Jen – Florence again, Indian food and Biking

As mentioned in my previous post, went to Florence again. This time for shopping more than sight seeing. We took the bus this time and it was sooo much quicker. It was a double decker bus so we got the best view in front of the windows! The walk to the leather goods market was pretty short and there was so much to see and buy! Didn’t take too many shots of it but here’s one 🙂

After a while there, we decided to go check out another market. We ended up getting lost but we did run into this store. Pretty neat stuff though I couldn’t take pictures inside 🙁

We ran into more street art before meeting back up with our friend Linda (we came with her and then were left at the market).

We had some time before the last bus back and we were all starving so we decided to get some food. Linda introduced us to this awesome thing called “aperitivo”. Between a certain time in most restaurants in Florence, if you order a drink, you are given access to a table of food where you can eat as much as you want! I ended up eating 4 small platefuls before we had to go catch our bus. One of them looked like this.

 

The next day we decided to do an Indian night since there was a restaurant we saw on the way to school. Before that, I cooked lunch. I’ve been wanting to try a white sauce based pasta and did just that. Wanted it a bit more saucy and cheesier (I forgot to grate my cheese so wasn’t able to add it in) but turned out pretty good! Tagliatelle with mushrooms, red onions, tomatos, basil in white sauce 🙂

Six hours later.. Indian food! We ordered a bunch and ended up sharing most of it. Our friend Amey showed us the correct way to eat Indian food (with your hands.. even the rice). It was pretty fun and definitely a new experience! To start off, a Sweet Lassi (Sweet yogurt flavored lassi). Next came the food 😀

I ordered this one and it was one of my favorites.. just wish there was more 🙁 Stuffed Alu - Potatoes stuffed with cheese and cooked in a clay oven.

(I think this is the right description...) Onion Bajia - Chopped onions in Punjab style

This was a lamb dish that Amey ordered.. forgot to get the name.

This one was pretty good as well. Baingan Bharta - Eggplants roasted in clay oven, cooked with onions and fresh tomatoes.

We also had a Malai kofta (Potatos and cottage cheese dumplings cooked in rich creamy sauce) but I forgot the take the pic 🙁 After the meal, we had desserts! I have to say, the green one was my favorite but they were all pretty good.

From 12 o'clock clockwise, Shrikhand (Yogurt in combination of cardormom), Ras malai (Small balls of crud cheese served cold in thickened and sweetened milk), Kheer (Rice dessert made with milk and dry fruits), and Gulab jamun (Typical indian sweet dessert)

 

The rest of the weekend wasn’t too productive, just catching up on hw, blogging and stuff. We wanted to bike to another town on Sunday but the hours for the bike rentals were too short for our needs. We ended up biking after class today, since it was a shortened day for the results of the Poetry contest (Our friend Cindy won 2nd place!) We had the bikes for about 2.5hrs and rode around and explored the outskirts of Siena. It was so fun, lots of downhills and those were very refreshing though the uphills were a bit of a struggle at times.. I’m sure that I’m going to feel it tomorrow..

Scene from one of our stops

Posing with the bikes

guess who!

dirtiness after the bike ride

i hope I was wash this off..

After the bike ride, we were all sweaty and tired and went for gelato to end the day (Daisy got a granita) 🙂

 

 

Class tomorrow so bedtime for me, til next time~

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