The Internship programme is one of these starting point… when a couple of years ago a Japanese student told me that he dreamed (he used this term, really) to get an Internship at Enoteca Italiana in Siena, we decided to give it a try and – thanks to the kindness of people at Enoteca – it worked !

Now our former student is at his 3rd year at Enoteca Italiana and waiting to formalize his final contract with them – in these years he has learned a lot, worked a lot, met a lot of people from allover the world – and he is writing a very succesful wine blog – just have a look at it here.

You can imagine how we at Scuola Toscana are very proud of our students !

After a suggestion by our teachers, we deliver a new service for the students of Italian who participate in the (famous) activities at Scuola Toscana: the possibility to contact the guide on duty, any moment the student needs to.

The devil is in the details, they say: no tour, no activity is so well planned that a mishap cannot happen. Moreover, even the most precise student can be late… what to do if the group has already left ? If you do not find the meeting point ? 

From now on, the students can always contact the Scuola Toscana guide, real time, thanks to an”activity phone” ( number: 3888183380 ). If you want to know which activity we are doing today, if you have decided to enrole, if you want to know the price, or the meeting point of an activity… and more, if you are late and want to know where the group is, or if you just want to join them at a determinate place without starting from the school, now you have only to call the “activity phone”.

 It is a simple idea that for sure will spare some headaches - and give another advantage to the Scuola Toscana students !!!

One of the new activity will be a “Florence biking experience”, together with our friend, and bicycle expert Filippo (who happens to be also a Florence certified guide).

As a matter of fact, biking in Florence is usually a double-sided experience: while it allows you to arrive from A to B very very fast, even during the taffic rush hour, it can be very dangerous (and I mean it) if you leave the bicycle paths – and there are not much of them in Florence. <
Therefore, better to wear an helmet and be very careful… yours faithfully has been bycicling in Florence for 30 years (see picture) and still marvel at how car drivers in Florence are able to totally ignore someone on a bicycle.

However, with our guided tours you will be more than safe, as we go on selected routes, at a leisurely pace, with many stops and lots of things to see. The tours will be not only in Florence but also in Chianti, Lucca, along the Via Francigena, along the Arno river.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,700 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

クリスマスを家族で過ごすイタリアでは、大晦日は友人達と過ごすのがイタリア。
夕食をみんなで食べて、その後、町に繰り出すのが多いパターンです。

日本では、年越しそばを食べますが、イタリアでもやはり年越しに食べる食材があります。
それは、レンティッケとコテキーノです。レンティッケは、日本ではレンズ豆と呼ばれており、お金を呼び寄せると言われています。コテキーノは、脂身が多い豚の部分を腸詰したもので、茹でて食べます。コテキーノの変わりにザンポーネ（豚の足に豚肉の各部位を入れたもの）を食べる人もいます。
コテキーノもザンポーネも日本人の胃袋にはかなり重いですが、一度食べてみては如何でしょうか。

イタリアで年越しをされる方は、どんな大晦日の夜を過ごされるのでしょうか。

多くの生徒さんは、すでにクリスマスに向けて帰国されていますが、それでも、最後までレッスンに出席された生徒さんのクラスでは、やはりクリスマスに関することが豊富だったレッスン内容となったようです。

明日は、クリスマスイブ。そして、25日のクリスマスを迎えるイタリア。明日は、きっと最後のクリスマスプレゼントを買いに走る人々の姿も多いはず。

スクオーラトスカーナのレッスンは、1月9日に再スタートです！

the stand of scuola toscana

The NiMi Festival is over. After a tranquil friday, we had a great saturday and sunday. Was it a success ? Too early to say, usually you can tell it after a couple of months, when the dust is settled and the enrolment (hopefully) start to arrive, with the tag “yes, I got to know you at the fair in Florence…”

the lesson of japanese

the show of Kyoto Minsai school

For sure, it was a lot of fun, for us, and for the public. We made our small contribution with a test lesson of Japanese language for beginner (we discovered that no one who came was a real beginner), and a show of traditional Japanese dance, courtesy of our hosts from Kyoto Minsai School.

scuola toscana team, and tandem

Late afternoon, we organised also a tandem (conversation exchange) between Japanese students of Scuola Toscana and someone of the public who already knew some Japanese language.

As well as you can do your homework and prepare in advance, when you are at your stand’s place, in the field, you always need to invent something on the spot…
Not bad, tomorrow we still have to figure how to hide an ugly electrical outlet, but we’ll find something. At 2 PM, the show begins !

It’s a small dream which comes true, as in my previous life I worked as Junior Export Manager for an agrobusiness firm, representing the firm in many fairs and expos around Europe, but without much responsibility (I was even forbidden to communicate the prices to the customers…).

Since then I’ve always enjoyed (mostly as a visitor) the special atmosphere of a fair, the stands, the corridors, the lights and colours, people manning the desks and people roaming the halls, the whole circus…

Now it looks as I’m in charge, it is completely different but a lot more exciting – preparation was on the way for the last couple of months, everything now is ready, we got the schedules, the turns at the stand, the workshops, the brochures, the posters…

Our is just a 4×4 meters stand, but we will have tandem-conversation in Japanese, presentation of schools in Japan (ISI Tokyo and Kyoto Minsai, friends from Kyoto Minsai will be at our stand !), and giveaways: booklets about Tokyo and Japan (courtesy of Jinto, the Japanese National Travel Agency), maps of Japan, Japanese-style handkerchiefs, Hiragana/Katakana bookmarks, Japanese grammar books, and so on.

boxes full of advertising material for NiMi Festival in my car's trunk

We’ll keep you informed, as for now have a look at the fair homepage at
NiMi Festival

www.scuola-toscana.com

Like the old site, the new is too a work of Dr Duccio Guazzelli, a former (excellent) teacher at the Scuola Toscana turned web programmer around 10 years ago.
The new site should be more modern, faster, cleaner, easier to find for the search engines, and – easier for the directors to tinker with.

Therefore from now on, if there is something wrong or you do not find the necessary information, it is no more the webmaster fault, but just the directors’ fault…

Have a look and be so kind to leave us your opinion !