Florence Again - Writing - Family Dinners

This past Friday the Italian Love Poetry class took a trip to Florence. At CET, students who are not normally a part of the class are nonetheless invited to join in on the field trips, if they are interested. I, unfortunately, could not go to Florence with the class, but I went on my own since I had some research to do. The Love Poetry class saw the House of Dante, the Medici Library, the San Lorenzo Church, the Michelangelo Steps, the Baptistery, and saw the original St. George Slaying the Dragon, at Orsanmichele. I, on the other hand, paid my own way to get there and walked around the city until I found the Istituto Storico della Resistenza (Historical Institute of the Resistance). I was referred there by my professor, who thought it would be substantially beneficial to my research paper to go there and look for the books that I needed. I finally ended up there after about an hour and a half or two searching for it. I found it on the street that I walked up and down, in an alley. Yeah, I’m serious. Once I got there, I could not navigate myself around and couldn’t find anyone to help me. I finally figured it out and requested a few books, only to find out that everything was in Italian and I was unable to get anything from them. L Complete failure. But oh well, I explored the city on my own and didn’t get too lost. I’m not very good with maps so I was really proud of myself for not ending up somewhere completely wrong.

Following my adventure, I met up with some of the other CET students at the Baptistery and looked around the markets nearby. First, I saw a market full of cheeses, wines, olive oil, honey, and other delicious treats. Next, we knew we had to make our way over to the leather market. That was a bad idea, only because I spent so much money! I knew I shouldn’t have put those 40 extra Euro in my bag that morning…Anyway, we all got a lot of Christmas shopping done so it ended up being okay. Between the four of us, I think wallets, purses, bracelets, belts, change purses, and earrings were all purchased. After we got back, we all began to research and write our Cultural History papers. Just some advice, trying to do research in a foreign country where you are not fluent in the language is very difficult, so this particular essay was definitely not my best, since I could only find sources online. We’ll see how I do when my professor returns them!

We were planning on going to Bologna last Saturday, but I backed out at the last minute so I could write my paper. I’m so glad I did because two of my roommates had an interesting, yet hilarious, experience that I’ll quickly summarize. They got up really early and went to the ticket office at Piazza Gramsci to purchase bus tickets for Bologna. The woman there said that the bus was actually departing from the train station, not from Piazza Gramsci, so in order to get the bus they needed to go there. It’s about a twenty minute walk from the bus station and their bus was leaving ten minutes from then, so once they got to the station they decided to take a train instead. Everything was going well until they needed to make a connecting train stop. Apparently, the doors wouldn’t open so they got stuck inside the train and ended up back in Florence. They snuck back on a train to the other stop, but when they realized they wouldn’t get to Bologna until mid-afternoon decided to just come home. What a day, what a day. I, on the other hand, slept in a little and researched all day long.

We finally had a nice, long, relaxing weekend in Siena. It seems like lately we’ve been on the go, traveling everywhere - planes, trains, and automobiles were taking over! First, it was Rome, then it was Fall break, then it was Sicily. In between there were smaller trips around Tuscany. I think we all were so worn out and physically exhausted that when we were actually spending time in Siena on the weekends, we just wanted to sleep or stay in on the weekends, getting to know each other better. I have met so many people here and we love hanging out. For instance, when we don’t want to go to the mensa for dinner, we’ll all go to Conad (the grocery store) and buy ingredients to make a big “family dinner” as we like to call them. J Usually, it ends up being about three or four Euro per person, and we are able to make a full meal and drink a little wine, over great conversation. We truly do feel like a family here. There aren’t that many of us so we spend a lot of time together, and though it’s only been three months since we met, it feels like years.

I’ve really enjoyed writing these blogs and am just now realizing how great it is. I’ve tried keeping journals of my activities and daily thoughts for the longest time, but I can never get into it. I always write for a few days or weeks but then it just trails off. Writing this blog and letting the world be able to see what I’m doing, what my life is like, how I feel about living abroad, and all the good and bad that comes with it, is actually a pretty wonderful thing. I’ve never written like this before, and certainly have never had anything I’ve written posted to the internet. I have to admit that I was a little nervous as first about people being able to read what I write (I’m a little self-conscious about it) but then I realized that I’m not writing a paper and that I can write in the way that I actually talk. I’m loving it! Might just have to keep a blog once I return to the States, although it won’t be nearly as interesting!

Buona notte a tutti! I’m about to go have some gelato and pour hot espresso over it. Certainly recommend trying this because it is super tasty!

La Nostra Pausa e La Sicilia

Before I left you last time, I was getting ready for our fall break. I told you our plans previously, and let me just say, we had an absolutely, incredible time! We seriously lacked sleep most of the trip, spent too much money on food, drink, tourist attractions, and transportation, but it was one of the best weeks of my life. We went to the Van Gogh Museum, Photography museum, Heineken Brewery (which was one of the coolest things I’ve done in my life thus far), and even saw the Anne Frank House, all in Amsterdam. In Brussels, we ate Belgian waffles and Belgian chocolate and just explored the city on our own. After that, we traveled to Southern Germany in the Forresta Nera (Black Forest) and relaxed right in the middle of lakes and mountains and even got a few feet away from a bunch of ducks that thought we had food for them! We took a chairlift to the top of the Feldberg mountain, which is the highest peak in Germany aside from mountains in the Alps. It was covered with snow, yet it was hot since the sun was beaming down on us.

We boarded a night train after two days and traveled to Prague, another amazing city that I am so grateful to have visited. We saw the Prague Castle, St. Charles Bridge, explored the city on our own once again, and went to a five story club right on the water!! That was so much fun! Basically, Europe is awesome. Lastly, we flew from Prague to Milan. We ended up there for much longer than planned because we had to wait for the bus back to Siena. For some reason, we couldn't get on the 2:30 bus so we didn't leave until 4 (we'd been there since about 11am) and returned to Siena around 10pm. The next day was Halloween and of course, being Americas, we celebrated. We planned on going wine tasting, but it was a little more expensive than we thought and it was also raining cats and dogs out. We went to Conad instead and got a bunch of wines ourselves and had our own event. :)

And here begins the commentary on my weekend in Catania, Sicily. The people in southern Italy are great, first of all. They were very friendly, even to us tourists who wore shorts and tanktops in November (I mean, it was 75 degrees!). The first day we got there, we settled into the hotel and explored for a little before heading out to take a cooking class. We went to "Congusto" cooking school where the head chef taught us how to make a few typical Sicilian dishes. He told us about himself, a former lawyer, and spoke about the history of the food. He made a small pasta dish, a vegetable side dish with almonds and eggplant (amongst about a thousand other ingredients) and pistachio cake. They gave us free aprons, pencils, the recipes for the dishes made, tomato paste, some catalogues, and a bag to put everything in (perfect size for groceries!). After a long night, we caught up on some sleep and set out the next morning to meet with an anti-mafia group, Addio Pizzo.

Addio Pizzo is run by mostly young students, who advocate businesses not paying the "pizzo," the tax, if you will, that the mafia imposes on the majority of businesses in Catania. They publishe brochures with the names of businesses that stand up against the mafia and promote awareness to the public so that consumers can support businesses that are against the mafia. It was really interesting to listen to them talk about their organization because they were very passionate about their work, rightfully so. They even gave us free t-shirts. :) We had that night to ourselves and decided to go to a restaurant, Il Sale Art Cafe, which does not pay the pizzo. Each one of us ordered an entire pizza, which was about the size of a medium or large pizza. Speaking of food, Bronte, a town near to Catania, is famous for its pistachios, so of course we ate plenty of those while there. Some other typical Sicilian dishes are "arancini," basically a fried rice ball. Inside the arancini is rice, mixed with butter, spinach, or ragu, or sometimes other ingredients. I think I ate four or five of these in one weekend...I also had a couple of canolli. Everyone knows what canolli are, so I won't go into detail but in Sicily, they are authentic. And not to mention gigantic! We didn't realize it until we got to Catania that us silly Americans say the plural word "canolli" when we want a single "canollo!" And we say "canollis" when we mean plural. Che disastro!!

Our last full day in Catania was spent hiking through the woods and basalt rocks atop of Mt. Etna. How cool does that sound? First things first, Mount Etna is gorgeous. There was so much to see and we could have spent so much more time there. The geologist that guided us, Sandro, was extremely passionate about this volcano. He said at one point that all the homes he's lived in were facing Mt. Etna so he could always see it and check its activity from his windows at any time of day. That says something about the man. You could see a bunch of trees and plants there that are exclusive to the volcano, in addition to all the lava flows from past eruptions, its destruction caused, old wine houses, craters, and even a honey stand at the base. Small towns surrounding Catania are known for honey, so many people set up shop and sell small jars of homemade honey (with flavors of clover, strawberry, pistacchio, eucalyptus, and many others). It's delicious!

Anyway, time to go write my history paper. Ciao a tutti!

Melanie Bianco

CET Siena Student Correspondent, Fall 2010