Starting the Journey: Day Two

It is still not real that I'm even in Italy. I must be either totally numb to it because I'm still in shock, or already accustomed to adapting to foreign situations. Robbie Shackelford, our program director, says that females are more open to travel than males; we have 22 girls in our group and only 14 boys. The dynamic is really chill, though, because there are only 6 girls and 5 guys who aren't in a relationship with someone back home (or in one case, someone on the trip).  So the crazy, hormonal, I-want-to-flirt-with-everyone-in-sight attitude that I was afraid of hasn't really been an issue at all. I'm both impressed and relieved by this fact. Our days here are extremely laid back, and so far it's just been like hanging out with family.  We eat together in the too-small dining room where we have no choice but to socialize because of the close proximity to each other in which we find ourselves.  The atmosphere is, for lack of a better term, European.  We have two little Italian ladies who cook our meals and do our laundry (Paola and Leda), but the villa is never short of helping hands. Tonight we divided up the meal cleanup, maintenance, and other duties students have the opportunity to help out with, and I signed up for meal cleanup and running the "store" at the villa during tea time.  Although our schedule the past couple of days has been fluid, we're told that eventually we will have class time in the mornings til lunch, which happens at about 1 or 1:30, and then some days we'll have our activity (Kinesiology) classes--i.e. volleyball/pickleball, conditioning exercises, and wellness.  All our class schedules are different, though, based on our needs. The only thing we have in common is our Bible class (Christian Home) and a Humanities course taught by Robbie almost exclusively at sites other than the villa, aka out of the classroom.  He believes that classwork should be a springboard to experiential learning; I think we're all excited to benefit from his wisdom and have the opportunity to take in new things.  Mealtimes have specific etiquette that we're expected to follow, such as eating our pasta first, then putting the plate on top of the pasta bowl and eating our meat and vegetables.  All the meals have been in that format; pasta is served first and handed to us by Leda, and then we sit at the table and serve ourselves meat, some kind of vegetable, and a salad.  There's also a huge supply of bread, a bowl of fruit, and nutella available at every meal. They make some funny kind of ranch dressing for the salad, but I prefer to dress mine the Italian way, with oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper, also provided at our tables.  When Mona (Robbie's wife) says "Buon appetito" we have to say "Grazie altrettanto!" and then we dig in. All their food is delivered fresh daily (or every couple of days), including handmade pasta, bread, fresh meat, eggs, milk, and cheese. It's rather medieval, and I love that everything is pure and not processed; it comes straight from the farms in and around Scandicci. We walked around the city of Scandicci today, and stopped at a 13th century castle to sample hors d'oeouvres from a company called "Slow Foods." Their idea is to do everything possible to be opposite from fast food. They buy their products straight from the producers, just like we do at the villa. We had salami and coarse bread, Italian omelettes, chicken liver pate, and other cool Italian foods (including their version of apple pie, which needless to say was WAY better than my attempt). We're learning little bits of Italian every day, but it makes me anxious to start Italian classes because I love languages so much and it makes me nervous to not know how to say anything to anyone. Tomorrow we take a walk around Florence. It is gonna be intense.
Now for pictures: