I just had a truly terrific weekend from start to finish! On Friday the school did two trips to the Corsini Winery nearby, and I helped to chaperone the afternoon tour. So we left campus at 2:30pm and hopped onto a bus for a 30 minute drive out of the city. It was beautiful, up on a hill, with a lovely little garden and views of vineyards, olive tree groves, and rolling Tuscan hills. Our tour guide was really nice, she had even come in our day off. The Corsini Winery makes three different types of chianti wine (basic, medium, and super fancy - not what they're really called, but you get the idea). They also make two types of extra virgin olive oil (organic and non-organic). We were shown around the winery, saw and learned about how they make the wine and the olive oil, and then we had tastings of the wines and olive oil (with bread and a meats platter). It was really cool to see everything, and I learned more about Tuscan wines and a whole lot about olive oil. I really enjoyed all three wines, but I think the middle one was my favourite. The olive oils tasted very, very strongly of olives, which I wasn't expecting. I'm not sure if it's because it's how olive oil is supposed to taste, and it's just super processed in the States, or if it's just a different style of olive oil. . . . Shall have to look into that more, I suppose.
We arrived back in Florence around 6pm, had a little break, and then I met up with a couple students and colleagues for a gelato run. We went across the Arno river to a delicious gelateria that all of the students had been raving about, and finally took me to last Tuesday. As evidenced by the fact that I went twice in one week, this is gooooood gelato! It is really creamy, and they have a good array of flavors - I got the caffe and the nutella yogurt. I still don't know a lot of Italian, but I quickly mastered ordering gelato in Italian, so if you come out to visit, that's what we'll be eating :) The students parted ways after gelato and James (a colleague) and his friend from New Jersey came over and we played Ticket to Ride and drank some chianti. All in all a good day.
Saturday during the day was fairly low-key; I did laundry, tidied up, and read a book. I did grocery shopping in the afternoon, and then that evening I went over to Shelley's apartment for dinner with her and Linda. Shelley has a new bread machine and it was so nice to have fresh bread with flavor (they don't use any salt or herbs or really anything to flavor the bread in Florence). It was a really nice evening of eating, chatting, and hanging out - I really feel like I have good friends here :)
Sunday two students came over to bake - they don't have access to kitchens of their own. That was a really fun afternoon - we made peanut butter cookies and M&M cookies - such a nice treat. They didn't turn out perfectly - I still haven't found baking powder and baking soda here yet. But they were still really good, even if they looked funny, and tasted a tad different. While waiting for the cookies to bake we played some rounds of Bananagrams. It was really nice interacting with students outside of the office, and they enjoyed coming over too. And also, my apartment still smells of freshly baked cookies - so that's awesome!!
After that I did my Italian homework and cleaned up after the baking party. I skyped with some people, wrote a couple of emails, and then I got ready for my night out.
The school arranged for students to get discounted tickets to a concert Sunday night at 9pm, and I jumped on board and also bought a 10 euro ticket. The concert was Vivaldi's Four Seasons and it was INCREDIBLE! I absolutely loved it. There was also an opera soprano, who sang four or five songs throughout the evening. She had a really fantastic and very impressive voice, and she got really animated, which was cool to see. But the best part, for me, was definitely the Vivaldi. There were eight musicians, three violins, a viola, a double bass, a cello, a harpsichord and an instrument that I didn't recognize, but looked old and somewhat like a sitar. The first violinist was unbelievably talented, and the other two violinists were really incredible as well. It was cool to see such a small ensemble perform classical music, I paid more attention to the movement of the bows, the instruments, and the musicians than I have at symphony performances. Particularly with "Spring" I felt that the visual part of watching the concert augmented the experience of hearing it. Which was a neat experience. I was really blown away by the whole thing and can't wait to go back.
It really was a great weekend in Florence, and while I've had some incredible weekends since moving to Italy, they have been while traveling around Europe. It was nice to feel really good about being in Florence, and I'm excited for more weekends to come.
We arrived back in Florence around 6pm, had a little break, and then I met up with a couple students and colleagues for a gelato run. We went across the Arno river to a delicious gelateria that all of the students had been raving about, and finally took me to last Tuesday. As evidenced by the fact that I went twice in one week, this is gooooood gelato! It is really creamy, and they have a good array of flavors - I got the caffe and the nutella yogurt. I still don't know a lot of Italian, but I quickly mastered ordering gelato in Italian, so if you come out to visit, that's what we'll be eating :) The students parted ways after gelato and James (a colleague) and his friend from New Jersey came over and we played Ticket to Ride and drank some chianti. All in all a good day.
Saturday during the day was fairly low-key; I did laundry, tidied up, and read a book. I did grocery shopping in the afternoon, and then that evening I went over to Shelley's apartment for dinner with her and Linda. Shelley has a new bread machine and it was so nice to have fresh bread with flavor (they don't use any salt or herbs or really anything to flavor the bread in Florence). It was a really nice evening of eating, chatting, and hanging out - I really feel like I have good friends here :)
Sunday two students came over to bake - they don't have access to kitchens of their own. That was a really fun afternoon - we made peanut butter cookies and M&M cookies - such a nice treat. They didn't turn out perfectly - I still haven't found baking powder and baking soda here yet. But they were still really good, even if they looked funny, and tasted a tad different. While waiting for the cookies to bake we played some rounds of Bananagrams. It was really nice interacting with students outside of the office, and they enjoyed coming over too. And also, my apartment still smells of freshly baked cookies - so that's awesome!!
After that I did my Italian homework and cleaned up after the baking party. I skyped with some people, wrote a couple of emails, and then I got ready for my night out.
The school arranged for students to get discounted tickets to a concert Sunday night at 9pm, and I jumped on board and also bought a 10 euro ticket. The concert was Vivaldi's Four Seasons and it was INCREDIBLE! I absolutely loved it. There was also an opera soprano, who sang four or five songs throughout the evening. She had a really fantastic and very impressive voice, and she got really animated, which was cool to see. But the best part, for me, was definitely the Vivaldi. There were eight musicians, three violins, a viola, a double bass, a cello, a harpsichord and an instrument that I didn't recognize, but looked old and somewhat like a sitar. The first violinist was unbelievably talented, and the other two violinists were really incredible as well. It was cool to see such a small ensemble perform classical music, I paid more attention to the movement of the bows, the instruments, and the musicians than I have at symphony performances. Particularly with "Spring" I felt that the visual part of watching the concert augmented the experience of hearing it. Which was a neat experience. I was really blown away by the whole thing and can't wait to go back.
It really was a great weekend in Florence, and while I've had some incredible weekends since moving to Italy, they have been while traveling around Europe. It was nice to feel really good about being in Florence, and I'm excited for more weekends to come.
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