So I got up the next morning and walked to my new school. Unsurprisingly, my path goes right by the piazza The Duomo is in. The school isn’t that big, but it’s really nice. Everything is Apple (the free-for-all computer lab is huge monitors and Mac minis) and wirelesss. The furniture is so sleek and European it would make Ikea jealous.
There were more students than I expected, around fifty, but everyone seems cool so far. At 22, I’m definitely on the higher end of the age scale. Most of them are juniors.
We settled into orientation – which by the way, I almost missed to spend a night in Amsterdam when I booked my tickets – and... not fun. All the advice you could get from reading the handbook and Breathing for Dummies. Don’t walk alone at night. If there’s a fire, leave the buildng. Etc. And then there were rules. For the kitchen and extra ones for the culinary students. (You can only taste your food, but you can’t eat it because you have to have it for your professor to critique!) It made me less jealous of the jackets and knives they would get. On the plus side, I did get a chance to be in the wine-tasting classroom (wine racks and marble counters with stools) – and a chance to meet with the school’s cell phone provider. I got my new SIM card set up in my RAZR, so I do have a phone now! Sweet disount too. Free incoming calls and free incoming texts. But unsurprisingly, all this scheduling ran late so we had less time for lunch than we were supposed to. I went to lunch with a few people I’d been around (since we got split into groups for things). Pizzeria Sabrina is a block away from the building we were in. I think I know where I’m getting lunch in between classes.
Now I was hoping having eaten – since I skipped breakfast because all we had in our apartment was wine and bottled water – would make the afternoon better. It did. And as lame as the morning was, the afternoon was AMAZING. We got broken into our categories and got to meet the director of each program. Only one girl and I were focusing on Food Communication, so we had a private meeting with one of our professors in the Photo Lab. (Also all Apples but with professional photo equipment.) After that, we were taken on a walking tour of Florence. It wasn’t the tourist stuff, more like the stuff we’d be need to familiar with:
It started with the other facilities a few blocks away. The first building had the reception area and our lockers. And then we were ushered into The Restaurant Room, which has tables and chairs and I guess is used for serving and hospitality simulation. (I’m naming all these places myself, btw.) Right next to that is The Restaurant Kitchen which has all the amenities and stations you’d associate with a gourmet restaurant. Then there’s a smaller “Household Kitchen” used for independent study. Then there’s where I’ll spend a lot of time, The Beginning Kitchen. Which, for any Bravo viewers, looks like the Top Chef kitchen except without studio lighting and all the Kenmore logos. On a related note, Season 2 winner Elan Hall is an alumnus of Apicius! Finally, we got to see The Bakery where the pastry students will study. Okay, now I was starting to get a little jealous of the cooking students again. Good news for me, apparently sometimes we have the chance to get together and watch a cooking show (either reality TV or Food network) in the Restaurant Room and then go raid the pantry and try to replicate the dish(es) in the Kitchens! The next building almost across the street had two more Beginning Kitchens and two Demo Kitchens (like an infomercial or cooking show) where all you do is watch.
The rest of the tour were the main market, the most comprehensive grocery store with the longest hours, kitchen supply and chef stores, random restaurants our guide recommended, and the language building of FUA where we’d take Italian classes in either the Leonardo, Michelangelo, or Rafael rooms. (I guess they’re named after The Ninja Turtles.) One of our last – and perhaps the best – stop was the chocolate shop owned by one of the professors. He’s won several international awards, and the place is beautiful. It looks like a jewelry store that happens to sell chocolate. He wasn’t there, but we got to meet his right-hand man, who let us into the kitchen and gave us fresh samples of a new confection they’re perfecting. I can’t write what it is, but if you ask me, I’ll tell you. I can tell you that it doesn’t involve dark chocolate (and I assumed I wouldn’t like it), but it was fantastic.)
There were more students than I expected, around fifty, but everyone seems cool so far. At 22, I’m definitely on the higher end of the age scale. Most of them are juniors.
We settled into orientation – which by the way, I almost missed to spend a night in Amsterdam when I booked my tickets – and... not fun. All the advice you could get from reading the handbook and Breathing for Dummies. Don’t walk alone at night. If there’s a fire, leave the buildng. Etc. And then there were rules. For the kitchen and extra ones for the culinary students. (You can only taste your food, but you can’t eat it because you have to have it for your professor to critique!) It made me less jealous of the jackets and knives they would get. On the plus side, I did get a chance to be in the wine-tasting classroom (wine racks and marble counters with stools) – and a chance to meet with the school’s cell phone provider. I got my new SIM card set up in my RAZR, so I do have a phone now! Sweet disount too. Free incoming calls and free incoming texts. But unsurprisingly, all this scheduling ran late so we had less time for lunch than we were supposed to. I went to lunch with a few people I’d been around (since we got split into groups for things). Pizzeria Sabrina is a block away from the building we were in. I think I know where I’m getting lunch in between classes.
Now I was hoping having eaten – since I skipped breakfast because all we had in our apartment was wine and bottled water – would make the afternoon better. It did. And as lame as the morning was, the afternoon was AMAZING. We got broken into our categories and got to meet the director of each program. Only one girl and I were focusing on Food Communication, so we had a private meeting with one of our professors in the Photo Lab. (Also all Apples but with professional photo equipment.) After that, we were taken on a walking tour of Florence. It wasn’t the tourist stuff, more like the stuff we’d be need to familiar with:
It started with the other facilities a few blocks away. The first building had the reception area and our lockers. And then we were ushered into The Restaurant Room, which has tables and chairs and I guess is used for serving and hospitality simulation. (I’m naming all these places myself, btw.) Right next to that is The Restaurant Kitchen which has all the amenities and stations you’d associate with a gourmet restaurant. Then there’s a smaller “Household Kitchen” used for independent study. Then there’s where I’ll spend a lot of time, The Beginning Kitchen. Which, for any Bravo viewers, looks like the Top Chef kitchen except without studio lighting and all the Kenmore logos. On a related note, Season 2 winner Elan Hall is an alumnus of Apicius! Finally, we got to see The Bakery where the pastry students will study. Okay, now I was starting to get a little jealous of the cooking students again. Good news for me, apparently sometimes we have the chance to get together and watch a cooking show (either reality TV or Food network) in the Restaurant Room and then go raid the pantry and try to replicate the dish(es) in the Kitchens! The next building almost across the street had two more Beginning Kitchens and two Demo Kitchens (like an infomercial or cooking show) where all you do is watch.
The rest of the tour were the main market, the most comprehensive grocery store with the longest hours, kitchen supply and chef stores, random restaurants our guide recommended, and the language building of FUA where we’d take Italian classes in either the Leonardo, Michelangelo, or Rafael rooms. (I guess they’re named after The Ninja Turtles.) One of our last – and perhaps the best – stop was the chocolate shop owned by one of the professors. He’s won several international awards, and the place is beautiful. It looks like a jewelry store that happens to sell chocolate. He wasn’t there, but we got to meet his right-hand man, who let us into the kitchen and gave us fresh samples of a new confection they’re perfecting. I can’t write what it is, but if you ask me, I’ll tell you. I can tell you that it doesn’t involve dark chocolate (and I assumed I wouldn’t like it), but it was fantastic.)
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