Tourists

Man, I will be glad when the tourists die down a bit as the weather gets colder. It seems as though almost everywhere we go, there are groups of foreigners. They fill (and I mean FILL) the squares by the Duomo and Palazzo Vecchio, with their maps and cameras out and ready, following their tour guides who are holding up an umbrella, fake flower, or other random object to make sure they don't get lost. They come from all over too: the US, different countries in Asia, around Europe, even other parts of Italy. This makes English pretty abundant, as the souvenir, leather, and food shops meet the need of the (mostly) American tourists. Unfortunately, this means that people will frequently talk to Kristen and I in English first as they pick us out as Americans and assume we do not understand Italian. Fortunately, this gets much less common away from the center of the city and if we try speaking Italian first.

Basilica di Santa Croce

Some pictures and information that I learned in my Intro to Renaissance Art class Thursday about the Church:

The church is a Gothic style.

My Classes

After my second week of classes, I am finally going to discuss each of them for you in more detail. The 5 courses I am taking this semester are: Current Trends in Italian Cuisine, Workplace Psychology: Building Effective Managers, Italian Language Advanced I, Basic Sewing Techniques, and Introduction to Renaissance Art (in Italian). Very different from my usual engineering course load, but I enjoy working with a different part of my brain and taking a little break from math and science.

First Cooking Class

Quick post since I haven't had internet access in my room for the past few days and I need to go to bed soon for my 8am class.

I just wanted to mention that I put up 4 new recipes that we made in class on Monday. That's right, we made 4 dishes and got to enjoy them all :) We split up into 4 groups and I helped make the Scaloppine con nocciole, which was super easy and delicious! The sauce was incredible. We also made Linguine spinaci, fagiolini e caffè, which was pasta with coffee in the water. It was interesting...it smelled strongly of coffee, but didn't have a particularly flavorful taste. We made amazing little mashed potato balls, with parsley and bread crumbs on top called Palline di patate gratinate. For dessert, we had a simple Ricotta al cacao con coulis di frutta, ricotta cheese with berries...yum!

Tomorrow I have my first Basic Sewing Techniques class (which I just switched into last week and so missed the first class). After that, I will write more about each of my classes this semester.

Ciao!
Caitlin
  

Piazzale Michelangelo

We walked up to the Piazzale Michelangelo, which is on a big hill and overlooks the entire city. So, I got some pretty cool pictures...

On the way up...

The Viareggio Beach

Yesterday, Kristen and I took a 1 hour and 15 minute bus ride to the beach at Viareggio. The weather was beautiful and it was the perfect day trip. Now, I know the first thing that popped into your heads when I mentioned beach in Europe...