Fiesole & Friends

Buongiorno!

It's been a bit since the last update (sorry mommy, I know you've been stalking) but Wednesday was some-what uneventful. At least as uneventful as you can get in this beautiful city.

I had classes, classes, and more classes. We had our Story of Florence class, which meets once a week for three hours. Good thing Emily is in it too, or else I'd go crazy. We practiced our gypsy dance in the school's full mirror before class began (since we have no mirrors in our apartment, womp). We made a friend simply because she is scared of us and our craziness. The class seems interesting enough and is taught by an English professor. He appears very enthusiastic about the subject matter and we learned that for the first half of every lesson, we will be in the classroom and for the latter, we will be out somewhere on-site. I can't believe these are my classes. Going to the Duomo for the morning or traveling to a cafe to interact with Italians. Wow. I am a lucky girl!

So Wednesday evening, all of the roommates and I decided it was best to stay in and relax, store up some energy for our crazy weekend. Emily and Jess prepared dinner which consisted of seasoned chicken caprese. Delicious! I am actually learning to cook (grazie emily) and look forward to the market. After dinner, we decided to discuss where everyone wants to travel and we came up with an insane list of weekend trips, as well as perhaps the most insane spring break travel proposal. ever. Trips include Interlaken, Barcelona, Budapest, Lisbon, and Morocco, just to name a few. Although we stayed in, we got so ccaught up in planning that we really didn't get to bed early at all. At least I got a sound night sleep.

Thursday was extremely eventful. I had my 9am Art History class, where we met outside of school and proceeded to walk around the city to examine Roman architecture of churches and piazzas. We learned about the various ways to examine edificios from the outside, noting the type of materical used, such as marble or rough stone. Hopefully, this will grow on me. It was freezing out and I only had my rain coat on (poor planning - it didn't ever even rain!), so I was quickly in a bitter mood. However, that lifted a bit as we traveled out of narrow streets up to the Palazzo Vecchio, where I learned that it serves as Florence's city hall.

I wish ours looked like that! Wow! I continued to cheer up - not warm up - when we finally concluded our first on-site visit at the Duomo. My love. This was the first time I stepped foot in the Duomo and it was nice. I must admit this masterpiece, for me, is much more enchanting and mesmerizing from the outside, with its pink, green, and white marble. The inside is beautiful as well, don't get me wrong. I love this building.

After my first class, I met up with Kristie and Rachael and two other girls and we walked a few minutes to the Marketo Centrale. Kristie, who speaks Italian very well, helped me to learn how to order items on my own. I ordered myself a chunk of bread (while pointing,"Vorre questo pane" = "I want this bread"). I also ordered due ("doo-ay" = 2) mozzarella and some prosciutto. The butcher was very helpful because he caught me off-guard by asking me which prosciutto I like best: salty or sweet. I replied salty and then he took down a gross looking piece of prosciutto to slice, so I panicked and said "no no! sweet! sweet!" He must have known how confused I was because he shaved off a tasting from both the salt and sweet and let me taste test. Sweet it is! Although all prosciutto is delicious! I felt good at trying to order in Italian and I think that the vendors appreciated my effort.

After the market, I made a quick sandwich of bread, oil, fried prosciutto, mozzarella and garlic/pepper and was off to my second class of the day. I love my Italian class. It's great to have a friend - Kaila - in it and my professor is extremely positive and encouraging.

After Italian, I met up with Kristie and Ari (who we affectionately call Big Papa or Little A) to go shop for leather jackets. We went to Massimo Leather , a shop that our roommates recommended. Massimo (or at least the owner) was very helpful and persuasive. I ended up trying a bunch of jackets, but I absolutely LOVE the one that I purchased.

It's a new style, hooded, and of course black. The girls and I tried to haggle with him - Kristie spoke Italian to impress him, but no luck. Then Ari got 10 Euro off of mine and her jackets and eventually Kristie's too. I was happy with that, considering my jacket was originally 390 Euros.

So a very successful shopping trip and I was off to my last class of the week, my Cultural Literacy class taught by Professor Sarah Barker, who is actually Australian. She is the cutest person I've ever met. She is constantly smiling and nodding. There's 13 students in this class and I know 5 already. We discussed, generally, the differences between Italian and American cultures. We are encouarged to look at our new environment through an "Italian lense" rather than an American one. I am going to love this class.

So finally, last night. Wow. Last night was entertaining and of course a blast. The upside of living with nine other girls is that we're almost always up for whatever, wherever, and hanging out with whoever. We are all very outgoing and last night I was impressed with where the night went. Of course, it started out with family dinner of pasta and proscuitto (we woke up from naps late so it was best to stay in for dinner) and then decided the plans for the night. We went to Naima for happy hour (what else is new?) and saw many of our friends. Cosimo and Pietro joined us soon enough and everyone was having a blast. The boys were teaching us Italian and we were asking them how to say certain phrases so that we could use them later, or in my case, call Pietro out for being "rude." They were hilarious, even though they only had "just one beer." After Pietro drank two of Emily's teas - and spit them all over the floor not once, not twice, but tre! times, we decided enough! Shortly after midnight, we all ventured to the black & white party at TwentyOne, a night club right down the street.

I enjoyed the club and was able to talk with Pietro and his friend Matteo. Italian friend count: 3. Success. Pietro and Matteo were making jokes all night about relationships and how Italian culture is very different because "you can have American girlfriend AND Italian girlfriend. It is ok." Personally, I don't agree but hey, the "Italian lense."

After Twenty One, it was time for one last snack so of course I cook up some sauteed prosciutto and mozzarella sandwiches. Delicious. I was successfully able to SES-creep and talk to friends back home. Sometime after four, I went to bed in the best mood.

This morning, Emily and I were up at 8:30 for our field trip to Fiesole. After some confusion about the meeting spot, we caught up with our class and took the bus.

We ascended up the hills (similar to the Hollywood Hills) to Fiesole, just outside of Florence, where many wealthy families and individuals live. The view was gorgeous. Of course, it is about 30 degrees outside but it's not State College weather so we can't complain. Our teacher is a little quirky but he managed to entertain us this morning. We arrived before the museum opened so instead we took a mini tour to the edge of the city to get a breath-taking view of Florence.

It is incredible how visible the entire city was.

After taking a few pictures, we had to climb back up the hill to the museum. I honestly thought I was going to get sick, it was too much exercise for too early in the morning - or ever. We talked with our professor's au pair, Jessica, who was from San Diego. Now that's an idea! (Ha Ha).

We toured through the ancient Etruscan and Roman ruins of Fiesole. They were more interesting than I had anticipated. It's incredible to think about how such places were created hundreds of years ago. We learned about the Amphitheater, the temples, and the bath houses.

We saw an ancient sacrificial table where the Romans would sacrifice animals to the gods, as well as cut open animals and look for their livers. Interesting.

The construction and layout of the bath house was interesting as well: there were four separate areas, according to the temperature of the water. The bath house was the only place where people of different societal status interacted. Best part of freezing our butts off outside: having a lolzcat follow us around. Precious.

We finally were able to escape the frigid temperature and horrid winds and went inside the museum. We looked around for possibly ten minutes and were back on the bus home to Florence. I enjoyed our first field trip in this class and we have a great group of students (at least the 6 that attended today).

Emily and I passed a McDs on our way walking home from the bus and of course we were curious. We went inside and noticed dramatic changes than from our beloved American ones. The menu, for one, rarely displays the prices of food, which was annoying. Also, they did not have any breakfast items. I just got some nugs and shared fries with Em (which tasted better than the US). We needed Ketchup for the fries and could not find it anywhere. Of course it's not free, it cost us 20 cents for one little packet of ketchup. ABSURD! Never again. We're making it necessary to check out the various McD's across Europe. Judge us.

Alright so now that I've spent the last hour updating this blog and thawing from our arctic adventures, it's time for us to venture out and explore the city! Gnocchi for lunch? Yes.

BYYYEEEEEEE