In addition to taking and teaching courses full time, CIMBA faculty and students participate in many cultural events. Some examples: lectures on the European Union, History of Venice, and Doing Business in Italy; taking trips to Italian companies (my group is off to a television station in Bassano del Grappa); gourmet dinners (at least 5 courses) at exclusive area ristoranti; and many more.
Some of these we do with our classes. For my intercultural course, we learned how to make pizza and had a walking tour of ancient Verona; upcoming are a tour of a Majolica ceramic museum and a visit the Canaletto art exhibit in Treviso. Last night, the students came over and prepared a full course dinner based on recipes from Frances Mayes' Under the Tuscan Sun, which they are reading. Tim's finance class will go to a designer shoe factory for a tour and introduction to the company.
Other activities we do with our advisory groups. Each faculty member is assigned about 11 students as an advisor. There are two scheduled times for get-togethers; some do bowling, dinner, hiking, or whatever the group decides on. My group went to nearby Asolo to have a wonderful bruschetta dinner and then to Villa Sandi, a marvelous winery in Crocetta dei Montella, here in the Veneto. After the visit, we had a wine tasting at our apartment! Tim's group went to Marostica, famous for its Medieval Fair and human chess game, enacted every two years; they had dinner at Panic Jazz. They too will go to the Villa Sandi winery later this month.
Still other events are sponsored by CIMBA for everyone interested. Most of the faculty and students went to Trieste, in the most northwestern corner of Italy to visit several WWI sites and monuments. Trips to local historical sites are part of ECS, European Cultural Studies. Also, we have 3 gourmet dinners at wonderful restaurants. Our second one is tonight, and I am deliberately not eating today!! These places are fantastic with incomparable food and wine. Important are our dress and manners -- a good experience for the students and a welcome relief from grabbing a quick snack for us!
Uploaded are some pictures from some of these events. For some reason, a few didn't upload; I'll check on that to correct later. Meanwhile, enjoy!
2 comments:
Jealousy.
This sounds so amazing! I'm sure it's making the entire trip even more wonderful!
Hey, I'm jealous of you -- you were in Chicago when Obama made his speech!!!
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