Assisi, Gubbio, and Citta di Castello etc

Ok this might be my shortest blog to date because I didn’t realize how little time I had. But quick over view

Last weekend- On Friday I went on a class fieldtrip to Assisi. It was really cool, and my teacher is unintentionally hilarious.

Dani, Alex and Me in Assisi!

The group with adrien- our teacher. 

Hey it's me in front of the Church of San Damiano.
We learned so much about this bad boy in class

Saturday I went with my friend Alex to this nearby town called Gubbio. It was really fun because we go to take this basket-like thing up a mountain. The scenery was AMAZING!

The basket we took to get up there. Not joking. 

On top of the mountain!!

Cool artistic shot of me with a tree

Sunday, we took our last foods fieldtrip of the semester to northern Umbra. It was too cold to go truffle hunting (huuuuuuuuge bummer L ), but we went to this medicinal herb museum, and we got to make our own cough syrup. We also got free cellulite cream (im not sure if they were trying to hint something…). We then got a HUGE GIGANTIC lunch at this amazingly beautiful place surrounded by mountains. And then we got to make gelato.  AwesomeJ

This past week has been just full of studying for midterms. Nothing too noteworthy.  I volunteer at the UNICEF center here. We are making dolls (that are then sold)- it feels like arts and crafts time. I forgot how completely unartistic I actually am. Out of all the dolls faces, they (politely) asked me to do mine again. And then another time after that. But other than that it’s going pretty well.

Alright, well once again I apologize for the lack of detail. Tomorrow is Spring Break week, and I am leaving for Vienna tomorrow! I will also visit Berlin and Krackow. I will have an extra long blog about that, I’m sure J

Ciao!!

Emilia

P.S. So far so good with lent, though it’s only been one day….

Sorry- will post soon!!

Preview for my real blog entry coming soon!!

I know seemed to gain the habit of posting a new entry every Wednesday- but i'm in the middle of midterms so I haven't had time to write it. But as a token of gratitude to anyone who check in, i'm going to tell you a story about my morning.....

So in my Italian class this morning my teacher Roberta thought it would be a good idea for us students to go out to bars (cafe's) around the area and ask them questions about coffee. We had to ask the barrista, and a customer.

The barrista was fine, he was actually really nice. He answered all of our questions (on our paper) nicely, and even gave us a free cappuccino!! But then we had to ask questions to one of the customers. The only ones there were groups of high schoolers. My partner and I approached one group of people, and ask them if we could ask them a few questions. They awkwardly said we could. We then proceeded to ask them the questions on our paper.

Before you knew it, we were surrounded by every single teenager in the bar. They were not only laughing HYSTERICALLY at our questions (they kind of had a right to, because we were told to ask the weirdest questions), they were taking pictures AND video taping. I literally wanted to run away and cry in a closet somewhere. But my partner was taking it like a champ. She just continued to ask questions, and they continued t to laugh harder. Finally the guy took our paper and started filling in his answers. It was at this point i started to ask the high schoolers questions in english. They had no idea what i was asking.... I felt a little better. After we were done (and after i posed for one of their shots), I said 'ciao, grazie,' and they said 'goodbyyyyyye' in what was an attempted american accent.

If there was anyway my italian teacher wanted us to look more american than she already had, she accomplished it. By the time we got back to class, everyone was leaving, and we didnt even have to turn in our paper. It was all for naught.

Oh well, at least we got a free cappuccino. :)

Ok, well I will update soon.

Ciao

Emilia

Oh P.S I have decided to give up all desserts/sweet things for lent. This is going to be the hardest 40 days ever.

Ciao Parma:)

I'll explain later...

Buon San Valentino!!!!! 

So I’ve had a great week.

Last Wednesday we had another Tandem event. At the Tandem event a week before I met this other Italian girl studying at the University of Perugia (I may or may not have already mentioned this). We both got to talking about how we absolutely loved foreign foods.  I told her about how I really missed Asian cuisine (and CHIPOLTLE, but that’s another story…) and how I searched high and how and haven’t been able to find any restaurant in Perugia that came close to this-turns out there is. So this past week at Tandem I met up with her and her friends and we went to this place that was in walking distance (ok, maybe I didn’t search that hard). The meal was ok, nothing special- I got a veggie lo mein of some kind (even though on the menu it was listed as spaghetti).   But since I haven’t had any kind of Asian cookery for the past two months anything similar to a freakin’ Panda Express was welcomed.

Don’t get me wrong though, I LOVE the food here- as you have probably already been able to figure out from my previous entries (I mean, I’m in a “study of foods” class…). Just this past Monday, I had one of the best eggplant parmesans I have ever had the pleasure of tasting- but we’ll get to that later.

On Thursday, I didn’t do too much of anything noteworthy. I went over to my friend’s apartment to have dinner (I didn’t do anything too crazy- we had to get up before the crack of dawn the next morning). My apartment and the guys’ apartment kind of have this thing where we switch off making dinner for each other. Except, we brought over dinner and cooked- I’m starting to think we’re getting gypped out of this deal (ok, to be honest, Julia is the one doing most of the cooking, but I helped buy the food!).

Snowy mountains

On Friday, like I previously mentioned, we got up at the earliest hour I might have been up in Italy (like 6:30!!) to get on the bus for Parma- another foods fieldtrip- except this one was overnight! It was around a 4 hour bus ride, but the views were really cool. It was snowing like crazy, but we passed through the Apennine Mountains on our journey, which made the scenery quite majestic. It also helped that I was listening to some really cool European electronic music (some credit goes to my brother Joe for this) so I felt extra cool.

When we got there we immediately went into the Salumificio “La Perla.” It was this famous prosciutto (and other pork-related meats) factory. We got a tour of it, pig legs and all. I thought it was really cool and interesting, but the smell of the place was a little unbearable (im a little pathetic when it comes to certain smells, especially in this context). I tried to relate this to the vegetarians of the group, but they were taking it like champs. But other than that I enjoyed learning about the whole process.

Oh hey pig legs....

Our tour guide teaching us about the process

The pig legs are everywhere!

After that slightly queasy experience, we had lunch! Guess what we were having? You guessed it. Lots of prosciutto. We arrived to a long table with individual plates covered with different kinds of prosciutto. I sat down still feeling sickly from the tour. We were all reflecting about how hard it would be to eat this. Yea, turns out that wasn’t the case at all. It was sooo good. If you are ever in the area, I would recommend the prosciutto (just try not to go to the factory directly before or after you eat though…  but I guess it doesn’t matter that much haha). We also had this ravioli covered in parmesan cheese. Ughhhh soooo amazing.  Especially since this cheese came from Parma. Now you might be wondering, ok Emily, if you are in PARMA why aren’t you going to a parmesan cheese factory?! Not to worry my readers, that will come soon.

Literal plates of meat

Everyone with their plate

Very good!

But after that we got to our hotel and had free time for the rest of the day.  So we passed out for a good three hours (we got up early ok??). Later that night we hopped on the public bus to Piazza Garibaldi- the center of town to look for a place to eat.  We heard about this one pizza place, so we went in, but were turned down right away because they were full (despite seeing a few suspiciously open tables…). We walked around (the shady areas of Parma) for a while and decided to try that place again. Shot down…again. So we walked around a little more looking for any place that resembled a restaurant (you’d think there would be more in Parma of all places) until we finally settled upon this pretty good pizza place.
 Julia and split our pizza's. So i had half pear Gorgonzola/ half eggplant with paramasan cheese. 

The next day we rose at ANOTHER ungodly hour. But it was worth it, because we headed straight to the Parmesan Cheese Cooperative for a tour. There we had a dress in a plastic overcoat, hat and booties. We looked great (or as my friend Michelle accurately described as ‘Dentist hotdog vendors’). We got to watch the cheese being made (I have a few videos that I can e-mail you if you are really interested) and learned all about parmesan cheese and the hierarchy in the factory (there is only one “Cheese Master”).  We also learned that there was lot of drama (the cheese master was almost kidnapped!), they definitely take their cheese seriously. We later got to try free samples. Ugh it was just, wow. I feel like I am now a pretentious parmesan cheese snob. 

Dentist Hotdog vendor thugz

Everyone at the tour

Making the cheese

Yup- that's all cheese. You jealous?

Everyone was pretty hungry after....

 After that we got back on the bus to depart for Modena- where Acetaia Villa Dan Donino- the Balsamic Vinegar  Cooperative was. Turns out I have also become a pretentious balsamic vinegar snob.  We got to try many samples. This stuff was unlike any other balsamic vinegar I’ve had before. In my foods class I learned that most people do not spend enough money on balsamic vinegar- so we are so used to the really thin stuff. But this substance was so good- you could put it on your ice cream! And so we did. The man who gave us a tour brought out his wife’s homemade gelato and put a few drops of this delicious concoction on it. YUM! I had to buy a bottle. I’m kinda scared to use it though, it’s so precious. After that we hopped back on the bus and headed back to Perugia.

The 'extra-vecchio'. The good stuff that's at least 30 years old. 

Sampling...yum.

On gelato???!! Oh yes, on gelato :)

The rest of the weekend was pretty low-key. On Monday evening a select few (a few of us won a e-mail contest) went to dinner at this awesome restaurant with Simon. There I had the best eggplant parmesan I might ever have in my life. It was this really small dish with a few slices of eggplant (they think the word “eggplant” is really funny here, the Italian word is “melanzane”- much more classy). It was a really good time.

Nothing too noteworthy has happened since then. So I will leave you now.

Happy Birthday to my Dad! And shout out to everyone else who is still reading my blog.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Saluto i miei amici belli, fino alla prossima volta :)

Emilia

Food field trip, Museums and the Superbowl!! Bellissimo!

Hello my wonderful readers!!

In this episode, we go to Florence!

 Sorry I haven’t updated in a week, a lot has happened per usual!

So I feel like I never talk about my classes (there are more important things, just kidding….) haha- so I will now.

So I am taking 4 classes. Six credits worth of intensive Italian (so I’m basically fluent), and 3 additional classes.  My favorite, as I mentioned briefly before is “History and Culture of Foods in Italy.” Our professor is awesome (Simon, STILL amused by the meteo thing), and we have FOOD workshops, and go on FOOD fieldtrips. If you ever find a class as cool as this one, please let me know. I am actually learning a lot too. A good portion is about the history of Italy, so I’m learning about the past and current infrastructure of the country. Another professor Zach Nowak, helps out with some of the workshops and goes on some fieldtrips with us. He isn’t as blown away my meteo. In fact, he thinks it’s silly, and doesn’t understand it. Let’s just say someone had it coming. Every time he tried to bring it up I would attack him with what meteorology actually is. I also sent him some links which also demonstrated some important points.  In my opinion, I won every argument, but we both agreed to disagree. It makes sense, since he is a historian. He likes the past, and I prefer looking into the future.

But enough about that- I’m taking two other classes: Leonardo Da Vinci and Saints and Sinners.  These are both with the same professor, who is quite the character. I wish I could explain her in words, but it’s somewhat difficult. My friend Dani does a great impression of her, so if you ever meet, have her do it for you. But the classes are interesting. It’s pretty cool to have history classes for a change.

I had a really nice weekend. I actually didn’t go anywhere on Friday for a change (Did I mention we never have classes on Fridays?). This was actually really nice because IT’S FREEZING HERE. Ok, I know it’s about as cold as it would be back at home, but it’s just different ok? But I stayed in for most of the day and got caught up on work/sleep (mostly sleep…). Julia (mostly Julia) and I made risotto (she hates hearing me pronounce risotto because apparently I butcher it). But it was so good. We then ended the evening with an exhausting dance party (we’re crazy). But overall, it was a really relaxing day.

Italians having a snowball fight (this is as good as it gets for them...)

Saturday was our Foods day trip to Firenze! We rose at an ungodly hour (dance parties can have a profound effect on you) and hopped on the bus to Florence. We met up with Simon there and first walked to a chocolate shop. We got some free samples, and wow. I may or may not have bought a few extra for the road.

Firenze!!!!

Walk over to restaurant!

It was really cold. Really.

Waiting to eat our meal!

We then made our way to the restaurant where we met one of the most famous chefs in Florence: Chef Alessi. So apparently this guy has a bad temper and was let go from his restaurant (Simon was willing to bring him to Perugia for us, he’s that good). But good fortune was upon us, and Chef Alessi was invited back to the restaurant. I braced myself when we met him, but turns out he is actually quite pleasant (from my small impression of him)! But anyways, he explained the menu to us in Italian, while Simon translated. Simon was literally drooling when he told us what it was going to be.  It was a lot of food.  So as a disclaimer, my description of food is not quite up to par with that of a food critic- but just go with it. The first course served was pasta cooked with A LOT of ginger. It was a tad overwhelming- but I did appreciate the first few bites. Then, came a potato dish that was similar to mashed potatoes. We then had a meat with a REALLY peppery sauce (really peppery…). Then, came my favorite part. It was this spicy turkey cooked with a sweet/spicy squash. The two together was a wonderful sensation (I tried coming up with a better description there about how it tickled my pallet, but I gave up). Then was dessert, it was excellent. It was like this cream tart with pine nuts. I was fully satisfiedJ. We regretfully made our way back to Perugia.

But the next day was great. Julia and I signed up for this free museum tour of Perugia so we got to see the National Gallery, Exchange Guild (frescoes by the famous Perugino), the Palazzo della Penna Museum (which had a great modern art exhibit and a photo exhibit on Perugia in the 50’s), and the Archaeological Museum.  I didn’t even know these museums were here! But they were so cool and I actually learned a lot haha. My favorite part was this fresco that portrayed this famous (probably untrue) Perugian story about how the Perugians threw a calf down to their enemies who were attacking. This caused the enemies to realize that the Perugians were so rich that they could literally throw down their own food sources to keep enemies at bay- so this caused them to back down.  So, you better think next time before I throw my sandwich at you.

Later that night we went to Elfo’s (a bar) at MIDNIGHT to watch the Superbowl (pics below).  We started off pretty strong, but were pretty much zombies by the end of it (4:00-ish). But it was a ton of fun, and I was pretty happy about the Giants win (I wasn’t exactly a pocketful of sunshine for my 9 am the next morning though...).

Excited for the game??

That may or may not be ours...

Sorry, none of these pics are from later on in the evening.
 I felt no need to document it.

Monday was pretty normal. After my classes ended I went walking around the (still FREEZING) city by myself for a while. It was actually really nice. It gave me time to see places I’ve never been to, as well as gave me an opportunity to practice my Italian (I went to a grocery store, and these women were trying to explain what balsama- conditioner was, in Italian, it was around a 15 minute process…). Later that night we had a pizza workshop, where we learned all about, and how to make pizza. We each got our own pizza (I got my usual truffle pizza). It was great.

Julia making pizza.

We get to choose our own pizza!
We chose the most expensive one because we already paid for it.

Right now it is Tuesday, even though I’ll post this on Wednesday. But tonight my friends are making some sort of Tortellini Alfredo dish I think (alfredo is pretty much 100% American by the way), and we are watching V for Vendetta. I might also hang out with my new found Italian friends (yea I guess im cool). But we’ll see!

Oh shout out to my little brother Jake for turning 6! And shout out to my Aunt Mary who I hear is reading this as well!

Happy Birthday Jake!!! (Best Friends)

This is Emilia signing off,

Ciao!!

When in Rome!

Colosseum! I wanted this to be the cover photo haha.

Buongiorno!!

Disclaimer: This might be my longest entry yet. So prepare. Also, all pictures courtesy of my friends Dani, and Michelle

I have returned! And I just want to make a quick comment that it’s snowing!!!!!!! And it’s accumulating!! Oh how I’ve missed this stuff, we barely got any in the past few months. Italy in the snow is amazing. And I think I’m trying to go sledding, and I’m in the perfect spot since Perugia is one big hill (don’t worry, I’ll take the mini metro back up- it’s kind of like a ski lift)!

Fountain covered in snow! Apparently snow only happens once or twice a year here. 

So this past weekend I went to Rome with a group of my friends. Let’s just say I’ve pretty much overused the phrase “When in Rome” to the point where I probably wouldn’t be allowed to ever use it again. But I was very excited to go- we arrived in the city on Friday and stayed until Sunday. 

The bus ride there was very interesting. We got there early so we had our selection of seats to choose from.  So I had two seats in the back to myself for a while. That is, until the bus stopped at this nondescript place and picked up a small handful of people. Despite there being plenty of seats open throughout the bus, these people made their way to the back and took up the seats next to the ones occupied by my friends and I. I sat next to an 8 or 9-year-old girl. She seemed really sweet and shyly smiled at me from time to time. It was at this point that I figured I would say something to her. So completely forgetting that she most likely didn’t speak any English I complimented her on her headband (in English). She looked at me weirdly so I pointed at her head and gave her a thumbs up. For some reason, this wasn’t the best idea. She then gave me a look of horror and proceeded to speak in hushed Italian to her mom, who gave me the same look.  I wanted to explain to them what I meant, but any attempt was fatal at that point. The mother just kept her arm tightly wrapped around her daughter for the rest of the trip-both giving me threatening looks every once in a while.

But everything was ok after that! We checked in right away when we got there. We stayed at the Hotel Hollywood (very Italian…). There were 8 of us, and we got to stay in adjacent rooms, which was quite convenient. The girls in the room over had a very interesting room- nicknamed the ‘Pink Floyd’ room for reasons I couldn’t quite understand. But the bathroom light was reflected in blue, it was strangely odd and awesome at the same time. Our room wasn’t as cool but the guys got a bunk bed (I was jealous).

The group of us the Spanish Steps!
 (Alex, Erin, Michelle, Dani, Cameron, Julia, me, Ashley)

I also don’t think I have ever done so much walking in three days.  We pretty much hit up all the main tourist spots. We tried to conquer the Colosseum on Friday, but it turns out that it was closed due to the transportation strike, which we were all curious about, because the Colosseum has nothing to do with transportation. But the metro was still up and running, so we never really ran into any problems (well except for the Colosseum of course). Since that was closed we decided to dedicate Friday to try to hit up all the other main spots. This included the Trevi Fountain, Spanish Steps, and the Pantheon. We also visited the Victor Emmanuel Monument, which contained the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and a great view of the city (also which we frequently used as a meeting place, so we cleverly nicknamed it “The Big White Building”).  Pizza and lots of gelato were scattered throughout the day.  It was great to see all of these places, especially the Trevi fountain because on my previous trip to Rome I tossed a coin in the fountain (which will assure my return to Rome)- so it came true. I tossed another coin in, so I await my next trip back to the Eternal City.

Trevi Fountain!

The next day was dedicated to the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. I woke up early and went with the girls. The line was long, but it wasn’t too bad. I think one of the main points I actually wanted to return to Italy (after my week long trip my senior year of high school) was because I didn’t get to spend as much time as I had wanted to in the Colosseum. So returning here was a big deal for me. I also feel like I have a much bigger appreciation for Roman history, and how the Colosseum played a part in that. 

I made it back to the Colosseum!!

We also got to see the Roman Forum, which I don’t even think we visited when I came to Rome for the first time. I was absolutely fascinated by this place (did you know Caesar was burned there??). Unfortunately we got there only an hour before it was closing so we barely got to see any of it. Also, I got separated from my trusty Rick Steve’s guide book (which I got for Christmas from my parents), when our group split up for the day. So I didn’t even know what I was looking at in the Forum (there were no signs).  So I plan to visit Rome once again, and spend a whole day in the Forum-with my guide book (this book is literally the best, it has helped me out so much already! Despite being made fun of by my friends, I would recommend getting one).

Don't have any photos (yet) of me at the Roman Forum,
but here is me with Rick Steves in front of the Pantheon!

That night we went to dinner at a really nice restaurant. I got a mushroom and truffle pizza, it was just, wow. But after that, some of my friends were still hungry and had wanted to go to another restaurant from the start. So what did we do? We had a second dinner at this restaurant (hey, when in Rome, right??). There were absolutely no regrets from this decision. This was probably one of the best restaurants I have been to since coming to Italy. It was not only due to the food, but the atmosphere as well. It had torches on the outer walls, and the inside was this warm atmosphere with garlic hanging from the ceiling (ok I can’t really describe it well, but when my friend posts the pictures, I’ll put one up here). The menus were large scrolls similar to pirate maps (except for the map part), and we got to keep them! I split a margherita pizza with a few people, and my friend got a 19 euro truffle pizza. This was even better than mine, which I thought was pretty impossible. We savored every last bite. This turned out to be my favorite part of Rome (Oh but don’t worry, it is all justified by the ridiculous amount of walking we did, I couldn’t feel my feet at the end of each day).

Sunday was intended for the Vatican. Firstly, did you know that on the last Sunday of every month, the museum at the Vatican was free? This would have been great if we hadn’t accidentally slept in and gotten there late. We arrived (first inadvertently making a trip to the ‘Piazza del Popolo’ ) at around 11:30. It was PACKED! Not only for the free part, but they were having some sort of peace rally. So it was extremely crowded. The museum closed at 12, so we missed out on the Sistine Chapel. I would have been more disappointed if I hadn’t already seen it. It was actually pretty cool just to be in St. Peter’s square with all those people. It was almost as if a new pope was being selected or something (Ok, it probably would have been a little more crowded if that was the case, but it was still pretty cool). 

After that, we slowly started to make our way back. We missed the 2 pm bus for Perugia, but we caught the train, which was fine- even though we ended up back in Tarantula again (I’m beginning to think that the saying should have been “all roads lead to Tarantula (Terontola)” instead of Rome…). But it was a great trip overall, we were pretty exhausted at the end of it. 

No green fairies, unforetunately...

So now it’s Wednesday afternoon and things have been pretty normal. Well as normal as they can get when you’re living in a foreign country. On Monday we had another workshop for my foods class (the professor, for which, by the way is still absolutely fascinated by the fact I’m in meteorology), it was really fun because we got to learn about ‘apertivo’, which is a small meal before dinner. It’s great because they usually have this at bars and cafes. All you have to do is pay for your drink, and you can eat as much finger food (Italian finger food) as you want- great for cheap college students!  We also got a taste of homemade ABSINTHE. It was horrible (didn't get any visions of fairies), but still very cool. I also got involved in this organization that helps with Fair Trade. I go to my first meeting on Monday, I’ll let you know how it goes!

Alright, well I have wasted enough of your time. Shout out to both of my grandmothers who I hear have been reading my blog. I love you, and I hope you can come visit!!

We have another Tandem event tonight- hopefully the snow wont cancel it. I need to get another fix of practicing my Italian with guys. 

Addio mia bella amici

Emilia

 (yea i’m still going to refer to myself as that- just go with it)