Ho Lasciato Il Mio Cuore A Firenze

Three days left in Florence… Where did the time go?? I should probably be studying for my Italian and Renaissance History finals right now, but I think I forgot how to study while living in Italy. I still haven’t blogged about Venice… or London… or Brussels… or Amsterdam but I decided I’m going to save those for when I get home and spend my last week in Europe soaking in every moment instead of blogging about Europe.

I feel like the fact that exactly one week from today I will be sitting on a plane California-bound hasn’t fully sunk in yet and I’m not looking forward to when it does. I have looked forward to the idea of “studying abroad junior year” since I was in middle school—and now it’s over? It’s more than a little heart wrenching, but I’m thankful that I’m not sad because things are bad or disappointing—I’m sad because life has been so good to me for the past four months. I’m so lucky and am doing amazing things in an amazing place with amazing people. I know I’ll come back to Europe, and to Florence, but it will never be quite like this again, and will never be my home again. Right now I can’t think back on a single day here that didn’t meet or exceed my expectations.

I’m so grateful for the people I became close with here, for how every street of Florence is uniquely beautiful, for how no one else in the world dresses or jokes or acts or cooks or loves life quite like Italians do, for how I stopped listening to my iPod when I walked around the city because the music of the streets was better than anything on there, for how every weekend trip I made to other countries was both everything I wanted it to be and nothing like I expected it to be, and for the moments of complete magic that have constantly surprised and overwhelmed me this entire trip. I am so completely enamored with my time in Europe. 

Bella Firenze

Cioccolato!

Last month we took a day trip to Perugia, Italy for the annual EuroChocolate festival held there. EuroChocolate is one of the biggest chocolate festivals in Europe and draws a crowd of almost a million visitors every year, so anyone who knows how I feel about chocolate can imagine how excited I was.

Perugia was about a 2 hour bus ride away and we got a ChocoCard through the travel program we went with which got us all kinds of tasty free samples. I basically learned you can make just about anything from chocolate, from the surprisingly delicious (pepper flavored chocolate) to the sort-of disgusting (chocolate and pear juice) to the downright ridiculous (chocolate batteries??).

Chocolate liqueur shots.

Posing with Mr. EuroChocolate

The BEST hot chocolate I've ever had. Nothing like American hot chocolate, so rich, thick and creamy it basically just tastes like a melted chocolate bar.

Yep... 32 flavors.

Chocolate kebabs!

Chocolate for dogs

Hot chocolate, anyone?

Mmm.. chocolate covered candied oranges. Probably my favorite thing I got.

Lindt!

Kappa keys

Adventure sports for the chocolate enthusiast--a chocolate rock wall.

CROATIA!

So I can definitely conclude that I will never blog for a living since I’m just now writing about the Croatia trip I took almost a month and a half ago. Sorry mom. Anyway, for this trip I was deciding between going to Greece and Croatia and ultimately picked Croatia because a) I think it’s a lot more likely I’ll go to Greece when I return to Europe in the future and b) I just really wanted to be able to say I went to Croatia for the weekend. So… Split, Croatia it was.

Croatian coast... Only a 5 minute walk from our hostel

We stayed at the Goli & Bossi hostel which was entirely neon yellow on the inside and filled with poorly translated and factually-suspect tidbits about Croatian history. Best one? “First man on moon was of Croatia… I am sure of it.” But hey, they gave us free breakfast every morning so they can make as many false claims about Croatian historical achievements as they want in my book.

So. Much. Yellow.

We spent Friday exploring Split, went to the top of the Bell Tower of St. Duje, wandered around a seafood market and fruit market, and hiked up a hill with a great view of the city.

From the Bell Tower of St. Duje

Diocletian Palace

View from the top of the bell tower

Croatian Kitties!

It was just a tiny bit windy on the way up the mountain

Once we got to the top of the mountain we saw there was a zoo! So we pretty much had to go. Unfortunately, this was probably the sketchiest zoo I’ve ever been to.. and that’s coming from someone who has spent a good amount of time at the Park Street Art & Wine Fair petting zoo. (Alameda shoutout). Not only did the bears have a miniscule, barren cage… but there was a GUINEA PIG with a cage over 2/3rds the size of the bear’s. There was also a monkey snacking on a plastic cup. All in all, PETA would have hated this place.

World's most depressed monkey

Cages optional

Depressing...

The seafood in Split was delicious. One of the best things about Croatia was how much cheaper everything was than in Florence. For an amazing seafood dinner for about ten of us our total was only 600 Kuna (Croatian currency) which sounds like a ridiculous amount but is actually only around 80 Euro.

Shrimp Risotto 

Seafood Linguini

Saturday we spent the first half of the day in Krka National Park (Croatians aren't big on vowels), a gorgeous park filled with waterfalls and rivers that reminded me a lot of Yosemite.

We bought some candied almonds from this lady... delish

Hiking in Krka!

We ended the day with a trip to the tiny island of Trogir, where we wandered around and got pastries at a delicious bakery (which the lady described in her broken English as "cheesy salty cakes"... so we obviously had to get two), plus watched one of the prettiest sunsets I've ever seen. 

Trogir harbor

Sunset in Trogir.. pictures don't do it justice