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!
Showing posts with label as american as I can get. Show all posts
Showing posts with label as american as I can get. Show all posts
Monday, May 24, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
Dave Matthews in Padua
Ciao everyone!
Last night, we went to the Dave Matthews concert in Padua, which is up near Venice. We amazingly purchased the tickets this past Saturday, so everything fell together very quickly. Me, Maggie and Kevin met the Florence for Fun travel agency at 5 pm at the train station. Then, we and 40 other kids boarded the bus for our 3 hour trip! Kevin and Maggie had picked up some delicious Chinese food, and Maria Pia had packed me a sandwich, so we had plenty to eat. We also brought along champagne and beer for the concert, since we knew they wouldn't check our bags. Good way to save money :)
On the bus, we met some cool kids that were sitting behind us. Their names were Jordan and Tasha and they're studying here for a semester. We played games and kept ourselves entertained with them for the whole ride.
We arrived at the concert about 15 minutes before it started, so that was perfect timing. The venue was great. It was small, so that made it perfect to see Dave. All of the standing room tickets down on the floor had been sold out a long time ago, so we had actual seats. It was less rowdy in our section, but it was nice because it wasn't full, and we were able to move up and spread out a little more. We had a great view. Dave played lots of songs from his new album, probably because the Italians don't know many of the obscure songs. However, I expected more of his popular old songs, because I figured the Italians would know them best. He wanted to go in a different direction, I guess. I found the whole experience pretty funny because I'm so used to seeing him in America, where everyone speaks English. This time, after every song, he said "Grazie mille" instead of "thank you," so that was weird to hear. After saying "Ciao, grazie" right in the beginning of the show, he then said "and that's all I know of Italian. So, from here on out it's English for the rest of the night." I'm sure most of the Italians understood him anyway.
The concert ended around midnight and we got back to the bus. We arrived in Florence at 3:30 am. Before we left, I had asked the guides if it was possible to stop mid-route, when we passed by my area. I was expecting a "no" but wanted to try so that I could avoid a 15 euro cab. Surprisingly enough, they were fine with it! So, when we got to my area, the bus driver let me off and I walked about 10 minutes to my house- for free :) I got in around 4 am and crashed.
On a side note, we booked a trip to the Amalfi Coast yesterday and I'm so excited! We'll be going April 15th to the 18th. It's an incredible deal. For 200 euro, we get bus transportation there and back (which by train alone is 140 euro), 3 nights in a 3-star hotel, 3 breakfasts, 2 dinners, a boat to Capri, discounted entrance into the Blue Grotto, discounted boat trip around the island of Capri, and transportation to Sorrento, Positano and Pompeii. Sooooo awesome! I can't wait!
So glad it's finally the weekend. I have lots to do today so that I can have plenty of time to hang out with Lindsey tomorrow when she comes. She's one of Carla's friends who lived in my hall last year, and she is from Basking Ridge, New Jersey. She's studying in Rome for the semester, so it will be fun to see her.
A dopo!
Last night, we went to the Dave Matthews concert in Padua, which is up near Venice. We amazingly purchased the tickets this past Saturday, so everything fell together very quickly. Me, Maggie and Kevin met the Florence for Fun travel agency at 5 pm at the train station. Then, we and 40 other kids boarded the bus for our 3 hour trip! Kevin and Maggie had picked up some delicious Chinese food, and Maria Pia had packed me a sandwich, so we had plenty to eat. We also brought along champagne and beer for the concert, since we knew they wouldn't check our bags. Good way to save money :)
On the bus, we met some cool kids that were sitting behind us. Their names were Jordan and Tasha and they're studying here for a semester. We played games and kept ourselves entertained with them for the whole ride.
We arrived at the concert about 15 minutes before it started, so that was perfect timing. The venue was great. It was small, so that made it perfect to see Dave. All of the standing room tickets down on the floor had been sold out a long time ago, so we had actual seats. It was less rowdy in our section, but it was nice because it wasn't full, and we were able to move up and spread out a little more. We had a great view. Dave played lots of songs from his new album, probably because the Italians don't know many of the obscure songs. However, I expected more of his popular old songs, because I figured the Italians would know them best. He wanted to go in a different direction, I guess. I found the whole experience pretty funny because I'm so used to seeing him in America, where everyone speaks English. This time, after every song, he said "Grazie mille" instead of "thank you," so that was weird to hear. After saying "Ciao, grazie" right in the beginning of the show, he then said "and that's all I know of Italian. So, from here on out it's English for the rest of the night." I'm sure most of the Italians understood him anyway.
The concert ended around midnight and we got back to the bus. We arrived in Florence at 3:30 am. Before we left, I had asked the guides if it was possible to stop mid-route, when we passed by my area. I was expecting a "no" but wanted to try so that I could avoid a 15 euro cab. Surprisingly enough, they were fine with it! So, when we got to my area, the bus driver let me off and I walked about 10 minutes to my house- for free :) I got in around 4 am and crashed.
On a side note, we booked a trip to the Amalfi Coast yesterday and I'm so excited! We'll be going April 15th to the 18th. It's an incredible deal. For 200 euro, we get bus transportation there and back (which by train alone is 140 euro), 3 nights in a 3-star hotel, 3 breakfasts, 2 dinners, a boat to Capri, discounted entrance into the Blue Grotto, discounted boat trip around the island of Capri, and transportation to Sorrento, Positano and Pompeii. Sooooo awesome! I can't wait!
So glad it's finally the weekend. I have lots to do today so that I can have plenty of time to hang out with Lindsey tomorrow when she comes. She's one of Carla's friends who lived in my hall last year, and she is from Basking Ridge, New Jersey. She's studying in Rome for the semester, so it will be fun to see her.
A dopo!
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