Firenze Calves>Cougar Calves

Writing in a blog every day is harder than I had assumed it would be. I have never been so exhausted in my life. This trip has kept me on toes the whole time. I feel as if I can’t nap otherwise I’ll miss out on something. It’s not every day that you wake up, walk outside and you’re in Italy . . .

Time has flown by so quickly, I can’t believe that it’s almost been a full month living in Europe. The weather lately has been gorgeous but the humidity makes it a tad bit miserable. The mosquitoes come and go. The first two weeks I got attacked and eaten alive, now I get a few bites here in there, which I’ll take. I walk about two miles every day to get to school and another back; I hate the feeling of being sticky just from walking. I thought walking to class up hill in Pullman was bad, walking everywhere has made my cougar calves been put to shame.

Living here has definitely changed me, not my personality but on my outlook on life. I was talking with a couple people last night about when we return home and realized that coming here wasn’t a culture shock but when we go back to America, that’s when everything is going to really set in. It’s crazy to realize that America is so supersized with everything from roads, stores, and rules. The hours spent worrying and stressing on getting things done and how our meals are rushed and we have to have transportation for every block we go. Americans really don’t walk as much so I wonder how obese we’d really get if we had four course meals every day with pastries in the morning and gelato at night (or for brunch/lunch).

As much as I have enjoyed living in Europe, I’m almost ready to be home. The WSU program that I went through has so many excursions along with my internship. We have been pretty busy every weekend going to factories and wineries and other places in Italy that not every tourist/student would see. I was going to describe my days but in all honesty since my last post, these weeks have really blurred together. I wake up around 6am every day for class and try to go sight-seeing after class or I’m working at Ganzo and get home around 10pm. I’ll give it a shot at what I can remember after my last post so bare with me…

I’ll work my way backwards as I’m sitting in my wine class that we started this week. Our professor’s name is Massimo and he is quite intimidating but really funny. I love professors like this because you can tell that they know what they’re talking about and that they are in the class room wanting us to learn and not here to talk at us. I can tell this is going to be a hard class to learn the process and the Italian grapes in three weeks, especially with my short term memory; it is no gooood. There are so many steps and constraints that you have to know for making wine. For the last three weeks I have Survival of Italian still (learning the language) M-W and then Wine lecture and Wine lab that follows where we sample three wines and analyze them and pair them with a meal. These final weeks are going to be loonnng, especially since I keep falling asleep in class.

Today we only had wine class which was nice got a few extra hours to sleep in, and then after I went and walked around and sat in the sun. It hit 88 degrees today so it was a little unbearable. Tonight we’re going to Ganzo to celebrate one of the girls birthday, she just turned 20 (I feel so old). Don’t plan on going out too much tonight since we have to wake up early to go to Rome (so excited!)

Yesterday my group worked in front of the house, and we served a theme night of “Olive Oil”. John Williams University from Rhode Island and Charlotte cooked in the back of the house as we served for them but also we presented the wine that was selected while tasting and learning about it as well. It was our last night at Ganzo which is nice knowing I don’t have to work here anymore but it’s definitely bittersweet. It was a little chaotic because our main boss was missing so there was a lot of communication that was lacked but overall it went pretty good. After work we went out for a bit and ended the night early.

We worked Wednesday at Appertivo night where it’s unlimited appetizers and a ticket for one drink and if you want more you have to spend some money. We served two sparkling wines from the brand Ferrari we served a white and a Rosè and then of course the famous Prosecco that I have come to love over here. My roommate is obsessed with it and that’s all she drinks but, I don’t blame her. All night we ran around switching appetizers and cleaning up after our guests. It was a crazy long night but it went really good. I’ve enjoyed working with Danielle and the guys because it’s such an easy group to communicate and work with. Before work we had class, Italian and vino (Wine). In our vino lab we tried the king of all wines here: Barolo, it’s only about 300-400€... no big deal, and it is definitely worth every buck; it wasn’t too intense or complex for me and went down smoothly, for others it was the complete opposite.  On Tuesday we had the same classes as well and after classes nine of us went to Pisa. Pisa is only an hour train ride away and then you walk off the train and just walk straight for about 25 minutes and then you’re right in front of it. You walk around take pictures, there’s a mini duomo and you can even go up the leaning tower if you want to pay the extra. After all of that, you turn around and walk back and get on the train. There really isn’t anything else to see in Pisa besides the tower. Walking around the city it looks very similar to Florence just less crowded streets. On Monday we started the Wine classes and afterwards I believe I just took a nap and went out to eat with a few people. That was probably the last night that I will actually go out over here, I’ve decided it’s time to live like a poor college kid and not treat myself to the great food of the Italian culture…. Sammis and cheese it is for the next few weeks besides my meals at Ganzo.

Here's a few pictures from Pisa:

The girls right off the train (Taylor, myself, Danielle, Jenell and Kari)

Mini Duomo

Danielle and I, she has better ones on her camera.

Last weekend Friday-Sunday (June 1^st-June 3^rd):

Friday we had no classes because of our final dinner. Here’s a link to our official menu http://www.youblisher.com/p/345184-WSU-menu/

The first week we separated ourselves into different sections of working on Appetivo, Antipasta, Primi, Secondi and dessert, Wine servers and Front of the house servers. I chose to be a server since that is what I have the most experience in. I went in and helped finish any of the prepping that needed to be done and then we all had a family dinner and prepared for our night. It went really well, had a few mis-communications but overall it was very successful. In fact we got our critique back today from the chefs and said  it was the best they have seen from Washington State University, we worked very well with each other and seemed very happy to be there. “The calamari cones and crostinis were very fresh (Appetivo),  the crepes with asparagus, cheese and tomato were very good (Antipasta), the head chef was very impressed with the texture and season of the gnocchi but the shape was a little off (primi), the Lamb was good but there was an unnecessary amount of olive oil (Secondi) and there was a few problems with the desserts but overall it was a really good dinner for having all of us working in the kitchen for the first time since we’ve been here”- said Chef Andre. Ganzo’s kitchen is probably about the size of a 2 mini vans and to have 30+ people working in it can be chaotic. After the dinner we all went out to the Lions Fountain and did a bit of celebrating. We kept the night short though because in the morning we went on a field trip to the Salcheto L’enoteca winery.

That morning, hopped on a bus and our first stop was a small little town Montepulciano where we walked around for about an hour or two. It was very quiet and subtle with churches and shops all around it with an outstanding view of all the wineries that surrounded it.  The pictures don’t do justice of the view.

Kari, I and Danielle 

The town Montepulciano (Where twilight new moon was filmed)

A piece of ribbon for every wine bottle bought

The winery owner explained to Livia (our guide) so she could translate to us

The domes are tubes for natural light for the wine.

Meat cutter inside the little restaurant they have. 

Steel barrel full of white wine, Chef & I (Chef was clearly caught off guard in this one)

Wooden barrels that contain red wine.

Action shot.

Outside the winery. The plants were planted there for protection from the heat to keep the inside of the winery cool. 

The church Santa Maria 

After that we all went home, rested, and attempted to all go out but we ended up splitting up after the Michelangelo because we all wanted to do different activities.

On Sunday, I roamed around on a different side of Florence with Ben and Chris and went on an adventure to see what we could find. Later that night our group met up with Chef and he took us to a view spot in the small town Fiesole. It had a gorgeous view of Florence:

 Once again, the pictures don't do justice.

After this we went to Gusto's pizza (best pizza everrr) and had a little farewell dinner with Chef because he left us to go work in Switzerland. It's crazy how big he is over here! That's all I'm going to write for now.. I'll finish the other two weeks and try to post some pictures especially the ones from Parma and Medona. I need to get some sleep because we are going to Rome in the morning! Al pesto!