Ok, so yes I'm living in Cortona. First night in Cortona was beautiful. Caroline and I have the absolute cutest room. The building we're staying in is an old monastery. Part of the building has been renovated, but the coolest thing about Cortona is that you can't change any physical aspects of the outside of the buildings. So you can do small renovations inside and such, but all the buildings mainly have all their original architecture. Our building is mainly brick and stone. It has this amazingly simplistic and old feel to it. Most of the rooms are mainly white, including our bedroom. To get to our room, you actually have to cross through our suite mate's room. There room has two twin beds, a dresser, and this almost fireplace/stove mantel in the wall. And then our room has three twin beds with two small dressers. But the most beautiful part is our double french doors that open and lead out into our garden in the back. We totally lucked out with this. There's these old stone benches and iron rod gate that leads up to our "secret garden" - it just has clotheslines, but still cool. But it really is "secret garden"-esque with small sets of stone steps leading to different parts of the back of our building - there's fig trees, and olive trees, and my favorite, a boccie ball court.
But even more amazing that our building, is the massive hill that our school is on. Basically all of Cortona is on this hill overlooking the little towns below - it's amazing. And the whole city is surrounded by a wall, with only like 1200 people living inside the wall. But when we got to Cortona they took our luggage from us and had us climb up the hill and I don't know, but I always get so excited to climb up the hill. It's probably like 200 yards of steep stone...and it's awesome. Caroline thinks I'm crazy when I get excited to climb back up, but I love it.
So our first set of "classes" start at 8:30...the earliest class I've had since I started college, woof. But it's just amazing to wake up and walk a little ways down our king hill to our actual school, since our dorms are a little higher up the hill. It was crazy to immediately get thrown into all the history and old facts about wine and grapes. So class is from 8:30 to 12 with breaks in between.
We got back to the room and opened our doors, and this little white cat wandered into our room. We have a new pet. Her name is Francis. She just likes to come sit on Caroline's bed and look out into the garden and listen to some John Mayer with us. Totally chill.
For lunch, six of us wandered down into the square to the local grocer. And when you walk in, they have this list of almost 20 different sandwich options, all for basically 3 or 3.5 euros, and so I ordered a pesto, turkey, mozzarella, and tomato on foccacia bread sandwich. Absolutely delicious. Caroline and I decided were gonna open a fresh sandwich and pasta salad and wrap shop in Athens where you can order a sandwich with a glass of wine...it's gonna be amazing.
So the boys room also opens up to the garden, so they wandered over and challenged Caroline and I to a game of boccie. Absolute total domination on our part. And it basically rains almost every day in Cortona at some point, and our game was ended a little short due to some unfortunate weather, but at least it gave the guys a chance to re-strategize. When we saw them later, their new game plan: to not suck so much. Ha, we'll have to see how that goes. We've also been challenged by some of our professors to take them on because they're obviously the reigning champs. I'm gonna have to practice.
So around 3 we did a walking tour of Cortona with our resident assistant/graduate researcher/tour guide/most awesome mustache sporter, Daniel. He literally has the most Johnny Depp from "Secret Window" persona. It's awesome. He took us through most of Cortona, including the square and some of the churches and all his favorite restaurants and secret bakeries in the pouring rain. So fun.
So on most afternoons we have our wine tasting. Yesterday we just did a sensory exercise with smell. It's so hard to describe what you smell. Our TA Stephanie put out ten different cups and asked us to smell them without looking in and then guess what it was....I got one right. Ha, my nose is totally broken. It was so hard to try and figure out certain aromas. Caroline and I agreed we need serious practice.
So right after our sensory exercise Caroline and I went into Cortona for our first night out (sadly we made the mistake of wearing a t-shirt - at least I was supporting the Braves - but we learned our lesson that once you leave the dorm, you better have everything you need and dressed to go out, you will not make it back up the hill...lesson learned). But we went to this little wine bar, and ordered a glass of Chardonnay. It was a 2003 Burgundo. Absolutely delicious. And Italians only drink with food, so anywhere you go to order a glass of wine, or even in the bars where they serve alcohol, they give you food. So our glass of Chardonnay came with bite sized cold cut sandwiches.
Dinner is at the same restaurant every night, and they have a bar upstairs where everyone mingles before we go get seated. So Caroline and I ordered our first bottle of wine. We asked for a white wine, and paid 6 euros for a bottle of Pinot Grigio. And it was so perfect for dinner. I've never had such a good bottle of fairly inexpensive wine. And get this, dinner was pasta (which is the first thing they bring out at every meal, with bread, and serve you a whole plate...so much food) with this light cream based sauce and ground beef. Then our next course was fries, with breaded chicken, and salad. And then to finish with dessert, they brought out fresh strawberries and pineapple. They literally serve three meals for dinner, it's crazy. And last night's dinner was so perfect, and we got to know some of the girls from the science maymester group that's staying with us. There's about 40 of them, and they study all the time, but it was fun to get to know some of them over a good meal and bottle of wine.
But dinner was just the start of our adventurous evening. So after dinner we went right around the corner to Route 66 and order a martini. Caroline went first and ordered a "martini fruiti". The bartender literally poured straight martini liquor into the glass and added a few slices of fruit. Ha. So I asked for a "martini sour" and at least mine was mixed with maybe an ounce of club soda or something, but it was very good.
So we happened to wander outside and ran into Daniel and somehow ended up with just him at this little bar/restaurant/grocer across the street. He ordered a bottle of red wine...and we did some serious bonding with Daniel. He's such an incredible intriguing person. But we had a deep chat about love and how love is such a tricky thing today, how complex it is. We both quoted the Moulin Rouge quote, "love is a many splendid thing..." But we also talked about our scars (random) and the significance of all our jewelry...and even more exciting. We got our first official Italian lesson. I am a pro now on how to say my name is, saying I like and I don't like, I'm sorry, how much, how do you say, and most important, how to order a glass of wine in Italian. Caroline and I have a new best friend. And we're such good friends that Caroline asked to twirl his mustache - yea, we're on that level.
After our Daniel date we went back to Route 66 and did some major dancing in the basement with the rest of a majority of our group. They had a DJ who start spinning American songs. Some serious group bonding. And then on our way to our next stop, which we thought was our dorm, we met Daniel's Italian guy friends, who decided they were going to open their "Lion's Well Pub" up just for our little group of like 10 of us....I'm now a professional Italian bartender. And then eventually made it back to our dorm, only to have class at 8:30 in the morning...to learn about everything we consumed the night before. So funny.
Best day.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
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Girl, you can seriously write. My goodness! I don't even know where to begin in response. First of all, your place sounds like it is out of a movie - which to me, I guess it would seem that way, since all that I have ever seen of Italy has been in movies. :) But it truly sounds fabulous - take a lot of pictures! (Can you post pictures on your blog? You should look into that.)
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to try out you and Caroline's new restaurant! Sounds like it is going to be great! You are living the life over there with all that good food and cheap wine... don't be afraid to try anything. Dive into the culture.
I am so glad that you and Caroline are able to meet other people while you are there - you never know where you might meet your lifelong friends.
Things back in the states are the same old, same old. Zac Brown Band was a blast and I can now say that I am an alumnus of UGA - hard to believe... and a bit scary.
Well, keep posting and having a wonderful time. The time will fly by so enjoy every minute of it. And take some good notes on everything that you learn so that you can share them with those of us who STILL don't know much about wine ;). Take care sweet girl!
I have no idea how I write so much on my blog, but I promise my postings will get shorter. There was just so much going on, especially being in Rome, but as things settle down, I'll probably just blog about the wine and random things that happen. But glad you're reading and keeping up with me! I love it!
ReplyDeleteThe culture is amazing, and it's so hard to write about because it's just these feelings you get when you are walking through the town center and everything really is like being in a movie, so surreal.
But congrats on graduation - I'm so proud! That's so amazing, and now you can walk through the arches...probably the coolest part.
I'm taking good notes on my wines...my TA said she would give me an A+ so far on my journal. And our resident assistant who I brain pick about how to say things in Italian, told me I was making an A on my Italian...doing well haha.
I'll try and post some of the fun things I learn and the wines I've tasted...