Visit to Montebello with Costantino and Marisa

After lots of discussion of the beautiful Montebello, Costantino and Marisa finally took me into the countryside where Costantino grew up (this was last week 2/29). The pointed out the farm where Costantino lived and then we stopped at their friends' house. I was able to see their huge pig, chickens, kittens, and rabbits! The countryside was definitely a beautiful sight. Their friend also showed me the Etruscan artifacts that they've found on their land: SO COOL! As we drove home, we pulled over on the side of the road, and Costantino and Marisa got out. I was a little confused. I asked what we were doing and they only replied with: FUNGHI (aka mushrooms). We climbed up the hill looking for mushrooms, but we were unsuccessful. Here is a picture of the Montebello countryside:

Orvieto and Umbria

Last weekend, we had our first out of three weekend trips included in our study abroad experience. It was great because we were able to meet a bunch of the students from LdM Rome including one of my sorority sister Liese!! We caught the train in Orte and made our way to a wildlife reserve in Alviano. Our guide gave us a tutorial on bird watching and we were able to check out the reserve. She brought me back to Gen Bio as she did water samples and inspected the critters under the microscope. We went to a cute little restaurant and enjoyed lots of pizza, prosciutto and Coco-cola on our own private floor with a deck overlooking the hills of Alviano. We then made our way to Orvieto, a town that reminded me a lot of Tuscania, but bigger. You have to ride up a little tram in order to get to the top of the "city on a hill." Orvieto is in the Italian region of Umbria. We had a bunch of free time and had amazing gelato. We found a tiny shop full of homemade leather goods. There were even slabs of leather just hanging across the bench ready to be crafted into purses, bracelets, diaries, etc. The shop was owned by a sweet older man. Later that night we met back at our hotel (which was so nice, called Hotel Corso), and we went to a palace to sample Umbrian delicacies including two of Orvieto's most famous wines. We hung out around the town and I later fell asleep in our boiling hot hotel room.

The next morning we had a delicious breakfast at the hotel: croissants, nutella, cereal, yogurt, fruit, pastries, etc. We then saw probably the most beautiful sight in Orvieto: the Duomo. Check it out:

This church was built in the 14th Century after a special miracle occurred in the nearby Bolsena (only about 20 minutes from Tuscania). A priest was traveling throughout Italy and he had doubts about whether or not the host and wine were actually the body and blood of Christ (a central belief of Catholics). While saying mass, this priest was shocked when blood starting pouring from the host after he broke it. The blood stained the altar cloth, so the Duomo was built to house this relic. As you can see, the front of the church is beautifully decorated with carved figures and frescoes. Unfortunately, not all of the frescoes are complete originals because they were touched up in order to be preserved, but all of the carvings are originals. They describe the story of Adam and Eve, and there is a beautiful rose window in the upper half. The sides of the church are striped, which I have never seen before. These horizontal stripes contrast the Gothic vertical columns in the front of the church in order to provide a balance. Our guide also told us that the church has both Gothic (extremely high vertical towers) and Romanesque features (round arches). He explained the history of Orvieto and how  there was discord among the aristocrats and peasants, so the aristocrats decided to call in the Romans to help put the peasants to rest. However, this was a bad idea because the Romans had wanted to conquer Orvieto for a long time, so they ended up killing many of its inhabitants and taking over. The survivors fled to Bolsena (this is the connection with the Duomo) and started their lives there. It wasn't until hundreds of years later that the descendants returned to their beloved Orvieto. (I'm not very good at history, so I think that I'm recalling this correctly. Sorry Mike, you're my history guy :)).

We also checked out St. Patrick's Well which people used to retrieve water, and it was extremely well designed so that there were two pathways: one to go down and one to go up. This way, people did not run into each other while getting water. Here is a picture:

The bottom was filled with coins that believe have thrown in to make wishes.

After this visit, we continued to explore and shop. I bought some chocolate covered coffee beans at a chocolate shop that were delicious!

We made our way home after a great weekend!

THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA!

The Friday after Carnevale, we decided to venture out to Pisa via the train. We woke up around 5:30 AM in order to head out by 6:30 to catch our taxi ride to the station. We made it to Pisa around 10 and explored the cute town. There were lots of shops and places to eat. We were starving so we stopped at a restaurant to have some pizza before taking loads of pictures at the tower. The tower was just as cool as it has always sounded. There were tons of tourists taking photos across the green. We tried to stake out a good spot and we practiced our poses. Check out some of my best moves:

Montebello, Capodimonte, Viterbo, Carnevale in Italia!!

Ciao! (I have been working on this post for a while so it's old. I apologize for my recent disappearance from the blog!).

So the past week or so has been busy as usual! The snow has finally all melted, and this weekend it's supposed to be around 63 degrees! Perfect timing for our rescheduled trip to Umbria and Orvieto. I can't wait.
The dessert featured this week in our house was ravioli....the sweet kind :). This is essentially a ravioli with sugar and ricotta cheese inside, topped with powdered sugar. Of course I was in charge of sprinkling the sugar and managed to get it all over my body. No surprise there. Unfortunately our cooking class was cancelled because our professor was sick, but in wine class we got to taste four wines instead of three. We are really learning how to pick out the exact fruit/herb/spice scents in the wines which I think is a very important life skill.

On Wednesday I went to Montebello, my host father's hometown (about a 10 minute drive into the country). He always jokes with me and tells me that the town is huge, just like Mount Everest. However, it is a beautiful countryside. We went for a mini-field trip to check out the museum of Cesetti and well as the work of a French painter who is living/working there. Check out this painting of a man who lives there and has been working on this painting for two years, and is still not finished! It was really cool to see an artist's work in progress.

This side depicts lots of famous figures and is almost in the form of a religious calendar. There were so many intricate details. He explained that someone pointed out there there were no women figures in this painting. So....here is the other side, depicting many women and signs of birth...

Friday we went to Viterbo and toured around the town with Massimo. For those of you who don't know...Viterbo is the capital of the province. Fun facts that I learned:

1. Viterbo was actually the host for the elections of of several popes in the 13th century. We were able to see the conclave.
2. There are lots of really pretty churches there including the Church of the Holy Trinity and St. Agostino.
3. Cappuccino gelato is unreal.
4. Never order a burger in Italy at a fast food restaurant. I was starving and we were in a hurry, so I decided to give it a try. I proceeded to pry the burger off of the cardboard box it came in. I had a feeling that something wasn't right when we proceeded to immediately hand me the burger when I told her what I wanted.

That Saturday, we went to Capodimonte for a quick little visit. It is on Lake Bolsena which is the largest volcanic lake in Italy. The view from the town "castle" was beautiful, and we saw a neat marina on the shore. We decided to grab lunch at a cute little restaurant. We had bruschetta and lasagna that was yummy. Here's a photo of me, Connor, and Allie at the marina in the town.

Then, came one of my favorite experiences so far: Carnevale in Italy!!! Carnevale is essentially Italy's version of Mardi Gras in the United States, but it is much more creative and exciting. On Sunday the 19th, I was in the Tuscania Carnevale parade with some girls from school. We were told that they needed more people on the floats, so we were more than excited to help out. We were told to dress like farmers to fit the theme of the float. When we arrived to the meeting point decked out in our farmer gear, we discovered that we were the oldest participants by about 10 years (besides the chaperones). Initially, we were wondering what the heck we got ourselves into, but we ended up having an amazing time. We filled our cowboy hats with confetti and rode on the floats all throughout the town while the music blared and we threw the confetti in the air. When we approached the main street, I could not believe how many people were there. I didn't even know Tuscania had that many people! I picked out my host family from the crowd as they smiled and waved back at us. We even rode through the historical walls (even though the float got stuck between the Etruscan stone a few times). Here is a picture from the festivities:

On Fat Tuesday (or Martedi Grasso in Italian), the festivities continued with a huge party at one of the local bars. I'm pretty sure that almost all of the LdM students were in attendance. We all wore masks and had a blast. The bar was packed....surprisingly with lots of children. And no not just little kids but infants. And of course they were dressed up too! It was a great night. Here's a picture of me with my mask and my friend Sara:

Snow Emergencies in Italy.

So I'm currently writing during my lovely siesta on a cold afternoon in Italy. Yesterday/last night it snowed probably about 3-4 inches (I'm really bad at estimating that kind of thing, so just go with it). All that matters is that there has been significant accumulation, preventing us from doing anything outside of Tuscania. Our trip to Viterbo that was rescheduled from last Friday was cancelled again due to snow! AND...we were supposed to go to Umbria and Orvieto for an overnight trip but that was cancelled as well. Marisa keeps telling me that I brought the snow...and sadly she is probably right. The Callahan family struggles in the luck department so I'm not surprised! Although it has been disappointing, I have seen some funny sights in the snow. First off...moon boots. Apparently I need to get a pair because every Italian (or every smart Italian) has a pair of gigantic obnoxious moon boots. If you have not seen them before...check them out.

Every time I walk down the street I can't help but chuckle, even though they are probably laughing at me for wearing the most inappropriate footwear because I WASN'T EXPECTING SNOW! Oh well. The other thing that is in style is one piece jumpsuits. Typically in America you wear snow pants when you're going sledding or to play in the snow, but Italians like to wear them casually for the whole day. I think they might just be a little excited because it hasn't snowed like this in like 30 years. I wish I was prepared because then I could really show them how I handle a North Country winter in Canton. It has been cute to watch the little kiddies play in the snow when they are all bundled up.

So..here's a brief overview of the happenings of this week. I watched my Giants beat the Patriots in the SuperBowl Sunday night (12:30 AM-4:00 AM). Luckily I did not have class until three on Monday, so I slept in until noon, had a great lunch then strolled to my cinema class. We watched a movie called Novecento (1900) with Robert De Niro when he was like 20. It was about the relationship between landowners and their peasant workers during the period of Fascist Italy. It was a 5 hour long movie so we had to finish it on our own. It was quite gruesome at points...

Tuesday was Allie's birthday so after our Italian class we went to the pasticceria for pastries. I also had my travel writing class. We went for a little walk to find some inspiration for writing, but our professor   decided it was too windy and took us into a bar to buy cappucinos for all of us. She's so cute! Marisa made an amazing dinner that included bruschetta, spaghetti, pork, wine, spumante, and cake. I was in charge of getting candles...so the night before it was quite the process of communication between Marisa and I. Pretty comical.

Wednesday I spent the entire day watching the film for my class and then I had cooking from 6-8:30. We made pumpkin soup, onion rings, and zucchini flan. DELICIOUS yet again. I was in the group for pumpkin soup and I must say it was lovely. Don't worry everyone...I will be teaching Italian cuisine when I come home (for a fee of course :) kidding).

Thursday I had Italian and wine. I unfortunately had a very clutzy moment during wine class. The chairs we use at school have plastic desks that flip up...so I decided to move my chair back and flip up my desk so that I could be further away from the bright light of the projector. As I flipped up the desk, it hit the table in front of me causing my glass of wine to shoot across the table and all over Kelsey who was unfortunately sitting across from me. And yes of course..it was the only red wine we were tasting that day. It was all over her sweater and books.....let's just say I still feel bad about it and definitely paid for her dinner on Thursday night! Fortunately it wasn't $100 cashmere sweater or anything. The best part about it was that we hadn't even tried any wines yet!!! No alcohol in my system.....super embarrassing. My teacher, being the cutie he is, thought it was hilarious and just kept telling Kelsey that this was a good omen and she would be great at the course (he didn't comment on my fate). I apologized profusely after class but the incident didn't seem to phase him at all (thank goodness)! I'm sure he's seen it all before. Thursday night, Kelsey, Allie, and I went out to dinner at del patata and it was awesome. There was some confusion when we ordered, but we did manage to order the litre of wine correctly :). The pizzas were HUGE: Sicilian, Peperoni, Prosciutto, and Eggplant. We were very happy campers after that meal.

Yesterday, we ventured into the snow and walked around with a bunch of students from school, and we went out last night. Nothing too crazy! Today, when I woke up, Marisa had almost finished shoveling the entire walkway. I felt terrible!! I told her the other day that I'm an expert shoveler from home and she got a big kick out of that. Today we made lots of dolce which means sweets! One was kind of a pastry with orange marmalade, one was a cake that we eat for breakfast (choc and vanilla), and the last was my favorite...can't remember the name but it was basically a cookie with walnuts, chocolate, and a wine flour. Awesome. Here it is:

That's all for now!

Freezing Temps in Tuscania.....55 degrees in Syracuse....Cool

The past few days have been so cold!! I can't believe this. The schools in Rome were closed Friday because of snow! We've had some accumulation...not that much, but it's freezing and super windy. When we went to the bar last night...we decided it was a good idea to run for 3 reasons 1: Stay warm  2: We would get there faster 3: We would burn off calories from dinner. Meanwhile..everyone back home is wearing shorts while I'm shivering in my peacoat. What are the chances. Lots of fun things have happened these past couple days. My classes are awesome! We watched "Una Giornata Particulare" in my film class on Monday which features Sophia Loren. We talked about the history of film in Italy and how movies portrayed Italian society at the time they were filmed (that's basically the focus of the whole course). On Tuesday, I had Italian and my Travel Writing course. Travel writing was awesome! My professor is from Ireland!!! So nice to have some Irish blood in my company. She is also a singer and writes her own songs (even cooler!). The class includes a field trip to Rome which will be very interesting I'm sure. Tuesday night we went over to our friends' apartment just to hang out and have some vino. Wednesday I slept in because my only class of the day is at 6 PM! I hung out around the house with Marisa and Costantino and I did homework. My cooking class was that night, which was incredible. The instructor was not as a I expected; he almost looked like an American football player. He gave us an introduction to cooking. We talked about the differences between extra virgin olive oil and regular olive oil, and our main focus was on stocks. We learned how to make fish stock, meat stock, and vegetable stock. Then we moved to the practical portion of the course. He went to the bathroom and when he came out....he was in a full chef's outfit! He looked extremely professional. We each received our own aprons with the LdM logo on it (so I felt pretty legit too). We got into groups and we each had an assignment. Morgan (a student from Texas Tech) and I were in charge of preparing meat stock and it was actually quite simple. Everything went smoothly....we even got a "bene" from our instructor. We all got to sip on some vino while working, just another casual night at school. Another group worked on making tomato sauce from scratch with our professor, and we all got to EAT afterwards! It was penne and meat tortellini with the homemade sauce. DELICIOUS! He even showed off with some flipping pasta skills with the pan.

On Thursday I had Italian again and then The Wines of Italy course in the afternoon. Our instructor for wine, Claudio, was so cute! He kept talking about how nervous he gets on the first day of class and how much he loves teaching. He seems very passionate about wine and all that it entails: food pairings, quality, the history, etc. We each received a little kit with 3 wine glasses in it that we have to bring to each class, because we sample 3/class. We did a brief overview of the history of wine, and then we did one tasting. It was prosecco, which is a sparkling or "special" wine from Italy. He did a little toast and explained that "we deserve the best." I can tell that it's going to be a very informative and fun class. We are going to learn pretty much everything you could possibly think of about wine. One thing that I'm very excited to talk about is the olfactory portion of the tastings. That is one of the components that we have to comment on, so I'm curious to see how it will link to my research from the past 6 months! Maybe I'll introduce wine olfactory memory to the course...I think Dr. Hornung would approve :). Thursday night was the best meal because Marisa made HOMEMADE PIZZA!!! It was amazing. She made three different kinds, plus some cheesy meat thing that was sort of like pizza. One was traditional with tomato sauce and mozzarella. One had sauce and onions and parsley, and one had had french fries and sausage! We also had the added bonus of bruschetta over the fire again.  Here's Marisa and I with some pizza (some of the pictures are a little blurry; they are still in the process of learning to work the camera :)).

Yesterday, we didn't have class because it was Friday! We were supposed to go to Viterbo with our student advisor to tour the town but it was cancelled due to snow. First, we made pizzicotti with Marisa, which are tiny little balls of homemade dough. We watched Marisa prepare the dough, but Allie and I were in charge of ripping off the small pieces (tough job). It was so interesting to watch Marisa make the dough. She basically made a mound of flour with a dip in the middle. She put one egg and a small cup of water in the dip and gradually mixed it while slowly adding more and more flour from around the circle. I watched her hands move so easily and I thought about how much food she has prepared with those hands over the years. Countless batches of dough, sauces, pastries, etc. It's so cool! I then did a little homework and went out for some shopping with friends. I got some leg warmers, but I'm still on a mission for a cheap heavy sweater or two since I didn't bring any! I came home after being outside and I was frozen from inside to out. Marisa scurried me downstairs to the fire and rubbed my hands until they were warm and Costantino shrieked when he felt my frozen cheeks. I recovered, had some eggplants, mozzarella, and prosciutto for lunch, and scurried off into the cold for a night at the bar with friends at Caffe Duomo. It was a lot of fun! Today, we had some delicious pasta fragioli for lunch. I think we'll probably go out again tonight.....more updates to come! Check out these pics from our pasta making adventure!

homemade pasta, il camino, churches, and more!

When I woke up yesterday morning, I found Marisa downstairs with pasta dough rolled out on the table. She explained that she was up very late making the dough. She began to roll it up and she cut it into tiny little squares; they looked almost like chicklets. She made an amazing soup or "zuppo" for lunch that contained broth and these little nuggets of pasta. We taught her how to say broth....and her translation was hilarious to say the least. She makes fun of the way Allie and I talk to each other in English, and of course this makes me laugh. In the morning Allie and I wandered around Tuscania and stumbled across a cute little pup who seemed alone. He followed us for quite a while but we eventually lost him. There are so many dogs here!! Everyone has tiny ones, except for a huge German shepherd who likes to bark as loud as he can ever ytime you pass his gate ( I try to avoid that street). After lunch, I got on FaceTime for a bit then we headed out with Marisa to San Pietro (church), one of Tuscania's most famous landmarks. It's building began in the 8th century and it was renovated in the 11th and 12th century. It's so crazy to think about the fact that things in America are so young compared to that! Marisa came with us, and she walked up a pretty steep hill. She was so cute and asked Allie and I to hook arms with her on each side when she got tired. She is our Italian MAMMA! The church was absolutely breathtaking. Check out the pics! Marisa explained to us the history, and I surprisingly got quite a bit out of it. She showed us the Etruscan tombs inside the church and explained that the sculptures on top of them were sculptures of the person buried there, which I thought was very interesting. The tiled floor was assembled piece by piece. When we left the church, Marisa grabbed my arm and pulled me off to the side...so I wasn't really sure what she was about to do! She pulled me towards one of the tombs that did not have a head on its sculpture, and she put my head in its place. I couldn't stop laughing! Allie has the picture, but I'll have to put it up soon! After this we went to Santa Maria Maggiore, another famous church. Its murals represented the end of the world and there was also a description of the Annunciation through the art. It was such a treat for Marisa to show us around. We went back home and showed Kelsey our house, then Allie and I went out for our first pizza. We had lots of trouble trying to find a place that was open (strange for a Saturday night). Our advisor told us about the restaurant with the best pizza in the world, but unfortunately it was closed! We started off with the basic cheese and mozzarella pizza, but it was not as we expected. It was more like American pizza. Marisa later told us that it wasn't the best restaurant to go to. Next time....which I'm sure there will be many! Then we met up with our other friends at the "bar" for a drink. It was quite the experience....extremely loud music and lots of Italians! We later went to another bar where people (not me) did shots that the bartender lit on fire and you had to put your hand over the fire to extinguish it and then drink it. It was pretty entertaining to watch....

This morning I went to church with Marisa and Kelsey. On our way...Marisa asked if I played sports. I gestured the motion of shooting a basketball and said the word, thinking she would have no idea what I was talking about, but she nodded with excitement and said "si! si! si!". I also told her that I sing, and she loved that. She asked if I wanted to continue to sing in Tuscania, and she said she will get me in contact with the church choir. I'm excited!!  The mass was surprisingly one of the shortest masses I've ever been to....40 minutes!!! And there was even a baptism! It was neat to hear everything in Italian. I tried to follow along as best as I could, and I did recognize lots of words. After mass Kelsey and I explored some more then I went home for lunch. We had delicious tortellini and believe it or not.....FRENCH FRIES AND CHICKEN TENDERS!!! I was shocked. Allie and I then went for a brisk walk to burn off those cals and discovered the country. There were some beautiful homes. We walked for a long long long long time. We came home and Costantino was making a "camino" which is a fire in the fireplace. That took an extremely long time for me to figure out when Marisa tried to tell me what a camino was this morning. Thank God she is patient. Next.....came probably one of my favorite dinners so far. It started off with homemade BRUSCHETTA! Marisa cut slices of bread, laid them in a little rack, and set them over the fire for a short time to brown them. She took them out and rubbed garlic on each piece, sprinkled salt, and poured her homemade olive oil on them. Best food treat so far!!! We also had shredded chicken with carrots and peppers, as well as salad. During dinner, Costantino came down the stairs and scared us while we were eating. I screamed so loud...not on purpose. Marisa and Costantino, and I....laughed so hard I didn't know if it would stop. Costantino is absolutely hilarious. I don't think I've laughed so hard in a while. After dinner, I sat with Marisa on the couch and watched the news. She asked more about my life and what I like to do. Just a casual night in Italia!!! Well....first day of classes tomorrow. Tough load...only one class and it's not until 3 PM :]. Ah I could do this forever! Ciao!

A couple pictures!

I'm Here!

I am finally in Italia! The first two days have been full of excitement and curiosity. I flew out of Syracuse around 2:30 on Tuesday afternoon after a tearful goodbye with my parents. As I settled into my seat on the plane and buckled my seatbelt, it finally hit me that I was REALLY going to Italy for a whole semester. Allie, Kelsey, and I flew together from Syracuse to Washington Dulles, where we maneuvered through the airport to catch our next flight directly to Roma. We coincidentally had seats next to each other. After my last and only prior trip to Europe, I knew I needed to SLEEP at some point during the flight, because we arrived at 7:45 AM in Roma. The woman sitting right next to me was from Italy, so I enjoyed chatting with her about my expectations. I asked her what I really needed to do while I was there, she replied, “EAT EVERYTHING! EAT! EAT! EAT!” (in her Italian accent of course). We also were able to discuss the gross airplane food. It was funny to watch her face and she stuck her fork into her rosemary chicken. “Che scifo!” as the Italians would say, meaning, “gross!”. I watched Bridesmaids on my laptop and later slept intermittently for the rest of the flight. I also stumbled upon several other students who were attending Lorenzo de’Medici, the university. Allie, Kelsey, and I were worried that we would be the only students, because we knew that Tuscania is typically a very small program. But to our surprise, the group ended up being much bigger than expected! When we arrived in the airport, we went through passport control and got our stamps, then proceeded to baggage claim and luckily all of our baggage was there! We met other LdM students and went to go through customs. Strangely, we didn’t have to do anything to go through customs. We went to walk through the gate and it closed so that I was the only one left on the other side. The officers pointed at me and gestured for me to come back to them. Great…I thought I was in trouble with the law already. They told us to leave, even though we were very confused that we didn’t have to do anything at all. Crazy Italians. I went through a lot of blood sweat and tears for that visa so I really wanted them to take a good, hard look at it J. We then went to a café in the airport because we had to wait until 1 PM to be picked up on our private bus to go to Tuscania. We were disappointed that we had to wait 5 hours, but we ended up meeting tons of great students. Our table at the café grew larger and larger with each hour. We soon took over basically the entire thing. There were about 20 of us in all. Most of the students are spending the whole semester in Tuscania, while others are doing what is called the Three Cities program in which they study at 3 of the LdM campuses throughout the course of one semester (Tuscania, Rome, and Venice). Friendships have already been formed and I can’t wait to get to know everyone as the semester progresses! The students are from all over: Nebraska, Texas, Massachusetts, Trinidad & Tobago, NYC, Washington state etc. We all enjoyed getting to know each other….for several hours of jet lag. We also encountered an older man who was hilarious. He was most likely drunk and he proceeded to stretch his legs in the middle of the airport while we waited to leave….

Massimo, one of our student advisors arrived at 1 to pick us up. We loaded the bus with our luggage and made our way to Tuscania. We dropped everyone off to their respective homes. Lots of students are staying in their own apartments, but Allie, Kelsey, and I are all staying with host families. Allie and I were towards the end of the drop off, and this is when I really started to get nervous! Mei, our other advisor, called our names to get off the bus and we were quickly greeted by our host mom Marisa. She is such a sweet woman! She speaks absolutely no English, so Allie and I have been working very hard to keep up and communicate to the best of our ability. She as been impressed with what we know so far, and she is constantly encouraging us. Her husband was waiting for us when we arrived. He is very funny and is always making us laugh. Marisa gave us a tour of the house and let us pick out which rooms we wanted. Both of our rooms have balconies that look out into the countryside. E BELLA! She then walked us to our school to show us how to get there, less than a ten minute walk. The town is very small, which makes it very warm, welcoming, and safe. It is “antico,” as it has been around for many many years. When I asked Marisa how long she has been in Tuscania, her response was “sempre,” meaning “always.” She said it so affectionately that I knew I would feel at home here.

Next we went out to dinner with the entire group to a restaurant, Palombella! We has a delicious meal including pasta with tomatoes and mushrooms, pork and potatoes, and a pastry dessert with nutella and a lemon cream. And of course…VINO! I was able to get to know the young man sitting next to me, Brian, throughout the course of the meal. He studies at Ithaca College and plays the guitar, so Mei suggested that we sing/play together. Hopefully I will be able to keep my singing up while I am here! I also got to know Mei. She is extremely helpful and made it a point to ask her ANYTHING. She loves Tuscania.

After dinner, probably the funniest moment happened. Allie and I made it back to our house safely around 11:30, and Marisa had given us keys to use. Keep in mind that these keys are SUPER old school. However, we were LOCKED OUT. We tried both of our keys over and over again, but were unable to open it. We freaked out, then decided to reluctantly ring the doorbell. No answer. Uh oh. Eventually Marisa came to the door and opened it. Of course I blanked on how to say sorry in Italian, but Marisa did not look too worried. She smiled, said goodnight, and went back upstairs. Allie tried practicing the lock, and of course it worked on the first try….we made a great first impression, right? Dumb Americans.

This morning, I woke up around 7 and had my first shower experience. The house is quite cold, because heating is extremely expensive in Italy because they purchase their energy from Germany. So, the heat is only on for certain hours during the day. I decided to go for the shower instead of the tub/shower, and it was successful, even though I was cold in between. Marisa had breakfast waiting for us which included a special cake-like bread to dip in cappuccino which was delicious! We went off to school for our first assignment: an Italian placement test! We then had to have a brief interview in Italian with the academic advisor. We had an orientation to discuss rules and sign many forms, then we headed back to the house for il pranzo, lunch. We had of course, pasta with a little sauce, fennel with olive oil, prosciutto, salami, and mozzarella. Amazing. Maria was their, Marisa and Costantino’s daughter. She is older but speaks a bit of English so she helped to translate a few things. She told us that this house is our house now, which was so sweet! Marisa wanted her to ask us if there was anything we wanted to ask or needed in terms of food, housing, etc. We tried to ask for a garbage can in the bathroom to throw tissues and stuff which resulted in a little confusion and laughter. We then took our siesta and made our way back to campus to make some copies. We explored the town a bit even though it was dark, then came back to the house for la cena, dinner. I asked Marisa if we could help her, and she had me stir an egg and flour into a bunch of cut artichokes. We asked Marisa the words for each thing we touched. We had lots of trouble with the word for artichokes, and I honestly still can’t remember it. We ate salad with delicious vinegar and olive oil, a fried artichokes, and little balls that were filled with meat (again, not sure of the name, pretty sure it’s poltata). Costantino and Marisa asked us if we wanted to play cards after dinner and it was quite the adventure. We still don’t know how their cards work, but we played in teams so they helped us. There was tons of laughter, and I enjoyed seeing our host parents interact with each other. 

More updates to come....we are supposed to get Internet at our house today, and I'll put up some pictures too!

My Visa Adventure, and Other Last Minute Preparations!

Now that I finally have my visa in my possession...I think I can tell my story. I was told right after Thanksgiving break (in writing) that students who live in New York State can apply for their visas in person at the NYC consulate or by mail. Obviously I wanted to apply by mail in order to avoid a hectic trip to NYC. So...on December 22rd, we shipped out my materials in an overnight FedEx package to the consulate. The next day, as I was visiting my grandmothers with my boyfriend Michael, I received an angry phone call from a woman at the consulate. She explained that it was against the consulate's policies to accept applications for visas by mail. This information was obviously news to me, so I was unsure how to react. To make a long story short, my dad had to make an appointment to go down to NYC. Luckily, Allie, Kelsey, and I were able to get appointments on the same day. However, the process of getting the correct paperwork was extremely stressful. We were all so nervous that we would be denied after traveling all the way down there.

Our adventure began at 4:30 AM on a Thursday morning after my plane arrived the night before from Orlando after visiting my grandfather at 10 PM. Kelsey and Allie stayed over at my house so that we could get an early start. My dad was kind enough to drive us the entire way (obviously he didn't trust me to drive in the middle of Manhattan). It was a dark, rainy ride and we stumbled upon several delays and accidents, but we managed to arrive by 10 AM. My appointment was at 11, so it's a good thing we arrived an hour early, because the consulate also stressed the fact that if you were only a couple minutes late for your appointment, it would be cancelled. This only increased our stress! We found a parking garage and made our way to the consulate building....well the tiny door that led to the building. You had to be let in by a buzzer...so I buzzed in and explained that I had an appt at 11, but the woman on the other end proceeded to tell me to come back at 11. So....we struggled to find a place with a bathroom because we were all dying. We had to ask a native, and we eventually came across a tiny diner with the smallest bathroom I've ever seen. Major struggle. Then we made our way back to the consulate, and I made my way downstairs to the "holding tank." I sat with my ticket # until I was called up to the plexiglas. I'm still not quite sure why they needed to see me in person, because all I did was pass my materials through a little slot to the woman that worked there. She then handed me a receipt and said it would be ready on the 19th. Luckily....they were ready in time. What a whirlwind of an experience!

I can't believe that tomorrow is my last full day at home! My mom cooked one of my favorite meals tonight for dinner: sirloin steak, garlic smashed potatoes, salad, bread, and a special jello/cream cheese/pretzel treat! SO GOOD! I've been trying to strategize with my packing and figuring out how to make everything fit without going overweight. Packing/unpacking is probably one of my least favorite tasks...so attempting to pack for 3.5 months is rather challenging for me. So far so good...everything is falling into place. Tonight, my packing was interrupted by an incredible GIANTS game against the San Francisco 49ers. The Giants have been my family's team for as long as I can remember. I realized at the end of the victory that I'm going to need to find an Italian pub where I can watch the Super Bowl on February 5th (I hope the Italians won't mind my intense loyalty to the Big Blue).

Well....I'm off to bed. Stay tuned!