Sweet treats at the market!

Ciao!!

Today was the first day of classes for students! I am taking a 9am class called ‘Health and Wellness in the Mediterranean’ which alternates different physical activities with food and wine tasting, how could I go wrong with this one?! After covering basic syllabus material, our professor took us to an Italian market. She showed us which fruits were in season in Italy (apricots and figs) and explained how Italians shop at mainly marketplaces to get fresh produce. It was amazing and I really loved the market. There were so many different vendors and different things to see that it was hard to take it all in at once!

Flatbread anyone?

After she dismissed us for the end of class we were free to shop. I just got a flatbread which was lovely. I then tried to use my poor navigation skills to guide me home, which didn’t work out too well. I managed to get very lost (again) and ended up taking about 2 hours to walk back home from class. This would have been no problem except the sun was cranking the heat back up to 102 degrees and the sunburns on my arms show for it! This European heat wave really hit full force.

Fruits in the market!

Pizza in Florence!

SAI had a welcome mixer for everyone at a restaurant about 30 minutes away from my apartment. It was appetizers and a drink. It was so fun and we got to really just sit down and relax a little bit after all the adjusting and unpacking. My roommate and I met some girls and got to chatting. They invited us over to their apartment later and we said of course in the name of being social we have to go! Fast forward an hour later and we were lost trying to find their apartment (do you sense a theme here?) but eventually made it and went to a small pub across the street for some sangrias. Excited to be making friends and learning more about the Italian culture.

The Duomo

Marie was a summer 2019 Florence student from the University of Kentucky.