First Days of Ascoli

Our first week in Ascoli is coming to end.  We have officially been in Italy for eight days and it has flown by.  Our apartment is in the heart of the city, in between two piazza's which are extremely important to Italians.  It is a place to gather and have markets.  They are filled with restaurants, bars and shops, along with special monuments.  It is quite loud in the mornings and evenings.

On Tuesday we went to a near-by beach town on the Adriatic Sea.  Our program director met us there (we took the train), and he had bagged lunches for us from a bistro in town which included: two types of sandwiches, fried stuff olives (meat,chicken, pork), fruit salad, a little dessert, and water.   We all ate lunch on the beach, went swimming, laid in the sun and read.  It was a very relaxing day.

Wednesday we started classes.  My schedule is:

Italian: MTWR, a very intensive and fast paced course, for two hours
Food Aesthetics: MT for two hours... One of the classes per week include a sensory lab with a different focus each week (Wine, Cheese, Olives, Olive oil, etc)
Food Technology:  TR.... This is essentially a food science class with field trips to different food processing places.  Each week we have a focus (wine, bread, cheese, olive oil, pasta, cured meats, etc).
Archaeology:  TR. 50% of the class is held in the classroom. the other half is spent walking around Ascoli studying the buildings and history.  There are over 160 towers in Ascoli!