Just around the corner...

So, I can walk to Italy.  The border is about a half-hour walk, but to get to the next actual town, Ventimiglia, takes about 3 hours walking.  So we generally opt for the train (but walking there is still on my to-do list!).

Every Friday there's a market in Ventimiglia for local farmers and vendors.  We went last Friday, and had some time to check out the town as well as the market.

How cool to see truffles fresh from the countryside!

I think my parents have been worrying because I haven't been posting enough about food.  Last time I was in France it was all I talked about.  The big difference is that here I have to make my own food.  I'm not so good at that.  But after Ventimiglia I made an eggplant parmesan-style dish, just without parmesan and with Toma Cunese and fresh mozarella substituted in.

 I also found these surprisingly hot dried red peppers... I thought they were sun-dried tomatoes when I bought them, but not complaints about what they turned out to be!  They went really well with the eggplant concoction.

 We went after class, so the sun was just starting to set over the Mediterranean.

There was the most hilarious dichotomy between the view of the inland and the view of the sea.  When I looked inland, I saw mountains and snow:

When I looked toward the sea, I saw palm trees and flowers:

With France so close, the Italian flags on the mountain were actually useful in demarcating territory...

However, the swans on the river made me think not of France, but of Lucerne in Switzerland...

These flowers, leading to a WWI memorial, were so pretty that I couldn't help but buy a pot of them for me room back at Villa Jasmin (the girls' residence).

 What else do we do in Italy but drink coffee and eat pastries?  More Marocchinos, and a sinful cannoli.

Thea and Claire did actually sleep at one point on the (15min) train home, just not while I was trying to get their picture.  But Thea's face was presh (#jokessss).

Tomorrow we're going to Antibes!

Hopefully it'll look something like this:

*Found this photo online---not mine!

Caffè Italiano

French coffee is pretty damn good, but I was won over by Italian coffee this weekend.  Stopping in coffee shops was a great way to get warm, get caffeinated, and figure out our next moves around the city.  We also got to practice our Italian--"Vorrei un caffè, per favore."  I know how to say this and "prego" and most of the possible pizza toppings.  I'm basically fluent already.

But pizza is a whole separate story.  On the topic of coffee, the first one I tried was a "Marocchino." Obviously I would go for the Moroccan-inspired coffee.  

Not only did it have cacao on top, it also had chocolate throughout, and particularly at the bottom of the glass.  This was a great choice for someone who has as much of a sweet tooth as I do.

Apparently Marocchinos are typically served in glasses because of the aesthetic appeal.  Looks good to me!

Next up was Caffè d'Orzo.  It tasted like coffee but smokier.  Like someone had managed to make burnt coffee taste amazing.

So I just looked it up, and it actually is made from orzo (barley).  I totally didn't realize this when we ordered it... multiple times.  It also apparently doesn't have caffeine.  I've given up on coffee really affecting me, so I didn't notice when I had it that it didn't make me hyper.  This will definitely be my decaf "coffee" of choice in the future.

The third style of caffè from this weekend was the basic caffè, espresso.  I don't know how to describe what really good coffee tastes like, but this was it.

How cute are all the different kinds of coffee cups?  I'm still on the lookout for the fluted espresso cups that we used in Annecy, but these styles and patterns make me smile too.