Tuesday mornings are never fun. I have to wake up early and know that I will not be done with classes until 6:00.
However, today was a fantastic day. During intercultural communications we learned, obviously, about communication and then for the second half of the class Fabio took us out to coffee. He showed us this cute cafe a block away from the school. It was so cute and sooooo good!
It was also really cute because there were probably nine of us girls and Fabio trucking it into this cafe. It was bigger than most of the cafes I've been in so far, so we were able to maneuver our way in.
When I asked Fabio where I could pay at he shoed me to sit down with the girls. He bought us all coffee...it was extremely nice of him! Then for the next 20 or so minutes we all gathered around two tables, drank our coffees and talked.
Unfortunately we had to head back to the school because Italian started soon. I really enjoy going to this class, so I really didn't mind having to go. During class Nicoletta had us try to think of famous Italians in today's world, which is a lot harder than I thought. I didn't know Madonna was Italian. I found that one quite interesting.
Nicoletta introduced a famous Italian singer to us as well. Tiziano Ferro. Oh my lanta, he is amazing. I'm only able to make out a few things of what he is saying, but I cannot stop listening to him. Here's a link to the song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=_KN_nyGehek
After Italian class, Bethany and I went to the on-the-go sandwich joint right outside of the school. Also across the street from where The Jersey Shore cast worked, but I have yet to eat there.
I love the sandwich joint because it's only €2,50 for a delicious sandwich. I go numero sei, which is tomato, mozzarella and olive oil. Yum, yum yum.
For Italian Art History we met outside of the Duomo, Florence's well-known landmark. Today we were learning about the Florence Cathedral, St. Maria del Fiore, meaning Virgin Mary of the flower. There is no such name for Mary in the Bible, but the people wanted to link the church to Florence. The city's symbol is a flower, fiore, and so came about the name St. Maria del Fiore. It started construction in 1296 and finished in 1468. It had a handful of different architects, considering how long it took.
The only downside to visiting places is that we go to them no matter what mother nature is doing. So today when we went it was cold enough to create little flurries and blow cold air around the piazza. The inside of the church was just as cold, but thankfully there was no wind. However, I did learn one good thing: It is possible to take notes standing with gloves on and little circulation going through your fingers!
My next class was out of the classroom as well. Instead of having class 3:30-6:00 today we had it 1:50-3:30 because the place we were going to only had this time open for us. The place we walked to was called Penko Bottega Orafa. It is a goldsmith shop. The owner, Paolo Penko, and his wife own the shop and create absolutely beautiful things. We saw rings worth €2,000, silver Pinnochios worth €4,000 and this beautiful turtle necklace, which I think was made of ruby and silver worth €9,000. I was holding something more expensive than my car.
Paolo showed us what he does and how me makes different jewelry such as rings, brooches, pins, picture frames, etc. Christina, our teacher, was translating everything he said to us because he could not speak a lot of English.
It was cute because at one point he was describing what was lead and neither Christina or Paolo's wife knew how to translate it into English so his wife was looking it up on the internet while we were tossing out names of what we thought we were looking at. Finally Bethany said "lead?" and Paolo's wife said si, si!
A fun fact about this shop is that everything is handmade. There are no fancy machines that do the work for them.
Another fun fact is that this couple designed a necklace for Paris Hilton, which she wore to a big event...I cannot remember the name. They also created a ring for Madonna, which she is actually wearing on one of her album covers. Quite impressive.
Like I've said before, for this class, we have to create a documentary video and choose between the Mosaic, goldsmith, or tailor. I was really interested in doing the documentary on the tailor, since I love fashion, but I learned we aren't going to tour it anymore because our teacher were having issues cooperating with the tailor. So after thinking about it, I decided I really want to do the goldsmith. I found both really interesting, but the goldsmith held my attention more than the mosaic.
Here's a link to the goldsmith shop's website: http://www.paolopenko.com/
Later on in the evening I went to Billa to get eggs and milk to make French toast. I tried finding syrup and failed, but my friend gave me a fantastic idea. Instead of syrup I put Nutella on in. SO good. Probably not the healthiest, but who cares?! It was delicious.
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