Update on Ethics of Globilization

Today was our first real class and I couldn’t be more excited about the semester. Our teacher walks in, an older, somewhat scary looking man, wearing a nice cozy sweater and scarf ensemble. He made me nervous until he made fun of a girl who said that one of our textbooks was no longer “getable”. He is American, laid-back about attendance but has no tolerance for grammatical errors on papers, definitely knows what he’s talking about and has a very sarcastic sense of humor. We’re going to get along great. The class requires a lot of reading and a research paper that accounts for 50% of our grades (yikes), but I think it’s going to be really interesting.  We started off the class discussing Nike (always fun) but he was objective and didn’t immediately bash the corporation for it’s outsourcing which I appreciated. Considering my class is at three, my body and mind should both be fully awake for it every day so I really expect to enjoy it, even though it’s two and a half hours long and we sit on pink couches with zero back support. 

Some shots of my classroom... Sala Rossa in all its glory.

Personally I found the artwork and chandeliers distracting.

La Mia Prima Settimana dei Corsi

On Monday morning I woke up my new IKEA alarm clock beeping incessantly. The tiny little machine is far too loud and complicated to have only cost one euro.  Waking up in my apartment is always confusing because we have shutters over the window, blocking out any light so I always feel like it’s the middle of the night. On top of all this we have no carpets and the apartment is only heated at about 68 degrees for a few hours a day so getting out of bed and stepping onto the freezing cold floors is exceptionally difficult. Once up and out of bed I packed up my bag, grabbed a banana and headed off to my first class. While running to cross the street before getting hit by a bus, the shoulder strap of my bag snapped under the weight of my books and my things spilled into the middle of the road. Luckily Florentine bus drivers are used to crazy pedestrians so I wasn’t run over. After scooping up my bag I rushed to meet Corinna by the Duomo. My first class was Wine Marketing and Communications, held, with all the other food and wine classes in the building farthest away from my apartment, on Via Guelfa. After about a twenty-minute walk and a little backtracking we finally found the building. When I walked in and asked the woman at the front desk where my class was, she informed me that it was actually held in Corso dei Tintori 21, the building closest to my apartment and pretty much on the other side of town. After another twenty-minute walk in the bitter cold I reached my classroom, muttered apologies in Italian and English and sat down at the back of the class. I quickly got over my embarrassment (especially when a girl walked in late about an hour after me and didn’t even bother to apologize) and eagerly started taking notes. It’s going to be a great class and my teacher, Enrico, seems very nice. It’s a pretty standard marketing class except for its concentration on wine and the fact that we’ll actually be doing a few wine tastings in class.

            On Tuesday I attended my first conversational Italian class. Having completely forgotten how to speak Italian since last Italian course in the spring, I was nervous to see what level the rest of my classmates were on. I could tell when I sat down that everyone else was nervous, which was comforting. There were only six of us so we made some awkward conversation about how we hoped the teacher was nice and how we didn’t even really speak Italian at all. When the teacher finally came in and handed out our syllabi the first thing I noticed was the course description which read: “This course is meant for those students who already possess fluency and confidence in the Italian language and who wish to perfect their skills in current idiom.” I’m sure that not one person in my class is fluent (except a guy who transferred in on Thursday from a higher class because he was too lazy and makes us all look really bad), so I’m not too concerned. Thursday’s class proved that our teacher is plenty willing to dumb her lessons down until we get back into the swing of things.

            Aside from learning that my friend Nellie is in my Ethics of Globalization class, Wednesday was fairly uneventful. Our teacher was a no-show so a woman came in to hand out our syllabi and inform us that this teacher “expects a lot of his students,” which is something every college kid hates to hear. After class I went to pick up our three required books: “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”, “Bad Samaritans: The Guilty Secrets of Rich Nations & the Threat to Global Prosperity” and “The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy”. Sounds fun right? Stay tuned…

            Thursday is both my busiest and most exciting day of class. I leave my apartment right at 8:30, giving myself a full half hour to make it across the campus to Via Guelfa (thankfully I had triple-checked my course list today making sure I was going to the right building). I walked into An Exploration of Wine Culture and was immediately greeted by the sight of six bottles of wine and rows of wine glasses on the desk at the front of the room. My teacher, Lapo, spent the first part of class giving a simple introduction of the process of wine making and tasting in a very thick Italian accent. By around 11 am we were tasting Prosecco (Italian champagne). Lapo walked us through a proper tasting and then toasted to the semester. Even before tasting the wine I couldn’t seem to keep a smile off my face. There’s just something about being required to drink wine in class before noon that makes me giggly. Just before ending class Lapo said, “Remember my dear, the wine is an alive product.” Expect many more quotable quotes from Lapo throughout the semester.

            By Food, Culture and Society in Italy at 3:00, I was dragging a little. Sitting around the countertop tables in our kitchen-classroom I found myself glancing at the clock every five minutes or so. Like my wine class in the morning though, once we reached the second half of class I was well awake. Starting next week we’ll have a short lecture followed by a tasting and then a cooking exercise. The first class was strictly tasting. We tried two different types of Italian honey a strong, dark honey called Miele della Luigiana and a lighter honey that was extremely sweet and smooth that comes from the Acicia tree. We also tried three different types of olives: green olives preserved in brine, black olives that are dried, baked and then rehydrated with olive oil and water, and then another type of green olive that is preserved with chili powder. We tried both the olives and honey on various types of Tuscan bread. Saving the best for last, my teacher brought out tiny jars of thirty-year-old balsamic vinegar (each jar costing about sixty euros) and had us taste the vinegar by itself. Then we drizzled it on top of a custard-flavored gelato. The combination was amazing. The balsamic vinegar gave the gelato an almost fruity taste. By the end of class I fully trusted my teacher and decided that, no matter what, I will taste everything she offers us. The lesson on cheese is late in the semester so hopefully I will have expanded my palate enough by that point to at least not gag during the tasting.

Bacco Nudo

Thanks to the recommendation of at St. B’s classmate, Erin, my friends and I succeeded the other day in finding a store that sells wine on tap. The shop is called “Baccio Nudo” which means naked Bacchius (the god of wine) because their wine is stored sans-bottle. How scandalous. As the little old woman pointed out all the different wines to us in surprisingly excellent English, Corinna, Beth and I telepathically decided we’d be trying them all.

So far we’ve tried the highly recommended Rosso Extra Montepulcciano and Sauvignon and then a Pinot Nerro and Pinot Grigio. As I’ve only just started the semester in both of my classes on wine I can’t really give any expert descriptions* but I liked the Pinot Nerro best (I’m also partial to red wines so I can’t say much for the whites). Both of the Reds are from Tuscany and I’m really looking forward to trying more local wines. It shouldn’t be difficult according to my wine marketing teacher because, being in Tuscany, most stores sell wines from local vineyards because Italians are so proud of their region. My wine marketing teacher also told us that there are so many different types of Italian wines that one person couldn’t possibly ever try them all. Challenge accepted.

*As a disclaimer I should say that even with my wine education I may not, even at the end of the semester, be able to tell you anything more about the wines I’ve tried than that I either liked them or I didn’t.

Benvenuti!

Benvenuti, amici e famiglie!

While my first week abroad has flown by in a blur of carbs, cathedrals and surprisingly few tears (stay tuned...), I know I have been neglecting the many of you waiting expectantly for news of my exciting travels! Since you are probably expecting intelligent posts about the fascinating histories of Florence and any other city I may visit, I must warn you that many of my posts will probably revolve around food and wine (hence the catchy title of my blog... I've already used it in conversation about four times). I am thrilled to be sharing this experience and I hope you enjoy my stories!