A few days ago, Maria proposed the idea to use the gift card (that we had given her as a thank you for a great year) to take all 8 of us out to lunch. We were very flattered by her unnecessary gesture and happily accepted the invitation. So, today at 12:15, we met outside of CLIDA and walked to the beautiful 5-star plus hotel, called Hotel Helvetia & Bristol, for what Maria and Piero called a "light lunch." The hotel is absolutely gorgeous. Before entering the dining room, we had aperitivo in the lobby on velvet couches while admiring beautiful paintings hanging on the wall. We drank prosecco and snacked on olives, pistachios, peanuts and potato chips. Mmmm :)
Our table was beautifully set and Maria and Piero had already picked a set menu for the 10 of us, which was delicious. We started with vegetable lasagna which was lightly fried in a rounded crepe-type of pasta. It was probably one of the best lasagnas that I had ever tasted. Then, they brought out an arugula, parmesan, braesola and olive salad that was incredible. Sadly, I couldn't finish it all because I was so full. For dessert we had chocolate, vanilla and hazelnut gelato in one of those cone bowls. The entire meal was out of this world and we had a great time chatting with Maria and Piero.
At the end of the lunch, we took a great group photo and shed some tears (again) for the amazing relationship that we had built with Maria and the chapter in our lives that is coming to a close. Maria and Piero are such wonderful people and I'm so thankful to have come to know them so well. We'll be writing each other and calling as often as possible.
After we said goodbye, a few of us sat in Piazza della Reppublica for a while to soak up the sun and then we bought some books for next year's Italian class at Holy Cross. Then, everyone else had to go to tutoring, so I walked around the center and bought a few last-minute things and then did some window shopping on the Ponte Vecchio. I don't know why I torture myself. Now I have a ring idea in my head that I'll never be able to afford. I'll keep searching.
We're all staying in tonight because last night was pretty crazy and because everyone has a final exam on Monday. Mine is on Tuesday, so I fortunately have one extra day to study. To be quite honest though, I'd rather just get the thing over with. I think I'll just pack my bags a little bit tonight to get myself ready. I don't want to spend my last day in Florence packing.
On a side note, Miss Maggie Rossi found a great video of Dario Cecchini on the Bertolli website. Dario is the out-of-his-mind butcher that runs the restaurant, McDario in Chianti. Piero and Maria took us there in April, and we had a great time, so I thought I'd throw the video up here so that everyone could see how whacked out (and brilliant) this man is. I didn't realize that he was so world-famous! Aren't we lucky?!
A dopo!
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Why America needs to change over to the Metric System
Before I get into the meat of this blog entry, I'd like to point out that we all did fabulously well on our Storia del Costume final today. I got a 30/30 and was as a result, very pleased to close those books for good. No more conversations on fashion terms; that subject's all over! I will miss little Isabella Bigazzi, though. She was such an adorable professor. Today she and I, aside from completing the oral exam, talked about how much I supposedly "loved fabrics" and appreciated their wealth and value. Grace reported that during her exam, the two of them talked about Grace's awesome jewelry, a topic brought up completely by our professor.
Anyway, after the exam, we all felt great and spent the whole day getting last minute souvenirs for people. Andrea and I returned home around 6:00 and started cooking the reason why America needs to change over to the Metric System. A few weeks ago, we had told Maria Pia that we wanted to make her an American BBQ, and we chose this evening to see it through.
Our menu consisted of cheeseburgers, corn on the cob, dilled potato salad, pasta salad, and chocolate chip cookies. The hardest ingredients to find were brown sugar and dill, but with a little searching in the American stores, we ended up with everything we needed. All to be cooked went fairly well, considering the fact that we had a lot of trouble properly converting and then cutting each recipe in half to be served to only 3 people. The problems escalated with the chocolate chip cookies, since baking is supposed to be a fairly exact science. We did our best to convert from cups to grams and to properly divide the recipe, but we ended up with more of a cookie cake than individual cookies. When we watched the cookies melting together in the oven before our eyes, we determined that perhaps we had needed more flour. They ended up tasting more or less the same, but just looked like squares instead of circles!
Maria Pia loved it all, especially the potato salad and cookies. She had 6 cookies! This was the one day that she chose to break the diet she's been working very hard on and I'm really glad that she felt that our dinner merited it. She's always making us these fabulous Italian meals, so she certainly deserved to try an American tradition.
However, all this ladies and gentlemen, is why America needs to chill out and convert to the Metric System. We're the last ones in the world on the senseless system and we really need to get with the program!
Tomorrow, we are meeting our Italian Professor from Holy Cross (Professor Amatangelo) for lunch. She is visiting with her family from the States. I can't wait!
Ciao!
Anyway, after the exam, we all felt great and spent the whole day getting last minute souvenirs for people. Andrea and I returned home around 6:00 and started cooking the reason why America needs to change over to the Metric System. A few weeks ago, we had told Maria Pia that we wanted to make her an American BBQ, and we chose this evening to see it through.
Our menu consisted of cheeseburgers, corn on the cob, dilled potato salad, pasta salad, and chocolate chip cookies. The hardest ingredients to find were brown sugar and dill, but with a little searching in the American stores, we ended up with everything we needed. All to be cooked went fairly well, considering the fact that we had a lot of trouble properly converting and then cutting each recipe in half to be served to only 3 people. The problems escalated with the chocolate chip cookies, since baking is supposed to be a fairly exact science. We did our best to convert from cups to grams and to properly divide the recipe, but we ended up with more of a cookie cake than individual cookies. When we watched the cookies melting together in the oven before our eyes, we determined that perhaps we had needed more flour. They ended up tasting more or less the same, but just looked like squares instead of circles!
Maria Pia loved it all, especially the potato salad and cookies. She had 6 cookies! This was the one day that she chose to break the diet she's been working very hard on and I'm really glad that she felt that our dinner merited it. She's always making us these fabulous Italian meals, so she certainly deserved to try an American tradition.
However, all this ladies and gentlemen, is why America needs to chill out and convert to the Metric System. We're the last ones in the world on the senseless system and we really need to get with the program!
Tomorrow, we are meeting our Italian Professor from Holy Cross (Professor Amatangelo) for lunch. She is visiting with her family from the States. I can't wait!
Ciao!
Saturday, May 22, 2010
One of the best weekends in Florence
Ciao everyone!
As the title states, yes, this was one of the best weekends ever. It all started on Thursday (we were a little antsy to kick it off) when Jeff put his brilliant plan of "Tourist Week" into action. To be honest, I was a little skeptical about what he was trying to do when I received his Facebook invite, but I humored him. I'm thrilled I did so because we had a blast. In this Facebook invite, Jeff explained that he wanted for us to enjoy Florence together before leaving and that he wanted to have the opportunity to take pictures of the typical tourist sites that he had never gotten around to photographing. He instructed us to dress as "obnoxious American tourist" as possible, with maps in hand, cameras around our neck, and sweatshirts tied on our hips. Jeff would play our "tour guide" and lead us around Florence, while we pretended that we had no idea where we were and made a lot of noise.
On Thursday morning, we met in Piazza della Reppublica, and we were all pleasantly surprised to see how seriously everyone had taken this Tourist week. We looked like fools, basically. Jeff had bought old man glasses, wore high socks, high-waisted shorts, gym sneakers, a backwards hat, and carried an extended umbrella (as all the Florence tour guides do to keep everyone following behind). Carla had crazy-looking sunglasses with the lenses popped out, a "Texas" shirt, really weird denim shorts, high socks, high-top converses, pig tails, and a backpack. I did my best with what I had, but I had purposely left all American looking things at home in the US. I wore Paul's Westminster Lacrosse t-shirt, as lacrosse doesn't even exist in Europe. I tied a sweatshirt around my waist and wore a satchel that I borrowed from Maria Pia that had "Swan Tours" written on it. Everyone else looked pretty hilarious too.
We started with Bloody Mary's at 11:00 at this chic cafe in Piazza della Repubblica, Paszkowski. We looked like complete fools and somehow still managed to be asked out by one of the Italian waiters. He invited us to go dancing and his name was Giuseppe Acquafredda, which means "Joseph Cold Water." HA. We never called him. We had a great time making a scene at the bar and being silly. When we left, we followed behind Jeff, asking him where the Duomo was and what country we were in. We took touristy pictures in front of the Duomo and some real American tourists thought we looked so funny that they asked to take a picture of us. We all posed with our hands as peace signs. Most people seemed to understand that we were making fun of tourists, and weren't actually serious. So, that's probably a good thing. We walked around some more and then bought some wine coolers to draw more attention to ourselves. We actually passed by a legitimate tour group that commented "Hey! That group gets to drink on their tour!" I guess they were the only ones that thought we were serious. We had a fun encounter with the Polizia, but I completely forget why we approached them in the first place. Allow me to say that only in Italy can a person approach cops while drinking a bottle of wine and proceed to have a conversation with them. They seemed to think we were pretty amusing, and Carla and Grace got really involved in asking them stupid questions like, "So that Galileo guy... was he important?" After that hilarious encounter, we got lunch and called it a day because everyone (except for me) had a tutoring session. I bought a Universita di Firenze sweatshirt and went home.
Day 2 of tourist week was yesterday, and it wasn't quite as thrilling as Day 1 had been. However, we did see a tourist attraction that we had never seen throughout the year, the Medici Chapel. It was gorgeous, so we were content with our sightseeing experiences for the day. We also made a quick stop in the Accademia to see "David" for the last time. I must also remind everyone that we were dressed like idiots on this day as well. In fact, a very attractive middle-aged American woman thought Jeff was so adorable that she asked to take a picture with him. Jeff has a look that the cougars really go for with those pretty blue eyes and flowing hair. After the chapel, we all bought disgustingly tacky, sparkly shirts for "Eurotrash night," which occurred last night. As usual, I had trouble finding one, but I did get something that worked. It wasn't as awesome as everyone else's, though. I had tutoring from 2:30 to 5:30, and then I went home and changed.
We all met for dinner at Borgo Antico around 8 and had an awesome time there. Carla, Jeff and Grace have become pretty good friends with the owners there because they go so frequently, so we had fun joking around with them. Once we were ready to leave, we walked along the river to the outdoor discoteca, Central Park, to show off our "Eurotrash" looks. It's such an awesome place! I didn't stay very long because I was tired, but everyone else closed the place down. We had such a fun night.
This morning, we all met in Piazza della Repubblica at 11:30 to go to Vignamaggio for the second time with Maria (our Italian teacher) and her husband, Piero, and Gabriella and Alberto (the owners of CLIDA). The curves in the Chianti countryside were a little rough on all of us, as we had had a little too much fun the night before. It was the most picture-perfect day and Chianti really looked like a huge postcard. The car ride lasted about 30 minutes and when we arrived, the owner of Vignamaggio had set us a beautiful table in the sun room, where we ate our lunch. Naturally, just like the last time, the food was fabulous. We had pasta with fresh tomatoes, spinach and ricotta rolls with spicy sauce, crepes stuffed with cheese and artichokes, pork stuffed with fresh zucchini, mini pizzas, codfish, eggplant lasagna, and Florentine steak with onions sauteed in wine. There was probably more on the buffet, but I can't remember it all. For dessert, we had Vin Santo (dessert wine), crepes stuffed with cream, a flaky "sandwich" with cream and strawberries in the middle, and hazelnut coffee-flavored semifreddo. Incredible.
Just before we started dessert, we presented Maria, Gabriella and Alberto with their gifts. For Alberto and Gabriella, we put a group photo of us at their house into a really nice, wooden Holy Cross picture frame. Maggie also made Gabriella an espresso cup in her ceramic class, as Gabriella collects espresso cups. We also gave them flowers and a very heartfelt card. For Maria, we made a photo album with pictures that we had taken together, and also pictures of us students having a great time in Florence. Carla, our little artist, decorated the cover. Inside, we put Maria's card, which had a 150 euro "gift card" to her favorite restaurant. Her eyes bugged out of her head when she saw the gift card. Both she and Gabriella were so moved with the thoughtfulness of our gifts and all the women and girls cried for a good 15 minutes. It was an unforgettable moment. I was so happy at how well they received everything (not that I was worried). On a side note, the "gift card" actually turned out rather annoying to get. Because real gift cards don't exist in Italy, we had to explain our idea to the manager of the restaurant, who wrote us up a little credit on an order pad and stapled his business card to the top. We left the money with him and explained that they would be coming in soon for dinner. That was probably the best idea we could have had for Maria. She absolutely deserved it after all she taught us and all the places she took us.
After lunch, we all went outside and laid by the pool. It was such a beautiful spot, with a little wellness center and amazing hot tub that was inside, looking over the Chianti countryside. We all tanned for a little while and had an unforgettable time. I didn't swim in the pool, but Kevin, Maggie, Carla and Andrea did and practically came out as fast as they had jumped in. The water was FREEZING. So, I'm glad I didn't use the pool. The hot tub was better for me.
Around 5, we drove back into Florence and Andrea, Maggie and I walked around the center for a little while. It was such a gorgeous day that we didn't want to miss a single minute of it. I got my Dad a great birthday present (which I can't reveal on my blog because I know he's reading it!!!) and then we had iced teas in Piazza Santissima Annuziata. We came home around 8:00 and of course, Maria Pia had dinner waiting for us. Thankfully, we had reminded her to go light on the food, so she had made green beans and caprese salad. It was great, but now I have an awful stomach ache. WAY TOO MUCH food today. We've all decided to stay in tonight because we're full and exhausted from a great couple of days.
After this weekend, I feel so lucky to have spent the year here in Florence and to have met such amazing people through my language school. We have really formed an everlasting relationship with these people, and I am so thankful to have been able to spend so much time with them. I could not have asked for a more perfect day today. It seems to us that Gabriella, Alberto and Maria have formed a much tighter bond with us this year than with the students in previous years. They had mentioned that these were the most thoughtful gifts and cards that they had ever received from their students, and we were really pleased to hear that. We're thinking that they took to us so well because this is the first year that the entire group of students is friends. Usually, they break off into little groups of three and have problems with the others. This year, all 8 of us have become really close, making it enjoyable to spend time with us all together, as it's not awkward for Gabriella, Alberto and Maria to "force" us to frequent events as a group.
What a day. :)
A presto!
As the title states, yes, this was one of the best weekends ever. It all started on Thursday (we were a little antsy to kick it off) when Jeff put his brilliant plan of "Tourist Week" into action. To be honest, I was a little skeptical about what he was trying to do when I received his Facebook invite, but I humored him. I'm thrilled I did so because we had a blast. In this Facebook invite, Jeff explained that he wanted for us to enjoy Florence together before leaving and that he wanted to have the opportunity to take pictures of the typical tourist sites that he had never gotten around to photographing. He instructed us to dress as "obnoxious American tourist" as possible, with maps in hand, cameras around our neck, and sweatshirts tied on our hips. Jeff would play our "tour guide" and lead us around Florence, while we pretended that we had no idea where we were and made a lot of noise.
On Thursday morning, we met in Piazza della Reppublica, and we were all pleasantly surprised to see how seriously everyone had taken this Tourist week. We looked like fools, basically. Jeff had bought old man glasses, wore high socks, high-waisted shorts, gym sneakers, a backwards hat, and carried an extended umbrella (as all the Florence tour guides do to keep everyone following behind). Carla had crazy-looking sunglasses with the lenses popped out, a "Texas" shirt, really weird denim shorts, high socks, high-top converses, pig tails, and a backpack. I did my best with what I had, but I had purposely left all American looking things at home in the US. I wore Paul's Westminster Lacrosse t-shirt, as lacrosse doesn't even exist in Europe. I tied a sweatshirt around my waist and wore a satchel that I borrowed from Maria Pia that had "Swan Tours" written on it. Everyone else looked pretty hilarious too.
We started with Bloody Mary's at 11:00 at this chic cafe in Piazza della Repubblica, Paszkowski. We looked like complete fools and somehow still managed to be asked out by one of the Italian waiters. He invited us to go dancing and his name was Giuseppe Acquafredda, which means "Joseph Cold Water." HA. We never called him. We had a great time making a scene at the bar and being silly. When we left, we followed behind Jeff, asking him where the Duomo was and what country we were in. We took touristy pictures in front of the Duomo and some real American tourists thought we looked so funny that they asked to take a picture of us. We all posed with our hands as peace signs. Most people seemed to understand that we were making fun of tourists, and weren't actually serious. So, that's probably a good thing. We walked around some more and then bought some wine coolers to draw more attention to ourselves. We actually passed by a legitimate tour group that commented "Hey! That group gets to drink on their tour!" I guess they were the only ones that thought we were serious. We had a fun encounter with the Polizia, but I completely forget why we approached them in the first place. Allow me to say that only in Italy can a person approach cops while drinking a bottle of wine and proceed to have a conversation with them. They seemed to think we were pretty amusing, and Carla and Grace got really involved in asking them stupid questions like, "So that Galileo guy... was he important?" After that hilarious encounter, we got lunch and called it a day because everyone (except for me) had a tutoring session. I bought a Universita di Firenze sweatshirt and went home.
Day 2 of tourist week was yesterday, and it wasn't quite as thrilling as Day 1 had been. However, we did see a tourist attraction that we had never seen throughout the year, the Medici Chapel. It was gorgeous, so we were content with our sightseeing experiences for the day. We also made a quick stop in the Accademia to see "David" for the last time. I must also remind everyone that we were dressed like idiots on this day as well. In fact, a very attractive middle-aged American woman thought Jeff was so adorable that she asked to take a picture with him. Jeff has a look that the cougars really go for with those pretty blue eyes and flowing hair. After the chapel, we all bought disgustingly tacky, sparkly shirts for "Eurotrash night," which occurred last night. As usual, I had trouble finding one, but I did get something that worked. It wasn't as awesome as everyone else's, though. I had tutoring from 2:30 to 5:30, and then I went home and changed.
We all met for dinner at Borgo Antico around 8 and had an awesome time there. Carla, Jeff and Grace have become pretty good friends with the owners there because they go so frequently, so we had fun joking around with them. Once we were ready to leave, we walked along the river to the outdoor discoteca, Central Park, to show off our "Eurotrash" looks. It's such an awesome place! I didn't stay very long because I was tired, but everyone else closed the place down. We had such a fun night.
This morning, we all met in Piazza della Repubblica at 11:30 to go to Vignamaggio for the second time with Maria (our Italian teacher) and her husband, Piero, and Gabriella and Alberto (the owners of CLIDA). The curves in the Chianti countryside were a little rough on all of us, as we had had a little too much fun the night before. It was the most picture-perfect day and Chianti really looked like a huge postcard. The car ride lasted about 30 minutes and when we arrived, the owner of Vignamaggio had set us a beautiful table in the sun room, where we ate our lunch. Naturally, just like the last time, the food was fabulous. We had pasta with fresh tomatoes, spinach and ricotta rolls with spicy sauce, crepes stuffed with cheese and artichokes, pork stuffed with fresh zucchini, mini pizzas, codfish, eggplant lasagna, and Florentine steak with onions sauteed in wine. There was probably more on the buffet, but I can't remember it all. For dessert, we had Vin Santo (dessert wine), crepes stuffed with cream, a flaky "sandwich" with cream and strawberries in the middle, and hazelnut coffee-flavored semifreddo. Incredible.
Just before we started dessert, we presented Maria, Gabriella and Alberto with their gifts. For Alberto and Gabriella, we put a group photo of us at their house into a really nice, wooden Holy Cross picture frame. Maggie also made Gabriella an espresso cup in her ceramic class, as Gabriella collects espresso cups. We also gave them flowers and a very heartfelt card. For Maria, we made a photo album with pictures that we had taken together, and also pictures of us students having a great time in Florence. Carla, our little artist, decorated the cover. Inside, we put Maria's card, which had a 150 euro "gift card" to her favorite restaurant. Her eyes bugged out of her head when she saw the gift card. Both she and Gabriella were so moved with the thoughtfulness of our gifts and all the women and girls cried for a good 15 minutes. It was an unforgettable moment. I was so happy at how well they received everything (not that I was worried). On a side note, the "gift card" actually turned out rather annoying to get. Because real gift cards don't exist in Italy, we had to explain our idea to the manager of the restaurant, who wrote us up a little credit on an order pad and stapled his business card to the top. We left the money with him and explained that they would be coming in soon for dinner. That was probably the best idea we could have had for Maria. She absolutely deserved it after all she taught us and all the places she took us.
After lunch, we all went outside and laid by the pool. It was such a beautiful spot, with a little wellness center and amazing hot tub that was inside, looking over the Chianti countryside. We all tanned for a little while and had an unforgettable time. I didn't swim in the pool, but Kevin, Maggie, Carla and Andrea did and practically came out as fast as they had jumped in. The water was FREEZING. So, I'm glad I didn't use the pool. The hot tub was better for me.
Around 5, we drove back into Florence and Andrea, Maggie and I walked around the center for a little while. It was such a gorgeous day that we didn't want to miss a single minute of it. I got my Dad a great birthday present (which I can't reveal on my blog because I know he's reading it!!!) and then we had iced teas in Piazza Santissima Annuziata. We came home around 8:00 and of course, Maria Pia had dinner waiting for us. Thankfully, we had reminded her to go light on the food, so she had made green beans and caprese salad. It was great, but now I have an awful stomach ache. WAY TOO MUCH food today. We've all decided to stay in tonight because we're full and exhausted from a great couple of days.
After this weekend, I feel so lucky to have spent the year here in Florence and to have met such amazing people through my language school. We have really formed an everlasting relationship with these people, and I am so thankful to have been able to spend so much time with them. I could not have asked for a more perfect day today. It seems to us that Gabriella, Alberto and Maria have formed a much tighter bond with us this year than with the students in previous years. They had mentioned that these were the most thoughtful gifts and cards that they had ever received from their students, and we were really pleased to hear that. We're thinking that they took to us so well because this is the first year that the entire group of students is friends. Usually, they break off into little groups of three and have problems with the others. This year, all 8 of us have become really close, making it enjoyable to spend time with us all together, as it's not awkward for Gabriella, Alberto and Maria to "force" us to frequent events as a group.
What a day. :)
A presto!
Monday, May 17, 2010
Last family gathering
Buongiorno a tutti!
Yesterday, I was the honorary guest at my goodbye party, hosted
by Antonio and Annarita. At 1pm, I went over their house, and every one of my
Italian family members was there: Annarita, Benedetta, Antonio, Antonella,
Alessandro, Arianna, Andrea, Alberto, Maria, Maurizio. Even Marcella (one of my
Grandmother’s best friends) and Renato (her boyfriend) came!! When I arrived
there, I hung around outside with Alberto while he manned the grill. Maria came
out to join us and gave me such a thoughtful gift. She and Alberto had gone to
Bosnia a few weeks ago and bought me a blessed pendant of the Madonna. I was so
touched. Of course following my receipt of the gift Alberto asked me, “You’re
Catholic right?” I said, “I’m on a level just shy of Catholicism, because my Dad
is Catholic, but my mother was Protestant; so when they were married, they
decided to meet halfway.” He didn’t seem to like my answer so he said, “Your
Grandmother was Catholic, so you’re Catholic.” I left it at that. There is no
convincing an 87-year-old man of anything.
We ate lunch on Antonio and Annarita’s new and beautiful
enclosed patio, at a long white table. The food, as always, was incredible. We
started with oversized ravioli in a mushroom cream sauce. Then we had penne
with a tomato, mushroom and pancetta sauce. Then, we had grilled chicken
drumsticks, grilled ribs, grilled sausages, and grilled steak with arugula and
parmesan cheese on top. We had sautéed mushrooms and lightly French fried
potatoes on the side. We drank amazing Calabrese wine, which was so light and
perfect for the occasion. Annarita put mushrooms in almost every dish because
she knew how much I loved them. She doesn’t even care for them that much! What
a sweetheart to think of me so sincerely.
The most memorable part of the whole party was when they
collectively gave me a heartfelt card and a pair of gorgeous gold earrings from
the Ponte Vecchio. Because Italian calligraphy is so difficult to read,
Benedetta read the card aloud for everyone, and we were all moved to tears.
Antonella wrote the most beautiful things on behalf of everyone. I was so touched.
Here’s what it said and then I’ll put the translation:
This was the cover of the card:
“Non
accontentarti mai, perché oltre all’orizzonte c’è sempre l’infinito.”
(Jim Morrison)
Here is what was written on the inside:
Cara Elsa,
Sono proprio la
tua curiosità, l’intelligenza e la voglia di sapere che ti danno la spinta ad
andare oltre il tuo orizzonte e ad oltre passare l’oceano. Qui hai trovato
tante cose nuove e tante cose vecchie, ma soprattutto hai trovato la tua
famiglia italiana, di cui avevi sentito parlare dalla tua nonna Rosa. Noi
speriamo di non aver deluso quel che immaginavi di noi e quanto ricordavi da
racconti e vecchie foto. Sicuramente tu per noi sei stata una sorpresa
bellissima, sei veramente una bella persona, completa di gentilezza e dolcezza,
decisione e forza d’animo che già avevamo conosciuto in zia Rosa. Cara Elsa,
grazie di cuore da tutti noi per aver voluto conoscere l’Italia, la nostra
lingua e la tua famiglia qui. Ti auguriamo le cose più belle, tante salute,
tante gioie e fortuna nel lavoro e in amore. Ma speriamo anche di rivederti
negli anni che verranno, e ci auguriamo che il filo che unisce la famiglia
americana e quella italiana sia forte e ben stretto nelle tue mani come lo è stato nelle mani di zia Filomena e zia Rosa. Un bacio e
un abbraccio forte da
TUTTI!
(I had to get that down before I forgot what it said, since it’s so
hard to read.)
Here’s the translation:
This is a loose translation of the quote, because I couldn't find it online:
"Don't let yourself be satisfied because beyond the horizon, there is always the infinite." (Jim Morrison)
Dear
Elsa,
It is your
curiosity, intelligence and desire to know that gives you the push to travel
beyond your horizon and across the ocean. Here you found many things new and
many old, but above all, you have found your Italian family, that about which
you have heard spoken by your Grandmother Rose. We hope not to have
disappointed what you have imagined of us, and all that you remember from
stories and old photos. For us, you were certainly a very wonderful surprise;
you really are a beautiful person, complete with kindness and sweetness,
decidedness and strength of soul that we had already come to know in Aunt Rose.
Dear Elsa, thank you from the hearts of all of us for wanting to know Italy,
our language, and your family here. We wish you the most beautiful things, good
health, many joys, and luck in work and love. But, we hope also to see you
again in the years that come, and we hope that the thread which unites the
American and Italian families is strong and tight in your hands, as it was in
the hands of Aunt Filomena and Aunt Rose. A kiss and a big hug from
ALL!
So after reading that, I’m pretty sure it’s obvious how
easily the tears soaked the table. I was so touched, and crying can certainly
become a chain reaction, especially when you’re with your family.
For dessert, they brought out a beautiful cake with the
words written “Ciao Elsa” across the whole thing. I cannot forget to mention
that Annarita had heard me last weekend talking about how much I had loved the
cake at Benedetta’s birthday party, so today’s cake was the exact same thing,
down to the bakery. It’s called Millefoglie, and it’s the best cake I have ever
tasted (and probably will ever taste) in my life. There were also strawberries
in syrup and dessert champagne which they had me open. They asked me to make a
toast, which I of course panicked about briefly. I came up with (in Italian, of
course): “Thank you all for your presence today, for your gifts, and for being
my family.” I guess it worked well considering the fact that most of the women
broke down and cried, and even Maurizio a little bit!
After our long lunch, we cleaned up and I hung out with
Arianna, Bendetta and Andrea for a little while. Then, Antonella took me to the
bus stop, and I came home. I was so sad to say goodbye to everyone, especially
Alberto and Maria. Maria was a mess because I think she’s worried that she and
Alberto won’t have the chance to see me again, since they are so late in their
lives. I told them how much I loved them and how much they meant to me, and I
plan to call them as often as possible when I get home, just in case what Maria
thinks turns out to be true. Alberto sent me home with two bottles of wine for
my Dad, wrapped in bubble wrap and masking tape. On the masking tape he wrote:
“Insieme alla tua donna bevi in buona salute. Stai attento a
non ubriacarti. Insieme ci ubriacheremo allorche vieni in Italia. Tanti cari
abbracci da tutti noi di famiglia. Il ginocchio mi fa tanto male. Ciao Prus.
Alberto.”
“Together with your
woman drink in good health. Pay attention not to get drunk. We will get drunk
together when you come to Italy. Many dear hugs from all of the family. My knee
hurts very badly. Goodbye Prus. Alberto.”
I guess Alberto heard wrong on Dad’s name. It’s ok, Prus
sounds just as good. :)
The whole knee statement while completely out of context and hilarious, is
Alberto’s plea for the pain-killing cream that my Grandmother used to bring
him. Dad’s working on the package and will be sending it to Alberto so that he
doesn’t have to be in pain much longer.
As for the rest of the family, Annarita and Antonella
wouldn’t allow the party to be the last time they saw me, which I knew would
happen. They will be coming into the center of Florence to take me for gelato
sometime in the next 2 weeks. Thank goodness I didn’t have to say goodbye to
Benedetta and Andrea, since they are coming to America. Benedetta asked me
today for help buying her an iPhone in the States. I have no idea what I’m
doing with that technology, so thank goodness for Paul. I can’t wait to show
them what America is all about!
All I have to say is that I’m so thankful for this family.
Each one of them is just as amazing as the next. Even if I hadn’t learned
anything else this year, knowing my Italian family has been the biggest treat
of my whole experience here, and that would have been enough.
I’ll miss them, but I’ll be back soon!
Saturday, May 15, 2010
2nd Last
On Thursday night, we had our final dinner at Elisa's house (my second "last"). The day's build-up to the event brought along some troubles, which naturally always start with the public transportation system. We were supposed to arrive at 7:45 pm in front of the David at Piazzale Michelangelo to meet Elisa, so I left my house around 6:15, knowing I would need at least 45 minutes on the bus with the traffic that I knew would be heavy at that hour. The bus was moving along nicely until it passed the two stops at which I would have been better off disembarking, as I quickly concluded when we were stopped dead in traffic for 45 minutes outside the station. During this time, I was thankful that the bus wasn't packed and that it wasn't a hot day because I probably would have punched someone otherwise. I was minding my own business and very antsy about making it to Elisa's on time, as it was already 7:15 and I was only outside the station (From my house to the station should be a 20 minute bus ride, on a normal day. It had been an hour at this point.) At a certain point, I heard loud gasps coming from the back of the bus and thought "Oh no. Who has a gun?" Fortunately, I was wrong about the gun and turned around to see an amusing scene. A euro-trash, trying-to-look-awesome, Albanian man had opened a beer on the bus, and it exploded all over the elderly woman sitting next to him (that his friend had offered his seat to 15 minutes prior) and 2 women in the seats in front of him. They most certainly weren't the happiest about it, and it made matters worse that he really didn't know how to apologize in Italian. He just sat there smiling stupidly and saying "Scusa," which is completely incorrect because he should have been using the formal, or the plural "you" form. So, for the rest of the ride, everyone was wiping themselves off and trying to ignore the stench of alcoholism within the bus.
When I got to the bus stop to switch to a bus in the direction of Piazzale Michelangelo, I popped my head out and saw Maggie and Maggie motioning for me to stay on the bus. They hopped on and we rode it to the other side of the river, and then walked up to the Piazzale, which was very pleasant. When we got there, we encountered Grace and Carla, and it was about 7:45. I couldn't believe that with all the bus traffic I had made it on time.
When we got together and realized that it would be our last time seeing Elisa and we had forgotten to get her a present (which is HUGE in Italian culture), horror took over our usually pleasant-looking faces. We panicked and scrambled around Piazzale Michelangelo looking for flowers, which were nowhere to be found. All of the stands were selling stupid tourist things that Elisa would most certainly have hated, and probably been offended by. At that moment, I thought to call Jeff because he had yet to arrive, and we hoped he would be near a flower stand or something. Calling him brought along more terror as he informed us that he had been stuck in my same bus traffic and hadn't even made it to his house yet to change!!! He lives far out of the city, and his bus runs very infrequently, mind you all. Considering the not-so-warm relationship that Jeff has with Elisa, we panicked even more about his tardiness, while still trying to make Elisa's present appear from thin air. Of course, the girls all blamed me in having a flub of less-than-thoughtful thinking. But, we had to move on quickly so as not to waste any time while we were waiting for Elisa to arrive and pick us up.
Suddenly, Carla had a stroke of brilliance. Way back in September, Elisa had taken us on one of our first cultural outings to see a metal artisan. Carla has since then visited the metal artisan religiously and has bought tons of jewelry from him, a lot which she happened to be wearing. Thinking on her feet, she took off one of her adorable bracelets with a huge rose and said "We'll give her this. I really don't mind." We were in no situation to refuse a gift of this type, so we searched for something to wrap it in. Miraculously, Carla had tissue paper in her purse, though I don't know why. We made one of those little sacks out of it and put the bracelet in. However, we had no ribbon to tie it, making the fact that this was a "panic present" very obvious. Then, Grace had a moment of quick thinking when she eyed the Zara (a clothing store) shopping bag that I was holding. She grabbed it from my hand and ripped off the brown handles, which she tied around the tissue paper for what she excused as the "au natural" look. It totally worked.
Elisa arrived in that moment, and Carla shoved the present in her purse. Only 3 girls fit in the car, so Carla and I stayed behind to pretty the present. When Elisa came back for us, she found us giving directions to two women who were lost. They spoke only Spanish, so we used our Italian. It might have worked, but who knows. Elisa drove us up higher on the hill and we arrived at her house, which is walled in and sealed off with one of those awesome automatic gates. I knew that she was well-off just by knowing the area in which she lived, (not to mention that fact that she's an Art History PhD and Florence tour guide, and her husband is an engineer) but this complex was incredible. Carla and I were still shaking about the present thing, but we collected ourselves and walked into the beautiful villa to greet her husband, Marco, who is so charming and adorable, and the cutest little girl I had ever seen, their daughter, Elena Sofia. She is just about 3 years old and quite the talker. Hearing little kids speak better Italian than I do usually makes me melt, so this little peanut gave me the effect times 10. She was wheeling around a little baby carriage with teddies in it, and everyone was completely awestruck by her.
Elisa led us all outside to show us "the view" from her backyard, and Elena Sofia kept wheeling her carriage along with us, chatting up a storm and speaking in beautiful, full sentences. I knew she would be smart just by looking at her parents, but I was still very shocked and impressed. Apparently, she's "picking up" English too because Elisa and Marco speak it so often. We got to her backyard and saw their personal olive grove from which they make olive oil, and the most spectacular private view of the Florence skyline that I had ever seen. What an unbelievable piece of property. Marco explained to us that his great-grandfather had bought the land a long time ago, and now the huge villas are sectioned off to house a large part of his family. So cool.
We went inside and sat down to the dinner that Andrea and Kevin had prepared as their ICIP final presentation. (They both took a cooking class with Elisa's mother for their ICIPs). All of the food was amazing. We had a pesto lasagna and a vegetable lasagna, which were both heavenly. Then we had meat that was so soft we didn't even need knives. For our side dish, we had vegetable spring rolls, wrapped in cabbage leaves. Dessert consisted of tiramisu and strawberries, and both were incredibly delicious, especially considering the fact that strawberries are now in season. They really know what they're doing here in Italy with the cuisine.
To backtrack, by the end of the pasta course, it was 9 pm and Jeff still hadn't arrived. Elisa was getting PISSED because she felt that he hadn't taken her invitation to dinner seriously. Grace called Jeff to find out that he had been waiting at his bus stop, and the man waiting next to him had flipped off the driver, so he drove past the stop as punishment. So aside from being late to begin with, everything seemed to be working against him. He had made it to the bottom of Piazzale Michelangelo and was planning to walk up to the meeting spot that we had all left from about 1.5 hours before. Elisa was still very angry and sent her mother to pick him up in the piazza, even though she had no idea what he looked like. Jeff later informed us that she had been driving around the piazza screaming Jeff's name out the window, in order to find him. Just imagine the image of an old lady trying to find her date, which is exactly what it seemed like.
During the main course, Jeff walked in the door and Elisa's face lit up in sheer joy. He made the most perfect entrance, wearing khakis, a button down and a BOW TIE and carrying the flowers that I had made him buy during our panic session. At that point, it was better that Jeff had taken the credit for the flowers; he needed it to survive Elisa. Once Jeff walked in, the tension in the air was cleared and Elisa was so pleased that Jeff had been late because he had been taking his preparation for the dinner so seriously, as she thought.
During the meal, we all described our experiences with our ICIP projects and she gave us little Pinocchio's. Then, it was time to give her our present. Everyone did a great job in keeping a straight face and Elisa absolutely loved the bracelet! She put it right on and commented excitedly at how fondly we must have remembered our first cultural outing together to get her a bracelet from the actual site. Carla was sitting right next to her and says she saw the complete happiness in her eyes when she opened our gift. We breathed a sigh of relief after our quick thinking, and the dinner was complete.
At 10:30, a hired driver came to the house to pick us all up. We hugged Elisa goodbye and thanked her, and she actually cried! We're thinking that she probably liked us a lot more than people in other years because we were actually polite to her and thought to give her a present, which I'm sure she doesn't get often. I think we all started off on the wrong foot with her because she was very difficult to have as a tutor. Once second semester rolled around and we saw her only for non school-related things, she was very pleasant and fun to be around. So, we were actually sad to say goodbye in thinking about all the great outings she had done with us and all the strings she had pulled to make us happy at school.
Even though the hired driver was supposed to take us all to our respective homes, we were in a good mood and requested to be driven into the city center. We ended up partying and dancing until about 3 am. What an awesome night.
I forgot to mention that Carla was completely convinced that Marco, Elisa's husband, was American. He speaks English sooo perfectly with the right inflection, accent, and comedic timing that I would most certainly believe it if he had told me he were American. I can't believe how intelligent these people are. It's just amazing. Even though Elisa was a little tough to us in the beginning of the year, I'm certainly going to keep in touch with her. She's a great contact in Italy if I ever want to come over again to work or something.
So, that's another tearful "last" under the belt. Now I'm going shoe shopping :)
A dopo!
When I got to the bus stop to switch to a bus in the direction of Piazzale Michelangelo, I popped my head out and saw Maggie and Maggie motioning for me to stay on the bus. They hopped on and we rode it to the other side of the river, and then walked up to the Piazzale, which was very pleasant. When we got there, we encountered Grace and Carla, and it was about 7:45. I couldn't believe that with all the bus traffic I had made it on time.
When we got together and realized that it would be our last time seeing Elisa and we had forgotten to get her a present (which is HUGE in Italian culture), horror took over our usually pleasant-looking faces. We panicked and scrambled around Piazzale Michelangelo looking for flowers, which were nowhere to be found. All of the stands were selling stupid tourist things that Elisa would most certainly have hated, and probably been offended by. At that moment, I thought to call Jeff because he had yet to arrive, and we hoped he would be near a flower stand or something. Calling him brought along more terror as he informed us that he had been stuck in my same bus traffic and hadn't even made it to his house yet to change!!! He lives far out of the city, and his bus runs very infrequently, mind you all. Considering the not-so-warm relationship that Jeff has with Elisa, we panicked even more about his tardiness, while still trying to make Elisa's present appear from thin air. Of course, the girls all blamed me in having a flub of less-than-thoughtful thinking. But, we had to move on quickly so as not to waste any time while we were waiting for Elisa to arrive and pick us up.
Suddenly, Carla had a stroke of brilliance. Way back in September, Elisa had taken us on one of our first cultural outings to see a metal artisan. Carla has since then visited the metal artisan religiously and has bought tons of jewelry from him, a lot which she happened to be wearing. Thinking on her feet, she took off one of her adorable bracelets with a huge rose and said "We'll give her this. I really don't mind." We were in no situation to refuse a gift of this type, so we searched for something to wrap it in. Miraculously, Carla had tissue paper in her purse, though I don't know why. We made one of those little sacks out of it and put the bracelet in. However, we had no ribbon to tie it, making the fact that this was a "panic present" very obvious. Then, Grace had a moment of quick thinking when she eyed the Zara (a clothing store) shopping bag that I was holding. She grabbed it from my hand and ripped off the brown handles, which she tied around the tissue paper for what she excused as the "au natural" look. It totally worked.
Elisa arrived in that moment, and Carla shoved the present in her purse. Only 3 girls fit in the car, so Carla and I stayed behind to pretty the present. When Elisa came back for us, she found us giving directions to two women who were lost. They spoke only Spanish, so we used our Italian. It might have worked, but who knows. Elisa drove us up higher on the hill and we arrived at her house, which is walled in and sealed off with one of those awesome automatic gates. I knew that she was well-off just by knowing the area in which she lived, (not to mention that fact that she's an Art History PhD and Florence tour guide, and her husband is an engineer) but this complex was incredible. Carla and I were still shaking about the present thing, but we collected ourselves and walked into the beautiful villa to greet her husband, Marco, who is so charming and adorable, and the cutest little girl I had ever seen, their daughter, Elena Sofia. She is just about 3 years old and quite the talker. Hearing little kids speak better Italian than I do usually makes me melt, so this little peanut gave me the effect times 10. She was wheeling around a little baby carriage with teddies in it, and everyone was completely awestruck by her.
Elisa led us all outside to show us "the view" from her backyard, and Elena Sofia kept wheeling her carriage along with us, chatting up a storm and speaking in beautiful, full sentences. I knew she would be smart just by looking at her parents, but I was still very shocked and impressed. Apparently, she's "picking up" English too because Elisa and Marco speak it so often. We got to her backyard and saw their personal olive grove from which they make olive oil, and the most spectacular private view of the Florence skyline that I had ever seen. What an unbelievable piece of property. Marco explained to us that his great-grandfather had bought the land a long time ago, and now the huge villas are sectioned off to house a large part of his family. So cool.
We went inside and sat down to the dinner that Andrea and Kevin had prepared as their ICIP final presentation. (They both took a cooking class with Elisa's mother for their ICIPs). All of the food was amazing. We had a pesto lasagna and a vegetable lasagna, which were both heavenly. Then we had meat that was so soft we didn't even need knives. For our side dish, we had vegetable spring rolls, wrapped in cabbage leaves. Dessert consisted of tiramisu and strawberries, and both were incredibly delicious, especially considering the fact that strawberries are now in season. They really know what they're doing here in Italy with the cuisine.
To backtrack, by the end of the pasta course, it was 9 pm and Jeff still hadn't arrived. Elisa was getting PISSED because she felt that he hadn't taken her invitation to dinner seriously. Grace called Jeff to find out that he had been waiting at his bus stop, and the man waiting next to him had flipped off the driver, so he drove past the stop as punishment. So aside from being late to begin with, everything seemed to be working against him. He had made it to the bottom of Piazzale Michelangelo and was planning to walk up to the meeting spot that we had all left from about 1.5 hours before. Elisa was still very angry and sent her mother to pick him up in the piazza, even though she had no idea what he looked like. Jeff later informed us that she had been driving around the piazza screaming Jeff's name out the window, in order to find him. Just imagine the image of an old lady trying to find her date, which is exactly what it seemed like.
During the main course, Jeff walked in the door and Elisa's face lit up in sheer joy. He made the most perfect entrance, wearing khakis, a button down and a BOW TIE and carrying the flowers that I had made him buy during our panic session. At that point, it was better that Jeff had taken the credit for the flowers; he needed it to survive Elisa. Once Jeff walked in, the tension in the air was cleared and Elisa was so pleased that Jeff had been late because he had been taking his preparation for the dinner so seriously, as she thought.
During the meal, we all described our experiences with our ICIP projects and she gave us little Pinocchio's. Then, it was time to give her our present. Everyone did a great job in keeping a straight face and Elisa absolutely loved the bracelet! She put it right on and commented excitedly at how fondly we must have remembered our first cultural outing together to get her a bracelet from the actual site. Carla was sitting right next to her and says she saw the complete happiness in her eyes when she opened our gift. We breathed a sigh of relief after our quick thinking, and the dinner was complete.
At 10:30, a hired driver came to the house to pick us all up. We hugged Elisa goodbye and thanked her, and she actually cried! We're thinking that she probably liked us a lot more than people in other years because we were actually polite to her and thought to give her a present, which I'm sure she doesn't get often. I think we all started off on the wrong foot with her because she was very difficult to have as a tutor. Once second semester rolled around and we saw her only for non school-related things, she was very pleasant and fun to be around. So, we were actually sad to say goodbye in thinking about all the great outings she had done with us and all the strings she had pulled to make us happy at school.
Even though the hired driver was supposed to take us all to our respective homes, we were in a good mood and requested to be driven into the city center. We ended up partying and dancing until about 3 am. What an awesome night.
I forgot to mention that Carla was completely convinced that Marco, Elisa's husband, was American. He speaks English sooo perfectly with the right inflection, accent, and comedic timing that I would most certainly believe it if he had told me he were American. I can't believe how intelligent these people are. It's just amazing. Even though Elisa was a little tough to us in the beginning of the year, I'm certainly going to keep in touch with her. She's a great contact in Italy if I ever want to come over again to work or something.
So, that's another tearful "last" under the belt. Now I'm going shoe shopping :)
A dopo!
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Last ICIP session
I can't believe I just had my second "last." (The first was my last language class). Today marks 23 days until I board the plane back to the real world. What a weird feeling.
This morning, I went to my last ICIP session at Sacro Cuore Elementary School. The kids were extra adorable today, and though I was getting a little sick of the whole thing just a few weeks ago, I was sorry to say goodbye to everyone. Unfortunately, I couldn't play Pictionary with the 5th grade students as I had hoped because they were taking a final test. I had brought cookies and everything! So, I stayed and chatted with Eleonora (their teacher) for the first 45 minutes.
In the first grade class, I led the kids in a Bingo game and handed out candy I brought to the winners. They loved it and were just so adorable. I love all their little high voices and goofy faces. They are so hard to get mad at, even when they are being ridiculous. Midway through the Bingo game, I stopped back into the 5th grade class to say goodbye to my students, and they actually seemed sad to see me go, which I was a little surprised about. I didn't realize they liked me as much as they did! Most of the first graders didn't understand that I wouldn't be coming back, but I did see little Eleonora (one of my favorites) get a tear in her eye; so, I think she understood. I'm going to miss them.... Eleonora always hugged me and held my hand, Benedetta had the cutest chubby cheeks, Giulio had red hair and glasses and the sweetest gap-toothed smile. They were all precious.
Maybe I liked this ICIP a little better than I thought I did? Anyway, my second "last" is over, and now I have to move onto more, unfortunately. I'm going to spend the afternoon studying so that I can hopefully relax tonight.
Ciao!
This morning, I went to my last ICIP session at Sacro Cuore Elementary School. The kids were extra adorable today, and though I was getting a little sick of the whole thing just a few weeks ago, I was sorry to say goodbye to everyone. Unfortunately, I couldn't play Pictionary with the 5th grade students as I had hoped because they were taking a final test. I had brought cookies and everything! So, I stayed and chatted with Eleonora (their teacher) for the first 45 minutes.
In the first grade class, I led the kids in a Bingo game and handed out candy I brought to the winners. They loved it and were just so adorable. I love all their little high voices and goofy faces. They are so hard to get mad at, even when they are being ridiculous. Midway through the Bingo game, I stopped back into the 5th grade class to say goodbye to my students, and they actually seemed sad to see me go, which I was a little surprised about. I didn't realize they liked me as much as they did! Most of the first graders didn't understand that I wouldn't be coming back, but I did see little Eleonora (one of my favorites) get a tear in her eye; so, I think she understood. I'm going to miss them.... Eleonora always hugged me and held my hand, Benedetta had the cutest chubby cheeks, Giulio had red hair and glasses and the sweetest gap-toothed smile. They were all precious.
Maybe I liked this ICIP a little better than I thought I did? Anyway, my second "last" is over, and now I have to move onto more, unfortunately. I'm going to spend the afternoon studying so that I can hopefully relax tonight.
Ciao!
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Sunday lunch with the family
I was feeling a little lonely throughout the past few days here in Florence, so I called up Anarita on Thursday night and invited myself over for lunch for today. It's never an issue inviting myself because they are always trying to get me to visit as often as possible.
Antonio picked me up from the bus stop as usual, and we went to Alberto and Maria's so that they too could be included in our lunch. We had a really nice time, and I was glad to see both Benedetta's family and Maria and Alberto at the same time. The food was terribly unhealthy, but delicious. We had two types of pasta, one with mushrooms and the other with fish. I loved them. Then we had fried chicken, fried veal, fried eggplant, fried zucchini and fried artichokes. Those Neapolitan folks really love their fried food. Maria also made a fabulous cake with strawberries and cream, but it was WAY better than American strawberry shortcake because the cake part was soaked in strawberry and sugar juice. I was in heaven.
I also got a kick out of their family dynamic, as usual. Alberto can't hear well and also likes to annoy his family members, so he started singing at the table and speaking very loudly. He was driving Benedetta crazy because she was trying to talk to me and couldn't hear what I was saying. Benedetta yelled at Alberto and he thought it was funny, so he just started yelling and singing even louder. I wish my voice carried a little more because I was rather unsuccessful today in the conversation department with Alberto as my challenger.
On a side note, I expressed my nervousness to Anarita about being able to see everyone before leaving and she solved my problem for me. I was afraid that I would continue to go over for visits with them planning a next time for me every time, up until the day I had to leave. I just don't have time for that. Anarita understood, so she planned a big party for me for next Sunday, and the whole family will come to say goodbye to me then. They are sooo nice. I can't wait!!!
Anyway, I have to go write my final paper. I'm almost done and Benedetta said that she would proofread it for me. I'm sure there are a lot of grammatical errors, so that will really help me out.
A dopo!
Antonio picked me up from the bus stop as usual, and we went to Alberto and Maria's so that they too could be included in our lunch. We had a really nice time, and I was glad to see both Benedetta's family and Maria and Alberto at the same time. The food was terribly unhealthy, but delicious. We had two types of pasta, one with mushrooms and the other with fish. I loved them. Then we had fried chicken, fried veal, fried eggplant, fried zucchini and fried artichokes. Those Neapolitan folks really love their fried food. Maria also made a fabulous cake with strawberries and cream, but it was WAY better than American strawberry shortcake because the cake part was soaked in strawberry and sugar juice. I was in heaven.
I also got a kick out of their family dynamic, as usual. Alberto can't hear well and also likes to annoy his family members, so he started singing at the table and speaking very loudly. He was driving Benedetta crazy because she was trying to talk to me and couldn't hear what I was saying. Benedetta yelled at Alberto and he thought it was funny, so he just started yelling and singing even louder. I wish my voice carried a little more because I was rather unsuccessful today in the conversation department with Alberto as my challenger.
On a side note, I expressed my nervousness to Anarita about being able to see everyone before leaving and she solved my problem for me. I was afraid that I would continue to go over for visits with them planning a next time for me every time, up until the day I had to leave. I just don't have time for that. Anarita understood, so she planned a big party for me for next Sunday, and the whole family will come to say goodbye to me then. They are sooo nice. I can't wait!!!
Anyway, I have to go write my final paper. I'm almost done and Benedetta said that she would proofread it for me. I'm sure there are a lot of grammatical errors, so that will really help me out.
A dopo!
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Visiting La Coruna
Ciao everyone,
This weekend, instead of shipping off to Ireland as initially planned, I hopped on a trip to La Coruna, Spain with Kevin, Maggie Rossi and Carla. I thought about the Fanelli's a lot and sent along a few prayers throughout the weekend.
On Saturday morning, the 4 of us took the train to Rome and arrived at our hostel around 5 pm. It was a great place and soooo clean. That was Carla's first hostel experience, so I'm glad it was a good one for her. Once we were settled in, we met up with Lindsey Madlinger who studies through Holy Cross' classics program in Rome. The 5 of us went to Trastevere for dinner at Dar Poeta. For some reason, they weren't taking reservations for that night, so we had to wait about an hour and a half to get a table. We got a few drinks and stood outside while we waited in the pleasantly warm evening air. I was a little nervous when everyone started to get antsy about having to wait so long, but when we finally sat down and started eating, I wasn't worried anymore. Everyone went crazy over the pizzas and the nutella and ricotta calzone. We all decided that it was well worth the wait.
After dinner, we went to a bar/club in Campo dei Fiori and danced for the rest of the night. A few of Lindsey's friends joined us (some from HC, some not) and we had an awesome time. We arrived back at our hostel around 3 am and only had 2 hours of sleep before getting up for our long journey to Coruna. At 5 am we woke up and walked outside of our hostel, where a shuttle should have been arriving to bring us to the airport. It never showed up, so we called a cab who proceeded to yell at us in Italian about the shuttle that should be there instead. We had to call him twice, and both times he yelled at us. We didn't understand why he was so against coming to get us when it meant a good fare for him. While we waited for this asshole to arrive, another driver pulled up and said that he would take us to the airport. We didn't have much time to spare, so we started loading our things into the taxi. Bad idea. As we were prepping to leave, the asshole pulled up and started screaming at us and at the other driver for taking his fare. Nobody wanted to hear it from him, so we told him to calm down and moved all our things from the other guy's taxi to this jerk's taxi. Once we closed the door and told him where we were going, he shot off down the road, speeding like a maniac and making ridiculous turns. We were scared out of our minds and this guy didn't say a word. If we were still half asleep before the ride, we were certainly terrified awake after it. There was definitely something wrong with him.
We flew into Santiago de Compostela airport in Spain and waited 2 hours for our shuttle bus. We took the shuttle from Santiago to La Coruna and finally arrived there around 2 pm after traveling 9 hours. Kathryn, Chrissy, Hadley, Erica, Kathryn's boyfriend Pablo and his friend Carlos greeted us at the spot where the shuttle let us off and then got us settled in to our hotels. We went out for a great lunch, Spanish style (which means huge because lunch is the big meal in Spain). We shared salads, meats, cheeses and breads and it was all delicious.
After lunch, we walked around along the water. It was gorgeous! It made me think so much about the Vineyard, even though it looked nothing like it. It was refreshing to see water being that Florence can feel a little too cramped with buildings to see the dinky (and brown) Arno. After walking around, we went back to the hotel and showered, and then met for tapas at a really great place. According to the girls studying in Coruna, it was one of the best places, so it was evidently very crowded. Most of us got what we wanted to try, and we all stood outside to eat with the rest of the Spaniards taking their tapas. I had a fried veal filet with a grilled pepper and potatoes all on a little stick. I also had a tortilla (which is something like a quiche but much better) which I loved. Then, we went back to the hotel for drinks because bars don't open until around 2 am in Spain. When that time rolled around I was obviously exhausted but rallied to go out and experience the Spanish nightlife. The bar was great and made some awesome mojitos. Around 4 am, things turned a little sour for me when I fell asleep while dancing, and also discovered that my new jacket had been taken. We searched everywhere for the jacket and Pablo (Kat's boyfriend) felt so terrible. I was a little sad about it, but more tired than anything, so Kat walked me home to hit the hay. I heard the next day (Sunday) that everyone had stayed out until about 6:30 am, which is the norm- something I would never get used to.
On Sunday, Kat woke us up around 11 for breakfast at a great cafe, called Cafe Vecchio, that had some awesome muffins and chocolate chip cookies, two things that are non-existent in Italy. We were exhausted, so it took us a while to eat. After breakfast, we walked around some more and saw the rest of adorable Coruna. At a certain point after lunch kebabs, Kat went back for a nap and homework and Kevin also left for the hotel while Chrissy, Maggie and myself decided to walk a little more. We got some beautiful views of the water and then stopped for some coffee and tea at Cafe Vecchio for the second time. I headed back to the hotel to freshen up and change, and then Kevin and I went back out to meet Kat's host family. Her family is adorable- especially the two little girls, Maria (8) and Camino (5). But, they are serious balls of energy that never leave Kat's room and certainly drive her crazy sometimes. They were very excited to meet the famous Elsa and Kevin that they had heard so much about, so they climbed all over us and gave us little performances that were adorable but got a little tiring.
After meeting the family, we snuck out on the crazy kids to play "Assassin" with all the Coruna HC students before dinner. It was a lot of fun. Simple concept, but a great thrill. Then, we got a little dinner at a tapas place and headed home for bed. We had been exhausted from the night before, so we ended up sleeping until around 11 am. On Monday morning, all of the Coruna kids were in class until 12:30, so Maggie and I went for breakfast at Cafe Vecchio, which was hilarious because we didn't know a word of Spanish and English was completely foreign to the Coruna natives. We managed to survive and get exactly what we wanted, but with quite a struggle. After breakfast, we did a little shopping and then met up with Kat and Erica to continue the fun. Kevin was pretty ticked about the whole shopping thing, so it didn't last very long before we decided to go for lunch.
Kat, Hadley, Erica and Pablo took us to a great sushi restaurant and we all got Bento Boxes that came with Miso Soup, white rice, a beverage, and a dessert for only 8.25 euro! It was delicious :) Afterwards, Kat took Kevin to her cooking class so that the girls could shop more, but we didn't end up shopping and Kat and Kevin ended up skipping the cooking class anyway. So, Chrissy took Maggie and I to meet her host family, and Kat spent some time showing Kevin around. Chrissy's host family was very hippie and absolutely adorable. They were so excited to have visitors that they did their bests to speak in English and make us comfortable. It was much appreciated. After the visit, we stopped back at Kat's house with my teddy because the girls had requested to see it the day earlier. They loved him. This time, Maria was very sassy and insisted on singing and dancing to us while we "controlled the music" according to her demands. Little firecracker. Camino was a total doll and just crawled all over everyone.
We left Kat's host house around 8:30 and then went for a tortilla at one of Kat's favorite places. It was delicious. Then, we met up with Hadley, Erica and Carla for a nicer dinner at a new restaurant in town. It was the kind of place where they made everything on a wood-burning grill, and the food was incredible. Kat and I weren't that hungry, so we shared grilled tomatoes, grilled peppers and grilled chorizo. I loved it. The Corunians made sure that we also tried a Spanish after dinner liqueur that tasted something like Bailey's, but shockingly better. At the end of the dinner we bid farewell to everyone because we had to head back to Florence early the next day.
Yesterday morning, we woke up around 6 am and were in a cab to the station by 7:15. Our total trip back to Florence lasted 11 hours because we had to deal with so many different legs of the trip:
Cab from hotel to Coruna train station
Train from Coruna station to Santiago station
Cab from Santiago station to Santiago de Compostela airport
Plane from Santiago de Compostela airport to Rome Ciampino airport
Bus from Rome Ciampino airport to Rome Termini Station
Train from Rome Termini Station to Florence Santa Maria Novella
Bus from Santa Maria Novella to HOME with Maria Pia.
In the end, the trip was very successful and we all had a wonderful time. Coruna is a real gem, and I'm so glad that we could make it despite the distance we had to travel. I both loved and felt freaked out by my lack of communication with the Spanish language-only culture, but had a great time laughing about it. All the girls were great tour guides, and I felt that the vacation included just the right amount of relaxation and adventure. Kat's Pablo is a great guy, and probably the only Spaniard in Coruna that speaks fluent English (though Kat doesn't use it with him). Now, I'm back in Florence and the forecast looks like rain until at least Sunday which is kind of a bummer, but I do have a ton of work to do, so it's a blessing in disguise I guess.
I also found out today (the day I would have been scheduled to fly out of Dublin) that there have been more ash emissions from the volcano in Iceland and that the Dublin airport, along with many others, is closed. Therefore, Grace and Jeff are stuck in Dublin until Friday AT THE EARLIEST. I think I would have been beside myself if my vacation in Ireland had gone as originally planned. It's so odd how things happen.
A dopo!
This weekend, instead of shipping off to Ireland as initially planned, I hopped on a trip to La Coruna, Spain with Kevin, Maggie Rossi and Carla. I thought about the Fanelli's a lot and sent along a few prayers throughout the weekend.
On Saturday morning, the 4 of us took the train to Rome and arrived at our hostel around 5 pm. It was a great place and soooo clean. That was Carla's first hostel experience, so I'm glad it was a good one for her. Once we were settled in, we met up with Lindsey Madlinger who studies through Holy Cross' classics program in Rome. The 5 of us went to Trastevere for dinner at Dar Poeta. For some reason, they weren't taking reservations for that night, so we had to wait about an hour and a half to get a table. We got a few drinks and stood outside while we waited in the pleasantly warm evening air. I was a little nervous when everyone started to get antsy about having to wait so long, but when we finally sat down and started eating, I wasn't worried anymore. Everyone went crazy over the pizzas and the nutella and ricotta calzone. We all decided that it was well worth the wait.
After dinner, we went to a bar/club in Campo dei Fiori and danced for the rest of the night. A few of Lindsey's friends joined us (some from HC, some not) and we had an awesome time. We arrived back at our hostel around 3 am and only had 2 hours of sleep before getting up for our long journey to Coruna. At 5 am we woke up and walked outside of our hostel, where a shuttle should have been arriving to bring us to the airport. It never showed up, so we called a cab who proceeded to yell at us in Italian about the shuttle that should be there instead. We had to call him twice, and both times he yelled at us. We didn't understand why he was so against coming to get us when it meant a good fare for him. While we waited for this asshole to arrive, another driver pulled up and said that he would take us to the airport. We didn't have much time to spare, so we started loading our things into the taxi. Bad idea. As we were prepping to leave, the asshole pulled up and started screaming at us and at the other driver for taking his fare. Nobody wanted to hear it from him, so we told him to calm down and moved all our things from the other guy's taxi to this jerk's taxi. Once we closed the door and told him where we were going, he shot off down the road, speeding like a maniac and making ridiculous turns. We were scared out of our minds and this guy didn't say a word. If we were still half asleep before the ride, we were certainly terrified awake after it. There was definitely something wrong with him.
We flew into Santiago de Compostela airport in Spain and waited 2 hours for our shuttle bus. We took the shuttle from Santiago to La Coruna and finally arrived there around 2 pm after traveling 9 hours. Kathryn, Chrissy, Hadley, Erica, Kathryn's boyfriend Pablo and his friend Carlos greeted us at the spot where the shuttle let us off and then got us settled in to our hotels. We went out for a great lunch, Spanish style (which means huge because lunch is the big meal in Spain). We shared salads, meats, cheeses and breads and it was all delicious.
After lunch, we walked around along the water. It was gorgeous! It made me think so much about the Vineyard, even though it looked nothing like it. It was refreshing to see water being that Florence can feel a little too cramped with buildings to see the dinky (and brown) Arno. After walking around, we went back to the hotel and showered, and then met for tapas at a really great place. According to the girls studying in Coruna, it was one of the best places, so it was evidently very crowded. Most of us got what we wanted to try, and we all stood outside to eat with the rest of the Spaniards taking their tapas. I had a fried veal filet with a grilled pepper and potatoes all on a little stick. I also had a tortilla (which is something like a quiche but much better) which I loved. Then, we went back to the hotel for drinks because bars don't open until around 2 am in Spain. When that time rolled around I was obviously exhausted but rallied to go out and experience the Spanish nightlife. The bar was great and made some awesome mojitos. Around 4 am, things turned a little sour for me when I fell asleep while dancing, and also discovered that my new jacket had been taken. We searched everywhere for the jacket and Pablo (Kat's boyfriend) felt so terrible. I was a little sad about it, but more tired than anything, so Kat walked me home to hit the hay. I heard the next day (Sunday) that everyone had stayed out until about 6:30 am, which is the norm- something I would never get used to.
On Sunday, Kat woke us up around 11 for breakfast at a great cafe, called Cafe Vecchio, that had some awesome muffins and chocolate chip cookies, two things that are non-existent in Italy. We were exhausted, so it took us a while to eat. After breakfast, we walked around some more and saw the rest of adorable Coruna. At a certain point after lunch kebabs, Kat went back for a nap and homework and Kevin also left for the hotel while Chrissy, Maggie and myself decided to walk a little more. We got some beautiful views of the water and then stopped for some coffee and tea at Cafe Vecchio for the second time. I headed back to the hotel to freshen up and change, and then Kevin and I went back out to meet Kat's host family. Her family is adorable- especially the two little girls, Maria (8) and Camino (5). But, they are serious balls of energy that never leave Kat's room and certainly drive her crazy sometimes. They were very excited to meet the famous Elsa and Kevin that they had heard so much about, so they climbed all over us and gave us little performances that were adorable but got a little tiring.
After meeting the family, we snuck out on the crazy kids to play "Assassin" with all the Coruna HC students before dinner. It was a lot of fun. Simple concept, but a great thrill. Then, we got a little dinner at a tapas place and headed home for bed. We had been exhausted from the night before, so we ended up sleeping until around 11 am. On Monday morning, all of the Coruna kids were in class until 12:30, so Maggie and I went for breakfast at Cafe Vecchio, which was hilarious because we didn't know a word of Spanish and English was completely foreign to the Coruna natives. We managed to survive and get exactly what we wanted, but with quite a struggle. After breakfast, we did a little shopping and then met up with Kat and Erica to continue the fun. Kevin was pretty ticked about the whole shopping thing, so it didn't last very long before we decided to go for lunch.
Kat, Hadley, Erica and Pablo took us to a great sushi restaurant and we all got Bento Boxes that came with Miso Soup, white rice, a beverage, and a dessert for only 8.25 euro! It was delicious :) Afterwards, Kat took Kevin to her cooking class so that the girls could shop more, but we didn't end up shopping and Kat and Kevin ended up skipping the cooking class anyway. So, Chrissy took Maggie and I to meet her host family, and Kat spent some time showing Kevin around. Chrissy's host family was very hippie and absolutely adorable. They were so excited to have visitors that they did their bests to speak in English and make us comfortable. It was much appreciated. After the visit, we stopped back at Kat's house with my teddy because the girls had requested to see it the day earlier. They loved him. This time, Maria was very sassy and insisted on singing and dancing to us while we "controlled the music" according to her demands. Little firecracker. Camino was a total doll and just crawled all over everyone.
We left Kat's host house around 8:30 and then went for a tortilla at one of Kat's favorite places. It was delicious. Then, we met up with Hadley, Erica and Carla for a nicer dinner at a new restaurant in town. It was the kind of place where they made everything on a wood-burning grill, and the food was incredible. Kat and I weren't that hungry, so we shared grilled tomatoes, grilled peppers and grilled chorizo. I loved it. The Corunians made sure that we also tried a Spanish after dinner liqueur that tasted something like Bailey's, but shockingly better. At the end of the dinner we bid farewell to everyone because we had to head back to Florence early the next day.
Yesterday morning, we woke up around 6 am and were in a cab to the station by 7:15. Our total trip back to Florence lasted 11 hours because we had to deal with so many different legs of the trip:
Cab from hotel to Coruna train station
Train from Coruna station to Santiago station
Cab from Santiago station to Santiago de Compostela airport
Plane from Santiago de Compostela airport to Rome Ciampino airport
Bus from Rome Ciampino airport to Rome Termini Station
Train from Rome Termini Station to Florence Santa Maria Novella
Bus from Santa Maria Novella to HOME with Maria Pia.
In the end, the trip was very successful and we all had a wonderful time. Coruna is a real gem, and I'm so glad that we could make it despite the distance we had to travel. I both loved and felt freaked out by my lack of communication with the Spanish language-only culture, but had a great time laughing about it. All the girls were great tour guides, and I felt that the vacation included just the right amount of relaxation and adventure. Kat's Pablo is a great guy, and probably the only Spaniard in Coruna that speaks fluent English (though Kat doesn't use it with him). Now, I'm back in Florence and the forecast looks like rain until at least Sunday which is kind of a bummer, but I do have a ton of work to do, so it's a blessing in disguise I guess.
I also found out today (the day I would have been scheduled to fly out of Dublin) that there have been more ash emissions from the volcano in Iceland and that the Dublin airport, along with many others, is closed. Therefore, Grace and Jeff are stuck in Dublin until Friday AT THE EARLIEST. I think I would have been beside myself if my vacation in Ireland had gone as originally planned. It's so odd how things happen.
A dopo!
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