It's a late birthday post...

My creativity and energy are being horded by my classes here, hence, no recent posts. Not that I didn't try… I've been attempting a post on food and another one on dessert forks and just couldn't get it out. If I can't write about food and dessert, I REALLY must be drained of all creative juices! Oh, art...

Hence, a picture post, three days late, on what the Fern did on her 21st birthday, as halfway promised to her dear parents!


Had SEVEN hours of class.
(Printmaking, Drawing, Italian)

(Here's part of my attempt at landscape during Drawing. You can kinda see the lake on the upper right of the next picture...)

Finally satisfied my craving for fried eggs and soy sauce!

(This is going to be my self portrait for Drawing.

And yes, I'm sure I baffled many tourists as I ran out to the wall with a camera and plate of fried eggs in my hands and a massive bottle of soy sauce under my arm. Not exactly a common sight in Tuscan hill towns! Then again, short asian girls with afro-like-porcupine hair isn't exactly a common sight either...)

Watched another gorgeous sunset...

(Cortona beats everywhere else I've been for best horizon sunsets, but Lubbock, Texas still wins hands down for full-sky sunsets.)

Visited one of my favorite spots… the park!

(I can usually be found perched on the steps to the right of the lamp and below the leaves on the right side of the picture. Excellent people and dog watching spot!)

Sat on the steps of the Palazzo Comunale in Piazza della Repubblica...

(ya know, the steps where the choir sang during a chilly winter night in Under the Tuscan Sun)

…and watched cute old men socialize (hehe).

Bought some pesto, foccacia bread and pecorino fresco cheese from the Molesini alimentari

(which are pretty much grocery stores the size of a single aisle at Wal Mart)

Then bought fruit and tomatoes from the corner fruitissima...(It's actually a visual feast in daylight. Dusk lighting + indoor lighting makes for confused cameras and oddly colored pictures.)

Enjoyed the view of the valley on the way back up to the dorms…

(Again, this doesn't even begin to capture the view.)

Then headed back down to Tonino for dinner with the entire University of Georgia group (as we do every weeknight) whereupon my camera decided that it didn't like the batteries that I had just put in that morning.

But it cooperated for the picture taking of food!

For the first course, fun hat-shaped suction cup pasta with not quite so fun meat...

(it suctions your tongue sometimes!)

For the second course, yummy fish that was incredibly well presented…

(Look, Christmas!)

And then lights out for an incredible fun and raucous round of the Happy Birthday song and a HUGE deeelicious birthday dessert!

(This picture is pretty bad. I assure you it looked (and tasted) far more amazing in real life!)

Aaaand... the birthday celebration ended on the wall overlooking the night lights of the entire valley below with a bottle of dessert wine (vino dolce, not dolce vino) served in white plastic cups (for which I had to pantomime since my attempts at asking for "Coppa, per favore. Otto coppe? Coppa?" failed miserably.)

Oh, and you can't forget us singing "Little Bunny Foo Foo" and bopping people on the head with my happy bouncy green balloon from Dolce Vita (which Amber so kindly procured for me)!

(Yes, we sang Little Bunny Foo Foo. Yes, this was my twenty-first birthday. Shush!)

Yay Italy!