School is Now in Session

School has officially started. The first week of Italian classes are over and now that I am not cramming my head full of six hours a day worth of Italian, I can take a minute to unwind, and reflect. Italian has been hard to learn, but with so much class it has been getting easier every day. We have been learning basic greetings, verb conjugation in the present tense, descriptions, directions, weather, simple everyday conversational Italian. This is great since I definitely enjoy knowing how to ask for something, rather than pointing and grunting a little.

Last week all had to go into Cuneo to get some government number that allowed us to live in Italy for an extended amount of time, and to get free government health care, woot woot! The trip was quite an adventure, that involved accidentally buying a train ticket instead of a bus ticket, getting off the bus a stop or two too early, and wandering around until we found the correct building. After waiting around for hours we were told only four people actually needed to be there. So, one day wasted due to Italian bureaucracy. Well, I shouldn’t say wasted, I did enjoy the city, and will be going back to see it again, I bought a round way train ticket anyway.

I am excited for next weekend because we are all taking the train to Cinque Terre and hiking to the different towns. All Thanks to Lauren who was kind enough to organize this whole weekend trip!

Time to get some reading done on this beautiful day for one of our courses called History of Cuisine, which starts on Tuesday.

It Helps to Have Friends in High Places

Feeling groggy and bloated after waking up at noon has become common place; after all I have been drinking amazing beer, and eating cheese from three straight days. Throughout these four days I would say I have tried over 50 types of cheeses, mostly from Italy, and about 50 different types of beer, also mostly from Italy. I have also of course had a few glasses of wine along the way.

This festival has given me the chance to experience many artisanal beers, cheeses, wines, balsamic vinegars, and honeys, that I don’t think I will ever get to taste again unless I find myself back here, which is a strong possibility at this point. Everyday has truly been a unique experience.

A few highlights of the festival have been the wine tent, beer tent, and cheese market. Paulo, who also works at the schools wine bank, was working at the wine tent and taught us about six different wines all from the Piedmont region we are living in. We tasted four Barbarescos, and two Barolos. The Brabarescos are lighter in color and taste, the Borolo is a much stronger tasting wine. All these wine are produced within an hour of Bra.

Now onto the beer, and wow, was there a lot of it. To start, I want to say thanks the students working the beer tent for hooking us up every day! I probably paid four euro for the 50 half glasses of beer, all of which were amazing. Some of my favorites were the Winterlude which is a triple and New Morning which is a saison, both made by the same producer. The Black Lizard a super dark, nearly black porter was amazing; it had a strong coffee taste and was very heavy. Re Ale which is American pale ale and was phenomenal, I must have had three glass of that alone. Novi Luna which is another saison and had hints of flowers. It was very light and refreshing. Those round out my top five for the beer, and they were phenomenal.

The beer may have seemed like the main event, and for most people it probably was, but the cheese took the show. I have tried the best of nearly every single kind of cheese there is. Every conception I have of what good cheese is is gone. It is hard to describe what I have tasted, but it has ranged from the creamiest mozzarella, to the sharpest parmigiano reggiano, and the most flavorful blue cheese.

Not to mention the balsamic vinegar. I have tried balsamic vinegar aged for longer than two of my lives; so thick that it took a few seconds before it even began to pour out of the bottle. It also costs about 150euro, around 200 USD for probably a cup and a half. The best part, one of our Italian classmates’, Marco, works there and is going to takes us on a tour. He also said he would get us the balsamic for half price, score! I can’t forget the many types of honey, some made from famous Piemonte hazelnuts, some from pistachios, some from white mustard plus many more.

Now that cheese has come to a close, it’s time to wind down the partying as I get ready to start Italian class on Monday.

Getting Settled in

I am now on my third day here in Bra, and still have not managed a good night sleep. This is probably due to a few factors:
1. I have been drinking lots of awesome wine and not going to bed until at the earliest 3:30 am.
2. There is “aperitivo” which is drinks and snacks at 7 so dinner is usually eaten at 10-11pm. Then more drinking commences.
3. At 7am every morning motor bikes and cares eco between our building and the adjacent one, waking me up.

Regardless I am still having an amazing time. We have been at the University for Gastronomic Sciences for the past two days for orientations. I learned today that the school has a wine bank, with over 80,000 of the best wine from all over the world! We will be getting a tour, and having a five day wine tasting stage at the end of October. Communicating is hard, but our Italian classes start Monday.
Starting Friday there is “cheese” which is a four day festival involving hundreds of samples of local and global cheese, wine, and beer.

Welcome to my journey

The start of this trip has been a breeze. I flew through security at Logan airport in Boston, and got to the gate with about two hours to spare. So, ipod in hand, I zoned out for a few hours until it was time to board. When I got to my seat on the plane I thought to myself, wow, how did I manage to get a seat across from the guy who clearly hasn’t showered for a few weeks? I figured I would just have to suck it up for the 6hr plane ride. To my astonishment, and I rarely ever get this lucky, the passenger who was supposed to sit next to me didn’t show. Imagine that, now I have the window seat to my right all to myself. That definitely makes up for the guy who doesn’t shower.

Then stinky guy asks me if we can switch seats, “no thanks” I reply. It wasn’t till later when I realized he probably wanted to ask if his son could sit next to me in the window seat. Either way, I probably would have said “no.”

The flight was great, for dinner northwest had chicken curry and a free glass of wine, both were actually pretty good. There was a ton of in flight entertainment; I chose to spend my time watching the movie Adventure land. Poor choice by me, it was only mildly funny; like a less funny Juno. Fortunately, an episode of 30rock and some sleep made up for it.

After another two one hour plane rides and about five hours of lay over time, I finally made it to Italy. Having not slept for probably close to a full 30 hours, I am cranky, tired and ready to get out of the airport.

I am living with two other guys from UNH, Matt and Ryan, and we are having a blast. The apartment is amazing, my room is huge, and we even have a maid that comes every day. We are all still going to keep things somewhat clean so we don’t embarrass ourselves, and the rest of America.

Now that we have all been moved in and have been awake for about 40 hours, it’s time to go celebrate with a few drinks. We all went to a local bar and had a whole bunch of awesome local red wine called dolcetto d’alba for 5euro a bottle. Doesn’t get much better than that. More updates about the food too come, that is when I finally eat sometime not on an airplane.