Nicholas – back on the blog!

by Nick

This past week in Florence was very fun!  Yes, I am doing my schoolwork!  But it is much more interesting to tell you all about the other stuff.

So let’s start with a Soccer Update!  Soccer is really important here.  The Champions League Tournament and the Italian Series A soccer league is all that people talk about.  March Madness is nowhere in the news!  Even the local kids’ soccer teams are important – the newspapers report the scores and write about them like they are professional games!    

So how has my team done since we’ve been here?  Well, we are 0-3-4.  That’s zero wins, three losses, and four ties!  For those of you who are going to say “Ha, Ha! Your team stinks” just realize that we would clobber any Pennsylvania team!  These guys are good here!  And no, I haven’t gotten a goal, but I play defense!

Thomas’ team is 1-6-0.  Well, at least his team has won a game!  He knows what it is like to win internationally.  He also has an international goal!  And again, his team could beat any Pennsylvania team!  All our games have been pretty competitive, but we just haven’t won much.  But we are still having fun!  Maybe this will be the weekend we will turn it around and both win! 

OK end of update – cue the ESPN music – da-na-na; da-na-na.

Our next topic is Cooking.  A few nights ago, we went to a cooking class.  When we arrived, my Mom started talking to the cooks and the people there, and it was like she already knew everybody!  All the students here are always amazed at how she seems to know everyone everywhere!   Anyway, let’s get to the cooking!  We made crepes with eggplant, vegetable rice, and chocolate cake.  We started by making the batter for the chocolate cake.  Next we made the batter for the crepes.  I actually got to cook some crepes in the frying pan.  The best part was flipping them in the air without touching them.  I… ummm… missed a few times.  After that we spread the eggplant sauce on them, folded them up, and put a red sauce on top.  Of course, I didn’t like how they tasted.  But that’s OK – I did enjoy the chocolate cake!  Big surprise there.

Finally, I wanted to mention something about the town of Siena.  The tour we got was great – and I am not always a big fan of tours – the guides sometimes get boring.  But this one was awesome!  We learned about this lady named Catherine who eventually became a saint – and she is one of the patron saints of Italy.  Saint Catherine lived and went to church in Siena.  What interested me about her is that she only lived to be thirty-three, but it was really her own fault.  When she was sixteen, she decided she would only eat bread and vegetables.  By the time she was twenty-seven, she decided that she would eat only a small piece of bread everyday and drink water.  She survived on this diet for six years.  She looked like a skeleton when she died.  She helped the poor and the hungry and she wanted to feel their pain.  Anyway, after she died the people of Siena loved her so much that they wanted to keep a part of her forever.  So they kept her head!  And we got to see it!  It is on a side altar in the church in Siena.  It was about the size of a softball – it was smaller than I thought it would be.  It was actually a little creepy.  But her story was very interesting.

Anyway – I don’t want to get too a-head of myself, so I am going to end here!  Have a great day!