Mom-Friendly Post...Again

Here is my second part of last night's post to go along with convincing all of you that I am not just a wild party animal (...or am I?) and that I'm sitting at my laptop diligently doing homework (...or so you think...). Anywayssss I wanted to write this in the middle of the day today (it's 4pm here) to elaborate on my cultural literacy class that I spoke about yesterday and to fill you in on my culinary adventures here in Italia thus far.

Cultural Literacy is everything I hoped it'd be! Sarah Barker is the name of the cute little Australian woman who teaches the class and she's wonderful. Today we went to a cafe and sat for an hour and a half drinking coffee/hot chocolates/milkshakes and talking about what we've observed of Italian culture since arriving here. It was great! Completely relaxed atmosphere and fantastic conversation.

OKAY. Now on to the yummy stuff...literally. As most of you know, my skilled mother Virginia is a very accomplished cook. Her ways in the kitchen must have rubbed off on my hands picking at the dinner before it was done because it seems I have a talent in the kitchen (if you can call the closet with a stove that we have here a kitchen) here in Italia! Living with 10 girls can be rough but one thing I'm glad we've got into the habit of doing are family dinners. My one roommate Jess and I go to the market almost every day and pick up groceries for whatever dish we've decided to prepare that night. Then the rule states that you pay your share of the dinner groceries (it usually only comes out to about 3 or 4 euros) before you get your plate of food. Everyone gets fed a delicious meal (if I don't say so myself!) for less than it costs to order WATER in a restaurant! Woohoo!

Here is what I have made so far and a quick writeup of what I did to prepare it. Weeeeeeeeeeee.

Parmesan Encrusted Chicken with Sauteed Veggies on the Side
This I must give a shoutout to my roomz back at Penn State for. We found this recipe one night on the foodnetwork and decided to try it out. It ended up being totally easy and totally amazing! It's really the simplest thing ever. We just seasoned the chickens with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and parmesan cheese and threw 'em in the pan for 7 minutes on each side...until the cheesey chicken is a scrumptious brown. The veggies we just kept on low heat in the back while we cooked all 12 chicken cutlets so they cooked slowly in oil and a lot of minced up garlic. YUM. It was a perfect first family dinner and totally got me a reputation as culinary genius with the ladies.

Zee Best Drunk Food We've Ever Consumed
Sorry parents but this has to be said. One night we came home from the club and were starving. This place isn't like college where you can order Are You Hungry or Gumbys and it comes to your front door within 5 minutes at 3 in the morning. We have to fend for our munchies ourselves here. So we get home and raid the kitchen. I don't even know how it happened but we combined everything we had into the most amazing tasting pasta slash THE ABSOLUTE BEST drunk food I've ever consumed in my life. I don't have a picture because we were more concerned with consuming it so you're going to have to take my word for it but my roommates can vouch for me. It was divine. We talked about it all the next day and realized we probably wouldn't be able to re-invent it in the kitchen. We'd just have to live with the fact that one night we came home and prepared a culinary masterwork of art...lost forever to the sober world.

Chicken Caprese
Basically I was sitting in class last week brainstorming about food (it was history of food class, my brain couldn't help but wander!) and I was like mmmmm there's nothing like a delicious fresh caprese salad and then I was like mmmm chicken and then I was like BAM!!!!!!!!!!!! HOW GREAT WOULD IT BE TO PUT TOMATO, MOZZ AND BASIL ON TOP OF CHICKEN. So then I got super excited and Nisha, my roommate who's also in my class, was like calm down we still have half an hour. The minute class ended I rushed to meet Jess, we went to the market and bought fresh delicious ingredients and went home. After a nap and some homework I embarked on my vision. Sidenote: we should really be given a medal for providing delicious meals for 10 girls in this small kitchen. We have a stove but no oven which nixes out a bunch of recipes but we've been managing. The most annoying thing is the stove, like everything and everyone else in Italy, is small. So we can only make like 2 cutlets at a time. 15 minutes cooking each chicken through and 5 shifts of 2 cutlets means a long time spent preparing these meals. Keeping them warm is an issue but we've really managed well. Chicken Caprese turned out amazing and looked even better. CHECK IT.

Mashup of Everything Leftover In the Fridge
Another night we had forgotten to go to the market and were sitting around at 6 complaining that we were hungry but not moving. So we got the water boiling dumped in 2 boxes of pasta and set out to create something to go on top. I had previously yelled up the stairs to have all the roommates come down and donate some type of vegetable or meat or anything that could be used in pasta. Together we had accumulated 2 bell peppers, 1 large cucumber, some of Christine and Allie's leftover prosciutto, 2 cloves of garlic from Jess and some leftover sauce from Nisha. Combining it all together we somehow managed to make a delicious sauce that worked great with everything in it. It was the perfect dinner...especially because we were all rushing to get ready since our naps had all gone into overtime. Success!

Chicken Saltimbocca and Homemade Bruschetta
This is what we made last night and O. M. G. Mom, you've made this before so I tip my hat to you because this was incred. It looks so difficult but it was actually really easy and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone looking to impress their future in laws or just to please themselves. Jess is my designated sioux chef but since all the girls have been telling their moms what I've been cooking, they've been told to take a few pointers as well! Sooooo there were three chefs in the kithcen last night. It was tight but having Ariana in there definitely helped it go a  lot more smoothly and the division of labor was a lot easier to handle. For the bruschetta we bought fresh tomatoes, basil and a baguette. We "parboiled" the tomatoes...a phrase I had never heard of before last night. Basically you boil water and once it starts boiling you remove it from the heat and drop the tomatoes in for like two minutes. Then we removed them to ice water and peeled the skins off. After quartering them and removing the insides we chopped 'em up and added them to a bowl of garlic, oil, balsamic vinegar, chopped up basil and salt/pepper to taste. We sliced and toasted the baguette and voila! Delicious. For the chicken we needed the cutlets, prosciutto, freshly grated parmesan (that we grated ourselves!) and spinach. The recipe called for frozen spinach but why would we use frozen when we have the freshest market five minutes away from us. I don't know if they have them in the states but we bought these spinach balls. It looked like cooked spinach that had then been balled up and somehow stayed in that shape. We wbought two, broke up the spinach with some olive oil and seasoned it. We seasoned both sides of the 12 cutlets with salt and pepper then laid 2 or 3 slices of prosciutto on top of the chicken. Then we spread some of the spinach mixture on top and then some of the Parmesan. Here's the fun part. We rolled up the cutlets so that they looked like little jellyrolls and threw them in the pan. We forgot to buy chicken broth so we had to improvise with the sauce a little but they came out SO delicious!! It was a great meal.

Tonight seems like a pasta and sauce night since we're all about to nap and then want to get ready to go out. I'm about to go for my nap and then probs just heat up some sauce and some pasta before heading out. Ciao for now!!

School? I Think Not.

I've decided to dedicate this post solely to my school experience thus far so that my poor mother (who I know stalks this religiously) and whichever other adults are reading this don't think that my time here has been spent entirely on boozin' and cruisin'.

School is not real. Sorry mom, dad, and anyone else who claims to be an adult, but it's not. Let's start with the basics. The school that I attend here is called Palazzo Rucellai. It's on Via de Vigna Nuova, an easy five minute walk from my apartment. Classes take place in two locations -- either in the actual SCHOOL (one floor of classrooms and like six administrative desks) or in the LIBRARY (another entrance just around the corner from the school). The building is literally a palace dating back to the 15th century when this guy named Rucellai (pronounced Roosh-eh-lAIII) accumulated a s*!t ton of money and decided to make a name for himself and his family in this sweet townhouse. Over the years the building has been passed down through the family hands and broken into pieces and inherited by different parts of the family. So when the education institute finally got their hands on it they only got two floors of it...one floor for the actual school and one floor for the library. This means that when we climb the stairs to get to school each morning, we're literally passing people's homes when we pass their floors.

What didn't hit me until the other day when my History of Food professor made us stop and look around is that we're literally sitting in a 15th century palace. Everything is original. The artwork on the encasing walls is intricate and covers from floor to ceiling. When you gaze up your eyes are met with gorgeous frescos dating back to when Rucellai commissioned them himself! Corners are filled with shields of arms representing the different families that have controlled the palace since Rucellai himself. There are warnings on all the doors to not slam them and handle them lightly since they are originals from the FIFTEENTH CENTURY and probably prone to breaking....ya think? It's truly spectacular...and something to not be taken lightly or forgotten or looked over as I'm sure so many have. 

chillin in my palace

casually engraved ceiling. nbd.

So, now that we've gotten how amazing my school is and how jealous you all are of where I get to sit every day...let's move on to actual school work. I know, I know...how long can it actually take to get to speaking about school work????? SORRAY MOM.

As you should all know if you are TRUE blog followers...I'm taking 5 classes. I added one since last time - don't be surprised. Here they are!

1. Beginner Italian 

2. History and Culture of Food

3. History of Florence

4. The Business of Art

5. Cultural Literacy of Italian Culture

I can't even tell you which is my favorite since they're all incredible. I CAN say that my favorite TEACHER is probably David [; )] He teaches my Italian class and he is absolutely precious. I love his teaching style. We only just learned the actual alphabet like yesterday but I already know so much! It's based a lot on immersion. He just speaks to us in Italian and teaches as he goes along. I know a bunch of phrases already and I feel like I'm picking it up really quickly!

The other class I had today was History and Culture of Food. It's taught by this little German man whose accent throws me right back into Andrea's house (if you're reading, ciao!) Today when we got to the classroom he had us all stand up and walk outside. We proceeded on an hour and a half tour of food markets in Florence! We stopped in at a really famous gelateria called GROM and my teacher treated all 26 of us to free gelato! Talk about a way to learn!! Things to look forward to in this class: a field trip to a chef's house who will teach us how to prepare a meal, wine tasting in class, more outdoor excursions, and lots of talking about food. YUM.

famous GROM

My third most interesting class is History of Florence taught by Simon Young. Simon is a 30/40 year old English professor learned in history and philosophy. A very bizarre yet incredibly interesting mind. The class meets for three hours on Wednesdays (thank god Christine is in class with me). Now, we're studying abroad in Italy. We want to go exploring and take advantage of every minute we have. So when we found out we'd be in class from 3-6pm every Wednesday we were pretty bummed. But after last week's class my mind has been calmed. We meet in the class room for the first hour and a half and then the second part of every class is a field trip...to somewhere outside in the city. Let us really get assimilated into Florence! Wonderful! Last week was our first trip. We took the bus (first bus ride!!) to Fiesole, a small town on the outskirts of the city, to see the Etruscan/Roman ruins. Despite the early start (the trip got moved to Friday morning at 9am) and the bitter cold and biting wind, Christine and I returned even more excited for what was to come. The ruins were amazing. Standing outside, the wind whistling around us, it was really incredible to imagine what it must have been like to be living in ancient times...walking up to this stone slab now just sitting in the middle of a grassy field, but back then used for sacrificial offerings....or taking a stroll to the social bath houses where you would meet your friends and get scrubbed down by slaves. The weather brought the trip down a considerable amount. I really can't even describe to you how cold it was. Needless to say we were both very excited to get back to our rooms and under the covers.

Christine and I at the top of Fiesole overlooking Firenze

in the amphitheater 

rUiinZ

The Business of Art seems interesting and very much unlike what I expected it to be. It's about the inner workings of the art collectors/dealers circle...how pieces of art are priced, how prices stay up (even if unwarranted), how collectors go about choosing pieces, etc. Since so much of Florence's history revolves around art I'm excited to learn more about this circle that I've never known.

The last class on the list is my cultural literacy class. I just signed up for it so I haven't attended yet. It's only a one credit class and meets once a week as well. All I know about it is that it is taught by a FABULOUS australian lady who tries to teach us how to separate ourselves from our American lens and start looking through an Italian lens. It sounds really interesting and the teacher really seems like the cutest little lady. I'm sure I'll love it. Plus it's a one credit once a week class that helps me better understand the people I'm surrounded by for the next few months...so it most definitely can't hurt.

Anyways! That's all for now. The roomiez and I are all caught up in planning spring break and weekend travels so it's a little stressed here at the apartment. Until tomorrow! Ciao!!!!!

the inevitable has happened.

I'm sick. meh. Living the life in florence has finally caught up with me. This means that I slept all day (literally all day, I've consumed one meal) in hopes to get better by tomorrow. Which also means I do not have the energy to update 6 days of my life that I am behind in. Sorry peeps - I'll do more tomorrow. But, I won't leave you hanging too much. Here is a recap of my first europtrip with the roomiez....to Pisa we go! (slash went...yesterday..)

Our train left the station at 9:28am so we decided to take it easy the night before. Luckily the train is right down the block from our apartment so we walked, met up with our friend Joe who was joining our lovely lady group for the day, and grabbed some breakfast at the station. There was a little confusion on how to validate the tickets and proceed with the boarding of the train but we figured ourselves out and got situated. WEEEE our first Italian train ride!!

roomskis first train ride!

The train took an hour and we arrived in fabulous Pisa! Pisa, as wonderful a city as it is, really has not much else going for it besides the little-known Leaning Tower. So - to make sure we didn't waste 12 euro on a day of seeing one site, I navigated my way through my trusty little guidebook and led the girls on a great round trip tour of the little city. Here are some of the other things we got to experience in Pisa....

Chiesa di Santa Maria della Spina

crazy vending machine pizza/pasta

and a trip to Europe's oldest botanical garden!!

Of course...the reason why you travel to Pisa, and the reason my profile picture is as cliche as the other 27 people on facebook that have the same one....the famous Leaning Tower finally came upon us. The piazza where it's located is pretty breathtaking...simply because it's not just the Tower standing alone. There's the Tower, the majestic Duomo (no rival to our own in Firenze but magnificent just the same), the Baptisteria and the Camposanto Monumentale.

il Duomo

group photo in front of the Baptisteria

The weather was pretty awful and it started drizzling almost as soon as we got there so we got to posing for pictures ASAP. Luckily, since there were 11 of us we were able to commandeer the best spot for "holding up the tower" pictures and shove everyone else out of the way. Check it, homez.

saweeeeet!

Wow...I almost forgot to talk about what it was actually like IN THE TOWER!! It was 15 euro to climb it and so far has been the best 15 euro I've spent. After checking our bags in lockers at the ticket station we embarked on our adventure up, up, and away. As all of you should know, the tower leans. Laugh you might but one of my roommates (I won't name any names but coughJESScough) put up her pictures this morning and named the album "I survived the LEADING TOWER OF PISA." When confronted she was truly confused. Needless to say she's one of the good ones ; ) Entering the tower was great...the door was even lopsided. Ascending the stairs was the weirdest experience. You could actually FEEL the lean of the tower.You found yourself against opposite walls or sidestepping to regain your balance. The 287 stairs (Christine and the internet say 294 but I counted OUTLOUD 287) were a hike and we were all pretty out of breath...that's a lie I was completely out of breath and others were wheezing...once we reached the top. The stairs were a spiral staircase that never seemed to end. The last 20 or so steps were outside and pretty treacherous. Ari was wearing heeled boots so we had a buffer zone of 5 people in front and behind her in case she fell. Haha...always looking out. The top was unreal. Even scarier since now you were standing on the top of a building with only a handrail guarding you from the ground...whilst leaning at a definite angle. We made our way cautiously through but the danger was completely worth it when you saw the view. I mean...talk about a VIEW. I can't even begin to make you understand but hopefully these pictures do it some justice...

the whole fam!

We had been toying with the idea of making the Pisa day trip into a Pisa/Lucca day trip since Lucca is only 30 more minutes by train and my guidebook has a fantastic bike tour for it BUT since the weather wasn't up to par and since we had a pretty planned out night ahead of us we decided to head home. The Tower is legitimately at the farthest spot from the train station that could be picked so we picked up the pace to get back to the station in time to catch the earliest train. We stopped on the way, however, for what Frommers claimed was "the best gelato in Pisa." Indeed, Frommers, my trusty friend, you were right again. And I, as well as my roommates, would venture to say La Bottega del Gelato is better than any gelato we've picked up here in Florence as of yet. I got Nutella and Tiramisu and mmmmmmm it was to die for.

zee bestest gelato een town

Our plans ended up falling through last night so we headed over to Naima...get used to this name as it has become our favorite night spot to frequent in Florence and we have become regulars. The owner, Sergio, even knows us! It's a really great bar..not rowdy but a very nice ambiance...perfect for hanging out before going to the clubs or just getting a drink with the girls and going home for an early sleep. Love it!!

our favorite bartender!

I woke up this morning (does 1:30pm count as morning?) with a terrible sore throat and absolutely stuffed up. I bundled up and ventured outside to get some sustenance and then got immediately back into my jammies, made some tea and hung around the apartment. Hopefully a good night's sleep tonight might help me recover by tomorrow!

Until then,
arrivederci!

I TAKE IT BACK.

Remember yesterday when I said those prosciutto, mozzarella sandwiches we made were the best thing ever? Jess and I just made them again (since we really do have a lifetime supply of prosciutto) and instead of just putting oil on the bread we put oil and garlic on each side of the bread then put it in the frying pan for a few minutes until it browned and THEN put the prosciutto and mozarella on. I've never been more satisfied. What was fantastic yesterday was 26 times MORE incredible this time around.

Note to self: If I ever open up my own cafe or restaurant or something that has some type of sustenance...THAT will be on the menu.

this is what it looked like yesterday....so multiply that by 26x deliciousness and you'll get what just entered my mouth

Now I'm going to go sit and bask in my happiness and wait for my roommates to come home so I can tell them about our incredible meal. Ciao.

Nuovi Amici

One major problem with living with 10 girls is getting peer pressured into going out. That's a lie I definitely wanted to go out we had a lot of fun BUT I would have been totally fine writing my blog and chilling out here too. Tonight the girls (my 9 roommates and I) went to Naima...probably our favorite bar here. It's this cute bar that's nice...not very American and pretty classy. And they have a fabulous drink special - happy hour from 9-11 where all mixed drinks are only 3 euro and all beers/shots are 2 euro. If you wanna check it out here's the link!! (http://www.naimafirenze.it/). The bartender/owner named Sergio friended my roommate Jess on facebook and they've been talking via facebook chat but the past two nights that we've been at Naima Jess has been too embarassed and awkward to introduce herself and say that they've been speaking. So tonight I finally tricked her into letting Sergio know she exists. It was entertaining. There's this club called YAB (http://www.yab.it/), which stands for You Are Beautiful, that is a pretty classy club here. Supposedly all the guys wear suits and you're let in based on how good you look. A bunch of our friends went to YAB but we ended up being too tired and too eager to blog to meet them there. Guess we'll save it for another time!!

OKAY i have two days to blog about so HERE GOES.

SUNDAY:
As I wrote Sunday morning, SPACE was cuh ray zee. For those who want to see just what I was dealing with you can check their website at http://www.spaceelectronic.net/ ORRR check out my 30 second video of craziness on my facebook at http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1407412510044.  It was crazy fun but me, Christine and Kristie came home earlier than everyone else because I was a leeeeeeeetle sad (HINT HINT TO YOU...you know who you are). It was a great time though and I can't wait to go back. They have a hanging spaceship that is the coolest thing EVA.

Christine and I woke up on Sunday thinking it was 5am and ready to go back to bed but then realizing it was already noon. I woke up really craving eggs (and really sad that they don't sell real eggs in this country). Legitimately all I wanted was a breakfast sandwich. THAT'S ALL. We have a McDonald right down the street from us that Christine suggested but don't worry! I haven't caved into fast food just yet. Instead I pulled up trusty Google and typed "Do they sell eggs in Florence?" My answer? YES. I found this amazing little real American diner smack in the middle of some random alley in Florence only 10 minutes from my apartment. The best part? THEY SERVE BRUNCH ALL DAY AND HAVE REAL AMERICAN EGG DISHES. You can imagine my excitement. We woke up, got the rest of the apartment up and headed out. Easily enough it was just called "The Diner" and truly great.

just smack dab in the middle of nowhere!!

On the review site it said they were renowned for their eggs and their burgers which posed a significant problem because I can't resist a good burger but I really had been craving eggs. I ended up splitting eggs benedict and a bacon cheeseburger with my roommate Christine. Who said you can't have the best of both worlds?! PS: You didn't have to pay for water at the diner. So it really WAS like America!!! We lasted five days without American food before we caved. oops.

mMmMmMmM

 After the Diner we embarked on our FIRST OFFICIAL WALKING TOUR LED BY YOURS TRULY. For those of you who know my family...and know even better Virginia...you know how much my family loves them walking tours. Virginny always buys those little touring books with 15 walking tours each showing every crazy part of the certain town that we're visiting. Obviously Viriginia bought me one of Florence/Tuscany.  The tour took us four hours and we visited 11 spots. It was a tour entitled: Centro Storico...aka the historical center of Florence. TOTALLY FAB. This is what it included...

1. Ponte Vecchio
2. Piazza della Signoria
3. Palazzo Vecchio
4. Rivoire
5. Basilica di Santa Croce
6. Vivoli
7. Museo Nazionale del Bargello
8. Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore
9. Campanile di Giotto
10. Battistero San Giovanni
11. Basilica di San Lorenzo

I was a FABULOUS tour guide...as anyone who knows me might imagine. Thanks for teaching me all your ways, mom! We learned a lot and every single place on the tour was incredible. Just beautiful. We had to stop and just sit and look around at times because it was so crazy and how intense the art and beauty was. Hmmmmm I think that was all for Sunday.

PSU girls making our own lion shrine at Palazzo Vecchio in Florence! (#1 rule don't touch the statues...woops)

best tour guide 2011

MONDAY: 

FIRST DAY OF CLASSES!!! I wrote about my classes yesterday morning but just to recap them they 

were great!! I only had Italian and History of Food and Culture on Monday but they were fab. My Italian teacher is named David...not DAY-vid....DAH-veed. He will not respond if you call him DAY-vid. This is what I learned in Italian today.
"Buongiorno, come ti chiami? Mi chiamo Emily, e tu? Di dove sei? Sono Americano, di New York." BENE!
History and Culture of Food was pretty interesting too. My teacher is a German man who has a PhD in Nuclear Politics (what a switch in interests!). We didn't really do anything besides go over the syllabus but it looks interesting. I also have a few friends in the class so it should be fun.

After class  Christine, Jess and I decided to go find the market and buy some food for lunch. We finally stumbled onto it and then set out to conquer making transactions in Italian for the first time. Here is the end result:
1/2 kg DELICIOUS CRUSTY bread (4 euro)
2 balls of the most fresh and amazing mozzarella ever (4 euro)
1/2 kg of fresh sliced prosciutto (6 euro)
We went home and made sandwiches with olive oil which actually turned out to be incredible AS WELL AS our first home made meal (sort of...if you count sandwiches as home-made meals.)
Then we went back out and explored a little...ending up in the ghetto which happens to be conveniently right next to our apartment...and filled with the most African Americans I've seen at once in this country since arriving. Then my day got pretty uneventful...I took a nap that was supposed to only be an hour but Christine forgot to wake me up so it ended up being 2.5 hours. woops.

OH. then we made an amazing dinner. we made a tomato sauce with prosciutto and garlic and onions and put it over pasta. it was PHENOM! I  actually felt like my stomach was going to explode after...i'll have to cut back on those portion sizes if I don't want to come back obese....plus this country is made for baby sized people and I'm pretty sure if I gain 10 pounds I won't be able to fit in the shower...take a look...

these showers are made for legit babies.

Here is where we decided to go to Naima so that's basically a wrap up of my past two days!! Gotsta go to sleeeeeeeeep PZ OUT AMERICA.

And So It Begins...

GOODMORNING!!

It’s 8:40 in the morning here. First day of classes!!! My first class is at 9:30. It’s my Italian language class. Bene! I’m taking four classes in total…

·      *  The Florence Experience

·      *  The History and Culture of Food

·      *  Business of Art

·      *  Florence: The Story of the City

The Florence Experience is my language class and meets every day at 9:30 am. So no need to worry about sleeping my days away. The History and Culture of Food sounds awesome…and if you don’t think so you are truly weird. Supposedly it’s harder than most expect it to be but hey, it’s a class about FOOD…I’m in. Business of Art is the only class that has anything to do with anything I’m studying back home. As hopefully you all know (unless you’re strangers reading this blog which would be awkward) I’m an Economics and Public Relations major at Penn State. Hopefully I can turn this business class into some sort of econ credit to count for my major when I return. Florence: The Story of the City is a cultural class…I think along the lines of history/psychology…not sure. Guess I’ll find out soon!! I just took a shower and my water went cold after a few minutes. I don’t think that’s something I’ll get used to so I’m going to have to learn to take speedy mc speedster showers. I’ve got my backpack all ready and I’m ready to go! Thank god two of my other roommates are in the same class as me because I still have ZERO CLUE as to where the school is located from me. Haha!

Ciao for now!

BLACK OUT OR GET OUT. literally.

ciao bellas!

Happy to report that we just survived our first INTERNATIONAL BLACKOUT! Before I go any further though I must give credit where credit is due and recognize the creative workings of my roommate Amanda Jablon who came up with this perfectly fitting blog title. Alas, though I am definitely a girl who loves to eat, "Eating My Way Through Italy" did not occur to me on my own. Thanks, Amanda!

clearly she's a food girl just like me!

Yesterday, we had another day of orientation but it was much shorter. We woke up at 8:30 had some fruit and headed to the school to get our class schedules and textbooks. I'm signed up for Level 1 Italian The Business of Art, The Florence Experience, and A History of Food. I'm so excited! My textbooks in all were 147 dollars which is about the price of ONE textbook back at penn state.

We wandered across the bridge yesterday to the other side of the river and explored a little more of the city. There's a street over there that is lined with windows of JUST jewelry. It's beautiful how all the shops here are like little privately owned stores. They're not huge 3 story department stores like in the US they're so cute!

just one of the cute little silver/gold shops on that strip

Christine was told about this supposedly delicious pizzeria called Gusta Pizza on the other side of the river so we tried finding that. I said my first full Italian sentence! "Dove il Gusta Pizza" Where is Gusta Pizza. Not too snazzy, I know, but hey! I'm starting to learn! Unfortunately by the time we found the pizzeria it was closed. They have this terrible rule where everything closes from 1-3 and i mean EVERYTHING. You literally can not get something to eat even if you're starving and laying on the street between the hours of 1 and 3. It's terrible. Luckily we found another little pizzeria that was open for another 15 minutes. I got a slice of pizza and a nutella filled pastry for 3.50 euro. It was divine!

it's on our list to come back to now that we know where it is!

yum!

Later that night, Christine, Allie, Jess and I went out to the ATM to go get some more euros (these things fly like water its TERRIBLE) and upon returning were greeted by the pleasant surprise of a roommate induced blackout. Mind you, it was already 9pm here so completely dark. We had two flashlights so divided them up amongst ourseelves and were searching for the fusebox. Close your eyes and imagine this. Ten American girls searching with two pocket flashlights in a two story apartment for hidden fuseboxes in complete darkness. The school has an emergency hotline where we can call when we get into trouble BUT they have specific rules as to what qualifies as an emergency for them to come help. A blackout is not an emergency so they simply told us to look for the fusebox. We tried 3 different fuseboxes till we found the right one and thank god it finally worked! Since the power went out I and a few other girls had bought some premade lasagna for dinner in case we couldn't make our own food. It was delicious and paired with some wine....MAGNIFICO.

Last night we were taking off for SPACE - a hugeeee nightclub in Florence. It's two stories. The first is a bar and upstairs is a dance floor with lazers and a huge spaceship hanging over it. It was nothing less than crazy. Our first international nightclub experience turned out well. It was a lot of fun and tons of people were there. I definitely plan on returning. Everyone else has to wake up soon so we can recap all the shenanigans that went down. This place is crazy and I LOVE it.

my roommate annie loving space

CIAO BAMBINO

HELLO ALL!!!!

well, i've decided to create this blog for a few reasons....

a. i'm in italy for 5 months and what better way to share my experiences than an online diary?!?!

b. this is a perfect way to keep my humungous family updated on my fabulously adventurous life without forgetting to respond to facebook posts or emailing individuals. Here you guys can just follow along with me on my journey!!

c. it's so chic now, don't you think? I made a twitter yesterday and then was informed by one of my new italian roommates that twitter isn't the extent of the online generation...if you want to be truly fashionable in this computerized world you must must MUST have a blog...so here's mine!

For all those still wondering about my safety and possible abandonment in a european airport...no worries! I've arrived safely in Firenze and let me just tell you, it is b-e-a-UTIFUL. The commute here was a leeeeetle tough. My flight started from jfk to Zurich, Switzerland (7 hours). My mom, dad, and David (<3333) took me to the airport and waved me off. For being such a worldly traveler I must say this was my very first time flying ANYWHERE by myself. It was a hectic experience to say the least. I must have checked the location of my passport every 5 minutes for the first 12 or so hours. I'm so used to just following my parents around the airport that doing it myself for the first time (whilst being pretty worked up and upset at leaving my family and home for 5 months) was pretty overwhelming. I made it through though! 

I knew three girls on my flight so once reaching the gate i texted them (the sole purpose of bringing my american EnV3 with me on my trip). There were actually four girls on my actual flight out of JFK. All very nice and all from Penn State. It was fabulous having people to bond with during the layover in Zurich and I've seen them since arriving here so it was a great start to getting to know everyone!! Once  in Zurich we met a bunch of other kids from Penn State on our program which was pretty cool. THEN on the one hour flight from Zurich to Florence I was sitting in my window seat (thanks dad!!) and this 30 something year old man sat down next to me. Wary of those "very forward European men" as both my grandmas put it, I ignored him while he tried to start conversation using "do you mind if I turn on the air?" and "the view is beautiful, don't you think?" He finally roped me into conversation and thank GOD because he was fabulous. We had a wonderful conversation about traveling and life. He was from Denmark, well dressed, and as I found out in the last ten minutes of the flight, VERY HIGH UP IN A LITTLE FASHION COMPANY CALLED HUGO BOSS. Him and an associate were in Florence for a fabrics fair. How cool?!?! It got even better when he said to look him up if we came to Denmark. 

It got less interesting during the commute to Palazzo Rucellai (the school in Florence where we are studying!) Me and this girl Jess (who ended up being one of my roomates and FABULOUS) were put together in a cab. Our driver, a wonderful ITALIANO who didn't speak any english was completely in love with trying to communicate. As I asked where the best restaurants were he misinterpreted and tried to let us know where we could get drugs. And also to beware of the albanians (missing italian village!!) It was an interesting car ride and very entertaining once we found out everyone else's drivers stayed dead silent and didn't try and speak at all. We arrived at the apartment and saw Christine (my pre-planned roommate and good friend from PSU) standing outside awkwardly with an Italian woman who seemed agitated, to say the least. As we exited the cab we heard raised voices and realized that within the first hour of landing in this wonderful country Christine had already made our Italian neighbor HATE US. Long story short Christine was in a cab alone and her driver dropped her off at the building by herself with no instruction. Not knowing any italian or where we were even living Christine did the logical thing....rang all the doorbells on the wall to see if someone would let her in and help her. Enter: the woman who lives above us who now hates us and threatened to call the cops if we sneezed too loud. Yelling in incomprehensible italian that none of us poor American girls could understand we stood there watching her shout and point at the doorbell as if to signal DON"T EVER RING MY DOORBELL AGAIN IT WILL LITERALLY CAUSE ME PHYSICAL PAIN AND I DON'T WANT TO HELP YOU. Thank god one of the program directors arrived soon after to help smooth things over.

Our apartment is unbelievable. I'm living with nine other girls. Ten in total. Five from PSU and five from UCONN. It's a two story apartment with 5 bedrooms, four bathrooms, a kitchen and a living room. Absolutely wonderful! and on the prettiest little cobblestone street only 5 minutes from the school! Christine and I got the biggest room because we drew straws and won!! After meeting each other and settling in we walked out as a group to buy some towels. On the way back we bought a few bottles of wine and picked up some dinner to go. We ate dinner in our apartment and bonded over the things girls talk about, of course. Boyfriend status, interests, majors, interesting facts, how excited we are for the next few months, etc etc. I'm happy to report that my roommates are great! No one is weird or antisocial. Everyone gets along and I don't see any true problems developing. Especially since there's so much room in the apartment! 

We went out last night as a group to this bar called the Lion's Fountain...an Irish pub (go figure, first night in Italy and we go to an Irish pub filled with Americans.) EVERYONE from the program was there. Everyone was american and there might have been like six creepy italians suaving themselves around the bar trying to pick up drunk girls along the way. We did Irish car bombs and met a bunch of people before returning home to the apartment. Thank goodness my roommates are good about staying together because me with my terrible sense of direction have no idea where i am at any point in time!!

No one was too drunk. Everyone remembers the walk home and sitting around eating cheez-its and chocolate chip cookies but there is one twenty minute time period that no one can account for once we were back in the apartment. An eventful first night to say the least!!

Today we woke up from one person who luckily set her blackberry (since none of us have phones or alarms!!) We had orientation from 945 to 230 so we picked up breakfast on the way (a croissant with fontina cheese and proscuitto MMMMM) and walked to the meeting place. It was long and boring but here is what stuck out to me....

1) there were 5 reported rapes in the last year and all were drunk american girls (which sounds pretty unlikely but if it's true that's a little terrifying)

2) italians dont like heat because the room was legitimately colder than it was outside

3) italian men catcall at american women and not italian women because italian women are "ice queens" and for american girls to survive here we MUST adopt the ice queen stare that shuts a man down within seconds.

4) if gypsy children approach you (to rob you of everything) simply stick your hand in front of you and yell aggressively "STOP! GET AWAY GYPSY!" any they should leave you alone. 

Afterwards we were treated to a delicious lunch (for free) and went back to the apartment to take a nap. SIDENOTE: all italians eat here are carbs and the women legit have the skinniest legs ever!! I'm determined to find the secret of their existence by the time i return to america in a few months. Also to combat the definite obesity I might be incurring from the delicious food I've been eating I plan on taking the roomiez out for a walking tour (from the trusty walking tour guidebook that my mom gave me!) tomorrow.

We took a nap, met with one of the school representatives to fill out inventory on our apartment, unpacked, went to a DELICIOUS dinner at this cute litte restaurant near the bar we wanted to go to and went out. The restaurant was fantastic. I spent 15 euro for wine, water, a plate of tortellini in a cream sauce with prosciutto and tiramisu. The manager also gave us a bottle of champagne on the house! The bar was a lot of fun too. We made two Italian friends, one named Piedro and one named Cosimo. They're fabulous and our age and not creepy (as of yet) and seem really nice! and then....I met a boy that lives in South Salem (westchester...my home county) and worked for Habitat for Humanity in New Rochelle under Jim Killoran. For those who don't know I was very active in H4H during high school and am very close with Jim Killoran. The guy, whose name is Wyatt, is backpacking through Europe with no agenda and hitchhiked from Barcelona to Florence, arriving today. HOW SMALL A WORLD!!!

Now we're home and I've spent an hour writing my first blog post. I know it's long but I'm three days behind in information!!! I LOVE FIRENZE I LOVE MY ROOMMATES I MISS EVERYONE AT HOME BUT IM HAVING A WONDERFUL TIME!!! stay tuned for the adventures to come!!!