Real-life Willy Wonka

Yes, you read that subject line correctly. And yes, the above picture is a delectable chocolate creation. This weekend, I went on a trip with my cooking class to Eurochocolate, which is often described as the Oktoberfest of chocolate. Chocolateers (is that a word?) from all over europe come to Perugia, Italy to show their best work to the world. Needless to say, I sampled many types of chocolate and spent the day participating in fun, chocolate-oriented games and activities to win prizes. (Most of the prizes were silly hats, right up my alley.

I also got a chococard through my class which entitled me to several free goodies including a chocolate hammer, chocolate vitamins, a tasting of a local wine, among other things. The chocolate hammer, which was the symbol for the festival this year for some reason, is a great example of how they had everything you could possibly imagine made out of chocolate. We saw chocolate fish, cell phones, ipods, turtles, jack-o-lanterns and even the Personal Chocolate, a laptop made entirely of milk chocolate. The above picture is of a chocolate kabab, a play off the favorite European fast food item.

My favorite part of the day had to be when we went to the Ciobar (brand of Italian hot chocolate) booth and discovered that they were filming people for a commercial. Needless to say, my friends and I donned the ridiculous costumes and sang the Ciobar jingle with pride. When I figure out how to do so, I will post a video I took of our taping.

This will be the last post for a while as I am heading out on fall break begining on Thursday. In case you've forgotten, we are visiting Dublin, Galway, Barcelona, Madrid, and Paris. SO EXCITING!

Ciao for now!
Liz

Romeo, Juliet, and The Merchant of Venice

Well Hellllooooo everyone!

I have some very exciting news to report: As many of you know, my hard drive crashed a few weeks ago leaving me without a computer. This will explain the lack of photos and blog posts. I am happy to tell you that I have gotten a new hard drive and am back to using my own computer! Let the good times roll!

Anyway, now for the juicy part: This weekend my study abroad program sponsered an excursion to two cities made even more famous by William Shakespeare: Venice and Verona. Although the Bard never travelled to Italy himself, he must have heard great things about these two beautiful cities. We started the trip off in Verona, which I must say was wildly anti-climactic (probably because it was pouring and I was cranky) but we were able to have a delicious lunch and see what they claim to be the actual Juliet's Balcony. Apparently the two families in the play existed in real life (although their names were anglicized for the play). After our morning in Verona we were off to a lovely countryside villa where we were given a tour of the vineyard and villa and treated to a real wine tasting! This wine tasting was very interesting because they truly explained to us how to appreciate the subtle flavors in the wine.

The next day, we travelled to Venice (by boat, supposedly the best way to enter the city). Venice is absolutely beautiful. Although many people are turned off by the amount of tourists and the smell, I really love how there are no cars or vespas (so different from Florence!). I really felt like we saw the true Venice on our tour, which took us through many back streets before dropping us at the touristy center.

We were given 6 hours of free time during which my friends and I opted to get lost in the winding streets and do a little shopping (window shopping for me, because I am cheap.) It was truly an amazing day. To top it off, as we were getting on the bus back to Florence there was the most beautiful sunset I have ever seen. Picture is below.

Hope all is well with everyone!

My middle-aged weekend :-)

Photo Credit Christine Amoresano

Hey everyone!

I would like to apologize for the lack of posts recently; my computer crashed a little over a week ago and I have not been able to get on a school computer for long enough to write a blog. But now I have 2 hours until my next (and only) class today so here we go!

This past weekend was jam-packed with activities that really kept me quite busy. My program, Academic Programs International, sponsered an excursion to Bologna for the day on Saturday. We toured the city, which is absolutely beautiful and has great shopping, which I didn't know until I got there and only had enough cash on me for lunch... but perhaps that's for the best because I didnt end up spending anything on shopping! :-) In addition to great shopping the city is home to bolognese sauce, which obviously I had to taste while I was there. Delicious and cheap, just the way i like my food! Bologna also lays claim to not one, but two leaning towers-- clearly architecture is not their strong point! We climbed the taller of the two towers (499 steps.. I guess they just got too lazy to make that 500th...) and were rewarded with beautiful views of the city and surrounding hills. I promise that once I get my computer working again I will post pictures galore!

After Bologna we took a trip to a balsamic vinegar farm where we recieved a tour explaining how it is made and a sampling of their products! This was really neat because the farm has been in the same family for at least 4 generations and they are some of the friendliest people I have ever met. They were even willing to let us sample balsamic vinegar that has been aged for 50 years! Clearly I am keeping my taste buds happy this semester.

On Sunday my friends and I decided to go horseback riding through the Chianti region, because we had heard that the program through which we had discounts was absolutely phenominal. And it was. We got 2 hours of horseback riding through the most beautiful country I have ever seen, tasted wine from the vinyeard through which we had ridden, a full 4 course traditional tuscan meal on a secluded lake, and a wine tasting at a larger vineyard that explained the different types of wine so that even the uninformed (read: me.) could enjoy.

Not only did we recieve all this, but because apparently we waited longer than they usually have clients wait (we didnt notice a thing) we were offered a second day of horseback riding for free. Obviously we went back the next day.

When I told my friends from Stonehill and home what I had done this weekend, I got a few snide comments about how my chosen activities were something thier parents would do. I know they're just jealous, however, as clearly I had one of the best times of my life.

Viva Viola!

I know this is a bit delayed in being posted, but I couldn't possibly fail to update you all on my trip to a Fiorentina soccer game! Fiorentina is the local team for the city of Florence. Although they play in the top division of Italian soccer, they have not had overwhelming success in the past few years. If I were to compare them to an American sports team, I would compare them to Rutgers Football. You know they have the potential to be great, and their fans are diehard, but they are definately not the best of the best.

However, when we went to see them on Wednesday night, they were in top form. They played a team from Genoa, Italy that was ranked 1st in the league. Amazingly enough, Fiorentina won the match 2-0! The energy of the stadium was fantastic, with everyone in purple and white singing elaborate songs that make little to no sense when translated into English... Here is a video with the Fiorentina anthem:




That's all for now!

-Liz

If I wanted to make you jealous.....

If I wanted to make you jealous, I could tell you all about my weekend trip to Pisa and Cinque Terre.

If I wanted to make you jealous, I could tell you that despite forecasts to the contrary, we had blue skies and summer weather in Pisa. I could tell you that we spent the day taking ridiculously touristy photographs in front of the tower, and that they all came out great. I could tell you that it truly does not look real until you are napping in the shadow of the tower.

If I wanted to make you jealous, I could talk about my trip to the beach later that day, and swimming in the medditeranian with huge waves, blue sea, and the alps casually chilling out in the background. I could tell you about the four course meal we were treated to at the hotel, or seeing a beautiful sunrise this morning out my balcony of my hotel room.

If I wanted to make you jealous, I could describe, in detail, the feeling of seeing Lord Byron's cave on the coast of Italy where he was inspired to write his best works, or the taste of what was, without a doubt, the best pesto I have ever eaten, fresh from the Cinque Terre region.

However, I am tired of receiving comments from my faithful readers about how jealous they are. I am not a mean person, I do not want to make you jealous. So instead, I will tell you that it is currently raining and that I am currently exhausted from a very busy weekend.

Hope that makes you all feel better!!

Photos to come as soon as my internet speeds up.

LOVE YOU ALL!

PS. Sorry for the lack of posts/contact recently, I understand I may have worried some of you a smidge... but I assure you I am safe and sound and secure in Firenze.

First of many epic weekends to come.

Buona serra, tutti!

I hope everyone had a good weekend, because I know I sure did!

A few of my roommates and a bunch of other people in my program took off for a trip down the amalfi coast to capri and pompeii, but in order to save money for future travels, and in order to get better acclimated in florence, my friends and I decided to stay here and explore all the city has to offer. I could not be more glad with our decision because it turned out to be a fun weekend for everyone!

Friday was spent relaxing and buying books for classes, and since we had had a great night out on the town the night before, we (me and my friends erica, christine, and jess) decided to stay in, cook a nice meal, and plan our future travels. We must really be getting the hang of living in italia and cooking for ourselves, because we managed to scrape together the last contents of our colective refrigerators and cook a scrumptious meal of balsamic+garlic marinated chicken, pasta with a white wine/garlic sauce (yes dad, a-white-a-whine-a-garlica-saucea.), and nutella fondue for desert!

While we ate, we talked about where we all want to travel this semester and luckily we were all pretty much in agreement of our ideal locations. While in a perfect world we would go to every country in Europe, we are unfortunately prevented from doing so due to time restraints and the fact that we still have to save money for things such as oh, ya know, food.

However, we planned our fall break and it looks to be very exciting, with trips to Dublin, Galway, Barcelona, Madrid, and Paris. 5 cities and 3 countries in one week should be tiring, but it will sure as hell be worth it. In addition to fall break, we have penciled in tentative trips to switzerland, greece, austria, germany, and perhaps prague. Whether we actually accomplish these trips are beyond us, however. We also all left plenty of time to be in our home city of Firenze for friends and family to come visit, which will be significantly easier on the wallet but just as fun!

The next day we took a city bus to Fiesole, which is an old, walled town on the hills around florence that overlooks the entire city. It was absolutely beautiful, relatively free of tourists, and a very inexpensive way to have a fun day trip. Check my photo website for pictures of Fiesole as well as some new shots of day-to-day life around the city.

I am working on posting pictures directly to this blog so that you 3 readers I have don't have to constantly check both websites, but for now, you will have to deal with my technilogical ineptitude. This is a rather long post so I will have to cut it short here.

Ciao!
Liz

La Dolce Vita

Hello again my faithful readers!

This week has been very hectic, so sorry for the slight delay in posts! It was the first week of classes so needless to say I have a lot to write about!

In general, my classes are as interesting and exciting as I had expected them to be. Both of my history classes are going to be significantly easier than my classes at Stonehill, which will prove to be a nice break. My 1960s: Global Counter Cultural Movement class is going to be a breeze, with most class sessions dedicated to watching movies and documentaries! Va bene! (It's all good!) My other history class, The Quarters of Florence, is going to prove invaluable because every class we have a walking tour of different parts of the city! According to my professor, we will all be expert tour guides by the time we leave, which should be great!

Italian language has also been going quite well. I am excited to learn and practice more, because although most people speak English, I am getting tired of being a stupid American. So it will be nice to maybe carry on a conversation in Italian! Unfortunately, I find myself accidentally speaking in French when I don't know the Italian word for something. I have found that this is ineffective.

By far the most exciting class that I am taking, however, is my cooking class! (I know, life is hard.) The name of the class is Celebrating Italian Style, which is exactly what we will be doing. We have tastings of products from all over the country, discuss local hoidays/feasts, and talk about trends in cuisine. And at the end of each lesson we cook a delicious Italian meal! For this class we also have several field trips (which I am surprised and pleased to report have all been pre-paid for by Stonehill!) One is to Eurochocolate, which is essentially Oktoberfest for chocolate held in Perugia, Italy. The other two are wine tasting trips to different regions. I am SO excited, to say the least.

I am also fortunate enough to be in my cooking class with two of my friends here, so we are all excited to show off our skills for our roommates and other friends!

I will be posting pictures sometime in the next day to my photo website (webshots.com/photosfromabroad) but for now, my internet is being irritating.

Love and miss you all! Hope all is well in the States!