Quartiere Saragozza

The apartment with dinner was a 40-minute walk, and it took me 45...so I was late. I showed up, and they had already started. So I just poured myself a glass of wine and got into it. They were making pasta. I think Frederico, the host, made the dough a head of time. We just rolled it out. First, we made tortellini with ricotta, egg, and parmesan. We all got a chance to roll the dough and make a few tortellini. Then we rolled out dough for tagliatelli. The host had already made a ragu to go with the tagliatelli, but we watched him make a quick tomato sauce for the tortellini. We also watched him make some tiramisu.

After all that, we moved to another room to eat. I learned more about the group, since I had missed any introductions. There was a family from San Diego--Mom, Dad, and daughter. The daughter is currently studying in Florence. Another couple was from Milan, but he's here studying medicine. Then there were 2 girls from LA. The food was good, the company even better. There was a lot of interesting conversations about the difference between the US and Italy.

After the tiramisu, Frederico ushered us out and told us there was a taxi stand down the street. The family was heading back to Florence, so they left quickly.

The rest of us hung out downstairs for a half an hour or so. The girls from LA were going in the same direction and we agreed to share a cab. Which was a great idea if there were any cabs! I discovered that Yvonne had sprained her ankle badly and was having a hard time walking. We couldn't find a taxi or a bus. We stopped at a falafel shop and I asked in Italian for help. Of course, there was someone whose English was better than mine... He pointed out the taxi stand, but there were no taxis. Finally a bus came and we all took that. They didn't have any 2€ coins, so paid for all of us. Haley gave me all her change, which was more than 4€!

I missed my stop and got off and went to meet Sarah in the center. After some confusion, we found each other and found a place to have a drink. At around midnight, we said goodnight. O walked the 10 minutes to my room and went to bed!Read more