Malaki-Milton:

Today after our class session on intercultural learning goals and engineering, the engineers set off to go on their own adventures for the day. A group of ‘warriors’ went on a hike with Dr. Deb Besser to Piazzale Michealangelo to get a dope view of the city of Florence. We saw a second statue of David by Michealangelo overlooking the city as well. After taking a few photos, we headed over to Cimitero delle Porta Sante where there were cypress trees planted with the names of fallen heroes who laid their lives during WWI and WWII. Once we finished our short exploration, the warriors headed back into the Florence streets to find good leather for Dr. Besser and eat some good food at Mesopotamia Kebab.

Cecelia:

Today I embarked on more adventures as my roommate, and I went shopping for the 4th time this week! We went shopping near the Duomo and found some great souvenirs for our family, and maybe a few for ourselves. While on this “adventure” we surprisingly learned about Italian culture. For instance, the love of leather and how to tell if it’s faux (hold a lighter on it and faux leather burns). To end the day, I went to a rooftop bar with a stunning view of the Duomo. Aside from the much-needed shopping I had a great time in class learning about the connection between American and Italian engineering. It’s amazing thinking about what can be learned by both countries to improve engineering.

Paige:

Some of todays adventures included some of the girls venturing into the city. In Florence we shopped for thoughtful souvenirs for our loved ones at home. We also browsed in the high end designer stores such as Prada and Micheal Kors to window shop. We also got our daily gelato of course. During our exploring we also happened upon a rooftop bar with the view of the Duomo. There was a bunch of birds the flew over us and it sparked the thought about how birds don’t land on the buildings near us. This is because the rooftops on certain buildings have small thin spikes that keep the birds from landing on them. This is a form of engineering that makes for a more comfortable environment for people.

Joel R:

As today was a less structured day with no set plans after class in the morning, there was some opportunity to look around Florence and do things that we wouldn’t have a chance to do otherwise. For example, I (Joel) took the opportunity to do some shopping and sightseeing, taking time to go to the Santa Croce neighborhood and seeing the Basilica di Santa Croce di Firenze (pictured). Around here, I did some shopping at local leather stores recommended by our guide Claudio (Piero Tucci, Leonardo Gold and Leather, and Peruzzi), and got a sandwich from All’Antico Vinaio, which is a famous and beloved sandwich shop that has locations in both Rome and Florence.

Today, we all got on a bus first thing in the morning and headed to Bologna, which is just an hour and a half north of Florence. Our first destination was the Ducati factory. Ducati is an Italian motorcycle manufacturing company headquartered in Bologna. We got to go on a tour through the factory, which was an awesome experience. It was really cool getting an inside look on how such a complex process is carried out efficiently. Next, we all got back on the bus and headed to lunch at the Bull Bar, which was just across from the Lamborghini factory and museum. At the bar, they had two Lamborghinis that you could pay to drive for 10 minutes and Tom and Tommy both did it. They both had a blast driving them and we all had fun watching, living vicariously through them!

After Tom and Tommy finished living out their 10 minutes of luxury living, the group headed over to the Pagani manufacturing building and museum in San Cesario sul Panaro to learn about the upbringing of the company and see how they manufacture their luxury selection of super cars. Pagani was founded in 1992 by Argentinean-Italian Horacio Pagani manufacturing its well-known “hypercars” and carbon fiber components. It was amazing to witness both manufacturers in action and the pride they take in putting together their products by hand. Post tour, the group had a nice cruise back to Hotel Grifone, Firenze to wind down and reflect on the awesomeness that took place today.

~ Colin Jungwirth and Malaki-Milton Jackson

Because it is the weekend and we are encouraged to explore the country on our own during our “days off”, today’s blog is written from two different perspectives: Isaac Is writing from Cinque Terre, a costal grouping of five cities with outstanding hiking trails. Sam is writing from our home base in Florence. 

 Isaac: 

Today myself and a group of 5 other students woke up and enjoyed the view from our Air BnB, which lies in between two of the five major cities in the area and is only accessible by a 40 minute hike that increases 800 feet in elevation. All of this hiking is worth the view which is shown below.  

After playing some cards (euchre is the go-to game on this trip) on the patio we packed our bags and headed to the last of the 5 cities. After another 1600 vertical feet and 2 horizontal miles we saw the rocky beach of Monterosso. The water here was so blue we couldn’t help but jump in to cool down after our hike. The winter water was extremely brisk but the swim was well worth it, sadly because of poor planning, we only brought one towel so we had to air dry in the 40 degree weather where we got this group picture. 

We wrapped up the day by getting some pizza and taking the high speed train back home where the night ended by watching Sunday football in the hotel lounge.

Sam:

Today was a relaxing day for most of us, after getting back from Cinque Terre last night around 1am (Italy Time). I was finally able to sleep in and get some much-needed rest. There was no touring today, but we found an amazing lunch spot called La Forca. I learned that Italians love everything black truffle. I saw a black truffle pizza on the menu and decided I needed to try it.

The pizza was amazing! After lunch I decided to take a nap while others went to the hotel spa… After my nap we ventured to the hotel ristorante where there was live music, someone was playing an accordion which I have never seen anybody play live. I had an amazing scallop pasta.

The music was great along with the food. We will for sure be going back there. And then we finished our night of course watching the NFL playoffs in the hotel lounge.

Our first Friday in Florence started off with class at 9:00am. The topic of class was the Renaissance and its impact on architecture and engineering. Levi, Malaki, and Tommy had their presentation today where they spoke about the Renaissance time period and some of the various contributors of the time such as Leonardo da Vinci. They also had a very interesting activity that helped the class bring out our artistic sides. The activity pushed us all to use our creative abilities when coming up with a new invention. While making our “next greatest invention”, they asked the class to also use their non-dominant hand in order for us all to think like da Vinci! Here is a photo of us holding our drawings in our new classroom here in Florence.

We then analyzed two pieces of art: The Fortune Teller and The Pantheon. This was done in six different perspectives: historical, theoretical, analytical, contextual, stylistic, and experiential perspective. Each perspective offers a different lens into the artwork along with the significance of influential elements that were present at the time it was made. Here are the two pictures that we analyzed as a class:

After class the group split up to embark on their own adventures of the city! All of our tickets from yesterday were still valid to use today (our Brunelleschi Pass or the ticket from the dome) so we were able to visit other sites such as the Bell Tower, Baptistery, Museum, and Santa Reparata. Others also ventured to explore the leather shops and other outdoor shops in the city!

-Rabia, Olivia, & Tommy

After a great first week in Rome, the group was looking forward to some much needed rest and their own personal explorations of the city. Today a few of the group members embarked on another adventure with Deb as they explored the Capitoline Museum here in Rome. Located at the top of Capitoline Hill in Piazza del Campidoglio, the museum is home to unique art pieces and various sculptures. The group that joined Deb can be seen below and in her words they are the “Capitoline Museum Warriors.” They were also able to see bits and pieces of the colossal Nero statue which is where the colosseum gets its name!

As group members went off on their own adventures today, Cecelia and I did as well. Being that it is Sunday, and our group dispersed, we’ve found it difficult to summarize everyone’s day, so we decided to summarize ours. We started the day with our first ever experience at a laundromat. Although we’ve been doing our own laundry for years, we quickly lost confidence in our abilities. All of the directions were in Italian and the process was a bit unusual. We were able to use non-verbal communication with another customer to figure it out. However, much to our mother’s dismay we mixed our dark and light laundry and washed them on hot…caldo does not mean cold. Here is a picture of us waiting for our laundry and trying to catch up on assignments.

After that Olivia and I had an unforgettable experience making our own homemade pasta and tiramisu. For the great price of $50 USD, we were able to make homemade ravioli, fettucine, and tiramisu (not sure I can mention the wine and limoncello).  The teacher was an amazing woman with great stories and advice. We wholeheartedly recommend this experience.

We all look forward to another great week! Ciao for now!

-Cecelia and Olivia