A Ravioli Experience

My favorite food is ravioli. I was craving it. Mary was too. Parma (The little store that we get a lot of our groceries from) had frozen ravioli (with spinach in them... yummm!), which suited me just fine. So we bought this:

Cool. We went home (we got some sausage to go along with it because it's really good in this region) and started to boil water to make the ravioli. Except when we open the bag we got this:

My reaction was something along the lines of, "Oh God. What is that?"

Carefully we took out 2 ravioli and 1 ... chunk... of sauce.

A-like so.

We decided that a frying pan was the way to go, so Mary cooked them to test them out. We have these weird tongs that we used since we have the weirdest assortment of silverware and such in the history of ever. Our apartment is a little lacking in many departments. Cooking implements is one department.

After testing the ravioli (they were delicious)we concluded that they were safe to eat. Mary finished cooking them while I tried to in some way cook/heat up the sausage. It was pretty funny. Mary and I should stop going to school and just open a restaurant because we got madd skillz in the kitchen. Right. We decided to "toast" some bread since it tastes better that way, but in all of our culinary wisdom we thought that putting the bread in the pan we had just cooked the ravioli in was a good idea.

It wasn't.

The first slice of bread turned into a saucy mess but was still delicious. Since it had soaked up the remainder of the sauce, the next two pieces were fine.

After fumbling through the weirdest process of making ravioli ever and making a mess of the kitchen, we got to feast. It was so delicious.

Next time, though, I think we'll try to make ravioli without the frying pan.

THIS IS THE BEST POST EVER

Not really. It's more of just a boring update since Firenze was super exciting and I'm back to classes.

Finally got to videochat my parents, which was nice.

In other news, I have no right to complain about my apartment being cold (I still complain) since we got an update about St. Bonaventure, where the temperature I've heard is now at a frigid -23 degrees and classes aren't canceled. I'm glad I'm over here even though we only get a few hours of heat a day and it doesn't do much. The temperature outside is generally the same as in our apartment. Ugh.

I'm a little frustrated with Italian because it feels like a lot of work but I'm still barely passable at speaking. We have a huge vocab test on Thursday and I really want to do well and learn to speak too, but it's not happening as fast as I want it to.

The Italians do this weird thing where they announce when they're going to have a strike. So they're having one from Saturday night at 9 until Sunday at 9. So no trains running. I'm not sure how that changes my travel plans since I didn't have any particular plans yet to begin with.

I think I might stick around Perugia this weekend anyway. It's the Festival for San Costanzo, one of the patron saints. Apparently it's a pretty cool thing and I'm trying to experience a lot of cultural stuff. We'll see what happens.

Ciao for now! Hopefully something exciting happens for next time!

Firenze!

Ciao! It's been a few days since I last posted and a lot has happened since then!

Firenze (Florence, but I refer to it by its Italian name) was stunning! Mary, Morgan and I were gonna go together but Morgan had to back out. Mary and I are probably the worst navigators ever, but we successfully made it to, around, and home from Firenze!

Mary and I knew almost nothing about Firenze when we got off the train. Like seriously, we couldn't even find the train station on my map, so we just wandered around saying "Let's just go one more block." Thankfully even with the 2 hour train ride it was still daylight while we did most of our lost wandering. We found places to use as our bases (that rhymed. I spent a minute on it) and navigated from there.

We shopped and looked at all of the pretty buildings. I'm serious when I say that the city was stunning. Everywhere you look is a cool building. I'm definitely going to forget some of the details of the trip in this blog since so much happened.

Finding out hostel was an adventure. It was freaking freezing in Firenze. Nothing like in Buffalo or SBU, but very windy and cold. After walking around for a few hours and after dinner we just wanted to find it. We hadn't seen any of the hostels that we had written down, and we had no idea where we were ever anyway. As I said before, we are the worst navigators ever. So we looked into a few hotels, but they were expensive. We desperately wanted a warm place to stay. So we did the only logical thing to do in such a situation: we went to a gelateria. Gelato makes everything better. While fumbling through asking the staff where we could stay, some girls came in SPEAKING ENGLISH. So we asked them if they knew where we could stay. They knew of a few and they happened to take us to the best one on our list. Awesome! It's a little sketchy to get to, but it was voted best hostel in Italy in December 2010. Free internet, free locker, free breakfast, free towels to shower, a tv and playstation with movies, and a really fair price.

It was a pretty big win. Super awesome. We were well rested for the next day. We went to the Uffizi and the Galleria dell'Accademia to see some really awesome art. My favorite in the Uffizi is the Birth of Venus painting. Hands down, though, the best art I have ever seen is the David.

This replica is not nearly as impressive as the real thing. 17 feet tall and so lifelike I thought it would move. Mary and I stood there and stared for quite a while. It's even more impressive because the hallway before it is incomplete sculptures. Then you come up to the masterpiece and it is just stunning. I've never been so impressed in my life.

I got some awesome boots for like 20 euro and Mary got some awesome heels. We did everything we wanted to, didn't get lost, didn't get pickpocketed, and didn't die. That's a win in my book! Can't wait for more trips.


On another note, Mary, Morgan, and I went to a bar in town when Mary and I got home and we were sitting and chillin' when a flower vendor came in. They come in to restaurants a lot to try and sell their stuff. So he comes over and throws, literally throws, 3 flowers at us. We were confused, then he came over and gestured to some boys. They bought us flowers. And let me say, they were the smallest, worst looking flowers I have ever seen in my life. We were dying laughing and we just left them on the table when we left.

Our oven works, just too well. It burned a frozen pizza (I know, frozen pizza in Italy is blasphemy) in about 2 minutes.

That's all I can think of right now. It sucks to not have internet readily available, since I want to write stuff down immediately but I can't post it. And I'm really lazy and it has taken an inordinate amount of time to write this down. I'm sure I'll think of something else to say as soon as I post this, but that's all right. Here are a few more pictures:

Yeah. This is my life. Ciao for now!

Whatever, I got lasagna.

Last night Mary, Morgan and I went out to a restaurant that's literally on our street. Morgan had gone before and said it was delicious. It was, but not without a fair share of mishaps!
Here's the deal: 15 euro. Antipasto, first course, second course, dessert, wine. Pretty good deal. The chef makes whatever he wants for you. I can't read the menu anyway so that's fine.
The appetizer was great. It was cheesy and delicious and the wine was really good too. But the first course... I didn't like it. It was some weird bean thing in red wine sauce and the texture and flavor just didn't sit well with me. The waiter came over and took my dish back and gave me lasagna instead. The chef even came out and told us that the dish I had sent back was a special one that they didn't normally make. So here I am sending back a special dish and looking like a jerk. Great. They were really nice about it though. Mary didn't like it either but she didn't send it back even when the waiter asked if she wanted to. When he came to take her plate the waiter said next time she could send it back when he asked. Who looks like the bigger jerk? You be the judge.
The third course was turkey (which he described to us as the bird similar to chicken but bigger) with apples and almonds in a delicious sauce. Yummy. Then dessert was chocolate mousse, tiramisu, and this custard with caramel.
Then they gave us this weird alcohol called grapo or grapa or something like that. It was so strong. He said it was kind of like whiskey. We all kind of tried to stomach it but none of us could. It was weird.
The chef came out and asked if our meal was good and kind of waved his finger at me since he knew I was the one who changed the dish. Oh well. It was pretty hilarious, and all in all a good time.
I'm pretty embarrassing. More good times to come!

Adventures

Things are looking up in Perugia (besides the fact that it’s on a mountain)! Mary and I went on an adventure to the Coop, the grocery store that’s not supersmall, and we were successful! It might not seem like a big deal but we had to take the mini metro to get there and everything is still in Italian. We were both sick the day that our Italian classes took a field trip there. Dumb.
I got a super lot of good stuff to eat and I thought it would be mad expensive but it wasn’t. That was a nice surprise. The trip was largely uneventful and easy, with Mary and I figuring out each leg of the trip as we went (like where to buy a metro card, which mini car we had to get on, where the Coop was when we got to that stop etc…) with little to no difficulty. I did get onto a mini metro car and the doors shut behind me before Mary got on, but that was about as dangerous as it got. Don’t worry; we met up at the next stop, so it was no big deal. Afterwards we felt really successful and accomplished, and it made me feel a whole lot better about living in Perugia. I guess being able to get your own food and figure out everything on the way gives you some confidence. Cool.
I’m excited to start classes, except my Italian class is at 9:00 AM. Blehhhhh. My next class on Monday and Wednesday isn’t until 1:45, so I suspect I will nap. A lot. On Tuesday and Thursday my next class is at 12 so I think I’ll hang around school and get lunch around there and stuff. We’ll see how many times I want to walk up the hill to school before my legs just quit on me. One of the workers at school said that you never get used to the hills. I hope he’s wrong.
Mary and I made pasta together and it was delicious.

I’m also really excited to start traveling. I love Perugia and will definitely be spending a lot of time here (at least 4 days a week!) but there’s lots of Italy to explore. Not to mention the rest of Europe. Oy. Trying to figure everything out and what trips I want to plan makes me nervous and freak out a little bit because there’s so much that I want to do. Guess I’ll just have to do the best I can to see as much as I can!
On Sunday we went to a lunch set up by the Umbra Institute. I can’t remember what the place was called but it was a little ways away between Perugia and Assisi. We got there around 1 and didn’t leave until 4:30 and most of that time was spent eating. It was delicious but there was so much food. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to so many courses and such big meals! There was a plate full of mini appetizers (about 10 I think), rice and cabbage in a red wine sauce and ravioli for the second course, some type of meat that I’m gonna go with was pork and fried potatoes for the third part, tiramisu for dessert, and espresso if we wanted it. After each course we kept saying there was no way we would be able to eat the next one, but there was enough time in between courses to allow us to eat each one. It was amazing, but it took most of the day.
I feel like I’m always tired from such packed days. I’ve only been here a little over a week but it feels like so much longer. It feels weird to not talk to Tina every day. I can’t even text her or get on facebook to chat whenever I want to. And I want to skype with my mom but it’s really hard with the time difference and my lack of readily available internet. It sucks but I think we’ll get through it.

Not looking forward to a 9 am class in another language. Hopefully I get into a rhythm once classes start. I also have to try and figure out the laundry machine, which is all in Italian and takes an hour and a half to do a load of laundry. And then I have to hang it to dry. I’m gonna feel like a little old Italian lady.
On a last note, the gelato here is literally to die for. I would murder people to eat the pistachio kind I had the other day.

Some Pictures and One Week in Italy

Perugia is the "City of Endless Views." Got that right!

This entry brings not entirely good news. I seem to have hit a bit of a skid in my Italian adventure. It’s the first low I’ve had but it was really, really low.
Mary and I both got sick with the most horrible 24 hour virus thing ever. I seriously have never wanted to be home so badly in my entire life. Not that it would have helped with being sick, but something about not being able to see my momma when I was throwing up every 20 minutes made me super sad. I couldn’t even talk to her that much since the time zone shift makes timing really awkward for stuff like frantic phone calls.
Morgan and Mary were joking that they expected me to try and weasel my way out of bed to go to class, but I couldn’t even try. It sucked to miss an entire 4 ½ hours of Italian that I’m sure could have been useful, but I needed to stay in bed… I’m sad since we found out that Francesco isn’t going to be our Italian teacher and I missed one of only four days with him. Oh well.
I’m feeling better now, but this sickness and such made me kind of question everything. Like, why did I decide to do this? Why did I think it was a good idea to come to a country where I have no knowledge of the language? When is it going to feel worth it? I know that by the end of this everyone says I won’t want to leave, but right now I just want to be home in my bed. And where people speak English.
Slightly funnier note: our apartment is kind of a wreck. I mean, Mary and I tried to work the stove today and it just blew cold air at us for a while before we decided to awkwardly reheat some leftover pasta (fail). Mary nicknamed it our Not-Easy-Fake-Oven. We’ve had a lot of things fixed in the past few days but we still haven’t worked all of the kinks out yet. I kind of wish I could just fast forward a few weeks until I can actually speak some Italian, use our apartment properly, and am adjusted to living here. I know that it’s a part of the experience, but it’s really difficult to get used to. Everyone is really nice and helpful though, so hopefully things work out.
This marks the first full week in Italy and while it was mostly good, it was quite a reminder of how I’ve left everything I’ve ever known and it’s not going to be easy to fit into a new place and society. I had trouble sleeping last night because I was nervous thinking about everything that I wanted and had to do. Not good. And people make really weird sounds on our street and the garbage trucks are really loud. Every noise sounds like it’s literally in our room. It certainly makes things difficult for a light sleeper. Fortunately I left a pretty big window for sleeping, so I was still able to keep recovering from being sick.
I’m glad I’m feeling better health wise. Just gotta get used to this whole Italy thing.

Also, please note that I do not have Wi-fi in my apartment, so I write my blog posts as I feel them and post them whenever I can. It's not exactly up to the moment on how I'm feeling, but it's the best I got right now.

Italy is still beautiful and amazing. In time I'm sure I'll be saying "I wish I hadn't wasted any time worrying!"

Ciao!

Oh You Know. Stuff

Ciao!
I've had some pretty cool experiences so far and I've only been here for a few days. Of course I forgot to mention some cool things in my last post, which is probably the norm for my life.

When I was on my flight to Buffalo, the Czech hockey team from the World Junior Hockey thing that was in Buffalo was on the plane too. Inexplicably all of the other passengers were in the front of the plane and I was in the back... with the entire team. I sat in my seat and waited for all of them to sit down. One of the guys sat next to me but I had the window seat so no big deal. Then he said something to the guy in front of him and then all of the sudden every one of them, even the coaches, turned around and said stuff to him and made weird eyebrow-raising faces at me. Then they were laughing and kept chattering on in whatever language they speak and I was just confused. I'll assume that they were teasing him for being able to sit next to the cute American girl. Yeah I'll go with that.

At the Philadelphia airport I was in line for pizza and I saw the Czechs again. They were waiting for a pizza and I had to cut through their group to get mine and pay. I noticed that the one who was sitting next to me was staring, so I smiled (in recognition and he was pretty cute too) like I would to anyone I wanted to acknowledge. I thought it was no big deal. Then all of the other guys he was with started yelling and playfully punching him and stuff. I had no idea what was going on.I took my pizza and pretty much ran.

The adults told us that American girls are more friendly than others like Italians. I guess it was odd for me to smile at him since I didn't even know his Czech name. Oh well. It was an experience.

I'm finally learning some Italian! Our whole 3 hour morning class and 1 1/2 hour class in the afternoon is spoken in Italian. I understand a lot, I just don't know enough words to respond. Soon I will! Francesco is a great teacher and I think I've learned more in 2 days in class here than in like a month of Spanish class. Hopefully we keep learning at this rate and soon I'll be able to actually function using Italian.

I'm happy to hear that my sister is safe and sound in London. Look at us being all travely and stuff! SO excited.

I can't wait to see how things progress. So excited.

Ciao Ciao!

First post and Italia!

Italy sucks and I want to go home. LOL JK I’m never leaving.

                So much has happened already so I know that I’ll forget something. Italy is amazing and I think that it definitely qualifies as one of the best decisions of my life.

                The airport made me so nervous about the trip that I wanted to vomit. My flight from Buffalo was so delayed that I would have missed my flight in Philadelphia to Frankfurt, and subsequently I would have missed my flight to Rome. Fortunately the airline fixed things so that I got a flight from Philly to Rome. Awesome.

                The flight was freaking long to Rome and there were so many Italians on the plane that the only English I heard was from the announcements.  It’s really hard to describe how I was feeling the whole time, because the mixture of excitement and terror was making my head and stomach hurt, not to mention that I was really sore from the flight. Baggage claim and customs blah blah blah the airport was confusing and everything is in Italian first and not necessarily in English ever. Nevertheless, we found the guy holding the sign that told us where to go.

                The bus ride to Perugia was another 3 hours of travel on a hot bus when I hadn’t had anything to eat for hours. The first views I had of Italy were stunning and impressive and I loved it. Some things look the same but the trees and the buildings sometimes just are stunning. It was great to see Mary again and it felt like we’d never left each other.

                Grocery shopping was a challenge, but we were so hungry that we tried it. I don’t know how people automatically know, but a lot of the people around the hotel would just stare as we went by them. It’s strange to be a foreigner and speaking only a minimal amount of the language. I know that in the US if someone came up to me and asked if I spoke Italian or really any language I would not react as nicely as all of the people I’ve met here. Everyone is really patient when we point to things and say “uhhh pollo?”

                I really like my apartment, except everything is uphill from it. Everything. My legs feel like they are going to fall off, but when I chant “I’m going to be in such good shape” things feel better. I love my housemates, and I think it’s going to be a really good experience and a fun semester.

                The Italian boys are as cute as I expected, but they are more forward and persistent. We’ve been told that ignoring them is the only way that they will leave us alone. After going to a few bars (and ordering drinks legally no less!) we discovered this to be quite true. They really do just come right up to you and if you give them any type of answer it’s encouragement to continue. They told us we will miss such “aggressive” behaviors in the US and I think I can understand why. Still, it’s an odd experience.

                There’s so much to write here that I know I could fill up pages and pages. I’ve only been here for 3 days, but it has already made me more aware of myself and pretty much of the world. I love Italy and I can’t wait to see how the semester unfolds.

                Intensive Italian for 3 hours in the morning was fun! My instructor’s name is Francesco. I know this happens to people a lot, but I’ve never been in a room where someone had a similar name to mine, so that was quite a confusing but kind of cool experience. Francesca gets a pretty cool reaction from people here since I’m American, but a lot of people think it means I speak Italian. I don’t. Soon, but not yet.

                And really, there is a possibility that I might not come back. I love it that much.

                Ciao!