a crazy, hectic week

As usual... apologies for the rareness of my blogs these days.... I really am planning on incorporating them into my schedule more frequently, but this week has been bonkers!


First of all, my parents came last Wednesday! They are renting this great little apartment along the Arno where I have been spending much time. Since they arrived, we have been going to dinner, cooking dinner, going to little museums, and checking out churches. And of course, this has been a wacky week for schoolwork and continues to be so given that next week I have two midterms and the following week two more plus a little presentation (plus the usual pages of reading and about 5-8 compositions per week..... mind you this is all in Italian so although it isn't tons of work objectively speaking, it takes much longer to do and requires much more attention.... ugh).


Sunday night we celebrated my mom's birthday just over one month late. I made pasta with a homemade zucca (squash) sauce (I cooked the squash, then sauteed onions, re-added the squash and cooked them until they were paste-like, added Italian cooking cream, lots of black pepper and ground red pepper mixed with garlic, and then tossed it with pasta), breaded chicken cutlets with lemon, and lentils served Italian-style (al dente with olive oil and salt). After dinner I made roasted chestnuts. A lovely dinner!!


Another highlight of their visit thus far was when we ate dinner with my host family on Monday. I spent the entire day worrying and becoming more and more nervous because I am generally pretty shy around my host family and I was going to have to play translator all night. When we got to my house, the table was set beautifully, the boys were on their best behavior and there was the delicious scent of homemade lasagna coming from the oven.

I am happy to report that the night was a success. We laughed all night as my mom (with some help from me) tried to talk with the boys in Italian and Enrico and Silvia did their best to use some English words. It was just about the sweetest thing I have ever seen. The boys were chatty enough and at one point ran to get a photo album from when they were about 2 until they were 4 (SO CUTE!). Toward the end of the night, the boys went to bed and Enrico decided that my parents were not going to take a taxi but instead that he would drive them home so we piled in the car (Enrico, Silvia, my parents and I) and we started toward their apartment. But then Enrico remembered how nice Fiesole (a little town on a hill overlooking Florence) is at night because you can see the whole city. So Silvia, elbowing me in the ribs, says, "Oooohhh! We could go for a little drive!" And so we drove. Up the windy, windy roads alllll the way up to Fiesole. At 11pm. Mind you, I was exhausted... and full... and within minutes very, very, very carsick. Sheesh. Regardless, it was adorable! Enrico narrated the entire drive, telling my parents all about the streets, buildings, hotels, etc. (and I was forced to rapidly translate as best I could!) It was a very wonderful evening and although I thought I might die I was so nervous, I survived and the outcome was great! (Enrico and Silvia decided that my parents are adorable and very young at heart while my parents remained ever-so content that I live with such a sweet and loving family.)


Since then I have just been swimming in work, studying, reading, writing, visit museums, having double lessons of art history... it's exhausting!!


Tomorrow my parents and I are heading to Lucca and Pisa for a little day trip! Be prepared for photos! Then I will be spending the rest of the weekend writing four more compositions, visiting a little church, and relaxing with my parents and pals over here in Italia - hopefully we will find something exciting to do because its been quiet around here lately given that everyone has swine flu! Viva la suina! (Long live the swine.... terrible joke, not funny.... it just had a nice ring to it....)


That's all for now! I promise to update at least on Sunday!!!


Baci a tutti!!

Oink!

An orchestra of coughs.

Thats what my host dad says (he is now coughing a little bit too). Last night at dinner Lorenzo, Filippo and I were all coughing and Enrico started conducting us which made us all laugh more and then in turn, cough more. I also feel the need to share that host mamma peeled me an apple last night and cut it into chunks, it was just about the cutest thing ever. They also all seemed AMAZED that it was a Fiji apple.... I guess that seems cool?

This morning I am home from school again (I came home early yesterday), as are both of the twins. They both seem better, especially Filippo. They are currently running around the house throwing things at each other so I think they're okay!

My parents are leaving Vermont today! To come here! I will be seeing them tomorrow afternoon! Bravo!

Baci!

every good day ends with a good meal

For some reason, I just can't be down in the country no matter what happens. Okay, well maybe I was down when I had bedbugs for weeks on end.... but looking back on it I already don't feel any upset. As a matter of face, after finding out today that my lil' bro Filippo does indeed have swine flu..... (which in turn means that what I have is some form of swine flu.....) I actually just smiled and laughed about it because you know what? I am in Italy. And I am having a great time. And yes, I had bedbugs for a month. Yes, I had to move to a new house. Yes, my wallet was then stolen, and yes, I now seem to have some form of swine flu...... but regardless - I am here in Florence with a FANTASTIC family and everything somehow remains pretty gosh darn incredible.

Anyway. I had a good day. Read a book in Italian, read a fable in Italian, wrote a 2 page paper in Italian. Things are lookin' up. I didn't have a fever. My bros were super cute all day. Filippo seems to be better given that he and Lorenzo were chasing each other around all day. I drank lots of tea. I cleaned my room. I got to listen to adorable Lorenzo practice Spanish in an Italian accent all afternoon. I watched the soccer game and la Fiorentina won (3-1 against Catania..... oh yeahhhh!) And then, to top it off, we had a delicious dinner!

Ravioli filled with squash or pumpkin or something of the sort (same word in Italian so I am not totally sure which it really was....), followed by bread and cheese and those amazing brussels sprouts smothered in Béchamel sauce. Perfetto!

So thank you, Florence, for torturing me but allowing me to enjoy you just the same!

Baci e abbracci as usual!

PART TWO or the seemingly worse yet still amazing weekend

Saturday
Saturday morning I woke up at 6.30am to head off on a day of adventures. We first hit up Pienza (in this case we = all the Smith girls, Monica and Giovanna along with her husband, Alessio and his sister and our Italian friend Alex – what a crew!) where we wandered around for a good 3 hours. I went to lunch with Ali, Breana and Alayna at this really delicious ristorante where we ate incredible gnocchi. After Pienza, we bussed over to San Gimginano, the city of towers! We wandered for a few hours, ate some really delish gelato and bought supposedly famous wine (which turns out, I thought was disgusting….. too bad…)

When we got back from our little trip, I ran home, changed, freshened up and headed back out to meet the usual nightlife posse, this time to gather for aperitivi in honor of Alessio’s birthday. We ate at this cute place called Oibo (http://www.oibo.net/), although it wasn’t the best aperitivo I have eaten here (first place goes to Negroni, across the arno http://www.negronibar.it/). Something you should know about how we roll in Firenze is this: Every time we go out, we have no choice but to make a reservation, even if we are going on a Monday night to aperitivi at a strange time. This is because, on the weekends especially, we never travel in a pack less than 10. Initially this was frustrating because no one would ever make up their mind, but now by te middle of every week there has been at least one mass Facebook message to everyone stating what we are doing, when we are doing it and where we should meet. It has become a bit of a joke. Take Saturday night for example – I had to call and make a reservation for 20 people two days in advance. It’s great.

Anywho. After aperitivi, we headed to this American/English pub called the Lion’s Fountain (http://www.thelionsfountain.com/) where we spent the rest of the night. Until we left. At which point I realized someone had stolen my wallet. Oops….  I am sure that I didn’t loose it for it was in my hand all night until I put it in my purse which was on a bench right next to us with everyone else’s purses. Unfortunately there was a semi-sketch group of non-Italian men who persistently wanted to take our photo for us…. Or something…. We decided it was them. Needless to say, my cards are all cancelled, I borrowed money from Smith, and my parents will be here in a week. Perfetto.

Sunday
Sunday five of us headed to Alessio’s house for his birthday lunch with all of his friends from university as well as his family and Giovanna. It very well may have been one of the cutest things I have done so far in Florence. His mother and Giovanna greeted us all at the door, and his mom was so welcoming and excited that we were there. We were all extremely awkward, as every good Smithie should be, and we stood around waiting for people to start eating. We ate about 17 different courses and then finished up with a HUGE (I’m talking about 2 feet in diameter huge) chocolate torte which Alessio could not for the life of him figure out how to cut. His house is beautiful (and by house I mean apartment because no one in Florence lives in a house) and pretty much a museum. His dad used to be a carabinieri (police officer essentially) and he has a passion for Garibaldi. Therefore, not only has he collected rare Italian comics featuring Garibaldi, but he has two of Garibaldi’s ACTUAL uniforms in glass cases, just chilling in the hallway outside their bedrooms. Italians really are great.

After this delightful lunch, we headed over to the stadium to meet Monica and the rest of the Smithies, along with our History of Fashion professor to watch a soccer game between la Fiorentina and I Napoli. Fiorentina lost…. Bummer. It was an extremely exciting game though! And Giovanna and Monica bought us all Fiorentina scarves which was good because it was freeeeezing!! Alè alè alè alè!!!! (Did I mention that on my way to Alessio’s my sweater fell out of my bag? What a weekend!)

Monday
Monday was quiet. Nothing too exciting happened really. We found out that our super sweet art history professor has swine flu so class was cancelled for the week (aka my one class on Thursday was cancelled and therefore my weekend would begind Wednesday at approximately 5.30pm).

As I was walking home from Stilistics Monday night, I realized that due to setting the clocks back, it was already almost completely dark outside. As I approached the Duomo, I was overwhelmed by how gorgeous it looked just past dusk. There were a few tourists scattered around, taking photos with flash that lit up the gold leaf details on the façade and as I looked around, I also realized there was a crescent moon just to the right of the dome. Of course. It’s Italy. Things really are picture perfect rather often. At this point, I noticed I was standing in the middle of the street (although as of this past weekend all the streets around the Duomo are closed to traffic- woohoo!) and I decided I should move. I got out my camera and spent the next 20 minutes playing tourist and snapping gorgeous photos of this palatial piece of marble that I walk by at least twice a day.

Upon completing this touristy task, I began my walk home thinking about how I finally felt settled. I had a family, my little bros were becoming less shy, I did things every weekend with my group of friends, I had classes to go to, work to do, I finally felt okay. Reflecting on the past week I decided that even though I had just recovered from bedbugs, I didn’t sleep much, my wallet was stolen, and I was then getting a lovely sore throat and cough, I had maybe just completed one of the best weeks of my life.

Not too shabby, Florence – thanks!

Tuesday
Tuesday… let’s see. Class in the morning. Art history was cancelled so instead I attended my first course at the University of Florence (we have to audit something this semester to practice the wacky system of Italian education). I am planning on going to one class on Tuesdays (Analysis of the Preferences of the Consumer – in the department of viniculture, a lot about product development, etc.) and then one of Thursdays (Economics of Viniculture). Hey, when in Italy… study wine! The class on Tuesday was really interesting and I would say that I actually understood about 85-90% of what the professor said! I even took a few pages of notes!