Arezzo, Week 1, Day 3

Ciao tutti! I know I said that I wouldn’t really update unless something interesting happened, but as it happened, there was something interesting. Go figure.

We woke this morning, had some breakfast...

                                           Look at this madness. LOOK AT IT!!

...and then headed over to the OU Study Center (hereafter referred to as THE CENTER) so that Melinda could use a computer. (She has, unfortunately, discovered that her computer cord has frayed, making it impossible for her to charge her laptop and phone (it’s charged through her computer). Therefore, we’ll be spending a lot of time at the Center instead of the hotel. C'est la vie.)

After chilling there for a while, we headed back to the hotel to take some taxis to our… wait for it… pasta-making class!!

                                                          Prepare yourselves.

I’m not going to lie, pasta making is ridiculously fun. Difficult, but rewarding. We made three different kinds of pasta: ravioli, tagliatelle, and gnocchi. I could go into incredible detail on the pasta making process and how to make each of these dishes, but that’s more of Melinda’s shtick than mine. (Maybe I’ll have her write a guest post later on Italian food.) Instead, I will show you many pictures of this amazing foody goodness.

                                               Knead the dough. Be the dough.

                                                    Little spinach squares!

                                                        We have ravioli!

                                                          Tangled tagliatelle.

                                  Squishing potatoes. Not as easy as you would think.

And then of course, the completed project.

                                                          Ay, it's ravioli!!

                                                           Ay, it's gnocchi!

After this, we headed back to the Center for class, which focused today on Aristotelian models on the four elements and the motion of heavenly bodies, Ptolemy’s revamping of that so that it makes any sort of sense, and how Copernicus used those previous models to discover that the Earth revolves around the Sun, not the other way around. It was quite interesting, if a bit difficult to understand at times. Tomorrow focuses on Galileo’s Starry Messenger, so that should be entertaining and cool.

                                                  Look! We're learning stuff!

Following class, we moseyed around a while waiting for our restaurant to open and then went to have dinner. I had four cheese pizza (om nom nom) and then we chowed down on some amazingly delicious gelato. Now we’re back at the hotel and doing the readings for tomorrow (there’s a lot of reading). Hopefully class will keep being awesome.

Interesting Stories of the Day:

• Today when we took the taxi to the restaurant for our pasta-making class, the driver complimented me on my Italian pronunciation and said that I spoke very well. The driver for our van who took us back said the same thing. So obviously my Italian studies have paid off well, considering that I didn't say much and they still thought I sounded good.
• Speaking of the van, there wasn't enough room for us all to have seats, so three of us ended up in the trunk. It was actually fairly fun, especially when the driver put in his 'American tourist' CD and started busting out 'We Are Young.'
• Also, when we were waiting to go to dinner, we saw these dogs. The first one saw the other and literally crawled its way over and proceeded to roll over onto its back. They then did the dance of sniffing and licking, finishing with the owners dragging them apart. They looked like denied lovers. It was hysterical.

Buonanotte tutti!