An Excursion Through the Market

January 17, 2010:

Where to start… Well…the last few days have been hectic and crazy but filled with fun and excitement. Exploring on a daily basis is a must. Taking things back a few days, lets start with my jaunt to the market on Friday.


Friday morning, I woke up at 11…oops…and attempted to find the Mercato Centrale. Well…that became an experience of a lifetime. I started off heading in the right direction towards the market but somehow got sidetracked by a bunch of neat stores along the way. To make a long story short, about 45 minutes, I arrived at the market. It was exactly the same as I had remembered it from three years ago.
Let me give you a visual:


--The Meat Counter has bull testicals, eyeballs, brains, stomach, whole pig heads, and whole piglets. As well as these lovely concoctions, you can also find chicken beaks; chicken cluckers (AKA…Chickens hanging beard) chicken feet…and whatever you can possibly fathom eating.


--The Fish Counter…that was possibly more exciting than the meat counter. As I roamed the aisles of the fish section, I came across enormous octopus with beady eyeballs as well as whole squid. One fishmonger actually had a bowl of squid ink for sale. I nearly threw up on the spot. Other than that, you can find whole eels. I don’t even know where else to go from there. Oh, right, the entire shark that was in the market really creeped me out. Lovely.


Then you come across the fruits and vegetables, which were beautiful, and lovely, unlike the stinky, smelly, gross butcher counters.


You are probably wondering what I walked out of the market with? Well…tons of tomatoes, mushrooms, olive oil, olives, sundried tomatoes, Pecorino Romano cheese, baby clams and a few other items. Kristen should not be allowed to go to the market.

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Today we hit the soccer stadium. Fiorentina verses Bologna. The goalie was awful! Supposedly, he is some amazing goalie in Italy, and somehow, he let two goals just fly past him throughout the 1:30 game. What BS!


Running tomorrow morning and then heading back to the market with the entire apartment tomorrow to pick up basil and more tomatoes. Did I mention that tomorrow I would also continue the search for a warm scarf? I finally found toasty socks…now the hunt for scarves continues.