Goodbye For a Time. . .

My dearest friends and family!

I am officially at my half-way point: I have been living in Florence for nearly two months now, and I am gearing up to vacation from classes for fall break. Thanks to the deals that a local airline by the name of RyanAir, a few close friends and I are vacating Florence for ten days in Paris, Barcelona, and London.

Crazy, you say? Nay, say we! We are looking for a whirl-wind adventure through the cities that typify Europe.

I also want to take this time to thank you for reading my blog. It is nice to have an audience with whom I can share my adventures. . . or misadventures. . . and the photos I take along the way. Stay tuned for more stories from my travels outside of Italy, and please know that I will be away from the internet for that duration of time.

I am thinking of you all, and wish you a happy end of the month. Please take some time to go jump in a pile of leaves. . . or make a snowman on Halloween if you are in Colorado since it seems to have snowed ALREADY!

Better yet, for all those in Colorado I have a request: please go out and get a costume for Halloween that is completely unsuitable for snowy conditions. I have come to believe that part of the fun of a Colorado Halloween is wearing a large snow jacket over those cleverly crafted costumes. . . especially if you are in elementary school and are going door-to-door for candy!

Much Love,

Brandi

P.S. I thought I ought to share with you all that I broke down the other day and purchased a jar of overly priced peanut butter. It has been exactly 48 hours since I purchased the peanut butter, and the jar is empty.

What Does it Mean to "Go Straight?"

1) This is photo of a typical Venice water way

2) A view of Saint Mark's Church

3) Myself and my good friend, Faith

My trips outside the center of Florence have been rejuvenating beyond imagination; while I appreciate the historic beauty of Florence’s architecture, at the end of a week in Florence, I find my Colorado-born heart longing for trees, grass, and mountains. Siena, Chianti, and Feisole have, therefore, become some of my favorite spots in Italy because I can get the best of both worlds: beautiful architectures and quaint piazzas, and the greenery of the Italian hills and classic vineyards.

I found out, all too late, that Venice fails to fit into either of these neat categories. Friends told me that I could see Venice in a day, and seeing as how it is from the same fabric as the tourist-attracting Florence, I thought that a single day adventure would suit me very nicely.

I was so totally wrong.

Well, that is, I would have been right had it not been for the fact that the Biennale was taking place during the time that I chose to visit Venice. For those who are unfamiliar with it, the Biennale is an international studio art exhibition that takes place in Venice every other year. Art is situated all over the city for a few months so that people can come look, see, and explore the visual language of the contemporary art world. It was easy to get sucked up in the colors and conceptions of other artists at the Biennale. Not all of it struck my fancy, but all of it made me think.

It was also easy to get sucked up in the beauty of the winding streets of Venice. In fact. . . my friends and I got SO sucked up that we lost our way around the city for an entire hour trying to locate the train station. That was a fun adventure full of asking for directions in Italian, understanding the Italian directions, and then failing to see how the Italian instruction “go straight” worked with roads that curved multiple times. . .

I know that I have mentioned in earlier posts that time passes in an odd fashion for me while in Italy; in due fashion, I just got done telling you that there was simply no time to see all of Venice, and yet, somewhere in that span of “no time,” I was able to run in and out of the locally notorious church: Saint Mark’s. I have included a photo of a mere CORNER of Saint Mark’s Church. Can you imagine how spectacular the REST of the church is?! The fact that the entire ceiling was covered in gilded mosaics may give you another idea as to the beauty of Saint Mark’s Church.

In short, Venice made a great day trip, but would have made an even better two-day trip. Just think of all the things I could have done in the “no time” of a whole other day!

Love from the Italian Traveler,

Brandi

The Importance of a Potluck

Life in Italy really is all about the food. I have found out that some people come to Italy just to taste the food here, others take class here so that they can recreate the same gustatory experience on their own, and those studying abroad here are willing to gain weight as a result of their fondness for it.

My life in Italy is all about the food, too. . . just not necessarily in the ways I just listed. Let me share with you what my pallet experiences in Italy that makes my stay in Florence equally as food-based, even if different. Granted, I have already shared with you my grumbles about the expense of food, the wonderfulness of the Italian gelato, and the crime of overly-priced peanut butter. But, following with the nature of the expression (life in Italy is all about the food), I have still MORE to tell!

During the first week that I was in Florence, one of my friends came up with the brilliant idea that we ought to host “potluck nights” every Tuesday evening. Tuesday potlucks have come and gone since the birth of that idea, and with the passing of each week, the level of success increases. In fact, we have taken it upon ourselves to perfect the art of the potluck by establishing thematic ideas and even organizing a facebook group to coordinate the weekly event. In fact, every Tuesday is such a huge success that I can’t walk into a classroom on Tuesdays without at least three different people asking me if I am going to be at “Potluck” that night. People RAVE about the selection of food and always look forward to talking with new people.

Let’s just say that if you’re not at “Potluck”. . . you’re square. One week we stuffed twenty-nine girls into the hosting apartment! We extend the invitation to anyone, and even have been so fortunate as to get natives at the dinner, and students from other American schools in Florence. This past week, we arranged an Asian Fusion night. . . people liked the food so much that leftovers were non-existent!

I can now add Wednesday nights to my weekly of food experiences; a church that is reputed to be the hub for “Americans in Florence,” hosts dinners on Wednesday nights that are open to the study abroad community. For students who just want to come and eat, the cost for fun and admission is 5 euros. My friends and I, being the resourceful college students that we are, found out that if we volunteer to cook the meal, we can eat for free! Last week’s menu featured chili, and this week was a straight-up American barbeque.

So, not your typical Italian food experience; I make my own gnocchi that I can get at the grocery store for a euro, I eat Asian fusion food with my colleagues, and I make grill hamburgers with my friends in a church’s basement kitchen on Wednesday nights.

Yet, even if it is not typical, there is an aspect beyond food that is common between my experiences and those of the more traditional variety: my meals are truly enriched by the people with whom I share my meal. Tonight, for instance, I had the pleasure of talking to a young man, Keith, about the nature of religion and how people do or do not incorporate it into their daily lives. Last night, I had the opportunity to talk to some girl friends, over post-dinner glasses of wine, about the importance of not being anxious about the paths our lives our taking.

Perhaps this aspect of food-consumption is one of the main reasons for the importance of food cross-culturally. Granted, food in necessary for life. . . and, yet, would food have as much importance if we never had anyone with whom we could share its gustatory goodness?

Moral of the story: make your life about food, and therefore people, and you might just save 5 euros. With those five euros, you can allow yourself to splurge on purchasing expensive peanut butter so that you can make another amazing meal (something as simple as peanut butter and celery, or as amazing as a stir fry with peanut sauce) so that you start the process all over again. . . and enjoy people even more, and get even MORE out of life.

Make life all about food, my friends!

Love you all,

Brandi

Chianti- My Favorite Pictures

Enjoy some of my favorite images from the grape picking trip!

Philosophical Thoughts

I was astounded when the end of last month was suddenly upon me. Since coming to Italy I have experienced a time warp unparalleled to anything I have experienced before; time seems to pass very quickly when I think about the fact that I have lived in Florence for an entire month, and at the same time seems to pass very slowly each day because I have devoted myself to being fully conscious of my experiences so as to take away as much as I can from my time here. I am sure the fact that Italians do not regard time in the same time-efficient frenzy as Americans also has something to do with my temporal confusion. . . Now that I actually sit down to think about my current views on time, I realize that the list of contributing reasons is much longer.

1) Since I do not have a cell phone out here and clocks are scare in the studio classrooms, I am rarely aware of the actual time

2) October out here is not the same as it is in Colorado; apparently it is snowing in Colorado, while Florence still has to contend with 80 degree afternoons

3) I have a set class schedule, but the traveling I have been doing on the weekends has messed me up enough so as to keep me from really realizing what day of the week it is

While thinking about, and writing about lofty sorts of things, I figured I would take a moment to share with you some of the thoughts that have been piling up in my mind about the International Florence.

We all know that major cities like Florence, are tourist hubs, particularly when the comment is made in reference to the historical downtown area. Translated into different lingo, this also means that Florence is a hub for internationalism. In fact, I often find myself wondering when I am going to encounter true Italian culture. With the exception of my trip to the Post Office, and a few other choice encounters, I feel like I spend most of my day dodging people (of all nationalities) who have just arrived in Florence.

After a talk with my Batik professor, I am now aware of just how much he tourism of Florence has made it an international city; just three years ago, there was only one Chinese restaurant in Florence, while you can currently encounter at least two in the stretch of four blocks. Just three years ago, there was ONE McDonalds in Florence, and now there are multiple McDonalds. Just three years ago, most of Florence was not used to the idea of eating corn as a side dish; more often they grew it just for oil purposes. Now, due to the Spanish influence, corn can be bought as a canned food! (I am not sure if frozen corn is a possibility; Italians do no seem too keen on frozen veggies.)

Therefore, I ask you what it means to be a Florentine? What has become of culture if it is so quick to absorb other cultures? Are we one large melting pot of habits that used to be specific to particular cultures? If an American eats Indian food in Italy, is she/he eating Italian food with a twist. . . or true Indian food?

Thanks for joining Brandi’s Philosophical Musings (The Light and Airy Variety). Tune in next time for more exiting thoughts. . .

Love you all and miss you,

Brandi