Classes in Florence, part 1.

I'm making this post now to recall my first 2 days of class, because I know if I wait until Thursday evening I will probably have forgotten all the things that transpired in the past week.

On Mondays I have one class, and that class is Food of Italy, and it doesn't start until 6pm. So I slept in until 12:30, and it was amazing. I met up with my roommates for lunch at Caffé Duomo, where there was an awesome special offering bruschetta, salad, pasta, and wine for only 9 euro. I however, being a picky eater, opted for the pizza margherita, which was delicious and also way more food than I was prepared for.

Pizza Margherita, probably like 14 inches across

After lunch, I had some time to wander through the city. There are so so many cute little cafés and pasticcherias and gelaterias all over Florence and I would love to eat at every single one of them. There's also probably a million and one clothing and accessory shops around here, that I try to avoid going into for fear of draining my travel account before I've done any significant traveling.

At 6pm I headed over to my cooking class, which my roomie Nicole and I are in together, and oh man am I going to love this class. First, we went on a quick tour of the city, where our teacher pointed out all the best places to get gelato, paninis, espresso, wine, etc. It was incredibly helpful to someone like me who wants to visit every shop but doesn't have the time or the funds. After going over the syllabus back in class, we learned that each week we will be preparing 4 (!) new dishes, all from scratch. I'm going to learn so much about Italian cooking and I'm beyond excited.

Classroom, while Renata was making us some delicious pasta

Today, the only class I had was Italian, from noon to 1:15, which meant I had to wake up early (11am) (just kidding that's not early) (but really, sleeping til noon is awesome). Our class is made up of I think 7 other TCU students and one gentleman student from Poughkeepsie. Our teacher came in speaking Italian and really didn't speak much English to us at all, but I feel like I learned a good amount in one day.

After Italian class, I bumped into Nicole and Samantha and went with them to the Palazzo Pitti to tour the Boboli Gardens, using our amazing free museum pass provided by the lovely folks at Accent. The Boboli Gardens are extensive, and the views at the top are absolutely incredible. I imagine this used to be basically the Medicis' back yard, and I decided I'm going to have a yard like it myself one day. It was cold and damp today, but I really enjoyed getting out and exploring my first real attraction in Florence. Also I met a cat there, we became friends. I'd say it was a pretty successful outing.

View of the Palazzo from the top of the gardens

The Tuscan hills, from the top of the gardens

Before my roommates headed off to class we stopped into a little pizzeria off the Duomo Piazza and had a delicious, cheap meal. I got a calzone and a diet coke for only 4 euro and it filled my stomach as well as my soul. Cheap, delicious food is my favorite. On my way back to the apartment it started to snow (it had been kind of misting icy rain all day) so I decided this was the best time to buy some Italian leather boots. There are saldis (sales) everywhere these days, so I was able to snag a cute, comfy pair for only 60 euros.

On Via Dante Alighieri

Salame Piccante and Mozzarella calzone

Tomorrow I have my first design class - CAD for Interiors II. It's from 3 to 8:30pm and I hope I enjoy it as much as I've enjoyed the last couple days.

Italy, so far

This is only my 4th day here but already it feels like I've been here for weeks. A lot has happened since I've gotten here, so I'll try to get everyone up to speed. Be aware, this post may read like a novel and I apologize for that.

After an extremely long but pretty uneventful day of travel I landed at Florence's Peretola airport. It's very small, and kind of confusing, so we accidentally ended up walking straight out the exit without picking up our bags... luckily they let us back in and very soon we loaded up into taxis and were on our way to the Hotel Medici.

Day 1 was the hardest for me so far I think. Not until I landed in Florence did I really understand just what I had gotten myself into. Until a few weeks ago, I had planned on traveling and rooming with one of my best friends, and when I first found out she had dropped the program I didn't know what to think. It hadn't occurred to me that not really knowing anyone I was going to Italy with would make me feel so isolated and uncomfortable, but that was pretty much the flavor of my first day. With no working phone or internet I instantly felt very, very homesick. It really hit me how sad I felt to be leaving behind my wonderful friends, family, and boyfriend. After taking a nap and walking around the city with my hotel roomie Laura I did feel better about being here. Florence is beautiful, and I'm definitely not as alone as I felt, so I should really try not to worry so much and just enjoy this time while I have it. (That's another thing, for some reason until I actually arrived in Florence, I had no perception of how long 4 months is really going to be.)

That evening, Accent took us all out to dinner at Ristorante Centopoveri. We all ate a ton of food (I really thought the pasta was all we were getting, since it was very filling, but then came the pizza, the pork ribs, the sausage, the chicken, and potatoes) and I had the most delicious Tiramisu ever.

Day 2 began at 8am, with all 30 something TCU students standing out in the streets waiting for taxis to take us to our apartments. I met my new roomies, Samantha and Nicole, and we had some time to get settled into our amazing little apartment. It's basically in the basement of a building on Via San Gallo. We have 2 bedrooms (one which I get all to myself), a cute little kitchen complete with stove, oven, microwave and 2 refrigerators, bathroom, dining area/living room (with what I'm going to guess is a 12" TV), a nice patio in the center of the building which leads to our tiny laundry room, and also a terrace outside the bedrooms for hanging laundry. We have very consistent internet access (which I'm not ashamed to say made me feel much more comfortable here) and heat for 9 hours out of the day or something. It's much better than I was expecting and I'm glad for that.

Kitchen

My room

Patio, that's the laundry room in the back

View into my room from the back terrace

At 1:30 we met with the rest of the group and our Accent guide on the steps of the Duomo (kind of amazing that that's going to be a regular meeting place for some of us now) and went on a very brisk "practical" walking tour of the city. We kind of learned where phone stores are, where doctors are, which ones speak English, how to get taxis (you can't hail them here), and how not to get pickpocketed. At our Accent orientation we learned much of the same, especially how not to get pickpocketed. We probably learned other things but all I really took away from it was 'don't talk to strangers' and 'keep an eye on your stuff'. After that orientation I got a delicious turkey, fontina, and pesto sandwich from Gusto Panino, headed back to the apartment and slept hard.

Day 3 started at 11:30, after sleeping in probably way too late and rushing over to the Accent center with my roommates to get to our academic orientation. At Lorenzo de' Medici we learned where all our classes would be, how 'strict' their attendance policy is, and how seriously they take their clubs around here. After hearing about volunteer opportunities the school offered I decided that might be a good way for me to get more involved in the city around me and hopefully take my mind off of my homesickness.

After that orientation we were free to roam the streets of Florence. Many of us walked through the famous leather market on our way to the city center to buy cell phones (I still haven't gotten an Italian microSIM to use in my iPhone. I may be the only person not using a cheap go-phone while over here). We saw so many adorable shops and market stalls and gelaterias that I just can't wait to visit every single one of these places. My roommates and I headed back to our apartment, stopping for dinner at Rosticceria Il Pirata. It was a little cafeteria style place, where we could pick our food out of a buffet of many different selections and then pay by weight. I had spinach and fontina tortellini with a salmon cream sauce and pork chops with pesto. It was quick, cheap, and delicious. Later that evening we ventured over to Il Centro, the nearest grocery store. It was a little overwhelming trying to buy groceries in a language I don't understand. I ended up buying very little, which is apparently very normal for the Italians. Most people here buy groceries to last them a day or two. I think in the future when we can decide what we want to cook for dinner it will be much easier to go into the grocery store and buy exactly what we want.

It's Saturday morning now, and we've got the whole weekend off, so I hope to do a little exploring as well as some shopping before my classes start on Monday. Monday is my cooking class, which my roommate Nicole happens to be in with me, so I'll let you all know how things are going after that.

Itinerary

Oh geez I'm leaving the country tomorrow.

My day of travel will hopefully go something like this:

Leave Houston at 9am. Jaunty 5 hour flight to Philadelphia.
Take leisurely stroll through airport before departing on 8 hour flight for Frankfurt in the evening.
Another leisurely stroll through Frankfurt airport before a relaxing 1.5 hour flight to Florence.
Arrive in Italy at 10am local time, try not to lose my friggin mind attempting to get from airport to hotel.
Check into hotel, catch breath, run through Florence like a kid in a candy store.

Honestly though, at this point I can't even picture what's going to happen after I get on that first plane. It's all completely unfathomable to me.

To do.

As my departure date draws nearer (holy crap I'm going to be in another country in less than 3 days), I figure it's probably a good idea to gather my thoughts about what it is I hope to accomplish while studying abroad. I've spent my winter break reading through a 1000 page Rick Steves' guide hoping to get a more thorough grasp of where it is I'm actually going and what I can do there.

So here's a little list of things I'd like to do across the pond:

• learn to cook real Italian food Currently working on a book of my favorite recipes. Look for it in stores next Fall!
• find the best gelato in Florence (I don't mind eating gelato every day if that's what it takes) It's at Emporio Gelato on the Ponte Santa Trinita. Straciatella's my favorite, but they also have things like Black Sesame or Pink Grapefruit
  
• climb the Duomo, maybe the Campanile too while I'm at it  Both accomplished, 5/12
  
• buy something awesome at the leather market in Florence  3/18/12
  
• take a cheesy picture in front of the leaning tower of Pisa  3/10/12
• hike through the Cinque Terre 5/11/12
• go to Venice for Carnevale, buy awesome masks  2/10/12
• see some real Italian glassblowing in Murano  3/23/12
• eat pizza and visit the Archaeological Museum in Naples  4/21/12
  
• visit Pompeii  4/22/12
• see the Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, Roman Forum, etc. in Rome 2/17/12 - 2/19/12
  
• visit Dante's tomb in Ravenna/home in Florence
• maybe hop on over to the French Riviera? Monte Carlo? Paris? 3/1/12 - 3/4/12
• visit as many places I've studied in History of Interiors as possible

We'll see how much of this I actually accomplish in my 4 short months.

18.

I'm leaving for Italy in 18 days.

It's amazing and exciting, but also...
Oh man what am I getting myself into