prettier fish than Otto... but don't tell him that! The kids should never know which one you like best, even though I've always known my parents like me best. It's obvious really... ;)

Pasquaaaaa!!

Happy belated Easter everyone!! I hope the easter bunny came and you all enjoyed a nice long weekend! I was working most of the weekend- a new job I started a couple of weeks ago for a few hours on the weekends- but managed to eat myself into a good old fashioned food coma on Easter Sunday with Lorenzo's family. Unfortunately there is no easter bunny in Italy, so there was no egg hunt this year (waaaa) but we made up for it with a huge lunch, and as the "child" in the house I was given a giant egg! (I was really lucky to get anything considering I accidentally threw away the olive branch that Lorenzo's mum got blessed at church for our house... I didn't know!!! I'm sorrryyyy!!)

 

 

This is the first year that I have actually been in Italy for Easter. Lorenzo's dad even gave me a beautiful rose to celebrate! It's a really beautiful time of year, the sun is starting to show it's face, the flowers are blooming and everything is greeeen! Can't wait for it to warm up a bit too!

School time

So I have never shown you where I go to school! Today is your lucky day kids!!
I go to the Agriculture faculty of the University of Florence which has 2 campus'. One is at the Cascine which is a park near-ish the city centre and the other is at Quaracchi which is out near the airport.

 

As first years we get banished out to Quaracchi for all bar one of our classes, then our analitical chemistry class is in the faculty of medicine out with the pharmacy students on the other side of the city
Next year we get to go to big kid ag college at the Cascine, which is where the library, study halls and most of our professors are based, so it makes it a little more convenient, it is also about 20 minutes closer to home which will be nice!

 

I try to ride to uni whenever I can, which doesn't work so well when it's constantly raining (like this month) but when it's a nice day, it's such a beautiful ride along the river!

Have a good weekend!!

Taste

Every year there are lots of events organised by Pitti, the most famous are probably the Pitti fashion festivals (Pitti Bimbo and Pitti Uomo) but then there are others like Pitti Fragranze (perfumes and fashion accessories), Pitti Super (pret-a-poter and accessories for women) and Pitti Taste.

A couple of weekends ago was time for Pitti Taste. An enormous hall filled with close to 300 producers of cured meat, cheese, wine, beer, tools, tea and coffee, chocolate, truffles, preserves, oil, vinegar, honey, breads, pastas, etc. etc. etc.

It was huge. And it was so very hectic; 13,500 people over 3 days, but there were some incredible producers with some incredible samples!

It was great! We went home fat and happy, but exhausted from so many people! Definately be going again next year though!

Tortelli

For a while now Lorenzo has been bugging me about having a tortellini day. So we finally did! And if I do say so myself, we did rather well! Even had the tick of approval from Lorenzo's mum! (well, with only a few little changes!)

 Lorenzo wanted something a little different from the usual mortadella and pork tortellini, so he made a beef, prosciutto crudo (cured ham- prosciutto as we know it in Australia) and parmesan filling instead. I admit that I had my doubts, but it was realllllly tasty!

 

We tried some of them with a cream and ham sauce, and another batch just tossed through some butter and parsley. SO good!

Newest member of the family

On this very wet and stormy Sunday, I bought a fish from the market. His name is Bloom and I think he is sick. Already. He doesn't swim so well. Any fish experts out there have any suggestions for Bloom? Apart from the obvious of not ever buying animals at the market!!