Fattoria di San Donato, San Gimignano

One of my favorite places to be is the countryside, to be surrounded with lush, green vegetation; a place with lots of trees, plants and flowers. After being in the city of Florence for so long, I was glad to have a break from surrounded by all the concrete and stone.

Vineyards of Tuscany, some with the Vernaccia grape, others with the Chianti grape.

For my Food and Culture class, we took a day trip out to San Gimignano in the "heart of Tuscany" with a wine and food pairing class, to a wine farm owned by the San Donato family. We got to take a tour of the facilities and see where the grapes are pressed and made in to wine, and also where they store it.

 This is one of the largest barrels that the San Donato's have, made from Austrian oak, and it holds over 1,000 bottles of wine. The smaller barrels are made from French oak, and they contain about 600 or so bottles of wine.
We also were able to tour the grounds where they rebuilt the old village, and turned some of the buildings into apartments and Bed & Breakfasts. They had a pool, and a small farm with a humongous pig and a few goats, and an amazing view of Tuscany from the hill that they are located on.

Because we were paired with a wine and food pairing class, we got to taste wine and food! We had a white wine that went with the bruschetta (minus the tomatoes to emphasize the flavor of the olive oil),and red wine to go with the assortment of delicious cold cuts placed on the table.

I ended up buying two bottles of the reserve wine--not because I like wine, because I really don't--but so I could give them as Christmas presents. These Italian wines wouldn't have any sales or import tax on them because I was buying them from the source, and they are organic and made without sulfates, so they don't give you a headache the next day if you drink the whole bottle, haha.
I returned to San Gimignano over break, but instead of visiting the countryside, we walked through the small town of San Gimignano and it was just as beautiful. This was probably one of the most peaceful, most beautiful places in Italy that I have seen so far, and I would love to spend an entire day exploring rather than only having a few hours.

Green Life

Upon my arrival in Florence, I spotted this little gem of a store whilst sitting in a classroom for orientation, across the street.

I was curious as to what they sold in there, so I dragged my roommates in the hopes that they had something like a Brita filter for us to use in our apartment so that we didn't have to constantly buy giant plastic water bottles, as pictured below.

To our surprise, it was an "Upcycled" clothing and accessory store! All of the products that they sell are products made either by locals or by environmentally friendly companies, like the organic brand Monkee Genes. They have bags made out of recycled rubber, old coffee bags, they have shoes made out of cork, made without animal products, but still organic. They have very fashion-forward (err...interesting-looking) styled clothing, and then they have every-day wear like sweaters, t-shirts, jeans, etc.

Every Friday the owner, Paolo, his brother, Fabio, and his sister-in-law, Vanna, debut a new part of their winter line, and they offer aperitivo (appetizers) and free drinks. Fabio makes everything himself, and all the food is organic and either vegetarian or vegan. He makes different kinds of pizza, risotto, mixed veggies, fruit dishes, and sometimes dessert. Fabio grows his own vegetables and has a dream of opening up a shop in New York City, as he says he "loves America" and shows it with his iPhone case.

Fabio during aperitivo with his USA iPhone case

One Friday night, Paolo asked my housemates and I if we could model for the store in a fashion show. We would be wearing part of the new winter line--pants, jackets and shirts made from men's recycled trousers, ties, and jackets. My housemate Lauren, my friends Margarita and Horthense, Horthense's friend Constance, and myself, were all in the fashion show. We had our make-up and our hair done, and then we each had two outfits to show off throughout the night.

First outfits (from left to right) Lauren, Constance, Margarita, Me, Horthense.

Second outfits (from left to right) Me, Margarita, Lauren, Horthense, Constance.

 It was a little warm, but it was so much fun. We were able to meet a bunch of nice people, eat some fantastic organic vegan/vegetarian food, hangout in the store, and practice our Italian. It was a once in a lifetime experience, and we were able to help out our friends at Green Life. They appreciated it so much, Paolo invited us to come to Pisa the next day to check out the store there and join them for aperitivo. Lauren and I were the only ones who weren't busy that Saturday, but we went and spent a few hours in Pisa. We saw the Leaning Tower, visited the main strip of shops, and joined the Green Life gang for some snacks.

Lauren and I

It was a fabulous night, and I will always remember how much fun it was to pretend to be a model. The heels were so comfortable too! I could have worn them forever... they were beautiful, haha.
If you're interested in learning more about our friends' store, or want to look at all of their amazing products, please click here. There is an icon in the top right corner to choose your language preference if you cannot read Italian. These guys are doing an amazing thing, selling upcycled, recycled, sustainable items, and it would be fantastic if you could show them some support.

We got a little souvenir :) one of the advertisement posters from the Fashion Show!

Modena & Maranello

So the weekend after I went to Monza for the Formula 1 race (YAY), I went to Modena to see il Museo Casa Enzo Ferrari and il Museo Ferrari in Maranello. Yes, both are Ferrari museums, one of them was at Enzo Ferrari's house, and the other was dedicated to the race cars. It was pretty cool, I don't have much to say other that I went and saw cars, and it was fun. Haha, I went with my friend Margarita and her boyfriend, who was visiting for the week. 
 

Museo Casa Enzo Ferrari, Modena, Emilia-Romagna, Italia

Enzo Ferrari's Actual House--Now a Museum, Modena, Emilia-Romagna, Italia

Ferrari Over the Years Display, 2nd Floor of the Ferrari Museum, Maranello, Emilia-Romagna, Italia

My new Favorite Ferrari. Mmmmm Green :)

After we visited the museums, we hung around Modena as Margarita said it was famous for its food, and that there was a UNESCO world heritage site (the Cathedral) there. We stopped at a bar and had a few drinks, I ordered an Irish coffee which was a mistake. Did not realize that they put Irish whiskey in it--I was thinking, "ooh, it'll be good like having Bailey's in my coffee!" No, not so much. I could barely get it down. We walked around for a bit after that, as we were waiting for our train that would take us back to Florence at 7, and we fell asleep in a park. Haha.
 

My Lunch in Modena: Pasta with Ragu (Meat sauce), YUM.

My Irish Coffee as it is so nicely written on the glass they gave me. You can see the whiskey and the cream separating from the coffee at the bottom--bleckk.

Overall, I'd say it was a good day.

Homesick

So I was feeling very frustrated with the food here, as I explained in one of my previous posts. I decided to do something about it, and my roommates and I went to this little restaurant that was hidden behind a big piazza, called The Diner.

Best. Idea. Ever.

I had an omelet with bacon and cheddar cheese. It was real bacon. It was real cheese. And it came with shredded potatoes that were fried (yum), ketchup (yum), toast, and jam (yum).

I am so going back when I get homesick, because I hear they have the best burgers (ohmigod beef.) and I still have my 10% discount coupon. #Win.

I am a Terrible Blogger

So it has been about a month since my last post, and I've been meaning to write down everything that I've done, but I keep getting distracted and then I forget. But for right now, let me catch you up on all the "happenings" since my last update. 

Florence is just as beautiful and interesting and amazing as when I first got here. The weather is a little bit colder, but there are still so many world travelers right by my house!! (I live right next to the Galleria dell'Accademia, which is where the real Michelangelo's David resides) I love hearing all the accents when I walk to class and get stuck behind a tour group. It's amazing how many Italian tourists there are--it just dawned on me the other day that you can be a tourist in your own country. I've never thought of it that way before. All the times I've been to Disney, Ohio, Atlanta, or Wisconsin, I was a tourist. Huh. 

Anyway, I left off in early September, about ten days after I had arrived in this beautiful foreign country, and I want to share my travels before they all pile up on me!

The day after my last post, I went to Monza with two friends for the Formula 1 race! It was like a dream, I have always wanted to go to a Formula 1 race, and my dad said that this is one of the fastest tracks in the series. Of course, I was surrounded by Italians, so when Sebastian Vettel won, and I cheered, they all looked at me like they were going to murder me. "Yayyy, Alonso!..."  Haha, oops. When the race was over, which I'm sad that it didn't take that long, we all got to walk on the track! It was so exciting!

Our journey was smooth sailing for the most part; we arrived in Milan with no problem and there was already a huge mob of people waiting to catch the train that would take us right to the race track. Once we got to Monza however, was a different story. We arrived at the train station which is somewhere in the upper left-hand corner, right near the light brown section that looks like a baseball field. Now, if we had gone up to the top, we would have found buses to take us to where we needed to be. BUT, we were told at one of the ticket booths to walk, all the way around the track, with no map. We had to get to the ticket booth located further down the road (& off the map) that starts in the bottom right-hand corner.

It took us over an hour, one phone call to my dad, three track employees, five officers, and a shuttle bus, to get us where we needed to be. Which we never would have found if it weren't for the nice cabby who drove us (Thank you sir, for making my day). The race had just started as we were walking into the track area, thank gawd, so we only missed the first two or three laps. The way out was much easier, as we just followed the swarms of people flocking towards the buses which, were all the way in the top left-hand corner of the map... again. 
We had dinner in Milan, because we had about an hour before our train home arrived, and that is where I had possibly, the best slice of pizza in my life along with a scrumptious little honey melon tart. YUM. I'm hungry just uploading these photos for y'all to see... The slice of pizza was cheese, basil, and prosciutto BTW :) and I went back for another slice--I was so hungry, but they didn't have the prosciutto one anymore so I got plain cheese. Still delicious, and the best pizza I've had so far in Italy. Totally worth it. That day was amazing, and I am so thankful that I was able to have this once in a lifetime opportunity and I will cherish it forever. Viva Monza!

Culture Shock #02 and #03

I am SO FREAKING HUNGRY.

Culture Shock #02: The past few times that I have been grocery shopping, I haven't seen anything that looks remotely edible and I don't know what most of it is. Don't think I would even if I could translate the descriptions on all of the packages. Which brings me to Culture Shock #03: even after four entire semesters of Italian, I can barely function over here. I am not confident whatsoever in my speaking abilities and I've forgotten most of my vocab even though I have four semesters worth of notes with me (and have looked through them several times).

My TA Chelsea told me this would happen and in order to speak well and or fluently, I'd have to get used to being embarrassed and get over it. Ugh. Why can't this just come naturally? I embarrass myself all the time at home, and I have absolutely no problem with it. But back to culture shock #2:

I miss my American snacks. I miss frosted flakes, I miss salted Ritz crackers, I miss PB&J, I miss salted butter (apparently they have it but I can't find it), I miss red meat--this is a big one for me. In the giant Mercato Centrale near the Piazza di San Lorenzo, they have a ton of meat, but it's still in animal-shaped form... I don't even know what to ask for--but it's all pork. Pork is HUGE over here, and don't get me wrong, I love pork, but where's the beef? I like my beef tenderloin, my ground beef, my strip, flank and any other kind of steak you can possibly think of.

I also have to add that I am not anywhere close to a vegetable person. I've tried 'em all and they're all disgusting. So I skip the vegetable portions of the markets and inside the stores. Fruit is fantastic--but they only sell what's in season. So I bought a whole load of oranges and clementines and kiwi. But I'm not a "meal-eater" per say... I like to snack. Very often, and every day. I don't have popcorn, I don't have recognizable chips, energy or granola bars. I don't have meat to make a small sandwich, and already, I'm sick of pasta because I can't make it like the restaurants do. I would love to have seafood pasta, gnocchis, raviolis, pasta carbonara, anything and everything, if I knew how to cook it and where to get the ingredients.

The final straw for me is the coffee. I stood in front of the shelf full of different kinds of caffe for an entire half hour and I walked away with nothing. I know what's espresso but I don't know if I can buy that for the "coffee maker" we have in our apartment. I don't know if the ground coffee (it looks like actual coffee) is caffe americano or not. I wouldn't even know if it was good coffee to buy or not, because we have SO MANY KINDS of coffee in the US, people develop preferences and then they're screwed when they leave the country.

Now that I've vented my frustrations on to the internet, I feel a lot better and I'm making myself a promise that I will try my hardest to learn to speak Italian, and to give myself a break because it's only my first week here. I have three more months in beautiful Florence, Italy and I'm going to make the most of it. So from now on, I'm going to try to not complain about things because I'm in Italy, and my family and I worked hard to get me here. From now on, I'm going to relax and only stress about school work, because that's the typical college student way of life.

Culture Shock #01

 Apparently in Italy--or maybe just Florence, I'll have to do more research on this one--when it rains, people stop what they're doing, and I'm talking about EVERYBODY, even the tourists. People stop what they're doing and they stand under the eaves of shops and buildings and wait for the rain to pass. Now, as this was our second day in Florence, my roommate Lauren and I had no idea. We had just finished up our placement exams for Italian, and we had to make it back to our apartment by a certain time to meet with our landlord. It was mandatory that we all be there from 5pm to 8:30pm and we couldn't leave until our landlord showed up and told us how to work everything. Of course, our placement exams ran long, and we had but 10 minutes to get from one side of the city to the other. So, naturally, we were in a hurry.

As soon as we stepped outside to walk home, it begins to downpour. It started out as just a light misting of rain and then BOOM, it downpours. We were the only ones walking in the rain. Literally, the ONLY ONES. We had people take pictures of us running through the piazza, and people laughing, making comments. All I could think about was, in America, we don't stop for the rain, we don't wait for it to subside. If its raining, we walk faster. Not in Italy my friends. 

Me and Lauren learned something new that day, and now we know to stand and wait like everyone else the next time it rains. Or check the weather and bring an umbrella. That may have been the smart thing to do.

Florence, Italy!

So, it's been about three years since my last post, and I have decided that I am going to use this blog as sort of a journal to keep record of all the things I'm doing (or would like to do) while abroad. That's right! Goodbye USA, Hello Italy! I am currently spending a semester abroad in Italy, mainly Florence, for half of my senior year as an undergrad. Graduate school will hopefully be coming up in the near future, but that's an entirely different story for another time.

I've been in my student apartment for a week and a half now, and I love my apartment-mates. You could describe our apartment as "country-chic" as it has very rustic colors, a lot of wood work, old school appliances, and stone floors.

I think it's adorable. I have my own room; it's on the smaller side, but I don't need that much space and I am only here for three and a half months. The only part that I don't care for is the fact that in Italy, there are only dryers at the laundromat. So my denim and my shirts may be a little stiff after I hang dry them... we'll see how this goes.

So far, my roommates and I have walked a great deal of the city, as well as across the river, had some of the best gelato, and at least a gallon of cappuccino's and caffè. We've crossed the Ponte Vecchio, walked along the Arno, been to a few fabulous restaurants and had some delicious looking (and tasting!) meals.

Four Cheese Gnocchi from a small restaurant by the Cattedrale in Siena, Italy.

My favorite has actually been the seafood pasta--I love me some shrimp! It's weird that they have little tiny octopi in the dishes as well, like, whole octopi (minus the head). I've probably eaten more vegetables than I've ever had in my entire life. Surprisingly, I love eggplant. Especially when it's paired with mozzarella, a little meat, and smothered in red sauce. I love the salads here as well because everything is so fresh! There are so many markets where restaurants (as well as my housemates and I) can buy fresh produce for meals every day. Although, I do miss American dressing--creamy ranch, Caesar, Italian--I'm not a big fan of just olive oil or balsamic vinegar. Two things I have learned about food though since I've been here: I still don;t like tomatoes, no matter how many times or how many different ways I try them, they just don't taste appealing to me. I also discovered that tofu is disgusting and I could never be vegan/vegetarian. I've had raviolis, gnocchis, the best bruschetta I have ever tasted in my life, delectable paninis, and I think the best vending-machine coffee known to man. But enough about food, let me dive in to my most recent adventure:

Last Sunday, my roommates and I took a day trip to Siena! It was absolutely GORGEOUS, and it was nice to be in a city that wasn't as touristy and busy like Florence. Surrounded by greenery, Siena is tucked away into the countryside, about an hour south of Florence. I made the mistake of wearing flats that weren't completely broken in yet, to walk around the city of Siena. My heels are just recovering, and my box of band-aids has been considerably depleted. (I remember thinking while I was shopping in Wegmans for things I would need abroad, that I am ridiculously accident prone and I should get two boxes of band-aids, but I ended up only getting one. Rookie mistake.) We took a tour called the Divina bellezza: The complete Museum of the Duomo in Siena, and bought the OPA SI Pass which allowed us to see the Museo dell'Opera, the Panorama dal Facciatone, the Cript, Battistero, and Cattedrale, all for 12,00 euro.

View of Siena from the Panorama dal Facciatone

Inside the Cathedral

The outside of the Cathedral

Another view of Siena on the walk back to the bus station.

The only thing we didn't have time to see was the Piazza del Campo where twice a year, the Palio di Siena takes place. The Palio di Siena is an event with roots that lead all the way back to the 12th Century.
      For more information on this famous race, read on: Italian Site (Homepage) or English Version

All in all, I'd say this was a good first adventure out into the countryside of Toscana, Italy!