Friday, November 26, 2010

The Pursuit goes International

After hemming and hawing for weeks about going overseas for my externship, I have completed the paperwork to go to overseas for six weeks.  When I first started school overseas externships were explained.  Had to have a passport, (got one, check) had to have a 3.5 GPA, (got a 3.92, check) and had to arrange transportation.  My first thought was France.  What other place would you go if you're enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu.  Then a classmate said he wanted to go to Italy.  That sounded more fun.  So I was talking to one of the chefs about that when another chef said that they were opening up externships for New Zealand.  Whoa!!  Travel to a place where English is the first language, maybe stay as long as 4 months, maybe move there, maybe, maybe, maybe.  Then I wrote my cover letter and explained my situation, accomplishments, age, dreams, etc, etc.  That age thing killed it.  Seems you can't be older than 55 to gain a student or work visa in New Zealand.   Hey, I wish we kept our immigration rules for coming into the USA as tough as NZ does.

So where am I going?  Casperia, Italy.  It's a school called Italian Country Cooking and it is located in a small village about 1 hour east of Rome.  In the dead of winter, I'll be learning all about using local ingredients, living in a 200 square foot apt and butchering the Italian language.  And hopefully some Italian meats.

I may have said this before, but this just keeps getting better and better!

1 comment:

Denise said...

Tom, we are friends of Bill Baccus and would like to invite you to visit us in Spoleto when you are in Italy. We have a little, welcoming apartment and love guests. Maybe you could put what you learned, thus far, into practice on us. We can butcher Italian together. We are only a short train ride away. www.haerr.blogspot.com
A presto, Denise & Steve