09/04/08
Wow! Today was a doozie! I am currently in my bedroom in my homestay! One other student and myself are staying with an older woman named Giovanna who teaches cooking professionally from time to time. Needless to say, she almost made me “vomito” on the dining room table. This was the breakdown of dinner this evening:
Course I: pasta:
Spaghetti with homemade sauce: fresh tomatoes, garlic, salt, olive oil, fresh basil (picked from her back porch), oregano (pulled from the stem) and more salt.
Bread
Course II:
Chicken cooked in white wine with a ton of fresh cilantro, garlic, olive oil
Potatoes fried in olive oil with garlic, salt and fresh rosemary (rosemarino!)
Bread (pane)
(noticing any trends)
(At this point, I needed to excuse myself to use the Toilette)
Course III:
Salad (insalata) with olive oil and vinegar
Bread
Course IV:
Fruit
Course V: Gelato! (We went out)
When we went out for Gelato, we stopped and picked up Giovanna’s 5-year-old grandson, Lorenzo and we found this part of her neighborhood that has this big celebration every Thursday in September. Free food and merriment. Many Italians of all ages out at 10:00pm on a Thursday having a good time. There was not a single American here. My roommate and I stood out like sore thumbs; people were pointing at us and whispering. I’ve come to accept this as a fact of life and will do my best to reverse it as much as possible (just wait until I can really break in that pair of skinny jeans! Molto italiano, eh?) I’m going to gain so much weight from Giovanna’s cooking. This must be the highly coveted Junior 40 that I’ve heard so much about... shoot. Oh well.
While the guys are usually pretty reasonable to talk to, the majority of the girls here continue to be unimpressive. I saw a girl today whose legs were the color of tree bark and her face was quite pale. Another girl last night asked if we were going to have wi-fi in the homestays again. For about the 80th time, the answer is no. But how am I going to check my facebook every 5 minutes? Get over yourself. You’re gross. These people here kind of make me sick.
However, through thick and thin, the cool people who are real people with real thoughts stand out and it’s easy to snag them. I’m so unused to being at the top of the class because of Whitman, that I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be back there. I realize I haven’t started classes yet, but as of right now, it sounds to me like we would be lucky for most of the group to show up sober to school on the first day.
I am still recovering from the jet lag, but I feel like I’ll be fine in the next few days. Giovanna doesn’t know a ton of English, so I think I’ll be learning Italian a lot faster than I originally anticipated. I’m optimistic about the way things are turning out. I’ll drop back in hopefully tomorrow. Registration! Katie Phelps, you’d best have answered my facebook wall post.
Ciao!
AJC
2 comments:
Good blogs, Adam, thanks for the updates. What a great place to spend a few months!
Sounds as if, in addition, you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn real Italian cooking from Giovanna, probably free, if you can find the spare time.
Have a great time, hold the weight gain hopefully, to 20 pounds or less.
Love,
Grandpa
Look, you're halfway to fitting in -- your last name is Caniparoli, after all. (Greg says, "Think of what look like, vs. what he looks like, and imagine who blends better.")
All you need to do is to buy yourself a pair of metallic trainers (tennis shoes/sneakers) if you really want to look Italian. Of course, the exchange rate probably still sucks, but maybe you'll find a flea market and get some cheap.
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