A Week(end)'s Worth of Chocolate

This week started off quite nice. I'm feeling comfortable in Rome, I'm able to get where I want to go, I'm running and going to the gym...it's been nice. Between my morning and afternoon classes on Tuesday, I ventured over to a little cafe in the small streets of Trastevere (I'm really going to try to remember the names of these places from now on), I stopped by and got another falafel for lunch (though I think they may be giving me stomach aches), and then I went back to school for class. On the way home from that, however, I sprained my ankle like a fool. It wasn't even on cobblestone, either! Clenching my teeth from the pain, I hobbled down the 6 flights of stairs it takes to get to the tram. By the time I got home, my ankle was the size of a blood orange! All is well on that front now though, it's just bruised and still a tad swollen but it didn't stop me from having a good time this week!

This week's falafel

On Friday, my friends and I (and a bunch of other people from school) ventured to the city of Terni for a Chocolate Festival in celebration of the Valentine's holiday. To get there, we had to go to the Termini Train Station in Rome, and having only been to the dinky train station in Pontiac, Michigan, it was a bit overwhelming. We found the train and within an hour, we arrived in Terni. The festival wasn't as huge as I was expecting (supposedly it's a lot more crazy on Valentine's Day), but it didn't disappoint!

Pizza with buffalo mozzarella, tomatoes, lettuce, and salmon lox

"I Love You" Chocolate hearts

 The Licorice Booth

SO many truffles and chocolate-covered goodies

Sweet (ha ha) Chocolate Sculptures

Main Street of Terni

(note the mountains in the background)

 My First Cannoli

The Chocolate Festival overall was very cool. There was also a meat and cheese tent, but they weren't giving out enough free samples to keep our attention for long. The town of Terni is home to the burial ground and cathedral of Saint Valentine (Santo Valentino) himself, and after trying for an hour or so to find the basilica, we found out that it's about 10 miles outside of the city. It was nice to be in a city like Terni that was much more slow-paced (and surrounded by mountains, which was awesome). I'm a bit ashamed to say that I spent about 20 euro on truffles and chocolate that day...but WOW was it good!

Saturday began with a nice run along the Tiber River (my first since the sprained ankle). In the early afternoon, we decided to walk to a place called Eataly, which at the time, we could only describe as the "Italian Whole Foods" (I now know that it is SO much more). I took about a half hour to get there walking through some odd neighborhoods, but when we stepped through the doors, we knew it was well worth the trip. The store is four floors of downright amazingness. The first floor has fresh fruits and veggies along with gourmet kitchenware items. Floor two housed a 50 meter wall of craft beer from around the world (it was tough not to go straight for the American ones) along with a meat and cheese wing (where they were making their own mozzarella) and a pasta wing. Floor three had cafes, bars and seafood on one end, and the other was entirely dedicated to wine. We spent an entire hour milling about the place trying to see (and taste) everything--we walked around most of it twice trying to nab some of the samples that were being passed out. It was difficult to even think of buying something because it was incredibly overwhelming (although I did get a couple bottles of Italian craft beer).

After going back to our apartment for a couple hours, we set out again in search of the best pizza in Rome. We were told by many people to go to Dar Poeta in Trastevere for amazing pizza, so that's what we did for our Valentine's dinner. We got to the restaurant around 7 and ordered some wine. The menu had about 30 pizzas on it, one of my roommates and I decided to go halvsies (we both ordered our own pizzas and then split them when they come so we each got half of 2 pizzas). I ordered the Dar Poeta which had mozzarella cheese, hot pepper, zucchini, sausage and garlic--note the absence of sauce. My cohort ordered the Superbufala which had tomato sauce, buffalo mozzarella cheese, artichoke, olives and pecorino cheese.

The Dar Poeta

The Superbufala

Caitlin and I sharing a Valentine's moment

We had a great time. The pizza was absolutely FANTASTIC (get ready Mom and Dad, we're going there when you come in May). We'll definitely be returning to Dar Poeta this semester as well--way too many pizza choices to only go once!

Today, we had great plans to take the train to Orvieto, a historical town between Rome and Florence, but we didn't make it to the station quite early enough, so travel times were inconvenient and ticket prices we higher. Instead, we headed over to the giant flea market that happens in our neighborhood every Sunday. Thousands of tents cover a span of about 10-15 blocks selling everything from books to jewelry to clothing to kitchenware for way cheap!

 These guys were selling seeds, nuts, and pickled fish!

Many of the clothes are used, the rest have unknown origins

A few tents like this had hundreds of bottles of 

shampoo, soap, makeup, shaving cream, etc.

My biggest question with all of this is where the heck are these vendors getting all of their supplies? The clothes, the shoes, the scarves, the name brand makeup...how do they get it? After walking along the streets of the market for about an hour and a half, I ended up only buying a belt for 1 euro. One of the ones I brought with me has just about had it, so I figured it was worth the splurge.

That's about it for now. Things to look forward to this week include a possible wine night tomorrow night with chicken cutlets by Chef Danny and a trip to Prague over the weekend!


Thanks for reading,

Kasey Ann