cooking class, roma, cose

ciao ciao!

now that the school week is over, i have time to update about last weekend:

thursday: i was sick, so i skipped class and slept 12 hours straight. when i finally woke up at 1, nonna made me warm milk with MASSIVE amounts of honey. as giancarlo says "it was fantasteek." that night kathleen and i took a cooking class at school. we made two different kinds of risotto, one with saffron and sausage and one with vegetables and artichokes (is an artichoke a vegetable?) my favorite was the saffron and sausage. we also made what was essentially turkey cordon bleu (breaded turkey breasts rolled around ham and cheese) and CREME BRULEE for dessert. they didn't have a kitchen torch though, so we had to use a plumber's torch to burn the sugar on top (???).

friday: we woke up at 7 and took the train to ROMA with our school. we spent the whole morning and most of the afternoon at the vatican and saw most of its muesums, the sistine chapel, and st. peter's basilica. the vatican was probably my favorite muesum (if you can call it that) thus far as far as the types of art, the way it was laid out, etc, etc. also, the weather was GORGEOUS. rome was muchhh warmer than florence.

after that we had the rest of the day free, so kathleen, kristen, colleen and i got lunch and gelato and checked into our hotel. that night we went and saw the spanish steps (pretty, but somewhat anticlimactic) and went out to eat. after dinner, we ran into some of the loyola people including charli taibi, who flew from CHINA to visit his friend for the weekend (now that's dedication). they still needed to eat though, so the four of us wandered around, got more gelato, and then went to the campo di fiori, where we planned to meet them later. unfortuantely, we wimped out and left for our hotel around 12 because we were so tired and they hadn't even finished dinner yet.

saturday: saturday we woke up early again (like 8) and, assisted by our owen-wilson-look-alike-tour-guide, saw "ancient rome." we went to the colosseum, the roman forum, capitoline hill, and the parthenon (definitely my fav). while we were chilling in the center of ancient rome listening to niall (owen) say things like "and if a vestal virgin had sex, she was buried alive. which really sucks... i'm really claustrophobic..." i had this moment of clarity. i was basically sitting on the place where julius caesar was murdered - an event that i read about in shakespeare's julius caesar last semester - and i finally realized why it is relevant for me, an english major, to be studying in italy. do you know how many great works of literature are set in italy? i'll tell you: a LOT. and i'm actually getting to live in the setting that inspired these texts! how cool is that?

anyway not to get too deep on you all, after the parthenon we just had lunch and then more gelato (yes, that makes 3 in less than 24 hours... nbd?) at the favorite gelateria of the author of eat, pray, love. we quickly hit the trevi fountain and the mouth of truth (i think that's what it's called?) before catching our train home.

saturday night we planned to have a quiet dinner and go to sleep early.

instead, we went to this brilliant sushi restaurant a block from my house where the sushi is made right in front of you and they place it on this little conveyor belt that goes around the bar and you just choose whatever you think looks good! you can tell the price by the type/color of the plate it's on. after sushi we went to this place that had a 3 drink for 10 euro special and then to a disco where we danced... a lot. we finished the night off at eby's (where else?) for the usual late night mexican snack.

so much for a quiet night.

sunday we had breakfast at this "american breakfast" place. i had chocolate chip pancakes and (really awful) american coffee. then we just wandered around like we usually do on sundays. i bought a couple of pashminas and a pair of much-needed gloves.

this week has been pretty uneventful (though last night at dinner, kathleen thought for a brief period of time that nonna had had her possessions repossessed... when really she was just telling us that her other daughter works in a law office). i actually had a lot of work to do, so that was lame sauce.

this weekend we're staying in florence, so we're going to try and see some things around here that we haven't yet (boboli gardens, san miniato) and then my family comes on monday!!! they're flying into rome on saturday, but since i was there last weekend i'm just going to hang out here.

next week = midterms (vom) and then spring break starts friday (YESSS). i'll try to update at least once more before the break!

molti baci!