This week we started real classes. I have 18 hours but 6 of those hours are photography and food and wine pairing. Overall I think I’m really going to enjoy every class I have. Even my Italian class is entertaining and not nearly as intimidating as precession. It’s at 8AM, which makes for an early morning, but there are only 6 girls in my class and they are all on the same level as me! Most of the girls are studying in Firenze for a whole year so they are very helpful and fun to talk to! One of them is from Scotland and another lives in Turkey. I love listening and talking with them. After Italian I either have Renaissance Civilization and Culture or 14th Century Italian Literature. These are my two core classes, so they are only with UNC kids. The Renaissance class is very engaging because almost everything we talk about is located in Florence. It’s always more motivating to learn about things that you can actually go see! I also have Italian philosophy on Mondays and Wednesday. I can already tell that philosophy is going to be interesting. I’m excited. My favorite two classes are obviously photography and cooking. Photography is a six hour long class on Tuesday night. While six hours is a reallllly long time, I’m pretty sure half the class is spent going out and practicing the techniques we learn. This week we filled out “get to know you” questionnaires and made collages that describe us. I’m such a little kid because I LOVED making the collage! I’m very proud of it, even though it’s quite random and took me two hours. It was fun to hear about everyone’s collage and entertaining to see how different everyone’s was! Maybe by May I’ll know how to properly work my camera and can take legit engagement pictures of Al and FiFi :)
Wednesday night Hil and I cooked great potato soup! Thank you grandma Johnson for your yummy recipe! We’re trying to cook a variety of things and we have done better this week. Grilled Chicken, Salad, Potato and Veggie Soup, getting better every day! Tonight I had my cooking class at 3-5:30. I absolutely loved my teacher. She told us about her life and background in Italian cooking. Her family has always been cooks and I could tell that she was passionate about cooking. She believed the best way to learn was simply to cook and experiment; she didn’t seem too strict on rules. I loved that she took us on a walk around town and pointed out all the places we had to go. She told us the history of the market, where to get the freshest ingredients, and of course all the best restaurants/ gelatarias. When we got back to class we made a quick and easy pasta dish (all I had to do was mince garlic and my hands still smell). On a normal week we make three dishes and pair them with two wines. It made me sooo excited for every Thursday to come! After class I met Hil at Santa Croce for the chocolate festival. We had heard that we HAD to go to the chocolate festival and since it was about 3 minutes from our apartment we decided to give it a shot. I HAVE NEVER SEEN SO MUCH CHOCOLATE! Chocolate shaped tools, coffee cups, literally everything you could imagine. In Italy they have great hot chocolate, it’s more like a melted chocolate bar. After we walked around for a while and scoped out all the yummy stuff I decided that the “white hot chocolate” looked the best to me. Little did I know that it wasn’t hot chocolate but some nasty bready drink with alcohol in it (or so I think). I couldn’t drink it. Out of all the amazing things at a chocolate festival I would get the one thing that I dislike. It turned out ok though b/c Hil and I ended up splitting a wonderfully rich piece of chocolate cake and REAL hot chocolate. The chocolate festival redeemed itself. We went on a run around the Arno after. It hasn’t been too cold this week, so I’ve ran a couple times. Hopefully the closer it gets to spring, the more we can run! It couldn’t have been a better first week of classes! Venice tomorrow!
Interesting things to note:
- There are these little trucks here (not exactly trucks though because they only have three wheels) that I think Dad could really use for the garden and carting veggies. They are super cute and have a huge cab for hauling things. I need to capture a picture so y’all can understand. I call them produce trucks and I want one.
- Italians normally buy their veggies, milk and bread fresh- 2 or 3 times a week.
- Hil and I can’t read labels. I accidently bought whole milk and she bought fizzy water. We’re learning.
Miss and love y’all,
Bec
No comments:
Post a Comment