Countdown is beyond weeks, now days, and even hours!

Well well, well.  What do I say.  I say that I am preparing for finals......check!  I say that I am preparing to finish all my studying and presentations and say goodbye to all my professors......check!  I say that I am preparing all my belongings for packing and empty-ing my cupboards for my last meals here.....check!

In 48 hours this entire experience will be over, or at the least the part where I live in Italy, will be over.  I will be on a jet plane heading over the ocean to return to my family and friends and share all of it with them and teach them everything I have learned.

I have done a few final walks through the city and tried to take in as much of the culture and my surroundings as possible.  I sat in the piazza and ate gelato, people watched and relished in just the idea of doing nothing.  Sitting, watching and being present within this large experience, hell this large world that surrounds me!

This experience has forever changed who I am as a person.  I am so grateful for this experience and all that it has taught me.  I have gained more than just the ability to dive into a culture, speak the language, love the food, experience all Italy has to offer, but also I have made the promise to come back to this place.  Bring family and friends here and show them where they need to go, what they need to see, what will change their lives forever.

This great adventure has definitely brought to me many things...most importantly my writing has returned.  Sitting down each day and keeping track of my thoughts has forced my writing to come out of hiding.

I cannot wait to cook, show all my photographs, wear all my cute Italian clothes, find some Italians in the states to practice my Italian with, and more so go back to my time zone!

Tomorrow is my last official day in this city and the forecast is for sunshine!  I am hoping to get out and get a few last minute shots and enjoy the city.  I hope to post soon, if not once I am on the other side and in the states!

Ciao ragazzi!

I got family waiting back at home!!! but first we must eat Turkey!!!

Happy Thanksgiving all, even though it is already Monday, I finally have recooped from my cooking, cleaning, hosting, preparing and eating all the turkey one could possibly eat to send you all a little hello from Firenze.

This holiday season I was lucky enough to be living in the apartment that hosted theee biggest Thanksgiving party I had ever attended.  Back in the states it's simple, small and I barley am interested in the turkey by the time it is ready because I have snacked the whole day waiting on the bird, well this year we set all time brand new record.

Thanksgiving started with classes and an early morning run to the central market to pick up the turkey from our friendly fellow Carlo at the market.  I brought the turkey to a nearby friends apartment to keep it cool while we finished classes for the day.  I had an Italian exam at 9am so I was pressed for time and exhausted already.  After the market, italian exam and classes I was cut loose for the day to head home and begin the prep for our 6pm guest arrivals.  We sludged all afternoon to prepare the stuffing with all it's italian fixings to hurry and get the bird inside the oven.  We hosted about 20-25 people in our small italian apartment.  We were blessed with many bottles of wine, went through 12 in the first hour and a half, many of our guests pitched in and brought a dish so that we could focus on fixings and the bird items.  One of our professors covered our dining room table with a "cheese and cracker" display that would blow your socks off, italian style of course.  Literally this woman is obsessed with cheese, she raises goats just to eat the cheese.

We invited all of our professors and all who work in student services, even the receptionist attended from the school.  Many of the Italians, for most of them, this was their first or second thanksgiving.  We did the formal "giving thanks" and made a video of it all and what everyone said, it was quite memorable and we all felt really lucky to be involved in such a great program with such great people, we all really lucked out with the students, faculty and the timing of it all, and all our instructors and peers reminded us of this great opportunity and how lucky they felt to get to work with us.  I hope to post the video but it was amazing regardless.

Amongst the gravy mixing, turkey happenings and all the other desserts from the great Italians I barely had time to eat, but it was a great night and a thanksgiving to remember for sure.

One of my nutrition Professors, she made and assembled the "crackers and cheese" display.  if you look up close there are like ten types of cheeses and every vegetable in season and many other accompany-ments, she kept trying to give us money to help for the meal and we insisted no and this is what we got, loads of appetizers!!!  Everyone loved it

this was where all the food looked like.  The list:  2 7-8 kg turkeys, mashed potatoes, zucchini and cheese, carrots, green beans, fresh applesauce, cranberry sauce, stuffing, by yours truly, bread and olive oil, of course, small italian pizza's, sweet potatoes, gravy

after all this food we still had room for dessert and vin santo!! Oh so delish

One of our housing coordinators!  Her first thankgiving, she loved everything, every time I saw her in the kitchen, all she could say was "mamma mia!!!"

Serena, she works in the library but also helps in Student Services!  Crazy kids in the background!

We got Friday and Saturday off for a break and then the prep began again for festivities for Sunday.  My roommate has family that live nearby in Bologna so they wanted to come and have a typical thanksgiving with us as well, so we prepped all again from top to bottom and enjoyed another great meal.  Except this time I was actually able to relax.  I didnt' take part in the cooking so much and was able to fill my plate and relax and enjoy the turkey, stuffing, applesauce and all the others.  It was worth the effort and again another enjoyable meal here in Italy!

Just another week in a vineyard!

So my adventures this past week have brought me closer to my return to the states but also so much closer to the answer of all this nutritional studying about the Mediterranean Diet.....olive harvest.  This week we worked in San Polo in the region of Chianti.  Pruneti Olive Oil, two brothers loaded with 15,000 olive trees, vineyards filled with grapes and saffron.  It was an amazing experience and I enjoyed it as much if not more than picking grapes.

The work day was short, much shorter than back in September because of daylight and preference of weather. We picked at 7:30 in the morning until about 12:30 lunch time.  The process was all done by hand, small rake and involved climbing.  It was a very cathartic work, I enjoyed the calmness and the stillness.  With the grapes, there were good ones and bad ones, in olive harvest they are all picked and typically they are all acceptable.  We also got to work in the pressing factory that the brothers run this time of the year.  The pressing mill runs 24hours a day for approximately 50 days and they sleep in shifts and take their olives and their clients olives very seriously.  The machines are very expensive and they settle for no one else using or handling the equipment.

We got to interact with many of the Pruneti's clients that came in and pressed their olives.  Once the olives are picked they have to be pressed immediately for best quality to ensure low acidity, to ensure Extra Virgin.  We saw the lime green liquid flowing at all hours of the day and we also of course got to taste many of the mixes and pure oils that the brothers have.

I was very impressed with such a large scale operation and how knowledgable they were.  No one could have a similar experience, I enjoyed it very much.

Below are a few photos of my adventure, Chianti I have taken for granted, plainly because I have visited it numerous times and the landscape views are the norm for me now, but let me remind you as I am standing in these olive trees picking olives, with messy hair, and big yellow gloves, smelling the freshness of all the olive trees surrounding me, outside of those branches is a landscape and a beauty like no other.  Really I was spoiled but I mean it is Italy.

Assisi, Oh how I love thee!

Unreal, photogenic, a complete postcard, it is everything you think a postcard would be if you were to walk inside of it!  A small town on a hill, in the distance of the Italian countryside, a beautiful tiny little mecca.  

A view from in between the trees on the streets on top of the hill.  We were above the clouds and haze, it was an amazing site.  Glad it turned out to be a sunny day!

A view after we walked all the way down back to the train station, an hour later, we turned around to see how far we had come and this was our view from the bottom of the hill.  

Of course a girl's gotta eat.  My new favorite dish, Spaghetti al Carbonara, not as good as Rome, but decent. 

Good old St. Francis resting place and me being a tourist!

Today's feat is the Florentine Soccer game, we know how well they play and all but hey we are trying to be a true Florentine and at least cheer them on and wear our purple!

Updates and photos soon to follow!

Sorry I have been a busy traveler!!!

So update, update!  Over my past weekend I traveled finally, to Cinque Terre.  Words cannot do it justice, it was unreal.  Cinque Terre is located in northern Italy along the coast.  It is five small towns strewn about along the coast that closely resembles what I think looked like Hawaii.  Complete mountains and hiking paths to each town and a small train that ran from one end to the other.  It was so worth the energy it took to travel there and the views were amazing.  Cinque Terre is known for it's pesto!  and when I mean pesto, I mean pesto!  Michael, my faithful traveling friend, and I dined at a cute restaurant in the third town.  I had the spaghetti and pesto and he had a dish typical of the town, what looked like a large flat pancake or crepe, sliced into squares and cooked like a pasta, and pesto on top of course.  Literally my lips and tongue were green it was intense flavor and so delicious.  Saying that Cinque is located in the northern part of Italy you would assume it was cold, but not at all.  I left Florence with a hoody, under armor zip up, long sleeve t-shirt and a tank top, scarf and gloves, it was chilly at 7am.  Once we arrived in Pisa to switch trains, it was even colder and we thought we were in for a miserable day of cold along the water in Cinque Terre.  Little did we know that the climate there is completely tropical.  There was cactus growing, lemon and lime trees bigger than my head!  Seriously.  It was like a microwave of heat and I loved it.  It was a very calming and meditative place, one could sit for hours and listen to the ocean, it was really really beautiful to see.

Throughout this week we are off from classes, of course, what good italian student has class everyday?  not the agriculture kids, we are doing all workshops this week, unfortunately our last week of workshops :( so we are traveling all around Florence visiting organic (biological farms) their livestock, their means of sustainability, their agriculture, and of course they feed us too.  It really is the life.

In the middle of my busy week, we had holiday Monday because of All Saints Day and Tuesday we visited a sustainable internet company here in Florence.  The best part of the day was....drum roll please...... the OPERA!  The show was absolutely everything I thought it would be and so much more.  It was a sold out show and lasted the typical 3-4hours.  The length of it killed me, but I barely noticed because I was so involved in the atmosphere of the show, it was awesome.  The show I saw was Le Nozza di Figaro.  It was all in Italian and it was the typical sounding opera music that I love.  It was nothing compared to the woman in the piazza that belts out her opera singing mid-day but it was something to definitely see.  I am so glad that I did.

Otherwise I am busy finishing up the week with workshops and planning my few weekends that are left before I leave this beautiful place.  I wish I could stay, I wish I could live my life here.  Tomorrow I made plans to travel to Assisi, supposed to be the most religious place in Italy, even more so than Rome, I will believe it when I see it.  I will take lots of photos and post them all.  Hope you all are enjoying the posts!

This past weekend I visited Bologna with a side of Bolognese!

Sunday, last day of my fall vacation and I decided to travel just outside of Firenze to nearby Bologna.  My intentions were to take the 6 euro train two hours to a city just 30 or so minutes from the city where I live.  Well to my dismay the computer systems were jacked and I was unable to find my time and ticket, so I settled for a 24 euro fast train with screaming babies, but at least I had a guaranteed seat.

Anyways to my arrival at 9:30 am I sat in the station and waited for my travel companion, Courtney to soon arrive at 11!  It was chilly so I wandered a bit around the area and then found a warm side of the station to sit on to keep away from the wind.  Once she arrived we decided we must walk towards their duomo, church, and find the shopping and food.

Bologna I had not heard good things about, it is dark, gothic, architecture is totally different from Florence. Their "leaning tower" wasn't much of a leaning tower but more of something that looked as if it were about to fall at any moment.

Why I was not impressed with the scenery, we decided to get lost a little bit and wander outside of the normal areas of Bologna.  While chatting we managed to get pretty lost and figured well if we have anything it's appetites so let's find our way back close to the duomo and then eat our time away until our train comes to take us home.

We order the traditional foods we were instructed that were best in Bologna.  Food wise, I was very impressed, so impressed that we splurged and even got dessert.  It was amazing.  We sat at a cafe outside and had our late lunch surrounded by huge torches of fire to keep us warm, it was ideal.

We shopped and shopped a little more, I bought nothing, thank you very much.  My shopping strike has officially started with my nightmares of having to give away my entire new wardrobe because it will not fit into my luggage.

This week we are in classes and then we have a long weekend for the holiday off Monday for All Saints Day.  I believe daylight savings for here is Saturday night of Halloween, but we shall see.  I am planning on traveling somewhere this weekend, but not sure where.  There is a couple of options, I will keep you posted!

This was Courtney's dish, it was large tortellini, called something but I forget.  It was filled with pumpkin and pancetta with a balsamic vinaigrette reduction sauce!  It was unreal!  Heavenly!

Bon Appetito!

This is the Duomo from the outside!!!