Yesterday was a day of class that usually doesn't exist! We had a makeup day for classes we will be missing in May, which just made this week drag out a little longer! We went on another field trip with our Renaissance culture class though which was a nice break from being in the classroom at least. This time we visited the Palazzo Medici Riccardi, which was the Medici's palace in Florence's historic center for many years until they moved to the more impressive Palazzo Vecchio and later the Pitti Palace. We've started learning about the Medici's power in Florence during the time of the Renaissance so visiting their first grande home is fitting. However, I'm glad we came here with our class because the building now is less than impressive for tourists. Some rooms are still used for meetings with government officials, and there isn't too much open to the public. But, I'm glad I got to see it-- another museum checked off my list!
After literature class I did a little shopping and strolling through town (I still love wandering down new streets), enjoying the sunshine. After a lazy afternoon, Kenan and I met people from my cooking class to head to our teacher Michele's restaurant. We had to take a bus there which is always an adventure, but we were so glad we did! We paid 10 euro for three drinks and all the pasta and pizza and mini panini we wanted!
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
What a week!
Normally Thursdays are our last day of classes but due to a make-up class tomorrow we don't have the long weekend we're normally used to (tough life, I know, I know)! But, our teaser Thursday wasn't as bad as I thought it would be! This morning my Renaissance history class met at Santa Maria Novella, the church on the other sound of town from Santa Croce, where we went last field trip. This church's facade is interesting because it was not added to the church until years later. The facade is brimming with symbolism alluding to the family who paid for the facade's construction, and interestingly enough has no religious symbols on the whole thing!
The inside was not the most impressive, but the Architecture and frescoes are always interesting to see. The Crucifix by Giotto hanging in the center of the nave was probably my favorite piece in the church. It's always interesting to see the different interpretations of the crucifix by different artists in different churches.
After classes were over, I was reading a guide book of relatively lesser known things to find in Italy. In my reading I found out that Elizabeth Barrett Browning is buried in Florence not to far from us! We read her poetry in high school, and one of my favorite poems was by her so I was pretty excited that the cemetery she is buried in is so close. Kenan and I made an afternoon pilgrimage to her grave, and the cemetery ended up being very interesting (it's called the English cemetery, but has people from all over the Western world buried there it seems).
I'm glad we got to enjoy some sunshine since I need to be spending lots of time this weekend studying for midterms!
Lastly, it is International Women's Day, which is definitely celebrated here in Italy! All of the state museums are free for women today and there are other events around the city. Kenan bought us all tulips which are beautiful, although the traditional flower today is a small yellow flower which we've seen all around the city. Being a sucker for fresh flowers I love pretty tulips!
After classes were over, I was reading a guide book of relatively lesser known things to find in Italy. In my reading I found out that Elizabeth Barrett Browning is buried in Florence not to far from us! We read her poetry in high school, and one of my favorite poems was by her so I was pretty excited that the cemetery she is buried in is so close. Kenan and I made an afternoon pilgrimage to her grave, and the cemetery ended up being very interesting (it's called the English cemetery, but has people from all over the Western world buried there it seems).
I'm glad we got to enjoy some sunshine since I need to be spending lots of time this weekend studying for midterms!
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ALSO: Rome pictures are here!!!
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Wednesdays can be tough in Italy too!
Wednesday is just one of those days that we all kind of wish would disappear. Right in the middle of the week, it means the weekend is still pretty far away, and you haven't actually been in school long enough to actually need a weekend yet, even if you do. So, it wasn't my best day, but as I hope everyone has picked up on it by now, it's time to show you what my cooking class provided as my food therapy for the day!
Our main course was Arista alla fiorentina e Patate al rosmarino. Which is basically a pork loin and rib roasted with baked potatoes with rosemary. Yum! To season the pork Michele literally just poked big holes in the meat with the knife and stuffed whole cloves of garlic and rosemary leaves in there. Who knew that was an effective way to season meat? The potatoes were super easy as well-- literally just fresh rosemary, olive oil, salt, and pepper on potatoes put in the oven. I wasn't too much of a potato fan before I came here but oh have I been converted.
Dessert was a homemade custard cake. I don't have the pretty Italian spelling because there was no written recipe for us. First we made the dough for the crust with just eggs, butter, flour, and sugar. It was just like making pasta like last week! Then we made the custard filling with tons of egg yolks, milk, and sugar. Michele told us this is a great cake to make "if someone shows up to visit and you need to make a quick cake!" I'm not sure that situation has ever happened to me, but now I know how to handle it, phew! You just pop the crust in the oven for 30 minutes, then add the custard and let it cook some more. We had ours with pine nuts and powdered sugar on top, but you can put anything in there, like chocolate, nutella, or fresh fruit. Sounds like a fun to me!
P.S. Photo credit (well, camera credit) goes to Allison Driskill, who let me use her camera since I forgot mine on my "out of it" day. Also, her blog is really entertaining if you get bored with mine.
The first dish was pappa al pomodoro--literally translating into "mush of the tomato". Yeah I bet your mouth just started watering with that description! Well, much to my delight this "mush" is actually soup! But don't think about liquidy Campbell's soup. This one is literally just garlic, tomatoes, olive oil and bread. That's right, chunks of toasted bread that absorb all the flavors of the tomato juice. And oh boy it was delicious! Tuscany is known for its "poor"cuisine, meaning, food that anyone could make with little money back in the day! The old recipes used stale bread instead of toasted bread, making this a dish that doesn't leave any food wasted!
P.S. Photo credit (well, camera credit) goes to Allison Driskill, who let me use her camera since I forgot mine on my "out of it" day. Also, her blog is really entertaining if you get bored with mine.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
I thought I was done with the puffy jacket...
Well, the cold came back to laugh at us today! Granted, it was nothing like it was a few weeks ago, but I had to pull out the big coat again as I trudged through the Duomo's wind tunnel!
Today we got another taste of what is Italian bureaucracy! One thing they try to warn you about when studying in Italy is all the hurdles you have to jump with the Italian government to get here! You'd think that with their suffering economy Italy would welcome us wallet-carrying naive Americans here with wide open arms, or even a nice party with a cake or balloons or something. But no, even with the money I'm pumping into the Italian economy every day through tuition and my unhealthy addiction to gelato, they don't make it easy for me to be here!
The process started in November with a 24 hour trip to Philadelphia to get my student visa application submitted (with more paperwork than I ever thought possible). After getting that, I had to send many more documents to LDM just to further reinforce the fact that I would be a student in Italy. Then, when I got here we had to submit a letter to the police department (with more money, did I mention every step costs money?) to apply for our "permesso di soggiorno", an infamous term among Americans in Italy as a never ending process that you never really see any results of. So, after submitting my application to stay, then we were summoned to the "Questura" for fingerprinting. Well today, my 55th day in Italy, I became legally allowed to be here! After going to the immigration office (a comparable experience to a large DMV in America) and having them scan all 10 fingers I am in the system. Will this actually be beneficial to me in the two months I have left? Debatable. We were also told we would have to pick up our official document in 40 days, so really, the process never ends. Oh Italy, it's a good thing you're really awesome despite the stress you try to cause me!
This afternoon I got to go volunteer again at the elementary school (or Kindergarten as they call it here). I got to work mostly one-on-one with my pal Carlo, who I learned today has way less english language knowledge than I thought! So, it's going to be more ESL than regular just spelling and writing that the headmaster said it would be. It's challenging since we still don't have much guidance or support, but hopefully the kids are getting something out of it! Today we practiced some vocabulary words and the sounds the letter "a" makes. I wasn't ready to blow Carlo's mind with the vowels "e" and "i" since they are so different in his native Italian, poor kid is in for a challenge!
I've got some quizzes to study for (I go to school, remember?)... only 3 quizzes and 5 midterms are between me and spring break!
Today we got another taste of what is Italian bureaucracy! One thing they try to warn you about when studying in Italy is all the hurdles you have to jump with the Italian government to get here! You'd think that with their suffering economy Italy would welcome us wallet-carrying naive Americans here with wide open arms, or even a nice party with a cake or balloons or something. But no, even with the money I'm pumping into the Italian economy every day through tuition and my unhealthy addiction to gelato, they don't make it easy for me to be here!
The process started in November with a 24 hour trip to Philadelphia to get my student visa application submitted (with more paperwork than I ever thought possible). After getting that, I had to send many more documents to LDM just to further reinforce the fact that I would be a student in Italy. Then, when I got here we had to submit a letter to the police department (with more money, did I mention every step costs money?) to apply for our "permesso di soggiorno", an infamous term among Americans in Italy as a never ending process that you never really see any results of. So, after submitting my application to stay, then we were summoned to the "Questura" for fingerprinting. Well today, my 55th day in Italy, I became legally allowed to be here! After going to the immigration office (a comparable experience to a large DMV in America) and having them scan all 10 fingers I am in the system. Will this actually be beneficial to me in the two months I have left? Debatable. We were also told we would have to pick up our official document in 40 days, so really, the process never ends. Oh Italy, it's a good thing you're really awesome despite the stress you try to cause me!
This afternoon I got to go volunteer again at the elementary school (or Kindergarten as they call it here). I got to work mostly one-on-one with my pal Carlo, who I learned today has way less english language knowledge than I thought! So, it's going to be more ESL than regular just spelling and writing that the headmaster said it would be. It's challenging since we still don't have much guidance or support, but hopefully the kids are getting something out of it! Today we practiced some vocabulary words and the sounds the letter "a" makes. I wasn't ready to blow Carlo's mind with the vowels "e" and "i" since they are so different in his native Italian, poor kid is in for a challenge!
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| I don't know what prompted him to draw this, but it's pretty cute. |
Monday, March 5, 2012
And we're back
I have not been a very committed blogger lately so I'm going to make sure I post every day until Spring Break. Challenge accepted.
More on Rome:
After a night of somewhat restless sleep, we were awakened by the fantastic news of a victory over Dook the night before! Nothing will beat the priceless memories of rushing to my bed in Rome two hours before the game began in North Carolina. Proud to be an international Tar Heel.
Anyway, we set off on a walking tour of the city that morning which I later learned was pretty ambitious! Rome is a big city and when I looked at our walking course I was impressed at how much ground we covered. We hit the tourist hot spots in under two and a half hours like this:
Navona Square --> The Pantheon --> Trevi Fountain --> Spanish Steps --> Trajan Column --> Piazza Venezia and the Vittoriale.
So basically, it was like traveling through any movie you've ever seen set in Rome. We had a lot of fun on the beautiful morning being tourists and loving it! And, don't worry, we ran into my second South American cultural parade, this time Italian-South Americans! How do I find these things?
After the tour we went to a four-course lunch at a restaurant kind of on the outskirts of town. It was pretty good and we got to try some "typical" Roman food, like fried (or grilled? kind of a hybrid actually) vegetables, and penne in a spicy tomato sauce. We were stuffed by the end!
Our last Roman adventure was to the Catacombs of St. Domitilla. We got there and it seemed a little kitschy... very touristy for sure! The idea of catacombs is really interesting: these are over ten miles long underground, and 4 or 5 levels deep! Romans would bury their dead here super long ago and the passages are still standing! However interesting it was though, walking through skinny corridors next to places where dead people were/are is REALLY CREEPY. Fortunately, our tour was very short, and we zoomed out of Rome before the soccer game ended to beat the traffic.
Overall it was a great trip-- definitely a whirlwind adventure, and very very touristic-- but, I enjoyed Rome much more than I expected and hope to go back someday (I have a coin in the Trevi fountain to ensure it!)
Pictures are coming soon! Here's one to get you pumped up for all of them!
More on Rome:
After a night of somewhat restless sleep, we were awakened by the fantastic news of a victory over Dook the night before! Nothing will beat the priceless memories of rushing to my bed in Rome two hours before the game began in North Carolina. Proud to be an international Tar Heel.
Anyway, we set off on a walking tour of the city that morning which I later learned was pretty ambitious! Rome is a big city and when I looked at our walking course I was impressed at how much ground we covered. We hit the tourist hot spots in under two and a half hours like this:
Navona Square --> The Pantheon --> Trevi Fountain --> Spanish Steps --> Trajan Column --> Piazza Venezia and the Vittoriale.
So basically, it was like traveling through any movie you've ever seen set in Rome. We had a lot of fun on the beautiful morning being tourists and loving it! And, don't worry, we ran into my second South American cultural parade, this time Italian-South Americans! How do I find these things?
After the tour we went to a four-course lunch at a restaurant kind of on the outskirts of town. It was pretty good and we got to try some "typical" Roman food, like fried (or grilled? kind of a hybrid actually) vegetables, and penne in a spicy tomato sauce. We were stuffed by the end!
Our last Roman adventure was to the Catacombs of St. Domitilla. We got there and it seemed a little kitschy... very touristy for sure! The idea of catacombs is really interesting: these are over ten miles long underground, and 4 or 5 levels deep! Romans would bury their dead here super long ago and the passages are still standing! However interesting it was though, walking through skinny corridors next to places where dead people were/are is REALLY CREEPY. Fortunately, our tour was very short, and we zoomed out of Rome before the soccer game ended to beat the traffic.
Overall it was a great trip-- definitely a whirlwind adventure, and very very touristic-- but, I enjoyed Rome much more than I expected and hope to go back someday (I have a coin in the Trevi fountain to ensure it!)
Saturday, March 3, 2012
When in Rome...
Please excuse the cheesy title but for the first time in my life I can use the phrase and it actually be relevant!
Today we woke up at 4:30 and headed to Rome via bus. We had a jam packed day and started right away touring the coliseum, palatino, and forum. We had two hours to explore and I was a little disappointed because it was not nearly enough time! They are so interesting but with our limited time we definitely didn't get to appreciate them as much as we could have. In typical fashion of my travel experiences though we happened to be right in the middle of a protest after touring! Details are still unclear but it had something to do with the government changing the age of retirement for construction workers, and unions from all over the country came to protest. I could tell Stefano, one of my teachers and one of our guides, was a little stressed about it all!
Fortunately the protest didn't put us behind schedule and we left Italy for the smallest country in the world, the Vatican! We grabbed a quick lunch and headed into the Vatican museum with our guided tour. I could go on and on about the cool things I learned and saw but I won't bore you just yet. I think my favorite part though was St.Peter's basilica- the sheer size of it was astounding!
Our whirlwind day ended well as we got rooms in a nice hotel and had a very good Italian dinner topped off with a McDonalds sundae (this is getting to be a bad habit...)
It may be 10 pm but I have a feeling I'll be asleep soon-- another busy day in Rome awaits!
Today we woke up at 4:30 and headed to Rome via bus. We had a jam packed day and started right away touring the coliseum, palatino, and forum. We had two hours to explore and I was a little disappointed because it was not nearly enough time! They are so interesting but with our limited time we definitely didn't get to appreciate them as much as we could have. In typical fashion of my travel experiences though we happened to be right in the middle of a protest after touring! Details are still unclear but it had something to do with the government changing the age of retirement for construction workers, and unions from all over the country came to protest. I could tell Stefano, one of my teachers and one of our guides, was a little stressed about it all!
Fortunately the protest didn't put us behind schedule and we left Italy for the smallest country in the world, the Vatican! We grabbed a quick lunch and headed into the Vatican museum with our guided tour. I could go on and on about the cool things I learned and saw but I won't bore you just yet. I think my favorite part though was St.Peter's basilica- the sheer size of it was astounding!
Our whirlwind day ended well as we got rooms in a nice hotel and had a very good Italian dinner topped off with a McDonalds sundae (this is getting to be a bad habit...)
It may be 10 pm but I have a feeling I'll be asleep soon-- another busy day in Rome awaits!
Friday, March 2, 2012
Boboli Gardens and enjoying the Tuscan sun
After a long day yesterday, I needed to get out of the apartment today and enjoy a beautiful day in Florence! I woke up this morning and made pancakes for a special weekend treat (I've mastered the art of homemade pancakes using Italian ingredients... they only sell vanilla flavored baking powder here so that's been an interesting adjustment).
Kenan, Julia, and I left the apartment to go explore the Boboli Gardens on the other side of the river. They are the grounds of the Pitti Palace (of the Medici family) and the museum card we purchased covered our entrance into them. That museum pass was definitely a great investment, because I can't wait to go back! The gardens are just breathtaking and surprising large! We were there for over two hours and I don't think we saw everything! There are also really great hidden nooks for picnicking so we decided that has to happen sometime on a pretty day. Plus, being able to hear the birds chirping and smell trees and plants is something we definitely miss living in the city.
Each area of the park is unique so I put up a few pictures to show some of my favorite parts:
After we got back since our washing machine has been broken Kenan and I did a little washing in the bathtub... studying abroad is teaching me all kinds of skills let me tell you!We're off to Rome very early in the morning for two jam packed days of sightseeing! Since it is a school trip, I'm pretty sure it's going to go basically exactly like this... watch here
Kenan, Julia, and I left the apartment to go explore the Boboli Gardens on the other side of the river. They are the grounds of the Pitti Palace (of the Medici family) and the museum card we purchased covered our entrance into them. That museum pass was definitely a great investment, because I can't wait to go back! The gardens are just breathtaking and surprising large! We were there for over two hours and I don't think we saw everything! There are also really great hidden nooks for picnicking so we decided that has to happen sometime on a pretty day. Plus, being able to hear the birds chirping and smell trees and plants is something we definitely miss living in the city.
Each area of the park is unique so I put up a few pictures to show some of my favorite parts:
After we got back since our washing machine has been broken Kenan and I did a little washing in the bathtub... studying abroad is teaching me all kinds of skills let me tell you!
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