Ciao! It’s Amy again, I’ve had a great first week in Florence, Italy and there is so much for me to talk about I don’t know where to start!
My apartment is a lot nicer than I thought it would be. It’s pretty roomy compared to the tiny box I was expecting. I have 5 roommates, who are all awesome, and we have 3 two girl rooms. We also have a common area with a sitting area, a dinner table with chairs, and a kitchen. Our kitchen also contains our washing machine? We’ve already cooked a couple times in our kitchen, which was a lot of fun. Yesterday I went to the supermarket near our apartment and got things needed to make bruschetta. It turned out even better than when I’ve made it at home.
I go to class Tuesday-Thursday. I really like both of my classes so far. In my Renaissance Artist Workshop class we don’t just sit in a room listening to her lecture, we walk around the city and she tells us about what we are seeing. We even went across the river and hiked the long way up to the Palazzo Michelangelo, where you can get a GREAT panoramic view of Florence. We’ve also learned about some of the churches in the city center, the Ponte Vecchio, and the Duomo. We also went to a place called Penko where a guy makes gold and silver jewelry in the same handmade way that was used in the 15th and 16th centuries, which was very interesting.
In my Florence Food and Culture class, we get to cook! The first day we tasted different olive oils from different regions in Italy, different cheeses, salami’s, and prosciutto. And we learned about some of the history of Florentine cooking. The next day we actually got to cook, my half of the room made Florentine Crespelle and the other half made chicken with prunes. Both dishes were delicious! And I definitely plan on making them when I get home. In class on Thursday we went on a walking food tour of the city and tried some local food, including gelato. Yum :) (my favorite flavor combinations so far are passion fruit with lemon and dark chocolate with strawberry) I've also learned that you can tell if gelato is good based on 2 things: if the gelato comes way out of the container on the display it's full of preservatives and "not good," and you can also tell if natural ingredients are used based on the color of the pistachio flavor which should be a funny green/brown color, if it's not they added stuff.
I already feel like I know my way around the city pretty well. Every night this week we've just gone walking around the city. When you look at the maps everything looks far apart from each other, but it’s actually all real close together. We use the Duomo sort of like the north star, find that then we can find our way back home. The best time to wander around the city is in the evening and at night, because all the huge tourist groups are gone and everything is quieter. One night after we had some really great pizza for dinner, my roommates and I got some gelato and ended up just walking around the city without a map. We heard some music and ended up at what I now know is the Piazza della Repubblica, in the piazza was a little band with a violin, a cello, and a bass playing music and people were standing around listening. There was also a carousel, and a few restaurants around the piazza. We stayed there awhile and listened while we ate our gelato, and then we continued wandering the city.
All the Italians I've met have been really nice and helpful in giving directions. I'm even starting to pick up a few words. Though sometimes the language thing is hard, when my roommates and I were walking around a couple nights ago some people heard us talking and were like "Yes! English! Finally!" and asked us for directions. There are so many languages here with all the tourists that it is kind of nice when your walking down the street and actually recognize what someone is saying.
This weekend is going to be spent exploring the city some more. Haven't been to the other side of the river much yet and I want to go over there.
I guess that’s all right now!
-Amy
