1 day behind on posting, so this is going to be kind of a long post.
back to yesterday... and to give a quick update...
I arrived in Florence around 2:30pm here and finally got my bag after waiting almost 45 minutes. The Florence airport is super small, even more suprising for a city this small. We landed on the Tarmac and took a bus to the baggage claim, which I sear was a oversize pole building with metal on the sides. In fact, I don't even know if there are gates that connect to the planes, or just shuttles to the planes. However, it did seem that they were building another terminal, or a new one..
The flight from Frankfurt to Florence was very simple, about an hour and a half (about the distance from CLT to MCO (orlando)) It was really cool when we were flying I looked out my window to see the Swiss Alps with their snowy peaks. It was once again one of those moments that takes your breath away. Once we landed, I met the rest of the group at the airport then took a bus from the airport to our apartments. On the way to the apartments, it started storming, (thunder, lightning, & hail) which apparently it was a horrendous storm for Florence standards (nothing more than an epic Carolina thundershower to me).
After the bus stopped about 2.5 blocks away, we ran out in the rain, grabbing any luggage we could and came to our apartments (not exactly the welcome I had expected) We then were told what floor our rooms were on (a few people had a problem with the "ground floor" concept) There are 3 of us in our room (its pretty spacious and nice) 1 guy from providence named Mike (no mike blanchard but cool in his own way) and Alex from Charlotte who i had met briefly before. We have internet connection in our room as well as a kitchen on our floor and television. All in a building that was built during the Renaissance (1500's AD).
After a brief housing orientation (yada yada yada.. no overnight guests, heavy drinking, and loud noises) we went to one of the university's buildings housed in a former palace here in florence. There we did even more logistical bullsh*t and received cell phones through a company that partners with the local university. (the nice thing is I can keep my phone with me and mail it back to their office in florence before I return to the us in July). After all that we went to dinner a few blocks away.
It had stopped raining by the time we were headed to dinner, we went to a restaurant that began here in Italy but also has locations in DC and LA (crazy, right?) I would had preferred a more hole in the wall local experience, but at that point, what we had was wonderful. We sat down in a dimly light back room of this restaurant that was a maize of ups and downs, lefts and rights to be greeted by three tables with 7 bottles of chianti on them. Dinner was wonderful, we had a five course antipasto course, a huge entree and a dessert sampler. Afterwards, we all came back to the apt. I ironed my jacket for today and CRASHED (30 something hours with approx. 1.5 hours of sleep will do that to you).
This morning I got up, took a cold shower, saved the beard off :( and then went and got some cafe and a croissant for breakfast with my roommates followed by a walk to class.
In class we prepared lunch for our group (panzanella and fried chicken, squash blossom, and squash) the produce we had was beautiful. fresh heirloom tomatoes, huge basil leaves, amazing zucchini squash (a bit different from what we have in the US).
After class we went to lecture, today we learned about a brief history of Italy and the movers and shakers who really changed the makeup of food and culture here.
Afterwards we went back to the apartment to change and went out exploring the area, we found a really cool shop that had wines, cured meats, and cheeses (it was fantasy-like) the three of us went in on some stuff and had a nice take away of some Chianti Classico, Purshutto,and Peccerino that is aged in pepper.
We met the rest of our group back at the apartment to go to Ganzo, the restaurant where we will be doing our internship (i am on the tuesday/thursday group). It is a small little restaurant that is half in a court yard, half inside and met with the chef, and a few other representatives from the university.
Afterwards myself and Mike went off to explore the area, it turns out all around the restaurant are Antique shops along with several restoration shops as well. I felt the sweet spot in my heart begin to rush as I smelled the stains and finishes wofting out into the street. I walked into one of the shops to see a chair being re-glued and it took me right back to my dad's shop and almost brought a tear to my eye. This is something I would had LOVED to been able to share with him. We also went into a couple of the other shops where I came across a beautiful emire chest that had a marble top and beveled mirror with veneer inlay around it. I want to find a way to get that back to the US but the cost probably isn't worth it.
After the shops we found our way across the river to a garden and museum that overlooks the city (it was closed) so we decided to stand on a 1500 year old fountian, pull back some limbs and get an incredible view of the city. We headed back to Ganzo afterwards for family meal.
Following family meal myself, Allie, and Mike went back over the river to the Steps of David which offer breathtaking views of the city and watched the sunset.
To end the night we made our way back to the apartment and now myself and my roomates are about to enjoy today's finds at the shop.
For some reason, my pictures are not uploading at this point from the computer on to the blog, so I'm going to try to upload a few to facebook that co-encide with this post.
Until-
Matt
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