Student Bloggers
Tuscany & Truffles
Date
October 4, 2014For all of those that are following this blog I apologize for my lack of posts. It's been super crazy here!
Last weekend was my first field study with my Food and Its Visual Representations class. We went for to Tuscany for two days and I think I ate more cheese and drank more wine than I ever have in my life.
Sixteen of us went and first stopped at a completely sustainable and organic winery where we had pasta and a wine tasting. We then went to the biggest winery in Tuscany, Castello Banfi, and had another wine tasting. Let's just say that Franzia is looking pretty weak at this point. For the night we stayed at an agriturismo, which is basically a small resort, of sorts, that must produce at least 70-80% of what it serves to it's guests to have the name 'agriturismo'. This place made the first organic cheese and we got to taste more cheese than I even thought was possible (plus more wine). Sleep time.
The next day we took a bus to another part of Tuscany to the hub of Savini Truffles. For those of you (like me) who don't really know what a truffle is…it's not chocolate. They are mushroom-esque fungi that grow underground in a few very specific parts of the world. Truffle hunting cannot be commercialized in any way because of how the truffles are grown, so they train dogs to hunt for the truffles in the forest. And we got to take part in that. There was mud and leaves and bugs and truffles, which, depending on their size, can go for hundreds of dollars. Then we proceeded to have a meal where every course contained truffles. Yum. We even had chocolate with truffles in it, which was interesting (plus wine).
We left, stuffed and sleepy, and took a bus to Florence to wait for our train back to Rome.
Classes, in general, are going great! Reading and Writing Rome is by far my favorite, but I need to make a separate post to talk about that.
I did have a reality check the other night, though, when my bag was stolen right off of me. All my cards, IDs, medicine, money, keys, etc. is now gone, BUT material things. They can all be replaced. I just have to remember to be more careful.
But I do feel at home in Rome. I love it here. Things are sometimes a little frustrating, even though it's already been a month (wow). But I have great friends and great food and am loving every second. Pictures are coming!
Kisses,
Shelby​