I can't believe I am actually saying this, but I am writing from my living room at home in Westport! I got home from Florence last night after a very long day of traveling (and with no luggage yet since it was lost!). I have had the most incredible four months in Florence, and I cannot even begin to describe how much I have seen, done, and learned. I have met so many amazing people along the way, and I am so lucky to have made so many great friends. There is no way that I can possibly thank my parents enough for this unforgettable journey, and I am so lucky to have had the opportunity to experience this. It was truly more than I ever could have imagined or hoped for. And even though I wish you all could have been there to experience it with me, I hope that my blog has helped to give you a little taste of my adventures!
Before I continue, I just need to say that I honestly would not have survived without my partner in crime, Staci Gitkin who was with me every step of the way. We discovered that collectively we have only spent 4 days apart in the past 4 months.....I am already having separation anxiety.
So since I am so behind, I am going to give you guys the highlights of our last two weeks. Even though we had to write papers in each class and study for our finals (LOLZ), we somehow found time to fit in everything on our bucket list. As you can imagine, a lot of that involved eating....
We were lucky enough to have Corey stay with us for a week and got to take her with us to some of our final meals!
The visitors didn't stop there, though. We also had our friends Lizzy, Lindsay, and Ali visit from Prague!
Aaaaand we also had our friend Julia from school visit us with her brother Ben! We are pretty sure they thought we were insane since we basically started crying at every "last meal" that we went to....but Julia fit right in at Il profeta when the owner fed her the meal! We also took them to the Boboli Gardens for the last time and to see the sunset at Piazzale Michelangelo!
Our adorable program directors, Milva and Luca, invited us to come to their house to cook dinner on Friday night! They had 14 of us over to their beautiful home, just 40 minutes outside of Florence. We learned how to cook homemade pasta from scratch and chocolate souffles! They also have a garden in their yard where they grow all of their own vegetables and herbs that we picked and used in the pasta sauce. They even have olive trees and make their own olive oil! Everything was absolutely delicious. I think I may need to move to Italy permanently.
Since we're on the topic of food, I really can't resist giving you guys the entire eating play by play of my last two weeks...it's just that good. We were so stressed about how to plan our final meals and make sure that we fit every restaurant in, that we had to make a google doc with a meal schedule that we all signed up for. I wish I was kidding. You gotta go out with a bang, right? Here are the highlights (warning: salivation is likely to occur):
Gusta Pizza:
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Antico Noe (although technically not the last one since we took one on the plane ride home...oops)
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| The burrata. |
All' Antico Vinaio:
I Fratellini:
Riva Reno Gelato:
Gelateria Dei Neri:
The Secret Bakery (Duh):
The Last Supper: 13 Gobbi
So now you understand why I am on a strict celery and water only diet when I get home, right? But it was worth every bite.
Before I move completely away from food, here are some things that I cooked myself! Before we left, we had to try making the homemade pasta from the food market. Since we wanted to try all of them, we decided to do a pasta sampler of gnochhi, spinach and ricotta ravioli, and spaghetti. The pasta was so fresh that it cooked in only 30 seconds!!! It was absolutely delicious.
Also, for my Food and Wine Pairing final we had to do a practical exam where each group prepared a dish and paired it with a wine and then was judged by a panel. It was basically like playing top chef, Italian style. Why can't this class be offered at Michigan? Between the whole class we cooked three dishes: Spinach and ricotta gnocchi in a butter and sage sauce, grilled swordfish with Mediterranean vegetables, and fried dough strips called cenchi. I cooked the swordfish and we paired it with a flavorful rose wine - our teacher loved it!
Okay I swear we did a little bit more than eat during the last week!!! (barely). We had a lot of goodbyes to say to our friends in Florence. And by friends, I mostly mean our favorite food people.....whoops.
Well first we had to say a proper goodbye to Santa Croce, so what better way than to sit on the ground in front of it and drink champagne, right?
We of course took a couple photo shoots in front of it also...
Our program then had a dinner for us at a very famous and fancy restaurant called Sabatini. It was a a delicious 4-course meal and it was very nice to have everyone all together.
On our last day, it was time to make the rounds and say all of our sad goodbyes:
First came our favorite Music guys, the Romdraculas, who's tunes we wake up to almost every morning. We also bought their CD so that we can listen to it at home and close our eyes and pretend we are back in Santa Croce.
Next came the food market where we said bye to all of our favorite vendors. Here are pictures with our dried fruit guy (don't mind the fact that he looks like a creepy serial killer who may or may not murder us with his dried fruit scooper) and our Orange juice lady!
Next was Pino, who actually brought me to tears when we left...
And finally, Massimo the leather guy. Since Staci and I have been very loyal customers and brought Massimo a LOT of customers this semester (we are fairly certain that we are feeding his family at this point with the amount of business we have brought in), we have pretty much become his favorite people ever. He decided to throw us a farewell party (which we thought other people were also attending), but it turned out to just be Staci and I with his entire staff drinking wine and champagne in his store. And then when it was time to say goodbye, he started crying saying how much he would miss us! He also invited us to live with him for the summer and work in his store...what do you think Mom and Dad??
In between all of our goodbyes and all of our eating, my friends and I took a nice walk along the river and found this cool waterfall to hang out by!
We also hung out in the Boboli gardens:
Before our final dinner, we decided to climb over and sit on these triangular blocks that jet out from the side of one of the bridges (even though apparently it is illegal...) so we could watch the sunset on the river. We of course had to bring champagne, wine, and cheese with us as well...
It was so peaceful and so beautiful to enjoy the sunset from right on the river with all of my friends. It was the perfect way to spend the last night talking, laughing, and reminiscing on what a fantastic four months we have had. We also obviously couldn't resist reenacting the titanic or taking a picture pretending to be falling off of the bridge. We also had to say one last goodbye to the duomo before we left:
After a long night of talking, eating, laughing, and crying, it was finally time to say goodbye to our apartment. The whole thing was completely surreal, and neither of us could believe that we were actually about to walk out of the door for good. We took one last look outside our window at the gorgeous view of Santa Croce, left the keys on the kitchen table (very dramatically since we felt like we were in the last episode of friends, and made our way out. Except this was much easier said than done since we had to carry our giant overweight (okay fine just mine were overweight since Staci is some kind of super-packer who always has extra room in her bags) down all 76 of our stairs! There is no way for me to describe this scene to you that will do it justice, but let's just stay we were both dripping sweat by the time it was over and my back is still sore.
After we finally got all of the bags down, we took one last look at our door and said goodbye for good.
I still cannot believe that I went to Florence and am already back home. We have been talking about Florence for so long, and then these four months just flew by faster than I even knew was possible. I knew that studying abroad was going to be a life changing experience, but I don't think I fully comprehended what that meant until I experienced it. I visited 8 different countries, and 18 different cities. I was immersed in completely new cultures, hearing different languages, eating so many different kinds of food, and meeting all kinds of new people. We were faced with a lot of obstacles and challenges along the way, but we quickly learned how to adapt and deal with anything that hit us. I learned so much about myself through this experience, and it just made me that much more excited to travel, see, and do more! And even though I loved everywhere that we visited, I could not be happier with my choice to study in Florence. I am completely and totally in love with this city. The history, the people, the culture, and the food (of course) are truly delicious in every way. I cannot believe that it is time to say goodbye, but all I can tell myself is that this is not goodbye - it is see you later! So my final italian word is Arrivederci: See you later, Firenze! Thank you for the best four months, I will miss you and I will be back soon!
Thank you again to all of you for reading my blog, and I hope you enjoyed it!
Ciao for the last time!
Jordan
P.S. Even though it's not Florence, there still is no place like home :)
