Tuesday was my first day of classes. After attempting to make my way through the city, not knowing much Italian or the city in general, I was excited to actually begin classes. My first class is The Florence Food and Culture Experience with Gionni (Johnny), My professor went over history of the city and talked about the Medici Family. For half of the class we watched a documentary on the family. Usually I don’t like history lessons or documentaries but I actually liked learning about Florence. I ended up getting out of class about ten minutes late.
In our orientation, people from Palazzi FUA told us that it was a “twenty minute walk” from where Courtney and mine’s first class was to where our second class was (the main building of campus). After power walking through the city we finally made it to our second class only being five minutes late. The teacher did not start until ten minutes so we were fine arriving a little late to class.
The second class I am taking is Cultural Introduction to Italy and happens to be my favorite class. The teacher, Martina, is a petite Italian women who is very energetic and has a good sense of humor. We spent the entire day learning Italian that would be useful to us during our time in Italy. Everything from salutations to introducing ourselves to ordering gelato at a store (which is obviously come in handy). After this class I felt a little more confident approaching people on the streets and at restaurants.
For dinner my roommates and I decided to go to Ganzo, the student ran restaurant that is located right by the apartment, for dinner. I ordered the gnocchi which was actually really tasty. While eating outside we could literally see our apartment. At Ganzo they supplied free water and bread. This isn’t a big deal in the U.S., but here it is because you have to pay for water at restaurants. After dinner we all decided to walk to get gelato. The place we went to had at least 50 flavors of gelato which made my decision extremely difficult. Once we all received our gelato we walked to the Repubblica where there was a man playing live music. There is just something about live music that I love and being able to enjoy that while eating gelato in Italy.
The USA vs Belgium world cup game was tonight. My roommates and I wandered our way to The Lions Fountain, an american pub, to watch the game. The place was swarmed by Americans chanting and cheering for our team to win. At half time we all decided to watch the game in a less crowded place. We found a pavilion, that belonged to a restaurant, with a pull down screen and projector. It was an absolutely beautiful night, but unfortunately the game wasn’t as beautiful. It was definitely a neat experience to be able to watch a USA World Cup game in Italy with so many people cheering for USA to win. Too bad Italy didn’t make it out of the first round because that would have been quite the experience as well.
Wednesday was a cooking lab in my The Florence Food and Culture Experience class. A chef, from a different country, came in to teach our class how to cook. As a class, we chopped vegetables, stirred mixtures, made bread, and then got to taste what we cooked. The recipes for today’s class were for a tomato soup and a vegetable mixture that contained: tomato, garlic, red pepper, onion, celery, carrot, salt, pepper, sugar, and A LOT of olive oil. Both of them were really good and I was able to to eat as much as I wanted. It was interesting learning the different techniques the Italians use, especially how much olive oil they put on everything.
In my Cultural Introduction to Italy class, we learned more Italian. Today it was colors, numbers, and other random words. Martina showed us an Italian song and we were able to sing along with it to help with our pronunciation. After that she took us on a walking tour of different places in Florence. She told us about the Church of Santa Croce where a couple famous artists were buried. This is a church I pass regularly, so it is nice to know more about it than just what it looks like. We also learned more history of the city. During the tour Martina pointed out one of her favorite gelato places and as an entire class we ordered gelato in Italian. She was there to help us with pronunciation and explain to the cashier that we were practicing Italian. We ended the tour in the Rupubblica. This was an area that was built to look like the ancient times and a popular place for people to hang out, eat, and shop. At the end of the tour she pointed out a department store and told us about a cafe at the top where you can over look the city.
Courtney and I immediately speed walked over there. We went up one flight of stairs, an elevator to the fourth floor, one more flight of stairs (the cafe was located here), and one last flight of stairs to find a seating area with a phenomenal view. This is my favorite place to go so far. You can see the hills on one side and the Duomo on the other. I can’t wait to go back there and have a cup of coffee while enjoying the view.
Thursday was a lot of walking the city. In both of my classes we took different walking tours of Florence. Conveniently both of my professors are tour guides for the school so they are very educated. It is fascinating learning a lot more about buildings you see daily and actually learning about the roots of them and why they are built a certain way. The first class went to the Medici’s “office” which looked like a garden, In my second class we crossed the river. This was my first time visiting the other side of the Arno and it was beautiful. The combination of the buildings, the river, and the bridge made it an amazing sight to see. After learning more about the other side of the river we ended at Martina’s all time favorite gelato place. I was trying to resist the urge to get more gelato, but we ended right outside the door so I got more gelato. I ordered in Italian all by myself today which is something I am proud of!
For dinner on Thursday my roommates and I decided to go to a pizzeria called Gusta Pizza which was located across the river. The size of the pizza was enough for two people or one person to eat and have leftovers. When reading the menu I realized the first pizza on the list did not have cheese on it. If you know me, you should know that I always peel off the cheese off pizza because I do not like cheese. This is for anyone who has ever given me a weird look when I peel off the cheese, because someone can order a pizza in Italy without cheese! I was told when I came to Italy I had to try pizza with cheese though because it might be different, so I did try a cheese pizza. People told me before I came that I had to try pizza with cheese because it would taste different. It definitely tasted different and I ate two slices with cheese on it, but I still preferred it without any cheese. Something I found interesting was that they put olive oil on top of their pizza. Italians literally put olive oil on anything they can think of.
Ciao,
Jenn
