Wednesday, May 27 Food and Wine

Wednesday, May 27

After being in Italy for a little over a week I’ve noticed that in the Italian culture with most meals everyone enjoys a glass of wine whether it may be Chianti, Amarone, Barolo, red or white. In every restaurant we have been to for the most parts you may start with an appetizer, first course, second course, vegetables, desert, and then end up with a nice and hot espresso or café. In most cities here in Italy when you go to each town there is a lot of completion of competition of which town has the best in Tuscany. No one will develop its secret. When they come up with something what’s there is there and they are not going to share the creation. A very unique thing I’ve notice that at restaurants when there are families or couples dining in, they don’t really talk to each other while they enjoy there meal there are just sitting there quietly, and with us Americans for the most part we are having conversations while we eat. Something that has come to my attention over the days I’ve been here in Italy has been the fact how a lot of people here in Italy just walk in grocery store and other stores with their dogs. Back in the U.S the only people that ever go in a store with a good are those who may either be blind or some disability problem.  In Italy most Italian skip there breakfast for the most part they just have a café or espresso. Also an interesting fact was that in most places in Florence they don’t use salt in their bread due to the fact that back in the day they had to get their salt from Pisa and it was just a pride thing and they chose not to want to get it from them.

I’m not a person who drinks a lot of wine, however in this trip I have drank wine just about any day just for the simple fact its less expensive to purchase a bottle of wine then it is buying a can of coke. Imported beers are also really expensive here in Italy. Several days back I was at a bar and bought me a couple of Corona’s which back in the U.S I would buy them for about 4 dollars here in Italy I was paying 10 euros for a corona just about twice as much. I have ate lasagna, spaghetti, wild boar, horse, salads, grilled chicken, rooster, vegetables, gelato along with other meals and each restaurant whether I purchase the same meal once it comes to the table it has a different presentation at each restaurant on the plate none look the same or taste the same.  The first difference I experience was when I tried past for the first time I notice that the pasta here in Italy wasn’t as soft as it is back at home then once I had it here I was able to determine that even though back at home it may be authentic they are over cooking the pasta.  Also here in Italy when you go to a pizzeria some have pre cooked slices and once you go to order they just put it in the oven other places just serve the regular pizza’s but they are much thinner than what we are used to.

Tuesday, May 26 Comparison between the Italian Mafia and Mexican Drug Cartels

Tuesday, May 26

Italy is a very young nation that was unified in 1861. In order to have a nation they needed to have a dialect and army. In Italy they had the dialect before the army, which usually it was the other way around.  Italians didn’t have a great civic sense, and in the Roman law they believed that what was your was yours. What was not strictly yours was the property of no one. In every city of Italy they had a strong identity. I was shocked and surprised that Italy has the highest unemployment rate in Europe. However what surprised me even more today was after learning about the Italian Mafia because it is very similar to what many families experience in my hometown in Mexico.  In Italy the mafia started in the city of Sicily with four different mafias. In my culture the difference was that it didn’t really started in one place it was all spread out. All the different drug cartels had there men working for their boss and they just get orders and go do what they are told. In the Italian culture and in my culture the cartels or the mafias maintain a secret they each did their own thing and it was something pretty much that even though you may be seeing what is occurring your better off not saying a thing otherwise you will be facing some severe circumstances.  Also the Mafia in Italy had the mafia ten commandments and in a way could be somewhat compare to what the United States has which is known as the Bill of Rights. These men got paid to protect others and to follow orders, and many times made money from taxing small and large business. If businesses disobey owners could pretty much end up dead. This comparison between the Italian Mafia and the Mexican Drug Cartels from my point of view is an observation I came across.

Monday, May 25

Monday, May 25

Today we took a class tour to the monastery and the cemetery here in Florence.  This cemetery is very significant in the city of Florence due to the fact it’s mostly reserved for politicians, wealthy people, writers and famous soccer players. A very interesting thing that grabs my attention was that the writer of Pinocchio is buried at this cemetery.  Here was also the St.Miniato church, which was one of the oldest churches in Florence built in 1018. They used somewhat the same technique used in Siena with the mixture of different colors of marble. This church also had three medieval sculptures in which every decoration had a symbolic meaning. For example eagle that was on top of the church was the guild that supervised the construction of some important monuments in the city. This church was also significant because it was constructed in three different levels and also it’s very dark due to the construction of the walls being to thick. The floor in this church was a special feature it had. The floor had the wheel of the zodiac, and in the middle they had a representation of the sun and each part of the zodiac circle symbolized a part of the body. Inside this church we also came across a fresco similar to the one we saw in Siena that had the nine virtues. During this time also many churches were getting built because they started to hear that the world was coming to an end and they started to build many of them in order to worship many of the saints.  At the church we also came across a sculpture, which represented the symbols of evangelism, but there was an argument to why the ox wasn’t included but it’s believed to be used in the zodiac circle. There was also a painting with Virgin Marie and St.Miniato handing Jesus a crown where there was real gold in the painting and when the light was turned on it made the painting stand out. Since the painting was completed before the Renaissance it has different ideas behind it. In other paintings that we came across some saints were bigger than others which represented they had more power.

Friday, May 22 and Saturday, May 23 Trip to the Vatican and the Coliseum

Friday, May 22 and Saturday, May 23

Today we took a trip to Rome a city that is very modernized compared to Florence and Siena from the cities we have visited so far. Rome is the home some very significant monuments like the Coliseum where many gladiator battles took place and Vatican City the home for Basilica S.Pietro, Giardini del Vaticano and Musei Vaticani.  I had always been a dream of mine to visit these significant places. My family is Catholic and every year in the month of December we watched a film that they show each year on Virgin Mary or as we know here in my culture as La Virgen de Guadalupe.  In Tv each year I watch many people from all over the world attend the Vatican to thank and pray on this significant day where it was known for Juan Diego to encountered Virgin Mary twice in Mexico City. I see people crawling on their knees all the way until they get inside of the Basilica. Without the tour to the Vatican I feel like I would continue to live without a lot of history being unrevealed. I would have never known that Michelangel painted the Sistine Chapel and that he had completed it in a total of seven years.When we got to the coliseum I was expecting it to be much bigger and I never imagine it would be designed the way it was based on the small information I knew from the gladiator battles. I was expecting more of a flat surface and a long entrance from where the gladiators would come in with their horses. Also seeing the amount of cell for the prisoners was something that came to my attention. I was amazed of how they were designed and how they would let the lions in.  Based on how many people were present I could say for myself that the Vatican and the Coliseum could be Rome’s most popular tourist attractions.

I could say that if I wouldn’t of visited this amazing site I would of never learned all I did while being inside the Coliseum. Reading all the informational fact help me obtain more knowledge of what had always been the cite I had dream to visit. It was very interesting to know that it is thought that over 500,000 people lost their lives and over a million wild animals were killed throughout the duration of the Coliseum hosted people vs. beast games. Many also may wonder why the Coliseum might be missing a large part and that is due to many natural disasters that devastated the structure of the Coliseum, but it was the earthquakes of 847 AD and 1231 AD that caused most of the damage you see today. Lastly I had always know this cite as the Roman Coliseum and apparently it had another original name and that was Flavian Amphitheater which was named after the Flavian Dynasty of Emperors.