Student Housing and the Police

Columbia, Mexico and USA are now represented in our small room. We three share a toilet with a fouth woman and it was quite a scene getting everyone turned out on time this morning.

There was a late night row in our dorm courtyard involving young drunken aspiring chefs from across the globe meeting the likes of an apparently sober whack job. I watched it unfold from my balcony. Mama Mia!

The carabinieri arrived around 2:00 a.m., but the show was over by that time, except for the perp claiming to be the victim. Today, our class was visited by the friendly carabinieri again, and they are seen here being assisted by the English interpreter.

As for class, school orientation is a drudgery in any language. We did prep work for four italian bread recipes, which we will bake tomorrow morning during our first actual cooking class. Later this week, pizza making!

Uniforms Issued Tomorrow

A photo of our school, the castle, taken from student housing dining hall.

Classes begin tomorrow and I am both excited and a little nervous. The Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners is like the United Nations, with many different countries represented and languages spoken. World peace through Italian cooking? Italian food conquering the world?

http://m.npr.org/story/137904978?url=/books/titles/137904978/how-italian-food-conquered-the-world

Many of the students are young. I could be the mother of my classmates. That is, if I had born children by foreign men later in life. They seem genuinely nice, outgoing and brimming with enthusiasm. I shall try not to hate them.

Tomorrow we are provided uniforms. Tonight, I get settled into my room, which I share with a young woman from Columbia, and maybe another person. I've heard two people comment that it is much calmer now that the Brazilians have left. I just smiled and nodded, because although spoken in English, I continue still not to fully understand the words spoken to me.

Slouching Towards Piedmont

The Alps hover over Italy's northwestern region ("Piemonte" means "foot of the mountain"), with Switzerland to the North and France to the West. Known as "the Burgundy of Italy", it is a land of castles, white truffles and "finer" wines, including one of my favorites, Barolo.

I'm moving from the Lombardy region and staying in Asti, Piedmont, a couple of days before moving into ICIF student housing in Costigliole d'Asti. I've never lived in a dorm before... we sleep three to a room.

ICIF is housed in one of Piedmont's castles. Here's a youtube of ICIF, which, my time having come, drew me to slouch towards Piedmont for a redemption of sorts. (With apologies to William Butler Yeats.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARaUYXV8byc&feature=youtube_gdata_player