Week 8: 10/14 - 10/20 — Charlotte Harrison

Halfway Point and a Sad Goodbye

Back to the real world!

I treated myself to a lazy morning on Monday to continue recovering from all of our weekend travel. Once I was ready to see people, I headed out and grabbed a panini for lunch on my way to the city center. I checked out some stores and explored before heading north to the neighborhood where my class would be. I missed my first Ceramics class last week because of the wedding, so I was interested to see how it would be!

FUA hosts their art classes in a first-floor property with floor to ceiling windows. I followed a guy to the back of the winding hall and into a bright, white clay workroom already full of people. After introducing myself to the professor, I took my spot at a workstation and unfortunately inserted myself right in the middle of a set of schoolmates — some of the schools that partner with FUA send study abroad students in huge numbers, like one to two hundred-strong. That means they often stick with each other and take classes in huge groups. More than once in these classes, I’ve found myself caught in a super niche conversation about some Fairfield frat party way back in February that they couldn’t stop laughing about. I checked the other area and recognized that none of them knew each other, so I’ll be heading over there next week.

Aside from Fairfield memories, we did cover a few other things in class. The professor described that today’s activity would be crafting two clay slabs with different decorations. Then, in painstaking detail, he demonstrated each process from start to finish. If you’ve ever wondered just how many steps are involved in pressing a leaf into clay… he stretched it to about 10! Once he released us to our lumps of clay, we got to work throwing and measuring each tile. After we pressed leaves into the first one, we spent the entire rest of class decorating one of the tiles to look like an under-the-sea scene. Felt just like 4th grade!

I am an art minor, and I love to draw and paint, but clay has always been something unfamiliar to me. It’s so different from the art that I like to make, and it’s so much more physical than any other type of visual art. It might take a bit for me to adjust to this class!

After class, I grabbed dinner with my friend Kennedy and two of her classmates. We met at a restaurant by the Duomo (I was worried about it being a tourist trap, too!! But it was pretty good) One of the guys has been working at a hotel here and speaks pretty good Italian, so it was entertaining to have a translator with us! He riled up the server and squeezed some extra wine out of him. It was so fun to hang out with new friends and spend more time with Kennedy — I’ve been friends with her and her roommates since we met at the welcome dinner way back in August, but unfortunately she’s leaving on Friday because she’s signed up for a shorter program. We finished up with dinner and then finished the night at a stunning rooftop bar overlooking the Duomo. Let me tell you, you don’t know privilege until you’re laughing with your friends in front of a legendary view like a 700-year-old church. Moments like that remind me how absolutely crazy it is that we’re living here.

Tuesday — History of Antiquity with Virginia! I have found myself enjoying this class perhaps the most out of all four of them. I’ve always loved learning about the past, and this subject (currently Athens and Sparta) has been so cool to learn about. It connects the dots of a lot of modern concepts; for example, some of the insurrectionists on January 6 wore Spartan masks because the American government is considered to be an Athenian democracy, so they were suggesting that they were mighty Spartans ready to take on Athens. I just think it’s really interesting to be able to understand callbacks like that. (To be clear, I think those guys were too stupid to plan something that meaningful, but that’s what the professor told us).

I also really enjoy that class building — FUA history courses are in a classroom connected to the fashion center, so we get to spend our breaks poking around the student-run vintage store or, in today’s case, sitting cross-legged in the courtyard and chatting while we looked at cats peeking out of the apartments above us. It’s a charming lifestyle.

On Wednesday, I had HR Management. To be honest, the class wasn’t that notable, but I am more than happy to tell you about a little test of patience during my break. For context: HRM is in the building that also houses the cooking and hospitality classes, so there is a student-run cafe and restaurant on the ground-level. Our professor always gives us 15 minutes to run downstairs and grab pick-me-up cappuccinos, but today a girl genuinely grabbed mine off of the counter as I was reaching for it. Like my hand was fully outstretched. Trust that I struggle to be polite at 9am after an hour of illuminating HR lectures, but I gave her a chance and asked what she had ordered. She. said. “Oh, I haven’t ordered yet, but I’m getting a cappuccino!” Then, she took a sip of my cappuccino and handed her credit card to the wide-eyed student at the cash wrap. It was one of those broke-the-camel’s-back moments where I considered crying, but instead I just watched her drink my coffee as the barista hurried to remake mine.

Anyways. I’ve gotten over it, clearly.

Thursday — my dreaded Mafia class. In a thrilling turn of events, I made it into class on time today. We covered global mafia rings like those in Mexico and China for a few hours, and then we finished by learning about Bugsy Siegel. I actually had no idea that he basically built the Las Vegas strip, so that was pretty cool. After class, I headed over to our mandatory half-way “Reorientation” and then shopped around for the afternoon. Later on in the evening, I headed over to La Bussola to grab dinner with my friends for Kennedy’s last night. It was fun, but bittersweet — we got an awesome truffle appetizer (which is currently in season), had pasta, and chatted about our favorite memories with her. After dinner, we grabbed a drink and then went back to her apartment to help her get ready for her taxi the next morning.

On Friday, Brelan and I left the apartment at about 8:30 to make it for our SAI Sustainability Daytrip that we had signed up for a few weeks ago. We trekked across the river to the San Niccolo bus stop about 30 minutes away and met up with our group, which was about 12 strong. Our trip started just a bit outside Scandicci at a circular farm program called Funghi Espresso. We met the founder and owner, Antonio, who has built a business out of collecting coffee grounds from local businesses and using them to grow mushrooms and other produce. Then, he sells them to restaurants and starts the process over again. He proudly stated that his hobby is “organic waste” and then proceeded to click through a wildly overcomplicated slideshow about the process of growing a mushroom. Antonio and his young puppy, Nina, gave us a tour of the grounds — we started by checking out the bags of young mushrooms, (literally just moldy dirt) and then he brought us over to the mature mushrooms and let us harvest some of them! We checked out the rest of what he has going on, like a large chicken coop, a greenhouse, and a set of micro green planters, and then we got to sample his mushrooms with some crostini. Antonio also mentioned to us that he’s one of the local farmers that participates in the Santo Spirito market, so Brelan and I plan on looking out for him when we go on Sunday!

We hopped back on the bus and headed over to lunch at a restaurant a few minutes away. SAI pulled out all of the stops — we had cuccoli (!!!!) and bruschetta for an antipasti, and then we enjoyed two different types of pasta as our main. Then, they passed out panacotta for dessert with our preferred topping. I got fruta de bosco, but they also had chocolate and caramel sauces. It was the best I’ve eaten in a few days!

After lunch, we bussed over to our second activity of the day: Zero Lab. The city of Scandicci is home to many design and manufacturing studios for clothing brands, including all of the LVMH companies like Prada, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton. Zero Lab’s mission is to take the deadstock leather from these studios and rework the scraps to create brand-new, original work. It was fascinating to walk around their studio and lay eyes on the boxes and boxes of rolls they have from huge fashion houses. After our introduction, we got to work — our group gathered around worktables to learn how to make leather cardholders! We started with paper to practice: a few designers circled us, chattering in Italian and pointing or motioning when we glued wrong or placed a piece down in the wrong place. They were incredibly sweet women; it was fun to watch them do what they loved while joking around with each other, teasing about English translations and grabbing pairs of scissors from each other’s stations when they weren’t looking. It must be nice to be able to spend all day with women like you, crafting and stitching.

Once we successfully crafted our paper wallets, we graduated to the real deal; the ladies beckoned us over another table where stacks of various leathers were waiting to be mixed, matched, and glued together. It’s fun to think about which fashion house these scraps might have come from. After much deliberation (and a long period considering the hot pink) I went with a yellow python stamped leather and a red lining. The woman laughed at my color scheme and said, “Gucci!”

We returned to our stations and repeated the same process as before, but this time with a lot more anxiety. We folded and glued the fabric of each pocket, and fitted them to the pieces of leather. Then, we measured and placed the lining before gluing the perimeter. At that point, the professionals stepped in and stitched it all together. It was so fun! I’m quite pleased with my wallet, and it’s so fun to remember that I made it (mostly) myself.

I used Saturday as a catch-up day. I woke up a little later, and then I worked on homework for school and fiddled with my classes for registration in a few weeks. Luckily, I’ve gotten lots of credits out of the way, so I have room to take an elective or two next semester! Once I exhausted my laptop time, I headed out for the afternoon to shop around at Zara and H&M. I gave each of them a fair shot, but I didn’t find anything worth buying.

Brelan and I went out to dinner at a new restaurant by our apartment. It was a great space; we sat on a beautiful enclosed patio with just a few other guests. The food wasn’t the best, but the employees were very sweet and we had a great time. We finished off the night with a gelato nightcap, and then headed back to the apartment.

Sunday! Brelan and I adventured to a Scandinavian bakery she’d found online in our neighborhood. It was delicious! The line was out the door, so we waited just a bit until we could order. We both got pumpkin spice cinnamon rolls, and then I got an iced caffe latte that I always pine for here. We strolled over to the Santo Spirito market and checked out the sellers for about an hour, and then we spent the day enjoying the nice weather! I journaled out in our courtyard, and then I strolled around the city center for a few hours. It was finally sunny today after about 2 days of rain, so we took advantage of the warmth and explored.

Week 8: 10/14 - 10/20

Halfway Point and a Sad Goodbye

Week 9: 10/21 - 10/27

Week 7: 10/7 - 10/13

Charlotte Harrison