Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Parmesan from Parma! What what?!?!

Hi all,
I officially only have 1 month left studying abroad in Italy! Ahh! How is this happening? When I ask other people how they feel about it, most say it will be very bitter-sweet; they feel ready to come home and see their friends and family, but are sad to leave the people they met here and the amazing European life they are living here. Not that I don't love and miss you all, but I really really don't want this experience to end; for me, it will mostly be a bitter farewell. Sadie lives in California, so chances of me seeing her any time soon are very slim :( But luckily I do have an amazing month following the end of this program. Did you hear? I got placed on Birthright trip! So... after my finals, I am off to Budapest, Vienna, and Prague with Zoe, and then to Amsterdam, Brussels, Bruges, and Paris with my mom, and then will return to Baltimore for all 7 hours to then hop on a plane with Birthright to go to Israel for 10 days! Can life be any more exciting? So yes I am excited to start that whirlwind travel experience, but I am sad to be having my life in Milan slowly come to an end. There are still so many aperitivo places and clubs that I haven't tried, and there are still major sites and museums that I haven't been to. Now that it's nice out, I finally can enjoy it... there's only this little thing called school work getting in my way!
The last time I wrote, I detailed about my fabulous spring break experience. Well, it's been two weeks since then, and I didn't write because I spent the following week (including the weekend) shut up in my room hibernating! I never left my apartment, well I barely left my bed, for that entire weekend. I did make yummy pizza again with Sadie on Thursday night, although it wasn't as good as the first time we made it. We watched Roman Holiday, which I LOVED, in order for us to recall our amazing time exploring Rome! We kept showing Colosseum... we were there! Trevi fountain... we were there! Other than that fun part, I was super productive and caught up on a lot of necessary sleep. The work is starting to pile on- I have three major projects (two of them group projects) that need to get done, on top of the busy work that they give us. It is a lot harder to do work here, not just because there are so many exciting things distracting us, but because there really isn't a good study environment here for me. The library closes at 8pm- Italians don't do work there like Americans do. At Skidmore, I'll get to the library at 10pm to work there until 1 am. That doesn't exist here. Here, I either have to get work done in between classes at the IES center or at home. It's hard to get work done between classes because that's when I need to eat, but if I go home to eat then that's an hour of travel time and no time to do work. OY. And getting work done at home is hard because 6 girls in an apartment doesn't really provide for the best study environment. In any case, I have lots of work to do in the next month and seemingly no time to do! But hey, that's college.
During this past week, other than getting work done, I finished creating my photobook on shutterfly of all my trips prior to spring break. If you know me well enough, you know that I used to scrapbook all my trips, but since the fabulous invention of shutterfly, I've moved to doing an online scrapbook. The book came out pretty good, even if it was a bit rushed. I also have been participating (I've done it twice) in a weekly skype session being trained to be a dialogue facilitator through Soliya. Last semester, I skype weekly with other Americans and Muslim students from around the world to dialogue about the relationship between the West and the Middle East. Having gone through that experience, I am now being trained as a facilitator for these dialogues. It has been really great so far, meeting lots of interesting people and gaining a lot of new skills in communication.
This past week was very special in Milan. It was Milan Design Week, which is a huge fair of major furniture designers. There were exhibitions all over the city. Milan was packed! So many people came in for the design show. On Thursday after class, Sadie and I went to several free exhibitions of the Salone del Mobile in one area of the show by Porta Genova. We saw some super interesting and innovating interior decor and furniture. It was really fun- interesting to see who will be the hip new designers and to experience this major cultural experience in Milan. This fair is the largest design fair in the world!! Milan = fashion and design!!
This past weekend, I went on a trip that was organized by IES that went to Cremona, Parma, and Mantova. On Friday morning, we left fairly early and drove for about an hour and a half to Cremona. Interestingly, my Fascism professor lives in Cremona (and commutes to Milan for my class!). He met us and gave us a tour of the Cremona Duomo. We were split into two groups; Sadie and I were ambitious and decided to join the tour with Professor Malletta that was being given in Italian (designed for the students in 200 and up). Well being in 100 Italian... we surprisingly caught more than we thought we would, but really only caught bits and pieces of the information. Anyway, bravo to me for understanding what I did!
Cremona is famous for violin makers! I think there are over 100 violin makers from all over the world that have settled in Cremona. It is very cool. We went to a violin maker's store and he gave us an explanation of how he makes his violins. He taught us about the different woods and the process to carve and shape what we see in stores. He makes his varnish from scratch! It was really really cool! Then, Lindsey, because she plays the violin, tried one of the artist's violins for all of us. The artist told us that many famous concert violinists had played on that same violin. The scales and music Lindsey played were beautiful! It was really cool!
Afterwards, we got a tour of the Cremona theatre, Teatro Ponchielli. So beautiful inside! It was not quite shaped in semi-circle, like usual. It was more ovally- the tour guide said it allowed for people on the sides to see better that way. (So why aren't all theatres built like that??) I believe the theatre had burned down twice before, so it wasn't the original theatre. The stage is very famous, one of the deepest stages. We got to go back there and we were shocked at how far back the stage went! Really cool! Afterwards, we got super delicious pizza! Definitely in the top 4 I've had so far. Of course it was HUGE, but don't worry, I still got the clean plate award. It would be a crime to leave any bufala mozzarella pizza!
We then drove to Parma, and checked into our hotel. How nice to be in a hotel and not in a hostel! :). After a much needed nap, IES took us to a nice restaurant for dinner called Trattoria Corrieri. The primo piatto- first dish- was a pasta with ragu sauce. Was YUMM YUMM! The second dish... mmm.. some kind of meat- maybe veal?- noone was sure- but not so yummy. What was great was the wine, of course. Boy am I going to miss the wine!
After dinner, Sadie and I went with AJ and Bryan S. to this outdoor concert in Piazza Garibaldi. It was actually really cute; the band mixed American pop music and Italian- it was kind of confusing, but great. Also weirdly, there were people wearing capes at the event, not sure why. Joe, Matt, and Chris met us there and so it was a good time.
On Saturday morning, we got a tour of Parma. We went to the Palazzo della Pilotta and the Teatro Farnese, which was the great beautiful theatre built by the Duke for a Medici family visit. The theatre was destroyed in World War II, but they reconstructed it. We of course also went to the Parma Duomo and Baptistery.
After the tour we drove to Mantova, known as Mantua in English. I had learned just a few days before from the guest lecture for my Fascism class that all the Jews who came to Milan when Jews were finally permitted to live in Milan came from Mantova. We grabbed lunch and gelato and then walked through Palazzo Ducale, which is this great beautiful Palace of the Gonzaga family. The rooms were decadent and beautiful! Sadie and I ballroom danced in the ballroom, and we all wanted to jump on the fabulously magnificent bed in the bedroom. No pictures were allowed in Palazzo Ducale :( Palazzo Ducale also had two beautiful gardens.
After Palazzo Ducale, Sadie and Chris came with me to find the synagogue, since I had just learned that Mantova had a significant Jewish population. We found it but it was closed (it was Saturday, silly me). It was just one of the houses in the block of row houses, hidden, no sign- it was weird.
Let me say- WE HAD BEAUTIFUL WEATHER!! Since we had a few hours of free time in Mantova, we sat in a park for a while soaking up the sun, and walked down the major shopping streets. We ended at the side of the lake- where coincidentally most of the rest of the IESers were relaxing as well. We rested in the beautiful sun and then headed to a restaurant in the middle of nowhere for an epic feast. All of the food was made from locally grown products! All anyone would say was that we would eat very well tonight... The restaurant, called Agriturismo "Corte Belfiore" in Viadana, gave us two first dishes, two second dishes, and two desserts. Well, the second dishes were both pork dishes, which I couldn't eat...they nicely gave me a fish meal, which was really nice of them, but I also don't eat fish. So... I very much enjoyed the risotto that they served, but I think most people enjoyed the meal more than I did. Following the dinner, we played this funny game called 'mingle.' All of IES played it- in the courtyard area of the restaurant we all had to walk around until Susanna or Walter called a number, and we had to get into a group of that many. Those who couldn't get in a group, was out. The game got super intense- people were pushing and shoving to stay in the game- but it was really fun!
On Sunday, we had to wake up very early in order to get to the parmigiano reggiano factory, in time for us to watch them make the cheese. WOOO Coolest part of the trip. Also, smelliest part of the trip- not a good smell of heated milk, etc. turning into cheese. We saw the cheese being stored, and the men working in the factory to make the cheese. I bought some 36 month aged cheese- which was the oldest you could buy there. I hope it tastes good. :)
Afterwards we went to Castell'Arquato, which was this castle on top of a hill. It was beautiful! The view of the Italian countryside was exquisite. There was a little artisanal market at the top of the hill as well that was really cute. After delicious pizza, Sadie, Mary, Julien and I sat and relaxed in the park. While relaxing, an old crazy man came up to us and started yelling and flailing his cane around. SCARY! Julien is fluent in Italian, and even he didn't understand what the crazy man was saying! OY! At least we had a great laugh about that. We got home to beautiful sunny Milan, packed with tourists because of the Furniture fair. We ended the weekend on some fabulous Shockolat gelato! Well... back to real life... of study abroad :)

Only 1 month left! EEEK. Well I am off to Dublin tomorrow! I am going to get to kiss the blarney stone and hear some great Irish accents! I'll keep you updated!

Ciao for now!
~E

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