Weekend Update

First weekend here in Orvieto was sa-weeet!! I had my cooking class with a world renowned chef named Chef Lorenzo at his restaurant, Zeppelin. It was the BEST food I have ever tasted, and reasonably priced too, if you ever find yourself in Orvieto. A few things on our menu were: fried artichokes, pizza, pasta with a creamy mushroom sauce, and chicken in some kind of olive sauce. Then Saturday night everyone came over to our place to drink wine and shoot the breeze.

Sunday was also great because we slept in real late and had our first gelato! Our first studio assignment is to make a map and tour of our neighborhood so the girls and I walked around taking in the sights and doing some shopping. We came across a beautiful garden area that I posted pictures of on Facebook.  It has breathtaking views of the valley below. While out walking we caught our first glimpse of the Orvieto stalker! It’s some little old guy that walks around town talking really loud on his cell phone and looks to have relations with American women. Serena warned us about him so no worries, he’s not violent just annoying. I’m confident I could out run him and I remember everything I learned in those summer kickboxing classes.

Monday we had our first day of real classes. What a drag. Mondays and Wednesdays we have studio from 9:30-1 and our drawing and painting seminar from 3:30-5:30. Plenty of time for an afternoon nap, which is exactly what happened in our house. Most evenings I spend just chatting with the roomies and making or going for dinner before hanging out with more friends.

Currently we are all getting excited for our first Friday field trip with Marco. This week we are heading back down to Rome to see the sites! My roommates and I were planning to stay in Rome for the whole weekend until Chef Lorenzo asked us to come back for a wine tasting at 3pm on Saturday. We weren’t about to pass on chatting up Lorenzo and his interns, who are also American so we hang out with them most evenings as well. Kate’s affectionate nickname for them is ‘Baby Chefs’. Plus I heard we get a neat little certificate! Score! Therefore, we are only staying in Rome Friday night and heading back Saturday in time for some afternoon wine.

 Today is Tuesday and we just concluded our Italian History class with Marco, who is also our field trip tour guide. It’s really interesting stuff but a 3 hour history lecture first thing in the morning is not easy to handle. Not to mention it’s freezing in the building. I forgot to mention earlier that the radiators here only turn on 3 times per day. Right now is happy hour and Jordan and I are in studio with our laptops practically hugging the radiators. We have a short break then we’re back for our Italian language class. After class the girls and I plan to venture down to the valley in search of groceries and a hair straightener. Arrivederci curly afro!

Ciao!

Rachel