San Gimignano, Chianti, Siena and Monteriggioni

I woke up and was on the go again. The previous day, I had gone to Milan for fashion week. This time, I went on another day trip to several different cities in Italy: San Gimignano, Chianti, Siena and Monteriggioni.

 

We ended up on a tour bus where the tour was primarily given in Spanish. Spanish and Italian are very similar so I spent the first couple of minutes thinking that the tour was in Italian until I recognized some words to be Spanish. Eventually, the tour guide would translate everything into English but by that time if we were driving by a monument on the bus, we would already pass it.

I thought that it was hilarious. I’m already trying to learn Italian and I end up going on a primarily Spanish speaking tour in Italy. I don’t know much Spanish either (only what I remember from my high school Spanish class) so I was equally as confused during the Spanish parts.  Everything looked really cool though so I didn’t necessarily have to understand everything. There was a total of about 8 English speaking folks on the whole tour bus.

First stop was to San Gimignano. They are known for some of the best ice cream in the world. So naturally, I had to get some even though it was only 9 or 10 in the morning. I got pineapple and Nutella flavored ice cream. The pineapple was just way too much for me to handle but the Nutella was perfect and very delicious. There were many mini photo shoots taken in this town.

I also had my very first espresso. It was not my favorite. I don’t like bitter and that is exactly what espresso is. Very. Very. Bitter. (I didn’t know that before I ordered it) In order to actually drink it, I added a great deal of white and brown sugar. After seeing me add a bunch of sugar, the bartender asked me if I would like some milk to add in it and I gladly accepted it. In the end, I ended up making my espresso into what they call here in Italy a caffe latte but a mini version since they serve shots of espresso in a tiny cup.

Sarah (my roommate) said that the bartender looked at me in horror as he watched me poor the mountain of sugar into the espresso. I didn’t really realize that coffee and espresso is a really big thing in Italy. They drink the coffee for the taste, where as we (in America) drink it more to wake us up, which is exactly why I actually bought the espresso because I was exhausted from being in Milan the previous day. By the end of my experience though, the bartenders saw it as more of a funny experience then an insult. I explained to them that I was new to coffee and espresso and they were really understanding about it. It’s interesting that a common drink such as coffee can have two different meanings depending on what culture you are from.

Next, we went to Chianti. Where we were able to do a food and wine tasting. When we arrived the woman spoke to us in pure Italian and all I could do was mimic what the other people in the room were doing. After tasting two wines, some olive oil and cheese. She over heard my roommate and I speaking in English and she switched over to English so we could understand her as well.

What she was saying was to swivel the glass around (with the wine in it) and then to smell the wine for a couple of seconds then to hold it in your mouth for five seconds (when we first received new wine) She was also explaining that the wine tastes different when you drink the wine and eat it with different foods (which is COMPLETELY true!!)

In the first couple of weeks of being here, I discovered that I don’t really like wine so I've started to avoid it. The wine is always too dry or bitter. But I just tried the wine in Chianti to say that I have and I’m really glad that I didn’t chalk all wine up to tasting the same. I ended up really liking the dessert wine (No surprise there! It was super sweet to Sarah and my friend, Christina) I absolutely loved it!! I also really liked the balsamic vinegar that we had as well, those were my favorite from the entire tasting. We tasted some classic Chianti wine that wasn’t bad either. In total, we had four wines, two different types of olive oil with bread, a bit of cheese, salad and salami. (but I don't really eat pork so I didn't really eat it. I did try a bit though!)

 

We also had some really good pasta with olive oil on it and the olive oil completely changed the taste of the pasta. It made plain pasta with sauce have really good flavor.

Siena was next.

This place is like a medieval town. There are 17 districts each with their own separate flag. (It reminded me of the Hunger Games) The streets are marked with a crest of which district they belong to. The only place where there is neutral ground is called Piazza del Campo. It is also the place where the hold the famous horse race, which is apparently one of the most dangerous in the world. I guess that would make sense since our tour guide said there were no rules. Anything and everything is fair game during the race.

Monteriggioni was our last stop. It is a medieval walled town and a total of 50 people live there. 50 people. There were more people in my high school graduating class (65) and I knew them all by name and could pretty much tell you a history on each of them. I couldn’t imagine living in a walled town with only 50 people but I am more of a big city type of girl. (I plan on New York being in my future.) It had a nice small town type of feel.

Milan Fashion Week

Milan Fashion Week was held this year from September 17^th  – 22^nd.  I went on the 3^rd day the 19^th.  When we first got there, we headed straight for the Milan Duomo, which was a beautiful site. It is apparently the fourth largest cathedral in the world.

Milan Duomo

Next we went to Loggia dei Mercanti (the fashion center) where they have the fashion shows. Unfortunately, the shows aren’t open to the public but they have a carpeted area right outside that has projection screens that feature the live fashion show inside that the public can watch. (See Video above) There are also people passing out newspapers, information about the shows and a model casting call.

We went to the Galleria before heading off to lunch. The Galleria is thought to be the world’s oldest shopping mall and it is a popular meeting spot for Milanese. Inside, there is a famous bull tile that is said to bring good luck if you rub your foot or spin around on it (Different people say different things).

Galleria Vittorio Emanuel II

Lunch was at the Mozzarella Bar on the top floor of La Rinascente, (a famous department store; think like Macy’s or Nordstrom’s) where I had some very delicious pizza.

After lunch, we went to the fashion district and the design district. The fashion district was filled with stores such as Prada, Gucci, Cavalli, Ferragamo and Pucci. We saw the fashion houses and head offices of various different companies like: Valentino, Gucci, Versace, Dolce & Gabbana and Prada. The design district was where design students would go to school.

Milan Fashion Week was not like what I expected. It is very spread out around the city. (I thought that it would be more in one concentrated area.) It makes it hard to see all of the things going on in just one day. My experience would have been even more awesome if we were able to get into some of the shows but as I learned in my Fashion Marketing class, Milan is all about connections and knowing someone to be able to be invited to go. Paris is the most difficult fashion week to get into but there is hope you can pay and go to New York Fashion Week.

Unfortunately, it rained on the day we went. Newer designers and design students sometimes hold catwalks outside in different parts of the city. Despite the rain, we were able to grab a couple of look books for a brand and see some beautiful sites. All in all I had a good time in Milan!

Fun Fact about Milan: The bean bag is a Milanese invention!

 Here are some pictures of street style in Milan:

      

Cinque Terre

Cinque Terre means five lands in Italian. It is made up of five small towns. They are known for their pesto and seafood. So naturally, I had to try some pesto. But I’ll get to that later. 

We started out in the second town. (Apparently, the first town really isn’t that interesting) There are some very beautiful views if you know the right spots to go to. Luckily, our tour guide did.

We took the train to the third town, where we had to climb up 380 stairs.  I realized that I’m not in that great of shape, as I had to keep stopping and take little breaks. When we made it to the top of the stairs that is where the third town began.

We had an option to either take the train (and walk down all those stairs) or to hike to the next town.  Hiking made me nervous. I didn't know how far it was exactly and what was going to be involved. Even though I wanted to take the train so badly, I decided to do the hike and I can honestly say I’m better for it.

 

Just knowing that I can hike that far is exhilarating! I had to keep taking breaks to drink water and I was close to being at the end of the group for most of the time but it was totally worth it. The view was amazing!! I stopped to get many pictures along the way. I once again realized that I’m not in that great of shape but it was motivational for me to start working out to be able to get through any future hikes that I may have without struggling.

When we finally made it to the fourth town. My roommate, Taylor, and I grabbed a piece of Pesto Pizza and I was not disappointed.

I thought that it was strange to put pesto on a piece of pizza. But I couldn’t even imagine how delicious it was. If my legs weren’t shaking from climbing up and down a gigantic mountain, I probably would have went back for a second piece.

We took a boat to the fifth and last time. I was nervous to get on the boat because I didn’t like how unsteady the walkway was to get on the boat and it was rocking back and forth too much for my liking. But I took a deep breath and boarded the boat. I’m so glad that I did. The boat ride was fun.

The fifth town was beautiful and we had beach time. If I had a list, I could check swim in the Mediterranean Sea off. The water was cold, the sand was more like pointy rocks and I didn’t want to get my hair wet. But when in Italy, right?

My roommate, Sarah, Taylor and I went to a restaurant that was off the main street on a side street. The prices were cheaper and I got gnocchi pasta with pesto. It was really good but the pasta got to be too much. It was really filling and was more like eating a lot of little dumplings. I also ordered limoncino, which is like a type of lemon liquor that Italians normally drink after dinner to revive their palate and conclude their meal. It is modeled after the southern liquor limoncello. I have to say that while I have not had the limoncello yet. The limoncino was not my favorite. It was very bitter and I had a hard time drinking it. It did cleanse my palate though.

 

I’m glad that I went on this trip. It was life changing. I am blessed to be able to see different cities and take breathtaking pictures.

Grocery Shopping in Florence

I really recommend downloading the Duolingo app if you are trying to learn a language fast. It was about 3 months before I was supposed to leave and I realized that I did not know any Italian. I started doing lessons during commercials while watching TV and whenever I had free time. Pretty soon I was doing new Italian lessons instead of watching TV because I enjoyed doing them and learning way more than what I was watching.

Doing these lessons provided me with enough knowledge to go grocery shopping. Even though I cannot translate all of the words on the package, I know enough to buy the basic essentials.

Grocery shopping takes an extremely long time because everything is in a different language. (Well shopping in general takes a long time) I really only know what the app has taught me which isn’t very much but some is better than none. I can read basic things like: chicken, turkey, fish, beef, cheese, tomatoes, apples, grapes, eggs but after that…. I’m pretty much on my own. If we can’t tell what it is by just looking at it, my roommates and I just go by the pictures on the package.  If there are no pictures, we try to guess what it is by looking at surrounding items (depending on the aisle were in). This can work out well or go very wrong.

            I say this can go wrong because one of my roommates needed to buy laundry detergent and we didn’t know what words to look for on the bottle. But using our method of looking at the pictures on the bottle, we picked up the one that had the washing machine on it. She did laundry a couple of days later and thought it was strange when the “detergent” wasn’t making suds in her hands but she thought nothing of it. Soon after her load of clothes were done, (After 6 hours!) I decided to look up some of the words on the bottle. I typed “ammorbidente” into Google translator and found out it was fabric softener. We all had a good laugh at that one. (At least her clothes were semi clean, smelled good and very soft!!)

                                  Some random facts about the grocery store:

 

The first thing I noticed that was different when we were in the store was that they don’t refrigerate their eggs…. At. all. At this point in my trip, I’m not really sure why but when I find out I will let you know.

Peanut butter is really hard to find. It is almost 5 euros for one very small jar of Skippy’s peanut butter.

They don’t really use syrup here. The syrup that we did find was close to 8 euros and it was a small bottle (either 12 or 16 oz).  It was in a big supermarket that is comparable to Wal-Mart but it’s a 30-45 minute walk from our apartment.

Pancake/Waffle mix is not really available either.

Oatmeal is not really a thing here also. So if you really like oatmeal, I suggest you pack your own. (One of my roommate actually packed her own)

Packing and Arriving

             Have you ever tried to pack for an entire semester in two suitcases? I have and let me tell you it is not fun. I thought that I had everything (I even quadruple checked) and I realized that I still forgot my camera batter charger (which is essential to my photography class) and a bunch of summer clothes. (It’s hot here!) On the bright side, I didn’t forget my winter coat or gloves. I mean you could just buy a bunch of things when you get here but I imagine that has got to be pretty expensive.  Packing was a struggle but I feel like I packed enough clothes to last me throughout the semester. (I’ll let you know later on if I did pack too much) My family and I were thinking the bags were going to be $65 dollars in total but it actually ended up being $100 dollars (Watch out for that!!).  The first bag was free though so if you feel like you can pack it all into one, Go for it! That second bag was $100 dollars alone and we figured it out when I was already en route to the airport.

As it was time to board the plane it started to pour (Mother Nature is funny in that way) and we were delayed with boarding and take off. We waited the storm out 20-30 minutes and were on our way. Despite those events the plane ride (8hrs 28mins) was smooth, I watched two movies, had dinner and breakfast and took about a nap. Before I knew it, we were landing in Rome.

In the Rome airport, everyone spoke Italian and I only had a short layover time but I managed to make it to my plane on time.  One thing that I noticed is different from an airport in the US is all the planes are parked away from the terminal and buses transport passengers to and from the planes.

Once I arrived in Florence, I opted to do the FUA pick up. Students are checked in at the airport (rather than the school) and given a packet of information about the school and the keys to your apartment. A bus driven by FUA staff took you from the airport directly to your apartment and the FUA staff helped me get my luggage to the apartment. The FUA pick up is a bit more expensive but I do think it was worth it because I didn’t have to try to go to the school and check in by myself. I also didn’t have to carry my luggage up the stairs to my apartment. (I live on the very top floor of my building.)

Inside, there were three bedrooms: a three bedroom with a bathroom attached, a two bedroom with a bedroom attached and a one bedroom with a bathroom down the hall. (I live in the three bedroom) There is also a living room and kitchen. Everything came furnished. The only thing that we really needed to buy was cleaning supplies, toiletries and food.

There is a total of six of us (Five plus me!) in this apartment and everyone seems really nice and cool. I can’t wait to see what this semester has in store for all of us!