Home is where the heart is, so your real home’s in your chest! -Captain Hammer

Unlike Cornell, which barrages you with information every other day about freshman orientation, the University of Gastronomic Sciences is a bit more laidback. To get information, you really have to be proactive and seek it out, which is fine because the administration staff is very responsive. In an email I exchanged before arriving in Italy, I was told that the flat would come furnished with desks, beds, blankets, a TV and a kitchen with pots and pans. Oh boy, a cable TV? I don’t even have one of those at home!

Anyway, the flat has definitely exceeded my expectations, considering the bare bones aesthetics of my Cornell dorm room. Here, I have two other flatmates, and we each have our own rooms, which are considerably larger than I expected. Actually, I wouldn’t have minded if the rooms were smaller to give more space in the kitchen, but that is the way the cookie crumbles.
My room opens out onto a balcony, which is conveniently equipped with wires for hang drying clothing, since we don’t have access to a dryer.

Outside my balcony, you can see a garden below, where the neighbor putters about in the morning with a watering can.

The bathroom is handsomely decorated with sleek brown tiles and comes with a huge sink, toilet and bidet.

I think you’re supposed to remove the showerhead to spray yourself, but this is actually the perfect height for me to spray from head to toe.

The desk where I will be spending the vast majority of my time for the next year, with the exit to the balcony behind it.

We have a half bathroom as well, with a small washer in it.

The ironing room? There is unfortunately no iron at the moment, but there is a board. We were considering turning this into a living room since we don’t have one. Maybe we’ll take a trip to the Torino IKEA and have a sofa-building night?

A mural of sweets inside the kitchen exhorts you to eat dessert first.

The refrigerator came decked out with photos of sexy ladies eating eclairs. We can’t decide if this interior decoration scheme was orchestrated by men or not.

The stove is gas but doesn’t have an automatic ignitor, so you have to use a lighter to get it going. There are a decent number of pots and pans, including a pasta pot and graters, but I am still glad I brought one trustworthy covered pan with me.
Our cupboard and china cabinet are mostly bare at the moment, but I will be doing some grocery shopping pronto.

The kitchen does not have an oven, sadly, but there is a toaster oven…we will be able to bake 6 rolls at a time! Or, I advocated for making friends with neighbors who have a real oven. The TV is also in the kitchen, but we can’t figure out how to get it to display something other than static.

Every town in Italy has its own regulations for sorting trash. Here, we are supposed to organize rubbish into carta (paper), vetro (glass), plastica (plastic), other trash, and organic materials for compost. The guidelines on trash run over four pages long.

In the entrance way, you are greeted by a mural of three ladies in red, which exactly mirrors who is living in the flat!