We made it!

The last few days have been a blur. I woke up at 3:45am on Saturday (after 4 hours of sleep). I’m not sure how many hours of waiting in airports and flight-time we had. Rome customs went fairly quickly and then it was a 3+ drive through the gorgeous Italian countryside and over the Italian Alps.

First impressions? From what I have seen so far, Italy is an remarkable mixture of ancient and modern. The airport is super modern…

During the drive to Macerata we saw ancient homes, newer homes, solar panels, sheep, olive trees, vineyards, roundabouts, extremely narrow brick roads… there’s so much to see and absorb.

When we arrived in Macerata yesterday afternoon we had enough time to unpack and take a deep breath before our on-site orientation. We then spent several hours on a walking tour of Macerata and a delicious dinner. I had penne with basil pesto. Yum!

Afterwards we went for gelato… now I know what the big deal is! It’s super creamy and the chocolate was very strong, but amazing. You can get it in a cone or in a cup and it’s thicker than American ice cream. They also encourage you to get 2 or more flavors. I had chocolate and zuppa inglese (similar to trifle – creamy with bits of red sponge cake and chocolate). I apologize for the blurriness of the photo. I could blame it on the darkness of the room (which is true), but it also probably had something to do with being up for over 48 hours and not being able to see straight!

After a glorious night’s sleep, I started the day with breakfast at the hotel. Of course I had to try a cappuccino! I need to look up synonyms for delicious. It was a lighter flavor than the espresso I have had in the U. S., but really smooth and enjoyable.

After breakfast we met with Prof.ssa Nicolini from the University of Macerata (UNIMC). She’s a lovely, tiny, Italian lady (see picture below – in front of me ) who works at UNIMC.

We (the students) all shared our areas of interest/dissertation topics and Prof.ssa Nicolini described the Italian Higher Education system, which really is very different from the U. S. system. One example she provided: faculty at Italian universities compete for advancement opportunities with faculty from around the country. In the United States, faculty progress up the ranks through a series of steps including professional development plans and reports, service to community, research and publication, etc. In Italy, there are a limited number of full faculty positions available at each university and faculty are often required to move to another university in order to become a full professor.

Lunch involved pizza by the slice – it’s actually a small, rectangular/square pizza that they fold in half. I had an artichoke pizza… no sauce. There was a tiny bit of cheese, some artichoke, and the rest was bread/crust. No picture, sorry… I was actually on the go for that meal.

We wrapped up the day with an intensive, 5-hour Italian language course. I took a lot of notes, which is a really good thing. At some point my brain hit overload and I wasn’t absorbing much. I’ll check my notes tomorrow! We did have a short outing to order coffee and after the class we all went out to dinner with the instructor – who had us test out our new Italian phrases.

I had a cipolla e rosmarino pizza – with rosemary and onions – again, no sauce. We also shared some carciofi fritti e maionese di agrumi – fried artichoke with a mayonaise sauce and some assorted bread items. Roasted potatoes with rosemary were also on the menu – patate al forno – I will definitely be getting those again. There’s something about roasted vegetables… We finished off the meal with dessert e frutta. I had strawberries (fresh and sweet) with creme gelato and caramel sauce… to die for!

I’ll post more pictures of the town next time – plus we have a trip to Florence on Wednesday!

Time for bed… 12:51am… buono notte!