A memorable purchase

Yesterday I went to the Vatican. I can barely believe it’s true. In fifty years from now I am sure I will still be in shock. Due to the shock of so many sights in one day, I think it might take me a few days to compose what I want to write about my experiences in St. Peter’s Basilica, the Sistine Chapel, the museum, etc. So for now I thought I would share a short piece I wrote today in my travel writing course. The assignment was to choose and object and describe it for the first part. Next we were to use that object to lead our writing into a narrative or story that in the end somehow was a visible connection to the original object. Make sense? Well here is the piece I ended up writing in the ten minute period we were allotted. I hope you enjoy it and I will try to post about the Vatican as soon as I can begin to wrap my mind around it. Ciao!

[Last Saturday when we did not go to Bamarzo to the Monster Gardens, I ended up spending the day exploring in Viterbo. One of the exciting discoveries I found was the local flea market that apparently shows its face every Saturday in the town center. I could not resist from a bit of shopping and the object mentioned below is one such object I bought.]

Shouting in my ear a woman pushes around me, flattening my body against the table overflowing with winter coats: leather, fleece, wool, fur. The three Euros sign swings like a hypnotizing pendulum as my gaze drops on a caramelized cloth swimming in a sea of black. The coat’s soft material stretches toward my knees with matching buttons running across the chest. The wide “Made in Italy” collar will protect my neck from the Italian chill. Reaching into the front pockets IO find a stack of train tickets, used, from the year 2003. With these tickets in my hand and the coat’s molasses scent which reaches my nose every time I move, I am transported on the train of time to a kitchen of my childhood.

In my great grandmother’s kitchen the sweet smell of dessert wafted into the den where my sisters, my cousin and I sat, trying our hardest to behave. Mixed with the sweet baking smells was an unknown smells to the young in the room: age. The leather chairs groaned underneath us as we watched a recorded football game on the fuzzy television. The adults knew none us wanted to crowd around the television but what else were they to do with four rowdy adolescents in such a place, delicate with the passing of time. Every intake of breath was felt as a disturbance to the balance of my great grandmother’s home where everything is marked with the stamp of time. The time before my great grandfather passed, the time before she would move away from this home in the sunny valley to her summer home in the mountains, and lastly with the time before she passed. In those hushed afternoons at G.G.’s house, I never thought to have a conversation with her in the warm kitchen about the days she spent in this old house. Would she have listened to my five year old questions? What were your favorite memories? Your worst? What’s your favorite color? Do you like frogs?

Train tickets in hand, I wish I had been the one to use them in 2003 to ask my great grandmother everything that had been shushed, out of respect, from me. A million opportunities drowned in the rapids of time. I pay the man behind the mountain of coats three Euros and move on. With the tickets clutched tightly in my hand and the smell of molasses keeping me company in my chilly Italy town, I find myself far away, unreachable by train, from those I still have time to ask my questions. 

How time does slip

 This post was written last Friday but I unfortunately did not have the time, nor the internet to post it on time. Oops!

This last week has gone by way too quickly! This week alone felt like it was only one day rather than seven! This could possibly be due to the frosty winter weather, but also to the fact that school has officially begun.

Tomorrow I am supposedly going to the Monster gardens, but unfortunately it appears my fellow travelmates are a bit under the weather and would prefer a day in Viterbo. I think I will be okay with this, although I do want to make sure we journey to the land of monsters before too much longer. Rawrrr!!!

Yesterday was my first Italian exam and I fear I did not do too well on it. With three years of high school Spanish tumbling around in the recess of my mind, conjugating verbs and remembering which words are masculine and which are feminine can be confusing at times. Next week I believe I will be cracking down on myself to try to pick up the language more so when it comes to taking tests I can rely more on my experience attempting to converse than on my memory.

Sunday is going to be a very, very big day! Il Vaticano is waiting for me. I can already tell I am going to be completely shell shocked all day Sunday. We are going to be leaving at 5:30 in the morning, which will throw me out of my lazy Italian sleeping pattern but adding even further to the haze of dream-like wonder I will be in walking under the handiwork of someone like Michelangelo. I can’t even begin to comprehend walking somewhere a person like St. Peter is buried. St. Peter! One of Jesus’s apostles. The history behind the Vatican is…is…well, it just is too fantastic to put into words.

Est! Est! Est!

 Zuppa di ceci e castagne (Chickpea and Chestnut Soup)

Lombrichelli

Pecorino Romano

Tozzetti (dipped in wine)

Salti en Bocca

Ricotta with Jam and Coco powder

Est! Est! Est!

In the span of four hours I feel that I ate more than I have ever eaten in my life! Italian cuisine is fascinating because despite the wide range of flavors, everything is made in a simplistic way making preparation possible under an hour for a multitude of delicious courses. Let me put it this way: we cooked and prepared dishes for an hour, and then ate for three hours with only a short break in between courses to allow even more room for dishes authentic to our area in rustic Italia.

I was the first student to arrive at our teacher’s flat, residing high above the town’s cobblestone streets, in a neighborhood flouting a plethora of delicious bakeries and fruit shops. The door to her apartment building was open and I didn’t bother ringing the button reading “Thompson” on the outside of the building but made quickly for the warmth of the enclosed stairway. The door closed behind me before realizing I had no idea which door lead to her apartment. I climbed up and down the stairs, sniffing around the corners of different doors trying to detect the smell of a cuisine teacher’s flat from the average Italian meals being cooked to welcome the noon hour. My canine sense of smell proved nonexistent as I moved up and down the stairs, helpless. Finally, a gentleman, making his descent down the white marble staircase was able to direct me to the topmost floor, where my wounded detective skills were redeemed by the nonexistent smell of food in the air about her narrow doorway. A large iron door knocker thundered against the wood, threatening to break it, when I let the rough metal drop away from my frozen fingers.

Mrs. Thompson’s flat is gorgeous. I felt as if I had walked into one of the summer issues of my mom’s design magazines, which have offered inspiration from time to time to several of the females in our family. Everything had its place and items were chosen with aesthetic care. I was the first student to arrive and would be the only student for over half an hour as the rest of the students poured into the kitchen out-of-breath from rushing from their Studio Art class on the other side of town.  While waiting for the others, Mrs. Thompson put me to work chopping garlic, celery and peppercinos. The red peppers crackled and flaked as I cut them into small strips to flavor one of the dishes, however I had yet to figure out what particular dish we were making. Mrs. Thompson warned me ahead of time that usually her garden did not produce particularly hot peppers, but this year’s seemed to be an exception. After I had finished cutting the peppers I found truth to her words as I touched the dry flesh of my lips (Italy’s weather has made my skin comparable to that of a crocodile recently) and the entirety of my mouth began to tingle and cry from the heat.

When the rest of the students had arrived and we added the peppers to a dish on the stove, the peppery steam made our eyes water and our throats tickle until we were forced to open the window to squelch the coughs wracking through each of our bodies.

 Simple Ingredients to make pure deliciousness: Flour, sugar, eggs, hazelnuts and oil! Twice baked

 Baked to a crispy deliciousness and ready to be dipped in...not coffee, but...wine!!! Sweet, red wine.

After only an hour we were ushered to the dining table, ready to consume the fruit of our labor—despite having barely helped in the kitchen save for a few slicing and stirring motions. When we would finish one course we would move our bodies and dirty dishes back to the kitchen to collect the next course and unsoiled plates. This process was repeated at least four times. 

 This is an interesting vegetable found only in Italy--sorry I forget the name of it--which the Italians soak in cold water for 24 hours to make the edges curl.

 Here is the dressing (f.y.i. there is no such thing as Italian dressing-there is no dressing in Italy!!)
A lovely combination of garlic, salt, and sardines (Ick!!!)

 Chickpea soup, again, delicious!

 A noodle not found anywhere else! These floury strands might look like warms, but they are much more tasty than our dirt dwelling friends.

 Est! Est! Est!

-Used to flavor the pasta sauce

 Pork, prosciutto and one lonely sage leaf=yummy in the tummy!

 A Multitude of delicious cheese for us to sample. Number one and two were the general favorites of our Cuisine family. Caciotta and Peccorino Rosso

 For dessert we had ricotta cheese with a dab of this heavenly jam, complements of Eden Fruits, a local grocer I am bound to fall in love with.

 Other than enjoying amazing food, I also have been exploring several of the local shops. One book store has captured my attention, despite having only Italian texts. I have a feeling one such text will be accompanying me on my journey home. I could spend hours in this bookstore, especially in the children's section where the following pictures were taken from a book I was very tempted to purchase:

 These books were all so beautiful! I was so tempted!

And finally, here are the pictures I took for you Dad of the car show that filled our town square temporarily:

I'm sure you will recognize more of them than I was able to!

 I knew this one!

 And this one!

  Today I wore my Italian made boots for the second time and I am glad I did: a storm is picking up on the horizon and looks like it is going to unleash itself around the same time I leave my last class of the day. I have leftovers from cuisine for tonight's dinner and I am looking forward to my 9 o'clock Italian dinner very much! Dinner and then studying for my first Italian exam-wish me luck!

Ciao ragazzi!