October 8th

Let's just say that Lugano is much colder than Florence has been at night time. We got up around 10 and had oatmeal and coffee for breakfast. Catie officially ruined me of my coffee that I had gotten here in Florence with her fancy starbucks coffee so it became very obvious to me that I was going to have to get new coffee once I got back to Florence. We hung out for a little bit and figured out our agenda for the day.

We walked around downtown Lugano for a little while and got the best gelato I have ever had. One scoop was chocolate and the other was a raspberry cheesecake that was to die for. It had real bits of cheesecake crust and was seriously one of the most delicious flavors I have ever had. Of course, it was in Lugano and not Florence, depending on your views, this could be a good thing! We walked around their beautiful down town for a little while and then went to the grocery store so we could get the materials for Catie's international food night she was having with the various clubs for Franklin. After spending 170 francs on nutella, chocolate, cheese, and the materials for crepes, we headed back to her apartment. We have the worst luck for public transportation and missed the bus by about 3 minutes. With the next bus not coming for an hour and the groceries totaling about 50 lbs, we had no choice but to sit in the station for the next hour chatting away.

Finally making it to her apartment, we started the crepe making and the rest of the food prep for the night. We made crepes with nutella and banana, cut up cheese and bread, and broke chocolate bars. It was going to be a very healthy evening. We all got ready and made our way through the cold to the college cafeteria where the dinner was being held and set up the table. Once the food was all out, the people hosting the event were allowed to get their food and eat before the public was allowed in the doors. This was nice because it got crowded very quickly. I met a lot of Catie's friends and they were all so friendly and nice. It is always a good thing when you meet your friend's friends and see how supportive they are and just genuinely nice people.

We had a bunch of different types of food and I couldn't even begin to tell you what they were called, but in my opinion, the French table was the best. We were seated next to the "Finer things club" which even though I am still not sure what culture they were, they had some ridiculously good banana bread. I am excited to try and make some when I return home to the States.

After the dinner we walked home and downloaded bridesmaids through itunes. We had tea while it was downloading and chatted with her roommates. Once it was finished we started to watch it and realized that the sound lagged behind the movie by a few seconds and it slowly got worse and worse. We tried to restart the computer and do a few different things, but nothing worked and so we decided on a different movie. One of her roommates suggested Conversations with Other Women which is an independent film. It would take too long to explain it and if you are really curious you can imdb it...it was in a word, weird. We ended the night with a little more chit chat and went to sleep


Con amore, Ciao!