We started classes this week. I don’t have a Monday class which is nice and should make traveling easier. In the evening we had a welcome dinner at the Borghese Palace in Florence. It was a beautiful venue with giant chandeliers, massive mirrors, and gilded everything. We were expecting a sit down dinner but it was buffet style with 3 different courses…appetizers, pastas, desserts. It was all very good; some more so than others.
Roomies at the palace welcome dinner.
Tuesday
Erika and I started out the day with our Classic Photography class. I brought my mom’s old manual camera she used when taking photography classes in college. My teacher examined it for a long time which made me nervous but he actually was very impressed by how well it was repaired and suggested it as an example of what other students should buy. We went over the course description in class and then took a trip around Florence to buy all of the supplies we needed. The class is from 9am to 2:30 pm with a 30 minute break for lunch at noon. For our lunch break Erika, myself and two girls from our class went over to our school’s café, aka “the bar”, to eat. Cheap food that is very good…1.80€ sandwiches, 3.00€ pastas, etc. I’ll probably only eat there on Tuesday’s because for the rest of the week I’m able to eat at home.
After photography I had my first Italian class. The classroom is extremely tiny…probably about 7’ wide and 10’ long. There are only 8 other students in the class so the learning is very personal. Our teacher doesn’t speak English so it was a little frustrating but hopefully I’ll start to pick it up quickly. Not knowing the language has been harder than I expected. Florence has a ton of American students and tourists so most natives speak at least a little English but I hate relying on that. I’ve caught myself trying to use French a lot as well…I didn’t realize how much of it I remembered...might have to make a weekend trip up to France to practice.
Wednesday
Today I headed off to my Foods of Italy cooking class! After the frustrating grocery store experience I was very excited to learn about Italian cooking. My teacher is an adorable little Italian woman. She’s so excited about cooking and teaching us about Italy. It’s a 2.5 hour course so we’ll spend half the class learning techniques and the other half preparing a dish. We made a DELICIOUS potato/leek soup with crunchy croutons for our first dish. I really wanted to make it for my roommates but we don’t have the blender necessary to puree the vegetables at home. For the class we have a couple scheduled field trips…one to a wine bar and one to a full dinner at an Italian restaurant. This is by far my favorite class right now!
Since I was done with class at 11:30am I spent the rest of the day wandering the city. Florence in the winter is rainy most of the time so I’m in desperately in need of some rain boots. Unfortunately, my indecisive shopping style has prevented me from committing to a pair.
Thursday
Today’s my day to sleep in. I don’t have classes until 3pm so I took advantage of my opportunity to sleep. In the evenings I get distracted/excited by researching places to travel and end up not going to sleep until late late in the night/morning. I had my Italian class again today and then my first wine tasting class after that. For wine tasting we met in the same kitchen as my cooking class. We tried 5 different wines…2 white, 2 red, and one sparkling red. We’re going to cover a different region of Italy each class period and learn about history of region along the way. This class takes a couple field trips as well…one to a winery and another to a local wine store. I’m very excited!
Friday
Erika and I headed off to our interior design class today, Display Design. Our professor is a local architect who seems very intriguing. He’s much more serious than our other professors which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The first part of class he spent telling us all about himself and some of his views on life, art, and design. It was very inspiring and definitely got me excited to learn a new perspective on design. I think the course load will be a little heavier than we expected but hopefully some good portfolio pieces will come from it.
After class got out at 2:30 we met our roommates and headed to the train station to take the free bus to Ikea! It was about a 30 minute bus ride to get there. We didn’t have much we needed but really just wanted to explore outside the city. At IKEA we picked up a few basics…small skillet, ice trays, trash can….nothing very exciting. We looked at the wrong bus schedule to get us back to town and ended up missing the bus twice before we figured it out. Not a big deal just took a lot longer to get home than expected.
Saturday
Today Erika and I ventured out in search of my rain boots and a purse for her. We headed in the direction of some tourist spots so we could multi-task. We came across a specialty market in the Piazza Santa Croce, entered the Orsanmichele church, wandered by the Piazza della Sinoria, and found the wild boar at the Piazza della Repubblica.
Erika at the market in from of St. Croce.
Inside Orsanmichele church...originally built as a straw market.
View across the Piazza della Signoria looking at the Palozzo Vecchio.
Being a tourist in the Piazza della Signoria.
Neptune fountain.
Tons of specialty shops everywhere...just felt like taking a picture of this meat shop.
Piazza della Republicca.
Look familiar?? They call him Porcellino meaning "little pig".
For dinner, Mel made her mom’s spaghetti carbonara recipe for us and it was delicious. I love having roommates that aren’t picky eaters and like to cook!
Today we slept in pretty late….our rooms are extremely dark when the shutters are closed so it’s hard to tell the time of day. The bells of St. Croce woke me up…not too shabby of an alarm clock. After a lazy morning we wandered over to explore St. Croce further. It’s our first tourist attraction we’ve paid for which is amazing. Inside the church, the walls and floors are lined with tombs…276 in all I believe. Some of the highlights were Michelangelo and Galileo’s tombs, Dante’s memorial, Giotto’s Death of St. Francis fresco, Pazzi chapel, and Gaddi’s frescoes in the Baroncelli chapel.
Galileo's Tomb.
Tombs cover the nave floor.
Cloisters.
Pazzi Chapel.
Mel, Rachael, Erika.
haha i like the picture of the meat shop, my mom definitely took a picture of a meat shop when we were in Germany and we joke about it. lol.
ReplyDeleteGorgeous pictures!! So, get excited to cook and pick out wine for us when you get back! By then i'll know how to take out your gallbladder and pancreas, should that occasion ever arise. btw, surgeons work LONG hours, not really a fan! Missin you!