Now that I am able to finally breathe, I am so thrilled to tell you all about last weekend. We started our journey Friday morning heading out to Perugia for the weekend. The trip was a small planned excursion with our one RA, Kyle, and only 15 of us students. The first activity was truffle hunting! Truffles are a type of fungi and, even though I do not like mushrooms, they were delicious! The hunting part took place in a fenced off area; we had two dogs with us to find the truffles. The dogs were absolutely adorable; we had to intensely follow the dogs because when they find a good truffle, they will try to eat it! Throughout the whole half hour of hunting, we were able to accumulate 10 truffles (worth around 150 Euro total). After hunting, the family cooked us an authentic Italian truffle lunch; everything we ate had truffles somehow incorporated in it- My favorite was the gnocchi! To end our experience we were given the title of official truffle hunters in individual awards!
Our day was far from finished; after a fun filled day of hunting and then eating, we returned to our hotel for a cooking class! The place we stayed at was just a local family home that had little apartments attached at the bottom (they had a great ton of land). The cooking class was taught in the main part of the house and taught by the owner and her friend. This class seemed pretty legit, considering she had her own website Let's Cook in Umbria (definitely check it out!). Each person got a chance to go up and cook a portion of our meal... and of course I got the sausage part (LOL!). Needless to say, our meal was GREAT! Here are some fun pictures:
Since I am not the best cook around, this was such a cool experience! I feel like I've learned so much from just the few hours of cooking class; but as you can tell in the pictures, I LOVED every moment!!! We had such a long day on Friday that we were all just completely exhausted by the end of the night.
Saturday was even a more eventful day! We first went to the Baci chocolate factory (a Nestlè product)-- I was hoping it would be like Willy Wonka, unfortunately it wasn't the same. Baci means "Kiss" in Italian, and it is similar to what a Hershey kiss is to us. Each piece is individually wrapped and there is a little saying inside (usually some sort of poetry). What is unique about the name is that it was originally called pugni meaning "Punch" but how strange would it be to give someone punches for Valentine's day-- not very romantic. Baci chocolate is crispy inside, like a Crunch bar but way better!! Their factory contains a museum, a chocolate cooking class, and of course the production line of all of the chocolate. After learning about the history, we were able to have a sample session of all of the chocolate-- YUM!! The chocolate was so fresh that it wasn't even wrapped!! There was a variety of chocolates such as the original Baci, milk chocolate bars, dark chocolate bars, white Baci, orange chocolate, and their signature rum candy. We weren't allowed to take pictures of the factory itself, but it was simply just an incredibly large factory with machines producing the chocolate. The only people inside were facilitating the machines and making sure they properly did their job (no real people dealt with the chocolate). The chocolate here was so great, and I definitely recommend tasting Baci chocolate when given the opportunity!!!!
After my indulgence of excellent chocolate, it was time for some wine tasting! We went to a vineyard to see how the wine was made, aged, stored, and bottled. The vineyard was privately owned and, according to the locals, produces the best wine around. They produce red, pink, and white wine along with a type of Italian champagne (Prosecco). Sparkling wine, champagne, can only be called champagne when imported from France and passes all of the regulations. The Prosecco was one of my favorite wines we have tasted-- it reminds me of the sparkling juice I have on Christmas morning with my brothers and sister!! We were treated to a great meal again, I know it seems as though all we do is eat, accompanied with the wine of the vineyard. It was fantastic! Here are a couple of photos of our day at the vineyard:
That concludes our trip from Friday and Saturday. Sunday we ventured to Assisi, the holy lands of St. Francis, and spent the day there before returning home for the week. Assisi was very cool to see-- everywhere you looked there was either a monk, nun, or priest but all of them were incredibly friendly. i don't have an incredible amount to say about Assisi, but here are a few pictures to describe what it was like. Oh! We also got to see the castle of Assisi! It was very cool; the castle was built up on the hill to protect the city from the surrounding lands. Our day concluded with a private mass given to us by one of the priests teaching here in Rome. Enjoy the pics!
The church of St. Francis
ARD Kyle on the right (loving the hat LOL)
The castle of Assisi!
This is the chapel where are individual mass was held!This weekend trip to Perugia was absolutely phenomenal! I loved every moment of it and all of the people who were on the trip! This weekend I have a Modern Art Class in Rome (1 credit course) which we will be visiting some super cool sites, or at least I hope! Just like this past week, next week is midterm week so it is going to be pretty tedious and intense. However, in 8 days I will be on my way to Paris and London for a week!!!!! I hope you all have a wonderful evening!!! GO STEELERS!!!!
Arrivaderci!!!
Ky xx
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