Today was such an amazing day in Florence. I woke up later than usual because I was exhausted from my long travel day yesterday returning from Cinque Terre for the day. When I woke up, I made some espresso in the apartment and had some biscotti and fresh fruit to go with it. The espresso here is to die for it is so delicious. Then I went for a nice long walk with my roommate Ella to explore new parts of the city we haven’t seen before. Following our walk, we met up with some other friends in our class from College of Charleston and got paninis. I always get traditional Tuscan salami, aged pecorino cheese, salsa picante, fresh tomatoes, and arugula all on schiacciata. It was delicious. We ate our paninis on the go and went to Mercato Centrale, located in the city center of Florence. This is a market that has tons of fresh fruits and vegetables, clothing, leather, jewelry, and more. Leather is a delicacy in Florence, so we stopped along all the leather vendors. I got so many bags for my family and friends back at home. The quality of the leather goods is like no other, they are so nice. After our shopping spree, I went to Il Giardino, a local private playground, to observe the children. My research project while I’m here is to examine varying types of children’s play and to examine how directive the parents are with their children’s play. This will be a cross-cultural analysis to see if there are differences in Italy compared to the US. I got a lot of great observations done at the park and then went back home for a little siesta. In Italy there are a few hours of the afternoon, where everyone relaxes, and offices and businesses are typically closed. I rested and spent time with my roommates. After siesta, it was time to go to our cooking class! This was such a fun experience to be able to learn from a professional Italian chef how to cook Italian delicacies. For our antipasto, we made potato souffle which was fabulous. Then we made pasta from scratch out of flour and eggs. I do this often with my family at home, but it was fun helping the students who have never done this before, it is a lot of fun. We made fettuccine with two different sauces. One of them was a Bolognese meat sauce and the other was tomato and basil. Both were delicious. Then for dessert we made panna cotta. The cooking class was so much fun, and we got to eat all we prepared afterwards. Following dinner, we took a nice walk home and relaxed and went to sleep. Buonanotte Firenze!!