Oktoberfest is coming up!

It is almost here!  On Thursday night we leave for Oktoberfest, we will arrive in Munich at approximately 8am Friday morning.  I've been looking forward to this for a long time, and I know it will not disappoint.

In other news, I attended a Fiorentina soccer game this past Sunday.  Fiorentina is Florence's soccer team, they're in the Italian soccer league, they play teams like AC Milan, which is probably the most well-known team in their division.  They were 0-2-2 going into the game, but we ended up beating Parma 2-0.  It was such a great experience, people here go nuts for soccer.  It's a bit of a different culture though, people don't really drink much at the games, so that makes the craziness even more impressive.  Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, and we were late to the game so we had to sit in the outskirts of the crazy section.  However, I'm planning on going on going back for another game and I'll make sure I get some pictures. 

Also, next week we have a very interesting week lined up, there are no classes and we are doing all sorts of random tours at meat and dairy farms, places in Florence, cheese making, etc.  More on that next week.  Then, the week after, we have midterms already, I can't believe this is gonna be half over already :(

Wine Week

This past week, I spent my time at a vineyard called Villa Montepaldi, which is just outside of Florence.  I didn't know what to expect going into it, but I was pretty confident it would be a great experience, which it was.  When we arrived at the vineyard on Monday, we were given a tour of the place, and we were given a brief explanation of the machinery used to transform grapes into wine.  All of this had to be interpreted by Daniele, who works for Palazzo Rucellai. 

From what I was able to gather from the translation, Villa Montepaldi is affiliated with the University of Florence.  While they produce and sell wine and olive oil, they are also sort of an experimental farm.  The government pays for them to experiment with new farming techniques that are more sustainable or organic, or hopefully both.  So they essentially research the effectiveness of new methods so they can share their knowledge with other farmers, and ultimately the goal is to get as many farmers as possible to be more sustainable. 

After the tour and introduction to our wine week, we literally worked in the fields picking grapes all week.  It was an adventure, that's for sure.  At times I hated it, and it was hard work, but I'm glad I was able to experience it.  How many people can say they worked at a vineyard in Tuscany picking grapes?  I'll post a picture or two down below, but check Facebook if you want to see all of them.  The best part of every day though was definitely lunch.  They made us a 3-course meal every day for lunch, and everything they made was delicious.  We also got to drink some of their wine, which we definitely deserved to drink after all that work.  Lunch was also a great time for everyone to let loose a bit and have fun since we were all so happy to be eating. 

On the last day of the week, we only worked for the first half of the day. The rest of that day was spent watching our grapes begin the wine-making process and learning how to properly taste wine.  And just before we left, we were able to buy a bottle of wine for a discounted price.  The bottle I got sells for 250 euro in restaurants, and I got it for 6.50 euro.  It's definitely one of the best wines I've tasted here.  I'll probably bring it home for someone to share with me. 

So that concluded wine week.  We will be going back to that same vineyard for olive oil week in November so I'm looking forward to that.  That's it for now, ciao!

Mediterranean Diet Rant #1

So it's 11:53 and for whatever reason, my mind is racing and I can't fall asleep, despite the fact that I've been up at 6 every day this week to work at the vineyard.  More on wine week tomorrow... but I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about this so-called Mediterranean diet and the fact that everyone here is thinner and tends to avoid chronic disease more than Americans.  Why is this?  Well, a few key factors have come to my attention since I've been here.

Firstly, and in my opinion most importantly, it is what Italians do NOT eat.  It just so happens that the things they don't eat are my big three to avoid:  sugar, trans fat, and fried food.  Americans consume wayyy too much sugar, and much of it today is in the form of high-fructose corn syrup, which may be even worse.  Italians do not consume nearly as much sugar.  Sure, they typically eat a pastry for breakfast, and they'll put sugar in their coffee, but that is about it.  I very rarely see anyone here drinking soda, let alone a 20 oz. bottle of the stuff.  Actually, the only containers I've seen soda in are cans smaller than the ones back home.  Trans-fat is virtually non-existent here.  I'm pretty sure it's banned from use.  The very idea of using hydrogenated oils like Crisco is completely contradictory to the Italian tradition of using fresh, local food.  And fried foods; I've seen a little fried food here, like fried chicken cutlets for example, but they are also very rare.  In fact, they don't really have much refined oil here, like soybean oil, corn oil, canola oil (vegetable oils).  Extra virgin olive oil is used on everything, but it is not suitable for frying, both because it can't withstand typical frying temperatures and because it's too costly.

The Mediterranean diet certainly isn't a perfect diet by any means, but if all you do is remove these three items from your diet, you can eat just about anything else you want and still be decently healthy.  What do these three things have in common?  They are all industrial food products.  None of these exist in nature.  Not coincidentally, all three will accelerate your death. 

More on the Mediterranean diet later... this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Back From Amalfi Coast!

Wow, what a weekend.  That one is right up there with the best weekends of my life.  We arrived at our hostel on the Amalfi Coast on Thursday night (not exactly sure which town it was in), and over the course of the weekend we went to Positano, spent a day at Capri, and spent only a couple of hours in Naples before our train departed back for Florence.  Unfortunately, we didn't get to see Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius, but I will make sure I get down there again to see that before I come home. 

Positano is by far the most beautiful place I've ever seen.  It absolutely blew me away.  Unfortunately the pictures don't really do it justice; I had seen pictures of it before but the beauty of the place didn't really hit me until I got there.  The town is essentially built on the side of a mountain on the coast, the west side of Italy.  We were only there for a few hours but it made a huge impression on me.  The water is incredibly blue and clean... when I swam out into the water a bit, then turned around to see the scenery behind me, it felt like it was the best moment of my life.  I cannot stress this enough... if it is at all possible, you MUST visit Positano.  Here are a few pictures, I did my best to capture it.  The first one is on the walk down the street to get to the beach, and the second is from the boat as we are leaving.

We also visited the island of Capri, which was very nice as well, but after Positano it just wasn't anything special.  It's an extremely mountainous island, so we had to do a lot of climbing.  We walked around the shopping area on the island, where we ran in to Kim Kardashian (lol) and ate another delicious lunch.  Then we just lounged on the beach there for the remainder of the day before taking the boat back to our hostel.

Aside from the other fun stuff we did each night at the hostel with the many American students we met, we finally spent a little time in Naples on Sunday afternoon before catching out train back to Florence.  Naples was definitely a disappointment, the city is sort of trashy.  It's much more modern-looking than Florence, and there seemed to be a lot of sketchy neighborhoods.  The one thing I did like about it, though, was the seafood market we found.  Since Naples is a coastal city, they have all sorts of seafood, I didn't even know what half of the stuff was.  We had some pizza at a very authentic Italian pizzeria (nobody spoke any English), then took the train back home.  And by home I obviously mean Florence.  Florence definitely feels like my home now, and it's a great feeling because I love the place.  But don't worry family, I'm still coming back to my real home in December.  I think...

Amalfi Coast!

Just finalized a somewhat impromptu trip to the Amalfi Coast today!  We will be leaving tomorrow on a train to Naples at around 4:30 and I cannot wait to get there.  I imagine most people probably don't know what the Amalfi Coast is (I didn't before I got here), but it's the coastal area around Naples, you can google it if you want... from what I hear, it's one of the most beautiful places on earth.  People may have heard of the island of Capri; that is part of the Amalfi Coast.  The hostels in the area are extremely cheap and they're in great locations.  Ours is very close to the shore, and we are only paying about 15 euros each per night (they make you pay per person, not per room). We will also be visiting Pompeii, which is in the Amalfi Coast area, and we'll be climbing Mt. Vesuvius.  That may be the part I'm most looking forward to.  Of course, the beach areas aren't too shabby either, the water looks impossibly blue.  Don't expect any updates until I get back on Sunday night, but I'll definitely take plenty of pictures.  Here are a few I found on the internet... pretty awesome huh?

Beautiful Day in Florence

Today I went down to the river, only about a 5 minute walk, to check out the dam where I always see people sunbathing.  I laid out there on the river for about 2 hours by myself, listening to The National's new album "High Violet" on my ipod, staring at the beautiful blue sky.  It was nice to get away from everyone and do my own thing for once; I don't get that opportunity too often since all of my roommates and I have the same schedule for school.  It was really a perfect afternoon, one of those moments where everything comes together all at once; the perfect weather, beautiful music, nice scenery, and the fact that I may never be able to experience it all like this ever again.  I wished I could have captured it all in a picture to share with people, but some things just don't fit into a picture frame.  Luckily, though, I'll forever remember this day every time I listen to "High Violet".

In other news, I had to learn how to iron last night, spent 10 minutes ironing one shirt, then put it on to wear out and found that I didn't get any of the wrinkles out.  I don't know how Gram does it.

Ciao ragazzi!

Oktoberfest!

In 3 weeks, I will be in Munich for Oktoberfest!  We have had this trip planned for about a week now, but I can't stop thinking about it, I can't wait.  This year is the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest, I guess they are planning a special opening ceremony but we will not be there until the third weekend (Oct. 1-3).  We will be taking a bus from Florence to Munich, leaving at 11:30 PM Thursday night, so we arrive Friday morning.  Of course, we will be attending Oktoberfest, but there are other things that we'd all like to do, like visit a concentration camp, take a bike tour of Munich, go to some museums, etc.  So we will be doing quite a bit besides just Oktoberfest.  Soooo excited for this, here is a link of my itinerary...  http://bus2alps.com/uploads/mandators/11/tours/156/info-en.pdf

Cooking Class

So I had my first Italian cooking class last night, and it did not disappoint.  The class is taught by an older woman who moved here from Iowa 35 years ago.  She married an Italian man and has 3 kids.  And they also have a few American kids staying with them for the semester.  She does the class in her home kitchen, so it was pretty cool to see a real Italian home.  She's an incredible cook, and I've already learned a lot about cooking.  For the first class, we made a roasted turkey breast stuffed with pancetta, which is like bacon.  We also had green beans, pizza, focaccia, and a black raspberry desert pie.  Oh, and the best part was the soup called Pasta e Ceci.  It was a thick soup made with chickpeas and pasta, and it was probably the best soup I've ever had.  She makes everything from fresh ingredients, and you can definitely tell by the taste of the food.  She handed out cook books to everyone with all the recipes we will be using in class, along with some other information like cooking tips, history, Italian translations, etc.  Awesome class, I will definitely be making these recipes when I come home, and I'm sure Gramps will think they're tasty.  Buona serata!

Cooking class

I completely forgot to mention this earlier, but I signed up for an Italian cooking class last week.  It will be every Tuesday for 6 weeks (I think 6? maybe 8).  It starts tomorrow night.  It's somewhat expensive, but I rationalized it by figuring in the fact that we will get free meals once a week in class.  But most importantly, this experience will be PRICELESS. Learning to cook Italian food, in Italy?  How many people get that chance?  Can't wait for class tomorrow!

Central Market

Shopping today at the Central Market...
1.5 kg of beef (3.3 pounds)
10 peaches
5 kiwis
2 oranges
2 limes
.5 kg green beans
6 tomatoes
a bunch of asparagus
enough lettuce for all of us to have a giant salad tonight

Total: 21 euro, or approximately 4 euro's each.

4 euros each????? you can't beat that!
Gramps would love this place!

Chianti!

Just got back from Chianti trip with Palazzo Rucellai (that's the school I'm attending here).  For those of you who don't know, Chianti is a region of Tuscany, and the wine is named after the region where it is produced.  Absolutely amazing place we went to, it was in the hills of Tuscany, one of the most beautiful places I've been to.  I'll be uploading pictures on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/brendan.coburn) of the trip.  First we took a tour of a small castle that used to be owned by the Pazzi family, made famous by the Pazzi Conspiracy.  It is now owned by someone else, and they grow grapes and olives on the land and produce red wine, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil.  They had tons of wine barrels in the basement, once again, pictures of them will be on Facebook.

The tour guide taught us a bit of interesting information about olive oil, some of which was new to me.  Extra virgin olive oil is essentially the first press of oil that is extracted from the olives, nothing is added, nothing is filtered, you could eat it straight from the machine.  Look for "first cold press".  The other stuff you find in the stores, labeled just "Olive Oil" or even "Virgin Olive Oil" is not nearly the same thing.  Long story short, the extra virgin variety is healthy, the others are not, and there are even variations within the extra virgin category that make some better than others.  What was interesting, though, was that the tour guide mentioned that the United States government recently declared that consuming up to 2 tabelspoons of olive oil is heart healthy.  What the US government didn't include in that recommendation is the key words "extra virgin".  The reason they did this was so that they didn't discourage people from buying all the varieties of olive oil that are sold in stores.  Just another example that the government food recommendations, that includes the food pyramid, are NOT created to make you healthy.  Their main purpose is to encourage sales of the products that the US agriculture system produces.  It's extremely refreshing to learn from people who aren't from the US and aren't basing their knowledge on what the American government says is right.  In Italy, everyone knows what extra virgin means.  Sorry, that was a bit of a rant, I tend to get a bit fired up about these things lol.

Ciao!

Great tour today

For my history class, our professor took the class on a tour of the immediate area near the school and also the Central Market, which is by far the best place to buy food.  We went into various small shops that sell bread, paninos, etc.  When we first arrived at the Central Market, Dr. Fischer told us to wait while he ordered us food from a street vendor; he didn't want us to know what he was making us eat.  We tried it, and most of it thought it was great.  It turns out it was actually cow stomach.  More precisely, it's the cow's 4th stomach (they have 4 total), and it is called lampredotto.  It was very delicious, I'll probably be getting some every time I go to the market.  We also learned all sorts of things about the meat they sell in the market, and the various meats they eat in Italy that they do not eat in America.  They use every part of the animal in Italy... they sell everything from pig's feet, cow's tongue, cow's nerves, chicken hearts... everything else you could imagine.  They also had a huge area full of all fresh vegetables and fruit, they had a guy who sold all sorts of nuts and dried fruit, a balsamic vinegar and wine shop, and more.  It is pretty much the only place you need to shop for food, the only problem is that it closes at 2pm every day and we don't get out of class until 2:30. 

Finally able to work out!

So the gyms here in Florence are wayyyy too expensive.  the cheapest we could find was $60 a month.  And I don't have money for that.  On top of that, this wrist injury is still lingering, just won't go away... so I can't do pushups with my hands flat on the ground, and definitely can't do handstand pushups.  Finally we bought a yoga mat today so I can do some pushups with my fists with the cushioning of the mat.  And we got resistance bands so we can work with those.  Just finished a short workout using these new tools... I definitely miss the weights in the gym but I suppose this will have to do for now.  And now for dinner!  We are making ravioli dinner tonight (fresh ravioli) with the nightly bread and olive oil appetizer, salad with real aged balsamic, and of course a 1.5 liter bottle of red wine that I could have paid for with the change in our couch.  Ciao ragazzi!

And by the way, feel free to leave comments on my blog posts, I don't know you guys realized you could do that.