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!