Ferrari and Vinegar (10/27)

 Hello Blog People!

First off, I'm sorry this is late lolol. The weeks have gotten away from me, and I have a lot to catch up on. But don't worry, I will give you all the details from the past few weeks. First off, we are starting this entry for the week of Oct. 23-27

There isn't much to report from the week. I'll do some quick little bullet points and then get to the fun.

- We had a test on that Thursday. As I've said, everyone gets really nervous for tests. We had both a grammar test and a phonetics quiz. Not fun. By the time we had our last class on Thursday, everyone was checked out. No one was paying attention. At one point, we even broke into song and showed our teacher the new song we had been learning in one of the other classes: Old McDonald but in Italian. She looked at us a little stunned and confused. It did make her laugh though. 

- It was kinda rainy that week too. It's starting to become winter/fall, which basically means it's wet. I made a little Instagram reel to showcase the beauty of the campus, even when the sum is not shining. There are many quiet areas on campus that no one ever goes to that are just so peaceful and green. Now, in the current day, we are still getting a lot of rain, and it is causing some flooding all over Europe. Streets in Florence and Milan were flooding, just to name a few places. The basement of Villa even got wetter than it should. I don't know which I would rather have: a lot of rain and wind or snow and wind. At this point, the rain is ok. I have what I need for this season. But come back to me in February and we will see what my opinion is then. 

- OMG Taylor released 1989 that Friday, the 27th! That was a great day for music. Not only did we get the new Taylor Swift album (well, rerecording), but also new music from Maverick City, Maisie Peters, Erin Kinsey, Thomas Day, and Niall Horan ft. Lizzy McAlpine. I was very very excited to have so much new music, especially from Taylor and Maisie. I listened to it on the way to...

THE FERRARI MUSEUM!!!

This field trip was actually pretty cool! I learned a lot about cars and I took A LOT of pictures. I was interested in the cars a little, but I more cared on behalf of the people at home who would have loved to be there. I'm excited to share what I learned. 

We took a bus from Florence to Modena, straight to the Ferrari Museum. We got there and were broken into 3 groups. 2 went off for a guided tour of the museum, and the other went to do a pit-stop sort of activity. 

You walk into even just the area of Ferrari and everything is red. The style of the museum is sophisticated and clean. Red accents are everywhere. We went through some of the first rooms, working our way through the different models of Ferraris over the years. I paid attention (sort of) to what made them special, but when the tour guide started talking about horsepower and cylinders, I checked out. I really did try though. 

We walked through a room of supercars which were really cool. We learned that only certain people were allowed to have supercars, and they have to have had Ferraris, and maybe even other supercars, in the past. I think there are at least less than 500 of each supercar ever made. 

We went through a customization room like the one a real client would go through. They get to pick the color of the leather and stead form and the paint and so many other things. Some people have even helped design parts of the car that aren't usually up for customization. I learned that there are some rules coming with the cars: You can't sell them less than 5 years after you buy them. If you make any modifications, you have to let the company know, and if has to reflect the tone and characteristics of the car model and the company. And Ferraris aren't allowed to be pink. There are many other colors, just not pink. 

One cool thing that I saw was an outline of the track that is near the museum. Enzo Ferrari wanted a place for his drivers to train, so he had a track built that had the hardest turns from each F1 course all in one place. They aren't really allowed to do that anymore, because it gives the drivers an unfair advantage, but they do still use the track to test new models of cars. I thought that was really cool. 

We walked through the victory room, where they keep all the trophies that the racing team has, and even some of the winning cars form over the wheels. Fun fact: the cars don't have steering wheels when they are on display because they are so expensive. Or the original wheels because of how ruined they are after the race. 

After our tour of the museum, we got to do the pitstop activity. The whole thing reminded me of Guido and Luigi from Cars (I LOVE that movie). We had to get into groups of 3 and each man had a job. One worked a little drill that turned and took off the screws (I'm sorry I don't know about cars, but I'm trying here). The second person took the tire off and out of the way. And the third person put the new tire back on so the first person can put the screw on again. An F1 crew can do it in about 2.5 seconds. We were averaging around 7 seconds for the whole process. But it was fun to try. 

We got lunch after our tour, and then we headed to at the Malpighi balsamic vinegar factory. I don't know what I was expecting...I didn't even really know what balsamic vinegar was or what it was made of. Needless to say, I learned a lot during this tour. 

First off, we visited the factory of one of about 30 families that are able to make authentic, traditional, fancy balsamic vinegar. This family has been making it for hundreds of years. I will try to remember as much about the process as I can. 

The family grows their own grapes. Then they harvest the grapes, both black (purple) and white. Then they cook the grapes for two days, not adding anything. This is called cottura. It turns from a normal purple color to a dark black. This is then placed in a big barrel. Over the course of its life, the cottura will be placed into 5 barrels. Each barrel is a different size and made of a different type of wood, which determines the flavor. Each family has its own barrels they have been using, made of different woods in different orders. They are left in the barrels for years, depending on what kind they are making. The barrel is not sealed but instead has a hole on the top with a cotton cloth covering it. Over the years, as the cottura evaporates, it is moved into the smaller barrels, and filled with vinegar from the barrel before. The balsamic vinegar is only collected from the last barrel.

Official traditional balsamic vinegar is made of both black and white grapes, is put in barrels for 12 or 25 years, and is inspected by a special committee and placed in a special bottle if it passes. If it doesn't it goes back in the barrel for another year. The barrels of these families are very special. It is because of them that the vinegar gets its distinct taste since it has been marinating for years and years. They can be bought for 200 euros and could be sold for 60,000 euros. But no one ever sells them. If they get a leak, another barrel is just built around it. That way they can maintain the flavor and still be used. The flavor is also affected by the weather over the year, for the new grapes and just for the weather around the barrels

I learned so much during this whole experience. So much knowledge of a process I had never even considered before. But I got to know even more because we got to do a vinegar tasting. (I'm going to try to link a video I made of me and one of my friends during the tasting. Hopefully, it works). We got to try 5 different types of balsamic vinegar, plus a vinegar-filled chocolate which was really really good. I really enjoyed the 5-year white balsamic vinegar. It's sweet and goes well with fruit I was told. (I did buy some).

After all of this, I went back to campus and worked in the kitchen. Each week, some of the ACA students work in the kitchen to give the kitchen volunteers a break for the Sabbath. (Side note: the volunteers [I may talk about them at times] are people who have come to Villa Aurora to study and work. Some help in the dorms as assistant deans or janitors, and others help with media, or in the kitchen. They work like 40 hours a week but don't get paid enough to consider it a job. So they get room and board in exchange for the work that they do.) When ACA students work, we work with one of the head chefs and maybe 2 or 3 other workers, and we work for Friday dinner, Sabbath lunch, and Saturday dinner. I really enjoyed the time I spent in the kitchen. I love the hustle and bustle of getting things ready, and it felt good to serve people, even if it was stressful at times. 

Sunday was a day of rest, reset, and homework. It was nice to take a day after a long week. Then Monday I had classes. I finished my art project and started another one. We also made pizza in cuisine class and it was so good.    Monday night we had a costume part. I went as a spy in a dress I bought the week before. I used my friends sunglasses, and an earpiece from the Ferrari museum, and my friend slicked back my hair. It was fun to dress up and see what everyone else came up with. Some of my favorite costumes were Wednesday, Nemo and Darla, Princess Mia, and Damien from Mean Girls (when he says "She doesn't even go here!"). I had a lot of fun, and the whole team of reps and helpers made the whole space look really nice.    Tuesday I had classes and then got ready for my Fall Break trip. 

And with that, we move into the next week. But that's a whole different post. 

Let me know if you have any questions. I will try to get my Fall Break Post out as soon as possible (but there is a lot to cover, so expect it to be long :) )

Ciao,

                Ellie 

Shailani and I tasting the different types of vinegar at the tasting. I hope you enjoy this very quickly edited video.