These are some of the fresh vegetables that my roomates and i got at the market this weekend. THe market is called Mercato Centrale, and was full of fresh vegetables, cheese, meat and seafood. We walked around trying to figure out which booth to choose. We saw full chickens, and all sorts of parts of animals i wasnt too sure of what i was looking at. After settling for just vegetables since we werent too sure of how to go about ordering meat off of a whole cow, we walked all around the city doing mostly window shopping. We found an English book store, so we know now where to go if we need some reading for down time. We came back and started dinner, which was amazing. Fresh sauteed veggies and pasta with a red pesto sauce. The night before we made gnocchi, which was just as good!
Its quite cold here, it was about 25 degrees this morning walking to class, which is weird because this weeked i was in just one shirt.... the weather fluctuates like crazy.
Time to go present some work to Elena we did over the weekend,
Until next time..

view from the Boboli Gardens

cooking dinner

Boboli Gardens

Great start to the week!

We had a relaxing weekend since last week was so hectic... so its was nice to stay in Florence and have no meetings or schedules. We went out on Friday night to a bar/club called Zoe. It was really neat inside and was packed. Its funny to see most of the Italians all congregated outside instead of in because every single one smokes. After we stayed there for awhile, we walked to another bar called Lochness. Not sure why it was named that, but a really cool place. It was small and completely all red inside.. Everyone was really nice there, and the bartender thankfully spoke english. He was kind and helped us out. After some dancing, we all walked home together and slept in the next day. Not much went on the rest of the weekend. We cooked dinner and just hung out.
Today was a great day though. This morning we had a workshop with a local artisit here, but who is actually orginially from Kansas, again.. great to hear some English. She took us to a science museum here in Florence, and we were very priveledged to be able to see the "skeleton room" which is not open to the public. It was fulllll of skeletons from all ages, to dino's to elephant, to creatures i couldnt even begin to spell or say. She told us to bring some sticks of different sizes, and some random things from nature, white ink, and some brown paper... not knowing what in the world we do with these things. She told us to use our found objects to paint one of the skeletons with our white ink. Then if we need some shadows, we burned our sticks to make our own charcoal. I could have spent all day working on my drawings. Ill post a picture later.
Then we all meet at a local trattoria, which means a local home cooked food restaurant, and had a great lunch with everyone. After we were all stuffed, we hoped on our bikes we rented for the day and had a tour around the river. It was absolutely amazing, even though my life felt like it was close to an end a few times. The driving around here is extremely crazy. Cars, scooters and even the bike riders fly. But once we got used to it, we were fine and i was enjoying every minute of it. We walked our bikes up to Piazza Michelangalo where the original statue of David stands. I got one of the best workouts i have gotten in awhile, but it was worth the amazzzinggg view. We could see all of Florence form the top. After some pictures, we rode the great ride downhill and headed to the grocery store to pick up some vegetables to make homeade paninis. Now we are all enjoying our internet that finally just started to work in our apartment. No more walking to local pubs to steal their wi-fi internet!
We are all heading to bed early tonight because at 7:30 am we are meeting our History teacher to take a train to Siena, which is sounth of Florence. Should be fun!
Until next time, Ciao!

One week.

fabrics from Elena's shop

Tiles from Elena's

samples of wood in Elena's

Ponte Vecchio, my view to school everyday.

Our first cooked meal

Its reached the one week mark in Florence! It seems like it has been much longer than only one week, but I am in no means rushing this time here. Its been a crazy week trying to settle in and getting adjusted, its been a lot of running here and there, back and forth. But I just don’t seem to mind all the running around when I have this city surrounding me.
On Tuesday we had our History of Urban Planning and Theory class with one of the most amazing teachers and authors of all time, Richard Ingersoll. He wrote most of the architecture textbooks that I have read in my three years of college. Pretty amazing that im getting first hand experience and teaching from THE Richard Ingersoll. Thankfully, he is American, so I can understand what he is saying. His class was very, very interesting. He is going to be taking us on a lot of trips this semester, including Venice, which I am very excited about. Then we had our Graphic design class with a younger teacher named Alesandro. One of my favorite teachers by far. It seems like its going to be a very fun class as well. He showed us most of his work and his two homes that he has designed, and they are right up my alley. Should be interesting to see what we produce in his class.
Wednesday we toured our professor’s family business in the artisan Oltrarno district of Florence, where we are all living. They have a huge place where they design interiors of homes from kitchens to living rooms, to cabinetry, all the way to the tile and tile patterns. Her father does everything from custom designing the furniture for the house, hand-crafting the kitchen’s appliances to even hand making the keys for the house. It was amazing what all they could do for a client. They had rooms after rooms of furniture they were refurbishing, all so amazing and beautiful. I will post some pictures, because words cant do the place justice.
After that we took a tour of the old Oltrarno district of Florence, which like I said, is where we live… south of the river. The more touristy part of Florence, where most of the hustle and bustle is, is north of the Arno river. Im glad to be tucked away in the more quiet Italian neighbor area instead of being surrounded by the more touristy area.
Last night my roommates, our other friend Brett and I found a place to eat that was in a part of Florence we had never been, so we decided to venture out and find it. It ended up being tucked away in a discreet corner, filled with all Italians, so we decided it was a good choice….and it ended up being awesome. Once again, it was a home cooked meal. I had roast chicken, and “white beans”, which was my favorite thing, and lots of the vino. Its funny; they first ask you if you would like water or vino, then red or white. No choosing the kind of red wine, they just bring you a liter or a large bottle full of whatever they want. And it wine here is actually cheaper than water. Needing a much needed meal and rest, we stayed until they closed.
Today we went on a tour of the Torrigiani gardens. Its funny because I have walked past this huge house with a massive lawn a couple of times since I have been here, admiring it and admiring the owners, wandering how in the world I could sweet talk my way into letting the security guard to let me in…and it ended up that they were some famous gardens that we were getting to tour today. What a coincidence. One of the owners, a brother of about 6 others… took us around. He was so lively and funny, and showed us an amazing place. Again, pictures cant do my descriptions justice. So I will just have to show you. I could have stayed in there for hours and hours, but the night’s cold came quickly.
Looking forward to this weekend of no meetings or class times. I decided Im going to get myself lost in the city.
Until next time, Ciao!

Today was a good and full day in Florence. It was our first official day of school, or studio with Elena. Since Meghan, Susie and I had slept for 14 hours on Sunday because of serious jet lag, trying to get a good night’s sleep was pretty difficult last night, so we were all pretty tired getting ready this morning. We woke up early so we could walk the thirty min walk to class to hurry to take use of the wi-fi in our studio. Since we don’t have it in the apartment, this time is full of clicking away and emailing to get in touch with everyone back home in the states. I think its going to take awhile to get the schedule down pat, esp with trying to figure out how to get in touch with everyone at the right time, since the time difference is so far ahead here.
After Elena talked for awhile in studio about our upcoming projects, a few of us walked a pretty long distance north to find this restaurant that Elena mentioned. She said it was good food, large helpings, and for cheap. So of course, we were there. After a good walk, and getting lost a few times, we somehow wandered our way into this large market…. Somewhat similar to a super market in the states, full of meat, cheese, and more meat counters. Right in the middle was a small glassed in box, packed full of people eating lunch. Almost reminded me of our own Waffle House. The doors on the outside opened right into the tables, so we slid on in to our seats… and was happy to see that the menu was indeed cheap. Cheap to us means 3 euros for a first course, and about 4.50 for the second. That’s how the Florentines eat… usually three courses, but that’s a little much for me at lunch time, unless I want to sleep the rest of the day, which the people here in Florence usually do.
After an exciting home-cooked meal of lasagna and roasted chicken, which a glass of the local ‘birra’ or beer, we were on our way to explore some more, making our way back to the apartments.
Forgetting that we still needed some things from the market, Meghan and I wandering down Via Del Romana, which is a street nearby packed with ‘supermarkets’. Everywhere you walk, there are amazing shops… from tile making, to many antique shops, to clothing stores, and to jewlrey stores, its always something new to look at. Its pretty interesting to see. The owners own there shops, work downstairs, and live upstairs in the apartments.
It still catches me off gaurd to see a family, with a dog, as all people here have, to make their way to the street from their apartment upstairs… Its crazy that that’s where the family’s live here. No houses, unless you are the upper class… and they are rarely in plain view. Usually hidden behind a large gate, and amazing gardens.
Tonight we went to one of the boys apartments where we usually go hang out since they have a lot more living space and cooked dinner. We brought over our pasta, and things for a salad and made our first meal here in Florence! We made a stewed tomatoes, zucchini and onion sauce with local pasta and a tomato mozzarella salad. It was so good.
We decided that we were going to go out on the town since we heard that Monday nights were busy here. So we left around 11:45 since places don’t get started until about 12:30 here. We aren’t quite used to the timing here, since dinner doesn’t start until about 9. We found one ‘bar’ as we called it and had a drink, saw a few Americans and decided we should keep exploring. There wasn’t much happening until we found a club called Yab. Probably the most crazy place we have seen. It looked like a castle, yet filled with so many people, dancing and partying like crazy. We took a step inside to find it was about a ten to fifteen euro cover charge, and about ten euros per drink. We weren’t ready for that, so we decided to save our money, and come back next week. Should be interesting.
Tomorrow is our first day for our History and Graphic design class, so we will be there from 9-6. Yikes. Another long day. Hopefully I will get my phone and internet working during the lunch break.
Until next time. Caio.

First blog from Firenze, Italy!

Ciao everyone! I just started blogging so you can see what I am up to in Florence, and so i can also document my time here as well.