A Waterfall of New Things

And so a brief summary, with teasers

Today is Day Three of orientation for my program. Overwhelmed is not quite the best word for how I feel because of its negative connotations, but so many new and different and exciting experiences in the past few days make it all a challenge to process.

I want to share so much of it with you — and I so appreciate your support and desire/willingness to read this newsletter! — but for now, here are a few things I’ve learned and experienced so far. I plan to expand some of them with future posts, but I also know each day will bring even more.

Say yes to everything. Scheduled classes are only part of the experience here, with all manner of student activities, bonus presentations, and impromptu gatherings. Previous students all have advised me to partake as much as possible, and say yes to everything. Which is how I found myself making a bracelet at the Crafting Group the night before the first day of class.

We later added another table to make room for all the bracelet makers. I didn’t finish mine — there will be time.

My class is small but mighty. We are only 12 (with a bonus PhD candidate joining us for a bit), and gathered from Australia, India, Japan, Taiwan, Switzerland/Amsterdam, The Netherlands, South Africa, and Italy. I am close to knowing everyone’s name, but it is much easier for them to know mine because I am the only American, and the only guy (and excepting the PhD, the eldest).

Modules, courses, and classes. The program has six different modules, and each module comprises several courses taught by faculty and visiting instructors. The courses might last several days, made up of morning or afternoon classes. Some days have morning classes, or afternoon, or both. No week is the same.

The school library is a treasure trove of cookbooks, food writing, and serious scientific writings about food, food systems, and eating.

The school cafeteria is everything you’d imagine. You have to order online before 10a because they only make just enough. And order carefully because some of the dishes are quite large full meals.

The sensory lab is serious business. After the breadsticks, I skipped the chicken tasting but squeezed in the egg tasting during lunch break yesterday. As with everything here, you need to be centered and focused to find subtle differences and thoughtfully answer all the questions.

Easy things are difficult. I purchased a wifi hotspot for my apartment on Monday (which required my passport) and have been back three times to complete configuration (which requires a texted code to the SIM, which can’t receive it because it’s in a wifi router and not in a phone). (After once arriving just after the shop closed, I left everything with super-helper Julia to fix at her leisure today and I can pick up this afternoon or tomorrow. Similarly, in addition to the well-earned Student Visa I need to secure a Permit of Stay, which requires many of the same items as the visa, and is done with two visits to the post office and one to the tabaccheria — yes, tobacco shop — where you do all manner of business like paying bills and topping up your phone and, of course, buying cigarettes. Later I need to go to the police station to be fingerprinted.

Laundry requires planning. I have a washer but, like many Europeans, no dryer. My flat has a clothesline right outside the door, but I need to keep an eye on the weather and wash in the morning of a sunny day, or at least one without rain.

The food is amazing. Dinner last night was a pasta dish made from all Italian items, most of them local, and many from the farmers market. I took lots of pictures for later posts, and identified some obvious items I lack, like a cutting board and a serious knife.

Say yes to everything. Students received an invite on Tuesday to hear a cookbook author speak on Wednesday afternoon, and several of us MNFTs attended. The "celebrity” cookbook is one I would never have considered, but hearing the stories behind its creation and meeting the co-author — a UNISG graduate who this week taught a course on recipe development and cookbook writing for another program — I not only want the book for myself, I want to gift it to everyone I know. For now, though, I’ll write more about it later and hopefully inspire you to look at this cookbook, and others, differently.

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