Fat Thursday

Panoramic of Market Square - with blue skies!

Today was a Polish holiday known as Fat Thursday. Basically a day to pig out on donuts and other delicious treats before Lent; which explains why people were loading up their carts with packs of donuts yesterday at the store. We decided to part take in the festivities and so after class we hung out in market square in search of a cafe or bakery shop selling delicious treats! We ended up going into a cafe we had been in once before and grabbed a seat. After a thorough inspection of the menu, everyone chose to get a donut except me. I figured its Fat Thursday, a day to indulge... and well a donut wasn't quite what I was feeling. So I ordered an ice cream- fruit dish that looked delicious based on the picture in the menu. The waitress had a hard time understanding us, so while everyone thought they were ordering a chocolate donut, they all ended up getting a chocolate milk and a plain donut with a raspberry filling. It was pretty funny. Luckily, my order was simply pointing to the item on the menu so I got exactly what I ordered. And it was beautiful when they brought it out... and delicious. I forget the menu name, but it was amazing. It was 3 scopes of ice cream- one of lemon, one of mocha, and one of raspberry- topped with whipped cream with a layer of fresh fruit - clementines, kiwi, grapes, pineapple, cantaloupe, and pomegranate - all on top. It was delicious!!

Before
After

Once we finished our snacks a group of us headed out to wander around market square and take some pictures as today was the first day I was down there while there were blue skies! The weather is slowly improving; hopefully by the time we return from out 9 days in Italy it will have warmed up a few more degrees! And yes, we are getting ready to go on a 9 day excursion to Italy, with stops in Austria! The bus leaves tomorrow at 10pm (4pm eastern standard time) and we will head to Austria and then a bunch of cities in Italy. I have to admit I was kind of hoping that our European tour would be some place other than Italy, but we got to the itinerary today and are going to 5 or so Italian cities I haven't been to along with places in Austria. Needless to say I'm pretty excited! Vicenza, Verona (home of Juliette), Firenze, and Siena are a few of the places we are going that I haven't been. I have a feeling its going to be a long 9 days as we will be visiting 11 cities in Italy and Austria, but well worth the exhaustion that I know will follow!

Anywho, just thought I would give a quick updaete! I'm tired and have class in the morning so its bedtime for me. I'll try to post a time or two while in Italy, but no guarantees as I am not taking my laptop and don't know when I'll be able to find an internet cafe.