Week One Complete!

Bonjourno everybody!

After a few very busy days, I finally have a few minutes to sit down and update you guys on everything that I have been doing since my last post.

On Friday morning we woke up at 7:30 a.m. (as you can tell by the look on Staci’s face we weren’t exactly thrilled about the early morning…) to meet the rest of our group for a day trip to Pisa! 

When we got to Pisa we quickly realized that there was absolutely nothing else in this town besides the infamous leaning tower (along with a few hundred Asian tourists who provided us with plenty of entertainment for the day).  Even though I had of course seen pictures of the tower before, I didn’t expect it to be leaning this much!! After we had heard the story of the tower and the cathedral, we spent about an hour trying out every angle possible to make sure we got the perfect pictures holding up the tower.  I also couldn’t resist snapping a few of the Asian tourists in their poses, and even some taking pictures on their iPads (see pictures below).  

After the photo shoot we grabbed a quick pizza for lunch before heading back to Florence.

Saturday was the last day of orientation, and in my opinion it was the best trip yet.  We took a bus (this time a much more civilized start of 10:45 a.m.) to Chianti in Tuscany to visit the Verazzano Wine Castle.  Unfortunately, it was pouring rain when we got there.  But that didn’t make this castle any less beautiful. After a slightly nauseating bus ride along a narrow windy road, we finally reached the castle.  It was perched, almost picture perfectly, atop a beautiful green mountain with vineyards surrounding it on every side.  Once we were inside, we got a brief tour of the castle including the insanely large barrels where they keep the wine (they are most famous for their Chianti wine which is the main red wine of Tuscany) as well as the cellars in the basement.  

After the tour, we were lead to a large formal dining hall for lunch and a wine tasting.  Little did we know, we were about to sit down for a two and a half hour, five course meal.  After learning the proper way to smell and taste wine, we began our wine tasting with an appetizer course of a salami/prosciutto/cheese platter, garlic bread, and homemade balsamic vinegar and olive oil.  Both the wine and the food were absolutely delicious.  Each of the different wines were supposed to enhance the food we were eating in a specific way, and I was amazed at how different each tasted when I took a sip after the cheese versus after the salami, etc.  Our next course was penne pasta with tomato sauce and parmesan cheese, then came a salad course, then came the pork course.  Finally, we had homemade biscotti for dessert (it was by far the best biscotti I have ever tasted) along with a dessert wine that was so strong it almost tasted like whiskey!  As you can imagine, we were pretty much exhausted after this long meal (we really don’t understand how Italians can possibly be so skinny…), but it got Staci and I very excited for our food and wine pairing class to start!

Since we were so full from our lunch, Staci and I decided to pick up some roasted vegetables and bruschetta from a small shop near our apartment to share for a late dinner.  It’s amazing how even the simplest food here still somehow tastes so amazing!

On Saturday night it was the Michigan versus Indiana basketball game; and since there are so many kids on our program from both schools, everybody wanted to watch it.  The only problem was…it didn’t start until 3 a.m. our time!  But that didn’t stop us.  A sports bar down the street opened up exclusively to Michigan and Indiana students dressed in their school colors to come watch the game.  (**Uncle: do I get some sort of bonus points for going to this?!? C’mon! I went to watch a basketball game at THREE IN THE MORNING!) Who would have though that we could be 5,000 miles from Michigan (we are in ITALY for crying out loud!) yet we could still be in a sports bar surrounded by people dressed in Michigan clothes singing hail to the victors.  Have we found the Skeeps of Florence?  By half time we could barely keep our eyes open so we went home to go to sleep, and found out in the morning that Michigan had lost the game L.  Oh well, there’s always next time – GO BLUE!

Since Sunday was our last day before classes started and we had no planned orientation trips, everyone took the day to sleep late and get ready for school.  A few of my friends and I decided to take a walk across the river to try out this Panini place called Gusto Panino that we had been hearing a lot about.  When we arrived, there was already a long line out the door for this small Panini shop.  It was definitely worth the wait.  After stressing for about half an hour about what to order, I decided to try the ham, brie, and sundried tomato Panini.  All I can say is I will most definitely be going back there again! 

We spent the rest of the day picking up some school supplies (which took a lot for us to do since we are in complete denial that we actually have to go to classes here), going grocery shopping, and exploring the city.  A few of us stumbled upon an adorable little bakery called Pasticceria Nencioni and couldn’t resist walking in.  They were making fresh squeezed orange juice with the freshest looking oranges I have ever seen. We ended up each getting a glass and trying out these tiny fruit tarts!  I have never tasted orange juice like this in my entire life – we all decided this was definitely going to be a frequent snack spot!

Today was our first day of classes, and they went really well! Since I have only had two so far, I will report back to you later in the week to tell you about all of them. However, I finally did get to try out the gym this morning (after all of the eating I have told you about you can imagine how desperate I was to work out) and it is only a ten minute walk from my apartment, which is great.  I also didn’t have class until 3 p.m., so I took a trip to the market to get some food for Staci and I to cook this week.  In retrospect, Staci should have known better than to send me to a food market by myself.  I did the best I could, but it was nearly impossible to resist my temptation to buy everything!  Good thing I had my handy dandy cart that we found in our apartment…

I also grabbed a quick panini to take home for lunch with me from my favorite little panini man at the market: Salami with fresh mozzarella and roasted zucchini.

We also all decided that we were in need of a tread after a long first day of classes, so we rewarded ourselves with some gelato! We found our new favorite gelato place: Gelateria de Neri.  My flavors: Cookies and cream and Il Moretto(aka chocolate heaven meets nutella).  There has yet to be a gelato that tops this one.

Sorry I'm not sorry that this entire post is all about food.  Does "When in Rome" apply to Florence too...? Oh well, livin' la Dolce Vita! That’s it for now guys, I’ll be back to tell you about classes later this week!

Italian Word of the Day:  Baccala – means salted cod.  I had to look this one up when I was trying to order fish at the market today! I will let you know how it is after we try it for dinner this week.

Arrivederci,

Jordan