Yesterday in both my Business classes, we went on a field trip. The first field trip was to a jewelers shop. The owner has been making jewelry since his father taught him when he was a young boy. He and his wife own a shop around the corner from the Duomo. Both are extremely passionate about their work and have made pieces for celebrities and royalty around the world. The most recent famous client is Prince Charles. Prince Charles and Camilla were visiting Florence this past weekend and he gifted them with some jewelry. My second field trip was to a vintage shop. The owner has dedicated his life to accumulating and buying the finest vintage clothing to have in his shop for his customers. His shop is so wonderful and filled with lots of name brand vintage clothing.
Once our field trip was over, I needed to run some errands and my friend Katie tagged along. Our first stop was the Frescobaldi Wine Bar and Restaurant to make a reservation for that evening. Katie, Kailee, Jamie and I were assigned Frescobaldi for our business project. Our teacher suggested that try a few Frescobaldi wines for research. We walked in and were greeted by Primo, the house manager and coordinator. He very excitedly took our reservation and was looking forward to us coming back in order to help us with our research.
Our next mission was to find cheddar cheese. We looked in 6 different grocery stores before we found it in a specialty store. We were beyond excited when we found it as we've been looking for it since we got here. All we want it for is to make some good mac'n'cheese. From there our next mission was hair scissors. My roommate Melony is a licensed hairstylist and offered to cut my hair if I got a pair of hair specific scissors. I've been looking for weeks. After what seemed as if we had checked every farmacia and hair care store in Florence, I headed home to do homework before Katie, Kailee, and Jamie came over for mac'n'cheese before we went wine tasting.
I walked in the door to my apartment and walked right back out. As I set my stuff down on my bed, Erinn popped her head into my room and asked if I want to get my feet eaten by little fish. Confused but intrigued, I agreed. 10 minutes into our walk to the fish place, I saw a large pharmacy across the street. With a little hope, I popped in to see if they had scissors. And they did!! I was so excited because that meant tonight I was getting a haircut.
The fish feet place was a few minutes past the pharmacy. We walk into the small room and there are 5 tanks of small fish strategically placed around the room. The lady working there greeted us with a smile and began to explain the process. First we washed our feet and put on paper sandals to walk to the tank. You sit down, take your paper sandals off, and put your feet on the footrest on the top of the tank. Once you're ready, you put your feet in and the fish immediately rush to your feet.
The sensation of the little fish taking the dead skin off your feet is weird at first. Once you're used to it, it feels like a small jacuzzi jet against your feet. We sat there with our feet in a tank full of small fish for fifteen minutes before we carefully pulled our feet out of the water, making sure we didn't take any little fish with us. With our smooth feet, we happily walked home.
Just as I sat on my bed once Erinn and I got home our buzzer rang, meaning Katie, Kailee, and Jamie had arrived. We all sat in the kitchen and chatted as we made mac'n'cheese. With just enough time to make it to our reservation, we walked out of my apartment and to the wine bar.
When we arrived, Primo happily greeted me and introduced himself to the other girls. He took us to our outdoor table and let us look over the wine menu before explaining how this would work. He said he'd bring us wines to try and explain the history and winemaking process of each wine as we tasted it. He brought out the first three wines and gave us each a small pamphlet on all 15 of the Frescobaldi wineries. In total he brought out 12 wines for us to try.
Kailee, Jamie, Primo, Katie, and I |
Primo was such a fantastic host. He took time out of his actual job to share his knowledge of wine and Frescobaldi with us. He was an amazing host and to put a cherry on top, he only charged us 7€ each. Definitely the best 7€ wine I've ever had.
I arrived home excited for Melony to cut my hair. I hopped in the shower, got dressed, and sat down in my kitchen for my much needed trim. Melony is so good at cutting hair! My hair feels healthy and wonderful again.
Today was uneventful until I got on my train to Sorrento about 5 hours ago. It was a little over 3 hour train ride with an hour bus ride afterwards to the hotel. I slept on the train and listened to an audiobook on the bus. Now I'm sitting in my hotel room, tired but ready for my fun and sunny weekend on the Amalfi Coast.
P.S. We researched the fish thing online once we got home from it, which in hindsight we should have done before we went, and found out it's been banned in 10 different countries so we won't be trying this again anytime soon.
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