My stomping grounds

I know you are all dying to know what I've been doing at school but that will have to wait until tomorrow.. in the meantime I thought I'd give you a little tour of my neighborhood.
This is my backyard, Santa Croce. Today as you can see the sun was shining, for the first time since I've been here. It does look so much nicer with a blue backdrop.
One of the best parts about living in the Santa Croce area is having the Mercato di Sant'Ambrogio just steps away from the apartment. This is the inside where you will find several macellerie (butchers). I buy my tacchino (turkey) and prosciutto (I try to only buy it once a week) from the same people every other day. And every time, they compliment my Italian. I think they are used to Americans who can only say "ciao" (no offense, but it does make me look better!)
Outside, there are stalls with fruit and vegetable vendors. I try to go before school starts so I can have the best selection. I noticed by midday they are always out of bananas.
Monday when I went to the market, I bought the following: a head of lettuce, a head of radicchio, a cucumber that turned out to be rotten so that guy is blacklisted from selling me veggies from now on, 2 yellow peppers, 3 tomatoes, 3 apples, a bunch of bananas, and 3 pears, all for 10 Euro (which is a little under $15). That might buy my peppers and an apple at Gristedes or D'Ags!

My second week of class

This is it, folks. 6 hours and a massive blister later. I know I will have more to show by Friday. I got a sneak peak at what Uki was working on today and she's a little bit ahead of me!

Fiera del cioccolato

Welcome to my new backyard, Piazza Santa Croce. Saturday morning I went to get pane (bread) at the forno (bakery) next door to the apartment, and could not resist the temptation of the aroma of fresh hot chocolate that lured me in. I executed some self control and only bought a handful of albicocche (apricots) dipped in milk chocolate. Of course I went back Sunday, thankfully, with only 3 euro in my pocket. I had Sacher, a type of chocolate torte with apricot marmelade inside, and hot chocolate poured on top. Scrumptious. Of course it was massive (embarrassed to say about 6' square) and I licked the plate clean... and then balanced it out with a salad for dinner. 

The Italians don't mess around, but you don't need me to tell you this. Their version of a chocolate fair is a minimum of 50 of the best of the best chocolate experts from all around the country that come to show off their fine tuned delights. Thousands will gather to indulge on chocolate but most stop by for the free samples, which were plentiful. Thankfully, the fair ended yesterday... which trust me, is really for the better.

My first week of class

This is my set of tools. "Martello" hammer, "trincetto" knife, "bastone" stick. I have two injuries after my first week, I sliced my left finger when I was daydreaming and cutting at the same time, and a blister on my right hand from holding the trincetto so tightly, and cutting 180 pieces.Okay so here's the deal. I have to cut 30 pieces of each model. Yes, thirty. So here you have 30 "salpa" which are the cardboard, glued to 30 pieces of leather. Which, if you do the math, means I cut 60 pieces of this particular model. I had to do 3 different models, which is 180 pieces in total. 

This model is to perfect the 90 degree angle cuts...

And this one is to practice with rounded corners.

You have no idea how long it took me to get this right. You are looking at a pattern piece that represents what is often used in the interiors of handbags to give them shape. The "carta," cardboard, comes in different thicknesses depending on how much structure you want the object or bag to have. In order to get to this step I had to trim all of the edges of the pieces that I had glued together, cutting so all edges have a 45 degree angle so they will attach neatly to the cardboard. The corner is achieved by "gathering" the leather, and using the needle-like tool to carefully glue them down to the cardboard.

The next step after gluing them together is wrapping the edges like this. But that requires another day and a half of work, as you have to re-glue the edges to fold them down. And it doesn't end here. Next week I stitch the perimeter of every single one of these! When I finish doing an exercise (in this case, all 30 pieces), I say "ho fatto," meaning "I did it," so my instructor can walk me through the next project.

What have I learned so far... After doing something 30 times you really do get it right. It is best to take your time and go "piano, piano," which is "very slowly", so you do it right the first time and do not have to re-do it again. And... master craftsmanship really does take time, concentration, and above all, patience.

My classroom

I will spend 75% of my time in the chair you see above. The other 25% of my time will be spent standing in front of the chair, as I must stand to cut. We are 5 students in total and we all work around the same table. Uki sits across from me, she is from Indonesia. Tet is from Singapore and is the only male student. Rita, from Spain, is next to me when she is not doing her "stage" upstairs in the afternoons. Sandra sits next to her and is Portuguese but grew up in Switzerland. Finally, Miri is from China. Our "maestro" is from Japan. 

This is my workstation. Gluing is done directly on the "marma," marble, so it can be scraped off easily. Cutting is done on "carta," cardboard, so you can easily maneuver the pieces and so your knife edge doesn't get too blunt. The containers you see with blue tops are "mastice," glue, there is a brush hidden underneath the blue top which keeps it from drying out when you are not using it. There have been a few instances where I was gluing for 3 hours at a time, and ended up laughing uncontrollably, so already everyone laughs whenever they see me re-filling my "mastice." You can also see the handbag patterns hanging on the wall.

La Scuola del Cuoio

This is the courtyard of the Scuola di Cuoio. On the left you can see the door and window pictured below.

La porta, the entrance to the classroom. The school is in a converted monastery located behind La Chiesa di Santa Croce.

La vita fiorentina.

I would like to dedicate the introduction to my life in Firenze to the lovely and charming woman at the NY consulate. Grazie mille, Signora whomever-you-are, for making the journey here so difficult. The airlines would also like to extend their gratitude as they made three times the profit on the fees for the flight changes. The real reason I want to thank you is because the victory of obtaining my visa was that much sweeter when it was finally pasted into my passport. I smile every time I look at it, and think of you, Signora whomever-you-are, whenever I do.

In the process of obtaining my visa I learned some very important lessons for anyone who plans to relocate to Italy. Lesson number one is to divulge as little information as possible, and do so only when asked, in Italian whenever possible. Lesson number two is bring 20 copies of every document that has even the slightest relevance to your existence. 10 of these copies should be notarized and you should always have the original in your back pocket. I promise you that there will be, without a doubt, a document missing that will take you a minimum of 4 weeks to obtain in order to complete the application. And the prettier and more official you can make your document the better luck you will have. Don't make any plane reservations whatsoever and allow at least 2 more months than you think you will need. Take a deep breath before you walk through the door during the 3 hour window of time they might decide to be open on any given day, and best of luck if you run into the woman I did. But this is all a faint memory now as I settle into my second week of life in this beautiful city I now call home (well, kind of... until I get my permesso di soggiorno.)