Thursday was my first day of official class, although the only class I had that day was my advanced painting class. Our studio is in the chapel of the monastery where we live. I am not used to having a studio right in the building I live in. I like the idea of rolling out of bed in my pajamas to go paint, or being able to paint late into the night. The studio itself is beautiful and very spacious, but we found out very quickly that the air circulation is not so great. I was trying not to think about all the brain cells I was losing from breathing in the fumes and chemicals of our oil paints and turpentine. Because our class and the beginning/intermediate class are the only people using this studio, we are able to leave all our easels, paints, and brushes set up, which saves so much time. As you know, our first assignment was to find three random objects from a Tobacci. I discovered the perfect thing for my object. In Italy, and other European countries, they sell these chocolate eggs with a small prize inside. I bought several of these, and each one gave me a different prize. My favorite was a small red superhero action figure with bulging muscles standing in the stereotypical superhero stance. I decided to change my still life to only red themed objects, so instead of using the yellow rubber gloves I bought yesterday, I arranged the pomegranate with the action figure along with a red light bulb and a red roll of duct tape that I found in a cabinet in the studio. I have yet to find out what my ending result will look like. Thursday night, it started to snow lightly, but then starting Friday morning (thankfully after my run, which was already slippery) it started snowing the largest snowflakes I have ever seen. The snow flakes are the size of clementines. The view of Cortona and beyond is completely hidden by a vast whiteness. Nothing is visible. I have the strange feeling of being in an alternate universe or something because I cannot see anything other than whiteness. Our hill down into town is very scary right now, because of how slippery it is in combination with how steep it is. It was difficult enough walking the few feet to our other building where my art education class is held, let alone down a long never-ending hill. I am not sure if anyone is going to make it to dinner tonight (all the way down the hill) in one piece, but I will keep you posted. Before I do though, I would like to take note that everyone on my program is impressed with my ability to eat vegetables and make the most beautiful lunches out of them. I usually cook a variation of the same thing every afternoon: I sauté some red peppers, broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, and leafy greens and then eat them with a scrambled egg or a little cheese and bread. It has been delightful.
All right, so we did survive going down the hill. It was super snowy and slippery. It took us a good half hour to make the full trek. There was only one person who fell, but I think she recovered. Cortona has apparently never seen this much snow ever. A lot of the town is shut down because of all the steep hills that are too dangerous to travel on. While wandering around in town before dinner, my friends and I visited the lovely pastry shop, and I quickly decided that this is what I want to do with my life. This was the most quaint and lovely pastry shop I have ever seen, and if all else fails, I will move to Cortona and get employed here. I decided to buy a one euro apple filled pastry, which I still have yet to try (I am still full from dinner). In speaking of dinner, one of the most traumatic events of my life happened to me during this evening’s dinner. Until this night, all the vegetarians always had to sit together to get all the fun vegetarian dishes (the meat eaters were starting to get jealous of our exciting dinners each night). Tonight, we were finally allowed to sit throughout the dining room. Everyone was being served a hearty looking and vegetarian appearing soup at the beginning of the meal. One of the waiters served me a heaping bowlful, and I noticed that there was a lovely pink sweet potato in the middle of my soup. I was about to scoop it up and eat it immediately, when, to my horror, I realized that this was no potato, but rather a big hunk of meat! My heart jumped out of my chest, and my face got all flushed. I was close to hyperventilating! I nearly just swallowed a huge piece of meat, and who knows what would have happened to me then! I panicked, but luckily, Marco the (also vegetarian) Italian professor came to my rescue, running over, and speaking something Italian to the waiters. Apparently there was some mix-up with the soups, and everyone apologized to me and brought me meat-free soup, which ended up being delicious. However, I still get shaky when I think about this experience. That meal, we also got the most rich and decadent dessert so far, which was actually in honor of Valentine’s Day. It was this warm molten chocolate lava cake with strawberries. I am not a big chocolate eater, but I loved it. When you poke the little cake with your fork, warm rich chocolate sauce seeps out, and trust me, the whole thing is perfection. This meal was overall a good way to spend my first Shabbat in Cortona, although I definitely miss challah (a lot). Shabbas Shalom!
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