Fiera Antiquaria di Arezzo and a Soccer Game!

Fact:
Your stomach has to produce a new layer of
mucus every two weeks or it will digest itself.

I have an obsession. I actually have quite a few obsessions, but the one I’m talking about here is a movie: La Vita è Bella, the Italian film starring Roberto Benigni, and the origin of the title of my blog. Have any of you not seen this movie? Here’s the trailer.

If this movie is new to you, go watch it. Now. You can come back and read the rest of this later.

Anyway, the movie was filmed in Arezzo, Italy. That’s about an hour by train from Florence. On Saturday, Meghan, Lindsey, and I took a trip to Arezzo. (It’s just been us three this weekend because Hannah’s been busy with art projects for school, Brittni’s been in Rome, and Kate has a broken foot.) So we went to Arezzo and got there around 10:15.

One of the reasons we were so excited about going to Arezzo this particular weekend was the monthly antique fair held here, the Fiera Antiquaria di Arezzo. It’s the first weekend of the month, and there are literally hundreds of vendors from all over the country who come to sell their antiques. The fair spills down several streets in the middle of town and fills up a few squares. We didn’t have a map, and Rick Steves doesn’t say anything about Arezzo in his books, so we sort of just wandered around all day.

I have never seen so many antiques in my life. Lots of ceramic dishes, tons of silver, jewelry and knick-knacks, antique toys and typewriters and telephones, countless old movie posters and postcards and stamps, furniture, paintings, boxes, books, and so on.

Of all things, I bought a fan. Like, an old hand-held fan, with hand-painted fabric and a wooden handle. It still folds up nicely, and I just couldn’t resist. I didn’t see any vintage Christmas ornaments (another obsession), but the fan is perfect. I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to do with it . . . oh well.

The price tag on it says 20, but the guy said he'd take 15 for it, so it had to be mine. :)

For lunch, we went to a place called Antica Osteria Agania. I had pici pasta with amatriciana sauce (a tomato sauce with bacon in it).



Lunch

The highlight of the day for me was finding a couple of these Life is Beautiful posters around town.

So exciting!

 There are a total of 8 of them, each located in a part of town where scenes from the movie were filmed. We only found 2, because we didn’t know how to get to all of the places listed, since we were map-less. It was still really cool to be there, though! It was like living in the movie (if you ignore all the antique booths).

During our afternoon quest to find a bakery, we stumbled upon a small market where I sampled some truffle on a cracker! Truffles (commonly misconceived as a mushroom or fungus; they are not; they are a sickness of the tree- learned that in Food class) are very highly aromatic and have a strong flavor, but a good flavor; kind of salty, kind of meaty, maybe? I just don’t know how to describe it—sorry. They're rare, very pricey, and only stay fresh for a few days.

Truffles! The sample I had was really tiny, but full of flavor.

I also sampled some jam made with Chianti wine, which I bought to take home for the parents (and myself).

We each bought a few treats from a bakery, and then we went to a coffee shop to sit down. Lindsey and I had cappuccinos; Meghan tried an espresso, and we sat and ate our bakery-buys. I had a small chocolate sandwich cookie with chocolate frosting inside and on top; a small, crispy, chocolate . . . thing, filled with cream, nuts, and more chocolate; and some sort of pine-nut, custardy thing with a shortbread crust: reminiscent of gooey butter cake, but less butter and sugar, and more eggs, and pine nuts. Does that make sense? Ha. It was wonderful, obviously.

Could this be why my pants are fitting a little tighter?

On the way to the train station, we stopped at an antique booth that was selling old postcards, letters, and stamps. I bought some old Italian postage stamps for scrapbooking. They were only 10 cents each.

We made it to the train station in time to watch the Florence-bound train pull away. We only had to wait about an hour for the next one, though, so we went to the nearby grocery store to kill some time, and because it was warm inside. (The weather on Saturday was a bit chilly and rainy.) We got back to Florence a little before 6:00.

This morning, Meghan and I went for a run. It had been over a week since I last ran, because we've been so busy with classes and traveling and the weather doesn't always cooperate. (I'm a wimp when it comes to running in the cold, wind, or rain.) Running in Florence doesn't actually require a huge amount of motivation, because the Arno River is our main running path and it's beautiful and only a minute from our door. I need to go more often now that it's warming up. I am planning on training for a half marathon in the fall!

Anyway, Today's weather was PERFECT. Absolutely gorgeous. It was great, because we spent the afternoon outside at a soccer game: Fiorentina vs. Calcio Catania.

Hannah, Meghan, and I had signed up for the soccer game; it was one of the optional school activities and we decided that since soccer is such a HUGE deal here (as it is almost everywhere besides the US), we needed to go. We were given pretty vague instructions, though. It was difficult to find a place to buy bus tickets since it was a Sunday and lots of places were closed. Then, we had to decipher the bus schedule at the bus stop, but we weren't completely positive which stop was the right one. We figured it out, eventually. As with anything, you just have to do it to learn how. Luckily, we had left the apartment just after noon. We caught the 1:00 bus and even had time to grab a sandwich and gelato for lunch before meeting our group at 1:45.

The group ended up waiting for some other stragglers, so we didn't really head into the stadium until around 2:30, and the game started at 3:00. It was a purple vs. white battle. Florence's team was purple, and we won 3 to 0. Hooray!

Meghan and I had popcorn. Meghan had a beer. I had a coke. Hannah didn't get anything to eat, because she's ridiculous.

The game was lots of fun, even though I'm not much of a sports fan. I like the atmosphere of sporting events, and the excitement of the crowd, and the concession stand food; and I like wearing purple! Does that qualify me as a fan? I think so.

Pictures I took of the actual game aren't very exciting to look at, so I put together this little video. The first part is just the pictures from today; the rest are videos from the game. The very last video segment occured just after Florence's team scored. A big thank-you to T-Swift for providing the music at the beginning; it's one of my current favorite songs.

Also, all the Arezzo pics are in the same album as the Cortona pics. Enjoy!