First Week In Florence :)

Saturday
Leaving Siena was so exciting with a twinge of sadness.  It was a quite, charming, and lovely little city.  The trip to Florence was a short trip with me sleeping the whole way.  I woke up just right outside the city.  The sight was breathtaking...

The bus dropped us right outside of the city.  This was really the beginning of my study abroad.  I took a taxi with one of my roommates to my place of residence for the next 3 months, Via Santa Maria n42.  So exciting whizzing through the tiny streets anxious about what was to come.

Our taxi driver dropped us right outside of our door, payed a whopping 19.50 euro for the ride, and started the process of getting all my luggage up the very narrow steps to the 3rd floor. (But really more like the 4th floor.)  It was well worth the work...my apartment is amazing.  It is more than I could have ever expected. 

It has a gorgeous tuscan feeling to it, duh I still can’t believe I am in Tuscany.  My apartment has a huge kitchen with gas stove top, oven, table for 8, chairs/couches, dishwasher (which I have a funny story to tell), fridge and windows facing the street and other houses. (Can see straight across to my 80 year old neighbors :)  There is also a bathroom and bedroom on the first floor with an office room that we converted to a bedroom (SHHHHH don’t tell our landlord)! On the way up the stairs there is s tiny little door that leads to a space in the wall for our tiny wash machine. Thank goodness we have one.  The 3rd bedroom is on the top floor.  We also have a terrace but haven’t got the key to it yet. 

So being the resourceful girl that grew up in an auction company I learned to move furniture through tight spaces and impossible turns.  :)  Well we turned our 2 bedroom into a wonderful spacious 3 bedroom apartment.

After all of the hard work of lugging our suitcases up the stairs and moving furniture around we had our fist family dinner together just to tide us over till the welcome dinner.  Megan made pasta for us, while Emma, Maria and I cleaned up.  It was such an exciting first night in the apartment.

We also had a welcome dinner in Florence that night in a wonderful hotel.  The hotel was so beautiful.  One of the rooms was said to have been Caesars girlfriends bedrooms.  It was magnificent with huge chandeliers, frescos, and a balcony for musicians to play as their alarm clock.  I think I could handle living there, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to get up in the morning then. 

For dinner we had a four course meal with water and vino.  We started off with bread which we dipped in oil and balsamic vinegar.  Then we had our first course, four cheese gnocchi (one of the cheeses was blue cheese, which I love).  Next up was a delicious pasta course with red sauce.  We then had a chicken breast flavored with lemon and fried potatoes. To finish it off we were offered chocolate cake and cappuccino.  After dinner there was a whole basket of bread left over, so be the resourceful girl that I am I wrapped up the bread in my scarf. (Going to use it in a soup)


Sunday
I didn’t have any musicians wake me up that morning, but I was in my new apartment IN FLORENCE, which was just as exciting.  We had another Mandatory Orientation Meeting.  3 hours of information was a bit of an overload.  To top it off a Police Man from Florence talked to us about our safety, which I think they hired him to scare us.  (And it worked!)  It’s a lot different living here than in Burwell, Nebraska. :)

After we took a group photo in front of one of the many churches here we had a FREE Art History tour.  BTW take advantage of anything that is free and furthers your knowledge in life, even if it could be boring.  (Its good for you)  After the tour I invited my newly made friends (Kayla, Chelsea, Kaitlin and Ashley) back to my apartment for dinner.  I made a simple meal of pasta and wine.  Still in love with my apartment and the city.

Monday - Thursday
Classes

I am taking: Painting in Florence, Fashion Marketing & Merchandising, Basic Spoken Italian, and Photography for the Media.  Each and every one of my classes is amazing. 

Painting is going to focus on the “Italian” still-life, full figure self portrait, a single form of Florence defined, Florence cityscape, a fresco, figure painting, and painting outside around Florence.  I am going to be painting with oil, (ahhh never used them before) but when in Florence one must try to use oils.

Photography has a total of four big projects.  They will be developing picture stories, that will include a short text in the form of an article, headline and captions.  Sounds exciting right?

Fashion class is going to be once in a lifetime.  My teacher has many connections and I will get to go on many field trips to luxury Italian fashion manufacturers and fashion outlets.  OH BOY!

And basic spoken I will continue my journey of learning and speaking the Italian Language. 

Food

Food here is just amazing.  On Wednesdays we have to decided to have family dinner at our apartment.  So last Wednesday I cooked my first Italian meal.  I used the soup recipe from the cooking class in Siena.  It is a great simple soup, please try it!

Lella’s Pappa col Pomodoro

4-6 Servings:
400 grams of firm Tuscan Bread
6 cloves of garlic
10 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
500 grams of ripe tomatoes or canned tomatoes
A bunch of basil
1 1/2 liters of beef broth
1 dried red pepper
salt and pepper

Prepare the beef broth, remove the fat, filter it and keep it hot.  (I just used the beef broth cubes)  In a deep terracotta pot, add the olive oil, garlic and the minced dried red pepper; then turn on the heat to medium-high. (more like medium)  As soon as the oil is hot, add a handful of basil leaves in order to ‘perfume’ the oil - be very careful to not burn the garlic - it should always stay white.

Add the bread that has been sliced very thinly.  The bread should toast and absorb all of the oil.  At this point, add the tomatoes and add a lot of broth - enough to nearly cover the bread.  Adjust the salt and pepper and add additional basil leaves. 

Cook slowly for about an hour in a covered pot, checking frequently that it remains most - add broth when necessary.  The soup should be rather dense.  Before serving, pass the soup through a food mill - esp. the big pieces of bread, garlic and basil leaves. (I didn’t have a food mill, but it still was delicious) Serve with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

During summer, the pappa can also be served cold.  We can transform the dish into a complete one by adding a scrambled egg - one for every two people - and some grated Parmigianino Reggiano cheese.  This version of the soup is called “Pappa Maritata”