I could say I had a fairly uneventful week, but... I'm in Italy so nothing is truly "uneventful" because just walking past the Duomo on my way to school is an event in anyone's eyes.
Monday with Francesca's class we went to the Salvatore Ferragamo museum, deep breaths Auntie! It was really cool, I must admit I didn't know much about him, in fact I didn't even know he was a shoe designer (go ahead, laugh). Anyway, I'd always admired these shoes in the window on the Arno (river) and figured because of the way they were arranged they were probably pricey. Well, after visiting this museum I'm going to go with pricey being a gross understatement, shoes were in the thousands. In his defense, he was an incredibly creative and innovative designer, but still that's just ridiculous. We saw shoes designed specifically for, and worn by Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland, Sofia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, Eva Gardner, Greta Gertagarbo, etc. He became well known during WWII when specific materials were in low supply and he created things like the cork wedge and fishing line straps, revolutionary. I picked out a few great pairs if anyone needs a birthday present for me...(April 19th). Afterwords we ventured out to the grocery store again, and let me tell you we are now pros at Italian grocery shopping.
Tuesday we talked about Neorealism in Italian films (using real people instead of actors, on location shooting and no scripts to give the viewer a feel of what social and political issues are currently affecting the population) and watched a few experts these movies. I don't know how one person (Francesca) can know SO much about EVERYTHING, but she is a plethora of useful and interesting information.
Wednesday we were in class again, this time discussing the period of Italian history that Francesca and most Italians are not so proud of, Fascism and WWII. Learned all about Mussolini, how he was a journalist who came from nothing and used his personality and journalism contacts to succeed. By the end of his regime he had almost full control of the media and used that to his advantage. What I didn't know was that Italy's current Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is doing the same thing and people are worried that history is literally going to repeat itself. Berlusconi founded one of the country's ten largest privately owned companies which operates in media and finance, 3 out of the 9 national analogue tv channels, various digital channels, and a few large newsmagazines. When you group all of this together it accounts for nearly half the Italian media market! Forbes says he is Italy's third richest person (Michele Ferrero and Leonardo del Vecchio are numbers 1 and 2). So the Prime Minister here is strongly disliked, and is currently faced with no opposition in any of the recent elections. Uh-oh.
So back to Fascism, there are still paintings on some local walls of propaganda-type sayings from Mussolini's era promoting him and the idea. In Mussolini's defense he went about things very effectively, it's just his intentions were not so pure. He targeted (easily persuadable) kids by creating many sport/entertainment outings thinking the more he kept them busy they less time they'd have to think, and began teaching them his history in school so they'd grow up to like him; college professors by giving them the idea that within fascism they would have the freedom to do and teach whatever they want; and provided a sense of economic hope to those families in need, hmm...sound familiar? What was really funny is that during one meeting between Hitler and Mussolini, where Mussolini insisted he didn't need any translators present because he knew "enough" German, it is thought that Hitler told Mussolini of his plans to invade Poland and Mussolini accidently agreed... completely unaware of what Hitler really said. The thing was that under the Pact of Steel Italy was militarily committed to Germany, so that meant they too had to invade Poland.
Thursday was one of those lessons where I just smile because I can't believe that what I'm doing at the moment is getting me college credit. Don't get me wrong, I do my fair share of work here, but Thursday's class was a cooking lesson at Mario's, the oldest trattoria in Florence. Well, it would have been a cooking lesson had there not been 48 people on this program. They had to alter it a little, so we all piled into the basement of this trattoria where they served us our first course, Ribollita which was of course delicious. It's an ancient traditional Florentine first dish where I think they basically cook, and then keep cooking vegetable soup with going-stale bread until it becomes thicker. It was absolutely delicious. The second course was ziti with ragu, but not the typical ragu as it had no red sauce. It sounded like they just cook ground beef with some top secret spices and then put it on the macaroni (the oils from it made it good too). Very simple, yet again, very delicious. Normally with smaller groups this is a hands on lesson, so they had to modify it by just telling us verbally how they made this and we can email them for a written explanation. Of course I did mom.
Friday I woke up sick AGAIN, sweet. Haven't had one in 4 years and I get 2 in 3 weeks. We stopped at the San Lorenzo market to stock up on produce for the week on the way home from school. Went to the doctor that afternoon because I used up all the Sudafed I brought on my last cold. He was a really neat guy from England (with an accent!) who Rutgers uses so everything was free. He gave me a prescription for some super decongestant and I've been feeling a little better. Attempting to buy cold medicine all in Italian was too intimidating so since it was free I went to him, apparently that was a great idea because he said most of the stuff you find in the local farmacias (farm-a-chee-a, like CVS) are homeopathic type things...and written solely in Italian. Friday night we took it easy, the girls went over to the guy's apartment for a little and tucked me in early so I'd make it through our Bologna trip the next day.
Week 3 zoomed by, I can't believe how fast time here is going! I'm enjoying ever second of it though, and when I type up these blog entries it's fun because I get to relive my adventurous days. Stay tuned for the Bologna writeup, it's almost dinner time.
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