Monday, January 31, 2011

Food! / First Day of Classes

Hey lovers.

I really haven't been spending much more than 8 Euro a day on food but I've been eating out almost every day. So here goes groceries.

Risotto rice (poorly made haha) with some weird sauce. I have no idea what the sauce was- I just picked it up on the market and it looked good, so I mixed it with hot water and made a sauce. Great way to learn. It was all in Italian so I had no idea how to read it.

And it would have taken too much effort to translate at freetranslations.com :)

Balconi brand Sweet Roll; con farcitura alla frutta. Something something with fruit? It is DELICIOUS. It's cheap and holy shit I love it. I'm gonna miss it a lot going back to the US because you can always get tiramisu in the States but this is like one of those cheap-o treats you can only get at grocery stores.

I'll always remember Nutella on that shelf in my kitchen back in elementary school, before it got famous in the States haha. And when Madame Ercolano (pure Italian teacher who taught me French in middle school!) was eating it in front of the projector and how much she loved it.


I made dinner tonight for my roommates; tortellini with red sauce and some ricotta cheese. Delish!

Milk! They don't sell milk by the gallons because it expires so fast, so families here will make it a daily job for someone to go get milk every morning because a family will usually blow through one carton a day. Their milk is also a lot thicker tasting- I thought it was half and half for awhile until I free-translated that shit and found out that it was whole and partially skimmed (2%?).

Nutella and jam on bread snack? While doing my Italian homework? In my Italian kitchen?

The first day of classes was today. I was an hour and a half late to class because I couldn't find the damn building.

If you look at a map (see a few entries previous), Florence/Firenze looks a lot bigger than it really is. Everything is just crammed- the streets are very short and packed. The buildings are ridiculously tall so you can't really orient yourself with the huge landmarks unless you're right next to them. Also, each street name has the old name on a plaque and the new current name on a plaque, so you have to figure out which one is the modern one that everyone is using. The deal is also the same with the building numbers- there are two. Streets will change while you're on them- it can be one long straight street but it will suddenly change when you cross a road at an intersection.

I went to the main Florence University of the Arts (FUA) building today for my class and I was wrong; I was directed to Via San Gallo, building 45. I went to Via San Gallo, and couldn't find it. I kept finding every number except 45. I was getting really frustrated but calmed down when I told myself I was expecting this, and the professor would most likely be expecting people to get lost also. I walked around forever (2 hours total, 1.5 hours late). I walked from FUA to Via San Gallo back to the Duomo to TRY to find the Squola building but gave up and walked back to my apartment. I wanted to give up but I pushed on and went back out. Finally, I asked a woman on the street of San Gallo and in broken English, she directed me further down. Thank you so much.

I came into the middle of some video presentation. My professor is a legit artist which is why he was only there for part of the class because he had real things to do haha. It's really great to be taught by someone who is actually famous (apparently?) I met some great girls too- Hope, Mallory, and Anna. We caught lunch together and did some window shopping, and I exchanged numbers. Sweet deal.

And, apparently Hope lives in Elise's building! She's such a sweetheart.

So for my first day, I made an Etruscan house/temple? Hahah quick to start. I forgot my camera :( so I don't have pictures but I will next week. It's required, anyways. :)

I started Italian 101. I wasn't into it. Sorry, I don't like the Italian language. It's not as musical as the French language. I LOVE French.

Tomorrow is Darkroom Photography! Elise said she did some research and that the photo program at FUA is apparently extremely well-known and very good so it's a great thing to have on your resume. Even though I'm not a photo major, I'm completely psyched about this. Photo was my first love, after all.

+Love+

1 comment:

  1. Yea! Catharine. Love reading this and great blog title. Watch My Architect while you are there....can you get/do you have Netflix? Keep writing. I'd love to learn a little Italian.....put some entries up...teach me! [It'll be more fun]

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