Welcome back to Italy Dr. and Mrs. Rosenzweig!

Excuse my handful-of-weeks-long absence from my blog, I haven’t had time to sit down and write because of my travel schedule. First, my parents came to visit me and we took a road-trip all over Italy. Second, I got back yesterday from a trip to Holland.

A few weeks ago I took the train to Roma Termini and then another to Frascati in the hills of Rome to meet up with the ‘rents. Going from the daily stress of being a foreign student in Padova to the familiarity of being in the Castelli Romani with my parents was like sliding into a bubbling jacuzzi after a day of heavy physical labor. All of the sudden I was completely relaxed.

We started out staying with the Favas, and, as usual, Toni Fava cooked up some fabulous meals including pasta with a creamy mushroom sauce and concord grapes (what!?) and a pasta carbonara that was by far the best carbonara I’ve had in my life. We also went into Roma centro one night to go to a restaurant called Stil Novo (Romanesco for stilo nuovo or “new style”) with two of my dad’s collegues and their wives. We had four courses -none of which I could finish- each more delicious than the last. My favorite, hand’s down, was a shish kebab with nuggets of rare beef, on-top of which thin sheets of lard were melted, and roasted chestnuts. During the day we gave into our nostalgia for the times that we lived there and took drives around the Castelli. We ate fragolini (tiny strawberries) in Nemi, porchetta (delicious slices of a whole-roasted herbed and spiced pig) in Torre Jacova, and granita di café (basically a coffee slushy) in Roca di Papa.

Another especially exciting day we helped out with the olive harvest at casa Fava. They invited physically able friends to help them, enticing their unpaid workers with the vision of a large lunch banquet and the opportunity to take part in a tradition that is as old as time. First thing in the morning my mother and Liz spread nets under the trees, after which we spent hours brushing off the olives with little hand-held rake tools. Toni was in charge of using this contraption that vibrated the branches to get the olives at the tippy-tops of the trees. It was slightly uncomfortable how many vibrator jokes were being tossed around by my parents and Toni and Liz, but hey, I would’ve joined in on the humor if it hadn’t been my parents. Once the olives were collected we took them to a rustic frantoio (olive-press) where they separated the leaves, ground up the olives, squeezed the liquid from the olive-paste produced, then separated the oil from the water. The oil is like nothing you’d ever find in America. You can’t even find that quality of oil in the stores here. I was really excited to bring the oil back to Padova though because many of the Italian students have oil that their father or grandfather make with their own olives so I was very happen to level the culinary playing field.

SO. MANY. OLIVES.

See the olive rake?

Also, I just really like this picture of my mama...

Two beautiful things about this picture: 1. the gorgeous stream of olive oil

2. the classic old Italian man surveying his product.

From the Favas my parents and I embarked on a road-trip to Padova so they could see where I live. We picked up my old friend Carlye in Bologna on the drive up north so that she could join in on the free meals and comfort of once again having parental figures around. We only had one night in Padova and spent the following morning walking around the daily farmers markets in the historic center. The next day we drove more north to Trieste, which I found vaguely similar to San Francisco, due to the look of the narrow apartment buildings built upwards and the trolleys that roll up and down the windy streets. While my dad worked, my mother and I walked throughout the city, mostly window-shopping, but also stopping to see a Roman ampitheater and some beautiful piazzas.

Next we drove onwards to Lago di Garda, staying at a hotel right at the edge of the still as glass lake. The town seemed surreal because no one was out and there was no wind swaying the boats. The absence of the clanging of the boats and the splash of water was so strange that it felt like an episode of the twilight zone. The next day, however, people were out walking in the streets and the shops were open so we took advantage of the high-quality merchandise, buying a couple of beautifully crafted leather bags and a bunch of artigianal chocolates. Then we hit the road back to Rome, stopping only to eat and to buy some balsamic vinegar in the city in which it originated, Modena. Back at the Favas we ate more scrumptious meals and I said goodbye to my parents. It was a fabulous trip: I ate, I travelled, I saw my parents, and I went back to Padova with so many goodies that I needed one of their suitcases. Funny enough though, after they left I felt my first pangs of homesickness since arriving in Italy.

HOLLAND POST IS PENDING don’t fret. 

Oh, and there are more pictures of Trieste, Lago di Garda, etc... but I have yet to get them since my parents have them all.

Tea, Tachiflu Medicine, Tissues, Emergen-C, and more Tea.

I got some shit called Tachiflu to help my cold. It's a powder that you put in hot water and it tastes like medicated lemon-honey tea. I guess it's working, my nose has dried up which is great. Pre-Tachiflu my nose was like the fucking Niagra Falls and I was sneezing every other second so, yeah, this is definitely more ideal. I still have no energy which sucks but I only had class on Monday and Tuesday this week so thank god for that.

Classes, Colds, and Complaints

October 12, 2011

I’ve just finished my second full week of university classes and am living in a university apartment with three lovely Italian girls, one with whom I share a double. We have no living room, just two bedrooms/bathrooms with an adjoining kitchen, so visitors beware: bring your own sleeping bag or portable air-mattress if you plan on coming here.

My classes are interesting…I think…I’m not quite sure because I only understand about 30% of what the professor says in one of them and about 60% in the other. I’m taking history of contemporary philosophy, which, as you might assume, is the class in which I only understand 30%. All the lectures are on concepts and theories, which can be difficult in English, so just imagine how much info goes zooming over my head in Italian. My other class, contemporary Italian literature, is slightly easier. My professor gets very excited about the novels we’re reading and is a small, slightly chubby, old lady so it’s a little like listening to an Italian grandmother tell a story. I’m very excited about this class because the novels that we’ve been assigned sound really interesting and I can read four of them in English (hurrah for reasonable professors!).

But, alas, Italy always throws obstacles at me the second I start to feel comfortable. I have yet to find any of my courses’ books (because why would Italian bookstores sell Italian novels in English?), the weather took a sudden turn so all of the sudden it’s cold out, and because of this sudden temp change I’ve come down with a pretty bad cold. Meh. Now I have to go to the pharmacy. I’ll tell you about it when I get back. OH! And the internet just went out so I have no idea when I’ll be able to post this.

Alright, I’m back. So the pharmacy run was surprisingly easy, I don’t know why I thought it wouldn’t be. I knew the key words to explain my cold to the pharmacist: raffredore (cold), congestionata (congested), and le tosse (coughs). Armed with the correct vocabulary and very obvious symptoms I conveyed my illness, received my medication and its instructions, and paid in all of three minutes. 

Prompt service? In Italy? Unheard of. Except, apparently, at the pharmacy. 

Ashes Ashes we all Fall Dead

October 10, 2011

The week before last will forever be referred to as….THE WEEK OF DEATH

It was by far the most hectic week I’ve had here, which is saying a lot because I’m including weeks where I had to lug around my two large suitcases (plus an over-loaded backpack) from city to city and on and off trains.

 

List of Pains-in-the-Ass:

1. I had two oral exams for my language class. The exams here are more like an interrogation than an exam. It’s just you and your teacher face-to-face. One was on the history of Padova/Italian grammar and the other was more of a presentation on a topic of your choice. All in Italian, of course.

2. Then I had to move from one residence to another on the whole other side of town.

3. And then I had to miss class to sit for five hours at the police station to deal with some beaurocratic bullshit about the Permesso di Soggiorno (I honestly have no idea what it’s purpose is, but we had to do it).

4. AND on top of all that university classes started.  You have to shop around for classes here instead of just signing up for them on the internet like at the UC’s so it’s a lot more time-consuming.

So I missed most of our last week of language course class which means that I half-assed my presentation and crammed hard-core for the oral exam because the history reading we’d been assigned was so thick with Italian technical terms that none of us really understood it the first time around. Finally, now that I’ve settled into my permanent housing, got an A in my language course, and found all of my university classes, I can relax.

Oof. Venice.

Last Wednesday we took a little field trip to Venice. After a half-hour train-ride our teacher told us that we had the option to stay there over-night, an offer we took without hesitation, who wouldn’t? Her brother is a hotel manager at a four star hotel in the heart of the city and the room that all nine of us stayed in for only 90 euro in total is actually 1400 euro a night. Basically, we lived like Venitian queens for a night. We toured the city during the day, stopping at il Museo Correr and the Palazzo Ducale, eating a little gelato, and then we went for an aperativo drink before dinner. Our group consisted of us UC girls, our teacher Ilaria, her brother Luca, and Luca’s friend Claudio. We thought that after our drink we’d grab a bite to eat, see a little Venice at dark and then call it a night.

But no…apparently that’s not how you do a Venetian Wednesday night. After our aperativo we went to another bar to drink wine and eat tiny fried meatballs saturated in garlic, cold potatoes that have been marinating in oil, parsely and salt, and fried filleted sardines. The bar was so cute, the doorway was crowded with people ordering little appetizers/wine but the back was a trattoria-style restaurant. With our hunger and exhaustion from the heat of the day temporarily sated by delicious snacks and wine we thought, “okay, back to the hotel.”

But, again, nope…on to another bar! The drinkers of the group thinned to myself, Tess, Erica, Luca, and Claudio. This bar was an Irish pub, so everyone was sipping on brew and watching the soccer match on the big screen TV. After finishing our drinks (quickly because most of the group had stopped drinking and were waiting awkwardly outside) we walked, slightly tipsy, back to the hotel stopping only to dance to a mariachi band serenading the tiny streets (I know, mariachi in Venice? Yes, it exists). And, once again, those of us who had decided to enjoy the Venetian nightlife, despite knowing full well that we had a 7AM revelry the next morning, were invited to the hotel bar by Luca.

So Tess, Erica, and I enjoyed our own private bar well into the next morning. We were our own bartenders - helping ourselves to anything and everything behind the bar, learning how to make drinks, and trying disgusting Italian liquors. When we got hungry; Luca called the consierge, who suddenly appeared with cheese and crackers. When we ran out of ice; Luca called and, again, the consierge came running with a bucket filled to the brim with ice. When we wanted our music louder; Luca made a call. Our wish was his command. The shear privilige we had was almost as intoxicating as the alcohol we were drinking.

The next morning we woke up, had a splendid continental breakfast, filed through the four-feet-wide streets to the train station and was at class by 9:30. Needless to say, for the three of us that stayed awake:

it was an amazing night. The morning was definitely not. 

There's a dryer on the roof I think...

I present to you, gentle readers, the Italian version of a dryer. 

There is a machine in our dorm building but it's not very effective. The first time I opened the dryer after the cycle was finished I was confronted by a pile of steaming wet clothes. Not exactly what I wanted. So on to plan B: dry in the waning sunlight. I should probably just call it plan A, however, because it's most Italians' method of drying laundry. I have yet to find/buy un stendino (a standing drying rack that's foldable for easy storage) so my impromptu stendino is the roof! I just hope my clothes don't blow away because I don't have any clothespins... And there you have it. I found a dryer...I guess..?

My Pet Patrizio

Me an Patrizio, my pet basil plant.