Florence still rules, thanks.

Tuesday I noticed in pictures that my hair was getting shaggy, so I stopped by the haircutting place on my street. I told them to “leave it as long as possible but clean it up” since I didn’t want it short until spring on the 20th. But they cut it all off.

That’s cool. I can deal. Plus my friends’ reactions are varied but generally positive. And entertaining. “You look good/younger/Asian/Italian.”

When I got home, Giuseppe immediately brought up dinner. His idea, like always, was Chinese food from the place down the street. Works for me.

Later that night, after power naps and some iTuning, we went to our favorite “cultural assocation” to meet up with Juan and Henk to play some pool and be there for Marissa’s debut as Iceland’s Next Top Bartender. Naturally, Helen and Prima were there too. Joe and Liz showed up for a bit. As did Jack. Prima seems keen on adding another “roommates team” to our league, but her apartment doesn’t have enough players. Our apartment’s foosball record against Jack and Juan is now 4:3.


Cesare was playing acoustic guitar that night. What a great artist. His repertoire of covers is eclectic, but everything sounded great. He had most of us singing and/or dancing along.

Wednesday I slept in until grabbing lunch with Henk at Nerbone, a trattoria in the Mercato Centrale. Salsicce e fagiolo. (Sausage and beans, a classic pairing.) Delicious.

Food writing was devoted to the process of laying out pages in a cookbook. We had a guest lecturer, a photography and graphic design professor. The president/founder of the school stopped by for another impromptu visit for an update on our semester project.

Italian was distracting. The soundtrack for the day was ‘70s and ‘80s disco hip-hop. Oh, and the lesson plan was occupations and three and four digit numbers.

Lisa and I invited her friend Caroline and my roommates to join us in our dinner at Pizzaiuolo where she and I finally got something we’d been discussing for the past month: DEEP-FRIED CALZONES.

My roommates and I went from there to the “cultural association” to meet up with the same crowd from the night before, sans Liz and Joe. The cologne Henk bought in Paris last weekend pretty much elicited the reaction Axe commercials pretend Axe has. The girls flocked to him like moths to a flame. Prima was on him all night. For serious.

Thursday our cooking class got the best recipe so far. It’s famous worldwide but originates from the region known as Emiglia Romana. LASAGNE. I cannot describe how good it was. We made everything from scratch using fresh, authentic ingredients. And it was just a basic lasagne too. Freshly made pasta, Padana Grana cheese, Bechamel sauce, and a beef, pork, and porcini mushroom ragu.

The teacher from next door stopped in. (I thought to yell at us for being loud in our excitement, but that wasn’t the reason.) She proposed a joint session next week. So our “Food & Society” class and her “Wine Exploration” class are pretty much going to merge into the best class EVER next week. Eating, drinking, socializing, and exploring. What’s not to love?

Food photography. Our on-location assignments around the city were cancelled due to inclement weather, so we spent the afternoon cropping and selecting pictures for our portfolios. It was nice to not have to walk around in the cold, but it wasn’t nice to not have the option to eat/drink all afternoon. I snapped this on the way home:

That night, Jack and my friends’ dreams were realized. We, the two culinary students, made dinner together. Dinner for twelve. And it gets better. Our friend Eddie volunteered his expertise, pantry, and knife set to help us out. So the group got three culinary students working for the price of two. Or rather for the price of free since Jack and I bought all the food that Eddie didn’t bring in his goodie bag. When I got to Jack’s apartment (after a month of supposed-to-go-ness), we planned the menu and then went to his neighborhood supermarket to get everything. Oh, and their apartment is amazing. If it had a single bedroom option, I would totally try to live there next semester.

Cooking dinner was quite fun and entertaining. While Jack and I went food shopping, Eddie started whipping egg whites and preparing antipasti and contorni.

By night’s end, Jack came to the conclusion that, had we a professional kitchen and professional equipment, we could open a restaurant. Eddie seriously had to MacGyver a lot of kitchen stuff. He burned a broken tray (like a car radiator) so we could bake in it. Turned a garlic bag into a makeshift cheesecloth. Et cetera. We almost had to find a wire hanger and turn that into a whisk. Luckily by the time the girls got there, we had cleaned the place up.


Although we lacked tools, there was no lack of friendly help. Juan, Giuseppe, and Anton were all ready and willing to beat, chop, and slice-and-dice (respectively) anything we asked them. And we had Daft Punk blasting on the iPod, which I think is excellent cooking music.

We started cooking around 8:00, served dinner around 10, and finished around 1. It was a true Italian style meal: Late, relaxed, and with lots of wine.

Our final menu was:

• Tortilla chips and guacamole
• Minestrone
• Pan-fried garlic crostini
• Artichoke and rosemary risotto
• Pepper/lemon/basil-marinated beef rolled with prosciutto
• Tiramisu

Juan had brought some Yerba Mate from Argentina, which is an excellent tea about as strong as coffee. So that was a nice way to wash everything down.

I thought I was just impressed that we made everything and nothing went wrong. (Especially since we made minestrone and tiramisu in less than half the time you’re supposed to.) But according to all our eaters, everything went really, really well. And now we’re painted into a corner we’ll probably have to do several repeat performances.

And yeah, it was a really fun night. Easily the best night I’ve had in Florence even though we didn’t go out. Good food. Good drinks. Good music. Good company. Good times.

Henk and I stopped into our neighborhood Latin bar for a little dancing and caipirinhas before bedtime. Those were nice night caps.

Friday Yesterday morning at noon Henk and I got up and went to the “eat-all-you-can” Japanese restaurant for lunch. Mmm. After an afternoon of digesting and my mandatory weekly Lost episode, we went to aperitivo at another bar. Which will probably become my favorite aperitivo bar. The place is nice, the food spicy (probably to encourage drinking, but it doesn’t phase me), the liquor quality, the drinks strong and well-mixed, and the bartenders amazing. By amazing, I mean they have the kind of flair you see on The Food Network or Travel Channel.

We went to the cultural association to play foosball and pool. Marissa was working again. Liz and Anna met up with us, and we introduced them to the friends we’d made at pool, Paule and Adam. A few rounds later, the l’auberge Italienne crowd (Liz, Anna, Henk, and I) went off to a Russian bar for gyros and beer both good and cheap.

Saturday This morning I went to the hospital for my appointment with the orthopedic doctor re: my knee. It’s been a month since the injury. There is no damage to the ACL, but there may be minor damage to one edge of the meniscus. We decided the best course of action would be to get an MRI (and any resulting arthroscopic surgery) back in the states. The surgery isn’t urgent and wouldn’t require a recovery period of longer than two weeks. But two weeks of not walking and then a week on crutches would do some serious damage to my semester, academic and extracurricular.

But hey, all that aside, I have a clean bill of health! Party on.

Liz, Liane, Anna, Henk, and I went to a late lunch at I Ghibellini before they went off to the Uffizi. I decided to go to the bar and post all this. And then I’m going to rest up because tonight most of the gang is returning from Rome and we’re all supposed to go out on the town.

And now we’re caught up back to the present. But surely not for long.

party on

On Tuesday night, since Henk didn’t want to walk because he was sick and I didn’t want to cook again, we went to dinner at the trattoria next door, which was awesome, again. We got a platter of grilled meats and vegetables. The waitress, same one from the last two times, gave us complimentary aperitifs and digestifs this time. God, I love that place.

Wednesday was the usual: Food writing and Beginning Italian. My food writing class went out to dinner (since the day’s lesson was “restaurant reviewing”) at Buca Dell’ Orafo, which is right next to the famous Ponte Vecchio. I don't know if I've mentioned but I'm the only guy in that class. It's like swimming lessons in a pool of estrogen. The rose seller outside the restaurant glared at me because I didn't buy a single flower for "my fourteen dates." We had a seven-course family-style dinner. Chef Giordano, a character in his own right, kept plate after plate coming as well as bottle after bottle of red wine. Clearly I was sitting at the right end of the table since we cleaned all those plates. This was especially true of Sara, Samantha, and me.

"Pass that down here. We'll finish it."

Then I met up with some friends for the grand opening of Twenty One, a new venue owned by a promoter we’re acquainted with. It’s supposedly “the twilight zone between a bar and a club.” It was pretty fun. Every class I have here was well-represented by drinking, dancing people having a great time. The party was by invitation only, and I hadn't gotten mine from a friend because I was late due to aforementioned dinner. There were tons of people outside on phones calling others panicking or frantically searching pockets and purses for cards. I felt pretty lucky as I was walking to the front door and Fabio (the promoter, now club owner) shook my hand and waved me in. Of the people who regularly appear in my writing, only Jack, Giuseppe, Henk, and Anton (who part-times as a promoter) were there. The music was great. I didn't need any drinks since I was extremely drunk full from dinner.

A few hours later, I went to a Russian bar to meet up with Henk, Joe, and Juan and then we went to Twice to meet up with Anthony and his friends. Some drunk American girls followed us around and kept trying - inexplicably - to dance or to talk about sports stats.

The next morning I got great news. Guess who's not getting deported from Italy! I got a letter back from the government legalizing my stay in this country. Tight.

My food/culture/society class made two nearly-vegetarian dishes today. They were both filling and delicious. I thought of my parents because they would have loved them.

peperoni alla venezia (yellow bells sauteed with eggplant, tomato, garlic, wine, and of course, olive oil) and "risi e pisi" (pea risotto with parmesan and pancetta)

For my photography class, we were split up into groups and assigned different culinary aspects of the city to photograph ON-LOCATION. So we had to walk around the city and take pictures of various things. My group was assigned specific pastry, bakery, and chocolate stores. (The group that had first pick took gelato. Bitches.) But we had lots of fun and still stopped at Dei Neri for gelato anyway.

Henk and I grabbed dinner at the oil shoppe before he left for the train station to go to Paris. Then I took a long nap and got up when Jack and our friend Eddie came over. Somehow we were all hungry again - they'd gotten food on the way over - and went to "The House of Sizzle" to get one of their dozen burger selections. Mine was a BLT Burger. I'm pretty sure the bacon was actually pancetta but no complaints. That and the fries helped satisfy the American craving.

After that, we went to Salamanca and met up with a bunch of girls who I now know live on the same street as me. Eventually Juan, a bunch of other girls we know, Ross, Nick, Giuseppe, John, and more girls (in that order) showed up.

I love Salamanca because it's a Spanish tapas restaurant by day / Latin bar at night. And half the bar is a regular bar and other half is like a nightclub complete with green laser lights. After several pitchers of sangria, some of the girls, Juan, Ross, and I went to the dance floor to cut it loose and for a while even get up on the tables. Great times.

Okay, with all these new names, it's getting confusing again. Here's the second edition of the Andrew's-regular-friends-in-Italy cheat sheet, broken down by apartment:

l'auberge Italienne - gents: Giuseppe, Henk, myself
l'auberge Italienne - ladies: Liz, Aneet, Anna
the Girls Next Block: Mindy, Liane, Alison, Jess, Primavera
Donne interNazionale: Primavera, Marissa, Helen
across the Arno: Jack, Juan, Anton
designer district: Ross, John, Joe, Nick

introducing... everyone

So I was supposed to show Aneet, one of the girls downstairs, the café I go to this morning. I woke up well past noon and was worried she’d been waiting for me. I called and accidentally woke her up. Anyway, I let her sleep in some more and just went to the café to get breakfast and cappuccino and post the last update. I also joined the neighborhood gym which may be closer to my apartment than Reily was to Aron.

On the way back into the apartment, I ran into Liz, one of her roommates, and decided to go with her to look for an outlet converter. We recruited Aneet, ‘Seppe, and Henrique –all of us had different things to look for – and had a successful and speedy hunt. Even with the brief window-shopping stops the girls made. On the way back, we ran into two of Aneet’s friends from Stonybrook/FUA, John and Ross. So we took them, the girls’ other roommate Anna, and the other girls, who live a few blocks away, to the café. (I know all these people suddenly are confusing, but bear with me.) The lady there seemed amused that I brought so many friends who wanted hot drinks and internet. Sadly not everyone was able to connect, but everyone got a chance to check on someone’s computer.

When we got home, Iron Chef Italian made vermicellini with marinara sauce for everyone. Iron Chef Brazilian made a lettuce, red cabbage, and tomato salad from scratch – not bagged – and I just played sous chef to ‘Seppe. We also had sliced bread, olive oil and vinegar for the salad, and of course salt, pepper, and grated Parmesan. And of course a selection of wine: House red and juice-box white (that the girls had left last night). We finally got to make use of our dining table and all those extra chairs. Worked out ridiculously well for a first meal. The three girls from downstairs, Jack, and Juan all came to dinner. We had a great time. I hope to repeat many more meals like this although other people are welcome to host/cook if they’d like. Everyone helped clean up though. I’m amazed at how genuinely nice everyone is my new friends are.

first meal in our apartment

After dinner we went to the other girls’ apartment: Liane, Jess, Mindy, and Alison. Giuseppe “no offense, guys” wanted to move into their spare room, but their final roommate, Primavera, showed up. She’s from Mexico and now replaces Jack as the baby of the group. (They’re only babies in age, not in maturity.)

We hung out at their apartment for half an hour, which is easily the homiest of all the ones I’ve seen so far. Clearly someone sublets. No student apartment is that nice. I still prefer ours, but I am jealous of their kitchen how well-equipped it is. We bummed around awhile and finally left when Alison began proving herself the mom of the group. Think I’ll-make-the-decision-if-no-one-else-will of Meredith minus the we’re-going-soon-but-not-really of Lizzie. Don’t get me wrong, she’s chill.

Almost all of us went to get gelato and then half of us went to meet Anton at the “American” bar. Jess, Mindy, myself, and the three Latins (Primavera/Mexico, Juan/Argentina, Henk/Brazil) went. Chad would be so proud. Having people there to practice my Spanish and Portuguese with somehow made the place more acceptable to me. And those welcome-to-Florenza Cuervo shots Prima and I did certainly helped.

Eventually the girls and I left to go back to first-floor L’Auberge Italienne (ours is third-floor) to hang out with those residents – Liz, Aneet, and Anna for those of you keeping track. Jack and ‘Seppe were both there. John had shown up too. He and Liz were in the kitchen eating rather fragrant and envy-inspiring “kebaps.” We just spent the rest of the night hanging out. I don’t know when we passed getting-to-know but not we’re all hanging out like we’ve always lived here.

So, a mini-guide to help for future entries:

L’Auberge Italienne 3rd floor: ‘Seppe (SUNY Stonybrook), Henk (Brazil), & myself
L’Auberge Italienne 1st floor: Liz, Aneet, & Anna (all SUNY)
Girls Next Block: Liane, Alison, Mindy (all SUNY), Jess (Chicago), & Prima (Mexico)
Guys Across River: Jack (Chicago), Juan (Argentina), & Anton (SUNY)
Guys In Designer Store Area: John & Ross (both SUNY)

In conclusion, there’s a lot of SUNY (10), although they didn’t all know each other before here, a smattering of Latino (3), a little Chicago (2), and I.