Today we explored
the wonderful world of food. Starting off at a family farm learning
about cheese production on the small scale and learning from one very
interesting individual about sausage making and flour production in
a very scary little barn with far too many dolls than necessary for
general farm activities. After that we went to a larger production
facility with an incredibly vast cheese store room worth over 10
million Euro...quite cheesy if you ask me.What really struck me is I didn't know enzyme from a cow's stomach had to be added to milk in order to make cheese...like so many other things we feel comfortable eating, who came up with this first? And why?
We had a wonderful
lunch to follow all the cheese complete with copious amounts of
cheese and a cheesy ravioli. I think I'll be good without cheese for
a few days.
Following that we went
to a wine museum and did some science experiments! I'm not kidding,
flashbacks to my 4th grade science fair project using red
cabbage as a pH indicator. I'm not really sure what the intent behind
playing with red cabbage juice was, but I was entertained.
This was our final
day in “Parma” as we were to set out for Milan the next day.
We took some detours
on the trip to the capital of high fashion. Along the way we stopped
at this amazing automobile museum in Torino that explained the entire
history of cars from conception to modern supercars with a healthy
excess of Fiat and Ferrari. This was followed by an unfortunately
brief trip to a film museum where I could have easily have spent an
entire day. Starting with pre-cinema techniques of shadow puppets and
optical illusions this museum took us through the entire process of
the first films, amazing sets, and all the things that go into making
a movie showing clips from almost every classic. After all that, we
were royally fried and finally made it to our hotel in the suburbs of
Milan.
Today we finally
took to the streets of the big city. Beginning early with croissant,
we high-tailed it out of the suburbs and into the city proper where
we had a 2:30 hour tour of Milan's main castle, galleria, and Duomo.
It was a fantastic tour and I really can't wait to dive back into the
city for the rest of the week. Alas, that was the only taste we were
given today before being whisked back to the hotel for some wonderful
presentations that took around 3 and a half hours to finish. This ate
up our afternoon but in return gives us a free Friday so in the
end...well worth it. We ended today with our group dinner in this
fantastic little restaurant with probably the best olive oil of the
trip. I ate way too much but I mean, when else am I going to be able
to eat so much fantastic food?
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