The artisan shop and the metal press!

Our Iatlian cooking class! Learning how to make pizza and gelato!

Our wonderful chef!

Well this past week was definitely our busiest week here in Florence but it was filled with laughter and memories! I turned the big 21 on Monday so my friends and I went to the only good Mexican food place in Florence called Tijuana's and we enjoyed chips and queso and quesadillas!

Earlier that day we had a scheduled tour to see the Medici Palace and it was a blast! Our tour guide actually worked at the palace so he had the keys to all the secret passageways. We got to go see places that even art history majors that live here have never seen. It goes to say it was quite the exclusive tour!

On Wednesday we got to enjoy a cooking class and they taught us how to make pizza and gelato! Obviously if we made gelato by hand then it would have taken about 4 hours so we only helped with the gelato a little bit. But we got to make the pizza from scratch! (If you want the recipe to the pizza and calzone we made then let me know!) We had a blast with the chefs and they made it really fun. I cant wait and come back and try to cook it all on my own!

Other than going to class and going out on photo assignments, life is pretty relaxing here. On Thursday we got to go on an Artisan tour which was by FAR my favorite tour! We went to a man's residence where his shop is in the basement. Walking in, I just thought this was a man who made metal work. But after going down to the basement, he started showing us all the work he has made for Christian Dior and Neiman Marcus.

We saw the patterns that he presses into metal frames and he also showed us a fish that was a salt and pepper shaker that Christian Dior ordered for his line! I had no idea this guy was so famous but when I started looking around, I noticed all the magazine articles on the walls of the work that has been sold to so many famous people! I felt honored to get to meet him and even though he didn't speak english, he was so gracious to let us come to his shop. Only students of our tour guide are allowed to come buy things at his shop and he sells everything for 1/4 of the retail price! I was wishing I had brought more cash!

Getting to see places like this are what makes living here so special. People who just come visit Florence for a week don't have time to find the small neat shops that make up the heart of Florence. I am truly blessed to have gotten to have such great experiences here.

And I am ecstatic to announce that my brother, Taylor is coming to visit me this next week and he gets here on Monday! Only 3 days away and I cannot express how excited I am!!! It is crazy how fast this trip has gone by! It seemed like yesterday we were just moving into the apartment and now we are already talking about cleaning and packing up! Since it is about to be our last week here, everyone on the trip is trying to fit in everything they wanted to do while they were here so I am assuming that with trying to finish our homework, we will be quite busy! I am already making a list of everything that I want to take Taylor to see!

The artisan shop!

Transferring the paper to the press! This pattern was for Neiman Marcus

Carlo Cecchi.. The famous artisan himself!