That One Time...One-of-a-Kind Experiences, Like Rick Steves

Antonio, Alaina, Io, e Maria al Pizzicheria de Miccoli

I didn't blog yesterday, which is probably better as yesterday was just the worst day to begin a trip. To keep an extremely long story short, the two issues I experienced had to do with my school classes and surprise, surprise, setting up my phone. Both were extremely frustrating and exhausting by the end of the day. TIP #3 If you are ever dealing with contracts, technology, or anything else in a foreign country where you are not proficient in the language, bring a native speaker who can help you. What, common sense you say? Sure it is; my problem was I couldn't find someone like that to help me until my problem was too deep to get out of myself (host-mom Stefania to the rescue). Despite all of the issues, there were two major God-moments that happened yesterday. (For those of you who don't know, I am a Christian and some of my blogs may or may not reflect that expressly.) The first moment was during the chaos of trying to get my phone to work. The whole process took about 2-3 hours and the time in between the two trips to Vodafone were spent walking back and forth in the streets of Siena. As we were getting a group to go with me back to Vodafone to figure some stuff out, I realized I had dropped my actual SIM card, from Verizon, somewhere. Yeah, you better believe I was panicking. After about 10 minutes of wondering how the day could get any worse, one of my friends found it on the ground right outside of our teacher's apartment where we had just left. Phew. The second God-moment was later last night after dinner. After going through the events of our really annoying day to our host-mom, I got an email from someone at the U (University of Utah, my school). It was a message about the results of a departmental scholarship that the Languages and Literature department had offered this last semester for language study abroad programs. I had been waiting, hoping, and praying for over 2 months to hear about results and was often nagging my counselor about the status of my application. Well, as you've probably guessed, I was awarded the/a scholarship!! Both of these events I considered God-moments because in both times I was reminded who is in control despite all of my planning and worrying. Both times forced me to take a step back afterwards and realize wow, He was definitely by my side, especially while I was only concerned about myself and my problems. Both times He was watching out for me far better than I could watch out for myself. So, despite the problems I have encountered here already, the day ended well once I tried to step back from my own situation and realize who, rather than what, I should depend on. And that "who" is definitely not me. 

Maria ed io

Now onto today's Main Event! Halfway through class today, Giuliana (our professoressa and program director from the U) pulled the whole group out of their classes and had an amazing surprise for us. She took us to Pizzicheria de Miccoli, a world famous, not to mention renowned, deli that has been family-owned for generations. She has been longtime friends with the owner, Antonio, so they had set up a special tasting for us inside this tiny butcher shop. It was DELICIOUS. There were all types of fresh sliced cheeses, meats, breads and spreads and a few bottles of white wine to share. As we ate and marveled over all of the different foods, Antonio just kept preparing more and more dishes (some extremely expensive), talking about the traditional Sienese foods and methods. I can honestly say I am extremely proud of myself, I actually tried a little dish he made that was RAW sausage drizzled with a bunch of seasonings and oil. It took me a second to choke it down, but I did and I'm so glad because it was pretty good. He also cracked open a couple different bottles of wine for us to try. We passed two glasses of Vin Santo - native to Tuscany - around the group to taste that were both aged for different amounts of time. I could do without that wine. There was also a glass of red wine passed that was to die for, but I can't remember it's name... Luckily, I got a lot of it because I was standing next to Maria, one of the older women in the group, and he kept pouring her glass after glass so we just shared. I am no wine connoisseur by any means, but that was the smoothest wine I have ever tasted - it was fabulous. It better be at €120+ per bottle and aged for 40+ years, right? Then, finally, Antonio finished with some traditional dolci, desserts. One was a powdered sugar-covered type of shortbread cookie with a special pumpkin jam that was just amazing, then a traditional type of cake that tasted like gingerbread with orange.

Antonio, Giuliana, e Rick Steves

The whole experience was just unreal - Antonio and the staff rolled out the red carpets and gave us the royal treatment which, let's be honest, is so much more than a group of college students deserve. It is a popular and famous shop that they shut down for over an hour so we could enjoy the Italian culture through taste. One of Antonio's staff was even stationed at the entrance turning people away. There is also a general rule about photography and videos being prohibited inside (most likely to avoid tourists and excessive people visiting the shop and protect their recipes) but we were able to take pictures and hang out inside. One last thing that was SO COOL was seeing Rick Steves! Somehow, and I'm still amazed by it, Giuliana spotted him walking past the door or maybe peeking in (of course he's been there before) and started yelling at him to come in and chat with us. He did and shared in our tasting experience for a few minutes and it was just so random but fantastic. If you don't know who Rick Steves is, you probably should. He is famous for popular travel guides, books, tips and PBS. That's all for yesterday and today's adventures, hopefully they will continue tomorrow! Buonanotte dall'Italia :)

Michelle, Alaina, un'assistente, io, Nicola, e Drew