my Internship!

I cannot believe I forgot to tell you this! I have an internship! and guess where it is...in an Enoteca! and guess what that is....drum roll please...its a WINE SHOP!!!! It is seriously the internship from Heaven. And next week guess what I get to help with?? a WINE TASTING!!! I will get to help pour the wines and serve the food that goes with the wine...and the producers of the wine will be there! Ok so it is amazing...I work every Thursday for anywhere from 2 and a half to four hours. It is so great because I do not have class the next day and if I ever need to leave for a trip I am done until 8...plenty early! The people I work with speak NO ENGLISH. this is SO great for me...I am living with a family that speaks no english and again, i am speaking only Italian at my internship! It is great because this Enoteca is located in a purely Florentine area. It is about a 20 minute walk away from campus, but located in an area with no tourists. So there are regulars that come into the shop asking for wine to match with their dinner or to buy a gift for a friend. it is so great...I do not help the customers because I do not know enough about the wine but i LOVE listening--all in Italian....people take their wine SO seriously and this is the perfect place to observe this. People come in and say they are having fish or chicken or meat for dinner, they want something light but dry, or a bit heavier, or one from a specific region in Italy. listening to the customers talk with Luca and Roberto--my wine shop friends!--is so great because I realize that choosing a wine is an art. and it is very specific...customers will spend 45 minutes in there looking over every bottle of wine. this Enoteca has French wines as well.

I have learned a little but about Tuscan wines...the Chianti, Chianti Classico, Montepulciano Nobile, and the Montalcino Brunello--all reds and all AMAZING. in fact, on the job last week, I got to taste some Chianti Classico Riserva from 2006--let me just say YUM. and AMAZING. and i could not believe I was tasting wine while at my internship. WOW. is this real?? I learned about how I know about the French wines--the type of wine it is by the shape of the bottle. I look forward to learning more every week! I look forward to the wine tasting because I will get to converse with more people, pour wine, (maybe drink some!:), and truly get a feel for the customers who come in there--observe them, how they taste the wine, which foods they choose to serve with the wine...i am so excited!

So basically, i cannot believe my internship is working in a WINE SHOP. wow...i could not wait to tell you!

oh and p.s. i also have to tell you--as i think i did before--that there is an amazing gelato place, forno (bakery), and cioccolateria (chocolate shop) in my neighborhood. As I am sure this may not surprise you, I have frequented these places quite often. In fact, the woman in the chocolate shop does not speak any English and every time I pass the shop if I do not buy a piece of chocolate (that is the great part, is i can go buy one piece of dark chocolate, i do not have to buy whole bag--perfect to satisfy my sweet tooth) or whenever i walk by and she sees me, we say ciao! she totally knows me! also after my run today, i went to the pasticceria where i bought a piece of schiacciata--and the guy remembered me from a few days ago. I am the american who struggles with italian, but obviously trying and i love it. i love feeling uncomfortable because that means that I am in an area that never caters to tourists. every time i go in these places, locals are in there buying bread for their families and chocolate with their children after school...i observe conversations with regulars and i hope to soon feel like i am one of them. basically, i am finding that some of my favorite places have included food--shocking, I know!--but the reality is, these are the places where Italians hang out, this is where they go after work, and these are places where they leave happy because they buy something they wanted and they often know the people who work in there. I get this in my small neighborhood of Le Cure because I am living in a purely residential area, not in the middle of the city. i look forward to more updates for you!

dinner time...and you know what that means...my favorite time of day because I never know what AMAZING dishes my Nonna is going to prepare!!!!

CIAOOO!!!! :)