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June 14th 2009
Published: June 14th 2009
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Again, this computer won't let me upload pictures. Which is unfortunate, because i have about a thousand pictures of food to share. I left off in Rome...

One the train from Naples to Rome I got talking with this really nice Indian guy, who then walked me to my hostel, took me to dinner, and took me on on a walk to see some of the sights lit up at night. I only saw Rome for a few hours (don't worry, I'll be there for about a week soon enough) but it seemed rather beautiful. I can't remember the name of the place we saw on the walk, but it had a ridiculous number of statues and columns and was overwhelmingly huge. When we parted ways at my hostel that evening he asked "Is this what a date is like? I've never been on one." How cute.

The next morning I took the train to the airport to meet up with my study abroad group. A few people had travel a bit around in Europe before the program, but most are inexperienced travelers. There are 10 students, 2 male, 8 female, and then a professor from UF and his wife. I'm practically fluent in Italian compared top everyone else, and am glad to have had the time to get acquainted with italy and international travel before the trip. We flew to Polermo in Sicily to meet Ricardo and Davidad, our Italian translators/drivers/encyclopedias. Davidad was just with us in Sicily, but Ricardo is with us the whole way. Thank goodness, because our FL professor is the quintessential ugly American and is hopeless and embarrassing. I don't know how Ricardo puts up with him. This is not his first trip here, yet he knows not a single word of Italian, complains about everything, just wants to sit around all day, and is downright rude to people. At least we all recognize this behavior as wrong.

We spent a few day exploring Sicily, which has an arid climate, many mountains, beautiful beaches, and fertile soil. We stayed in 2 different agrotourismos, which were larger than the one I worked at, had better food, but the landscape was less beautiful. This study abroad is like being in the show "how it's made" because we visit farm co-ops, factories, farms, etc. to learn about italian and european food. In sicily, we went to wineries where we learned took tours and tasted wine, an olive grove where we tasted olive oil, a bread factory, a fruit sorting and packing plant, a fish farming operation, a cheese research center, and we say cheese being made at the agrotourismo from fresh sheep milk. Of course, we get to eat something from every place we visit and I already have 3 bottles of wine and a bottle of olive oil to send home. I could go on forever about everything I learned at each, but I'll talk more when I can put up pictures.

We got lost in the mountains once and ended up driving for a few extra hours...that was fun. We also drove up to Mt. Etna which is the largest volcano in Europe. It is constantly erupting, but just a little, so it's generally no damaging. It was a moonscape of black, with a few strips of vegetation that escaped the flow. I, and some others who could handle it, hiked up a crater for some fabulous views and terrifying wind.

Ok, this computer keeps losing what I'm writing, so I'm going to paraphrase. We flew to northern italy and spent time in Bolzano, which I'm in love with. It is an alpine valley full of apple orchards, bikes, Austrian architecture, and beautful scenery. Everyone speaks german and Italian and everyone bikes. My heart swells looking at all those bikes, not only in town, but in the orchards and mountains. we visited orchards, a apple packing house, and the university. I must come back.

We're now in Venice, but I'll be back here in about a month, so I'll talk about that later.

Food: It's all too much. Most of our meals are included, so we don't have control over the quantity and feel obligated to eat it all because we don't want to waste and because it's so delicious. Dinner is antipasta, primi, secondi, dessert, and wine. plate after plate. I look and feel 7 months pregnant after the meal. It's rather painful. I'm planning to lose this weight in August on the farms, but be gentle if I'm 20 lbs heavier when I get home. I'll write more about my favorite meals later, with pictures.

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