Under the Tuscan Sun

Ciao I miei amici! Due to the request of my fan base, I am updating my blog (sorry for the delay mom).  A lot has happened since we last spoke so I have a feeling that this will be a long entry.  This past week I have started real classes, ate, gone on a fieldtrip, ate, spoke with more Italian (male) people, ate a little more and even cooked!

                Ok so where should I start? My week of intensive Italian went well. I really liked my teacher Marta who is from outside of Perugia. I told her how I really wanted to learn how to cook, and she confessed she didn’t really know either. She told me we could learn together only if we spoke in Italian.  So we agreed to do it later on in the semester. Cooking and Italian speaking don’t really mix well for me yet seeing as I confuse egg (uovo) with man (uomo).  Unfortunately I only had Marta for the intensive Italian week, but my new teacher seems really cool as well.  The week was really fun overall; Marta took us to a café and bought us our drink of choice (we could only speak in Italian). I got a late macchiato (I felt pretty chic). She also took us to a supermarket. We had to take the “minimetro” (a mix between a train and a Disney ride- pics later) to get there.  Overall, I think I learned a good amount of Italian (slowly waning off of Fremily).

                So you might be wondering, now Emily, why is your entry titled “Under the Tuscan Sun” when you don’t even live in Tuscany?? Well my dear amici, I’ll tell you. This past weekend I went on a field trip to beautiful Toscana! All students at the Umbra Institute (the name of my school- which I probably should have mentioned before) that went through Arcadia had an “orientation day” here. The purpose of the trip was to discuss living in Italy and all that good stuff. But the best part was where we stayed. We stayed at La Tenuta il Corno in San Casciano Val di Pesa, Tuscany (I have attached pictures finally! Courtesy of my roommate Julia, and my friend Alex). This place was everything you ever imagined Italy to be. I’ll let the pictures explain more than me. But it was really cool. We met the Countess Maria Guila Frova who gave us a tour of her Oil and Wine Estate. We learned about the relationship wine and oil making have on Italian culture (did you know that in this region, they clean their new born babies with Chianti?).  So along with that, of course we got to do wine tasting. I learned all the proper techniques for wine tasting (smelling, swishing and such).  We tried three wines. I definitely think I’m more partial to white wines, but I liked all three.  We also got fed… a lot.  I don’t know if any of you have experienced Italian dinners, but they are amazing. Not only because of the food, but because they can go on for hours, and you don’t even notice.  It is truly a social event.  There are typically several courses as well. We had bruschetta (yum!), this pumpkin cabbage pasta, which despite my poor description, was unbelievably good, a stew that tasted like pot roast, and a muffin-like dessert. I was pretty full at the end of it!  We also got to explore the grounds a little bit. I picked a grape as a souvenir of Tuscany. It was only after I bragged about it to everyone that I learned it was instead an olive. I forgot that there was no such thing as a grape tree…We stayed overnight there on Saturday (we had a HUGE apartment like hotel room) and returned to Perugia on Sunday. I got a bottle of olive oil for you, Mom (they make it there)!

Picture time:

Our apartment/hotel!!!

Me celebrating about the huge accommodations!

The cabbage pumpkin dish... SO BUENO!!

Julia and Cameron wine tasting

More wine tasting con Alex, Mick and Cameron

A big barrel of wine

Tuscany :)

The group- with Maria Guila!

                This week, we finally started classes. I am taking Italian (obviously), history of Leonardo DaVinci, a class on medieval women, and history and culture of foods. I have a feeling the last class will be my favorite. We get to go on a lot of fieldtrips to certain parts of Italy to learn about (and eat) the food there. I also really like my teacher, Simon. He’s from Cambridge, and he has the best accent. He was also blown away by my major. He told me meteorology is by far the weirdest major for a student he has ever had. Im not sure If that was a compliment, but I’ll take it as one. I have a feeling he’ll be expecting the forecast every time I walk into class. But he helped me realized that food and meteorology do have a connection. We read this paper in class that talked about how the climate somewhat determined what the food was like in each region in Italy.  I think I could work out some sort of career from this (not sure what, but that’s a minor detail)!!! I like my other classes as well.  We had to do introductions in each of our classes.  it’s always kind of awkward when I have to say my major out loud, because people just usually stare (Simon was an exception). But everything is already really interesting. I have a feeling, im really going to enjoy this semester.

                I also cooked for the first time (pics later)!  Since we have an excellent apartment, my friends all like to cook here. My friend Alex and I made something similar to minestrone yesterday. We had too many potatoes, so I made mashed potatoes with the rest of them (I consider them my specialty now). We also had this HUGE loaf of bread that somehow got demolished during the meal. I learned that as long as you serve bread at dinner, everything will be ok. But I think I can get the hang of cooking (hopefully…)!

                One more small story. So I went grocery shopping with Julia a few days ago, and I really wanted milk. So I bought a small bottle of it to bring back (milk is done differently here, you can only get small bottles here because it expires in 2 days). I don’t normally drink milk by itself but I decided, hey, what the heck I’ll have a small glass of this fine fresh milk.  Turns out it wasn’t milk…  it was heavy cream. I only realized this after I took a nice big swig. Lesson learned… read labels carefully.

                Ok one more really small story. I got pizza for the first time the other day at this place called Pizza e musica. It was amazing, except for the fact that they had olives on the pizza (with the pits still in them). But luckily through the warning of my friend (and stories from my Dad), I was able to avoid severe tooth injury.  But in case any of you are coming to visit me, you are forewarned!!!

                All right, well I’m going to stop talking (soon).  Tonight, there is this thing called Tandem, in which us American students intermix with Italian students from the University of Perugia ,who want to work on their English. This is at a bar. There is a certain time period when you can only speak in Italian, and then a time period where you  can only speak in English. We’ll see how well this goes.  Perhaps there will be more male Italian students with which I can practice il mio italiano. Of course sometimes I don’t mind just sitting back and listening to whatever they are saying.  But don’t worry- im practicing!

Ciao!!!

Emilia J