Cooking Classes

Kate, Catherine and I have started taking cooking classes together. So far we have had three and we're learning authentic Roman/Italian dishes. We've made, Rigatoni All'Amatriciana, lentil soup, and Lasagna Bolognese. They are all so good. Next time we're going to do a meat dish and make Saltimbocca. I am having so much fun with them. I can't wait to show off my new skills when I get home.

Something Funny Happened in the Circus Maximus

So, my history professor told us about this huge thing happening in the Circus Maximus last Sunday. I decided to check it out, being the geek that I am. It was a historical reenactment of the military and other cultural things from Ancient Rome. It. Was. Awesome.

I went with Savannah and took SO many pictures. You should really look at them all here, but I will walk you through the day a bit here and post a few with descriptions.

So first half of the Circus Maximus is set up like a military camp. There are tents everywhere and people dressed up just hanging out that you could talk to. There were tables set up that showed you the different types of weapons, armor, etc. it was really cool. There were shields lined up everywhere, and a bunch of soldiers just milling around eating. There was also a few stalls set up that told you about Roman coins, jewelery, medical tools, and mosaics that was set up like a mini-market.

(A brief photo break, then there will be more about the day)

 

Then there were a bunch of dances, which were strange and mostly consisted of belly dancing. Felt very eastern, and not very Roman but whatever. Then there were a bunch of military drills. They showed us some of the military formations and then there were a few man-on-man fights. This part was a lot of fun. (Apparently earlier in the day they did Roman vs Celtic fights, which were fun. I heard this from my history professor when we were talking about it after the midterm.) I have a lot of photos of this, a ton of action sequences so check out my facebook album that I linked to earlier for more. 

    Then there was a reenacmeant of a Roman wedding, which was really interesting to watch. From the actual souvenir market all around the festival, I got a t-shirt with all the money I had on me at the time. But I really like. They were also selling armor (for the reasonable price of 300 euro), helmets, swords ad shields, but try explaining that in customs. 

I really like her helmet.

API trip to Florence

So last Friday and Saturday I was on the API overnight to Florence. I must say, Florence is a beautiful city. It is a lot smaller than Rome and a lot quieter. I really loved it but I think a few days was the perfect amount of time. I got to see all of the major sights and I had a lot of time wander around. I also had the most amazing meal with a girl from API in Tuscania, Maria. We got mistaken for being Italian in the restaurant and we were very proud of ourselves for that.

So we left Rome at about 7 am and got there midday. It was drizzling and we went on a guided tour of the city. Then we gto a quick bite to eat and checked out the leather markets. The markets were a ton of fun, bags, belts, wallets, gloves, jackets, etc everywhere. I wound up buying (over the course of both days) 2 pairs of gloves (1 purple, and 1 blue), a leather bound book (I am going to use it to put my Italy pictures in at the end of the semester, and a super soft green scarf.

Later on Friday Maria Savannah and I wandered while the rest of the girls stayed in the market. We went on the old bridge which has stores ON it and window shopped. There were a ton of jewelery stores there, but none of us were willing to put down 500-2000 euro on something.

Saturday we went to see the David, and while it is very beautiful I must say I don't really get the hype. Then I wandered around the city on my own. I found a bunch of cute churches, one playing organ music! and some really beautiful buildings and piazzas. You can see all of my pictures here, but I will post a few in this post as well.

The Duomo looked like it was made out of candy, it was all white and green and pink. So beautiful, and very intricate.

 

 

Dante's House!

When I was walking around the city I kept on running into this bride and groom taking their wedding photos. It was so cute, they seemed to happy.

Recent Hiatus

So Midterms have started, so I have been studying a lot the past week - hence the recent lack of posts. (Last week I had a paper, a test and a midterm, this week I have 2 midterms, then I have another a week from Monday.) However you can expect in the near future (today? tomorrow?) a post about Florence (I was there Friday-Saturday) and perhaps a post about the craziness in the Circus Maximus, oh and another post about food. Cooking classes have started and the first 2 have been amazingly successful.

Food, Glorious Food!

So I had a wonderful culinary weekend. On Friday I made ratatouille and thought about the movie the whole time. Saturday I made chicken and eggplant Parmesan with Liat, for us and a friend. But the real highlight was today. Today I made "Torta di Ricotta con Gocce di Cioccolato" which is an Italian cake with chocolate chips with Kate. This was one of the recipes that our API RDs sent us. It was fantastic. Just scroll back up and look at the picture. Yum! I am really happy we decided to go for an authentic Italian dessert. Then for dinner we made AWESOME asparagus risotto, with tomato mozzarella and chicken cutlet. The risotto was creamy and cheesy and wonderful, and Kate realized the beauty of asparagus. She had never had it before.

As promised

Here is what I drew today:

Well out of the few pictures I did today, this is the only one I am really happy with. I drew a few of the statues in the Piazza del Popolo, and this has always been one of my favorite statues. I didn't really capture it here, but I love the way her dress looks like it is moving. I am just really happy with the face. The other one I did was of the statue across from her, which was this male togaed dude. I am happy with the way I got his arms and the part of his chest you can see, but the clothing and everything above his shoulders was just so off.

I am in one of those moods though that all I want to do if knit. I was planning on going to Lake Bracciano tomorrow, but I might just do that some other time. Maybe Sunday the 17th. We will see. I want to get up tomorrow to go to this open air market which is supposed to have yarn. Maybe if I go early enough I could do both...

One Month

Well it is official. I have been here for a month. I can't believe it has been that long, but I feel like it has been longer at the same time. But I must say, I really have loved every minute of it. Yes, there have been moments that I missed people, but I never wanted to not be here.

I must admit one of my favorite parts about being here has little to do with actually being here and is something I could've done at any point in my life but never did. I love cooking dinner for myself every night. I know that last year I had a kitchen and could have cooked, but I was on the meal plan so I relied on the cafeteria for food. Right now I don't have that option and I am so glad. I love seeing what I have in the fridge and trying to make a meal out of it. While I have not really been living full time at home for over 2 years now, it isn't until now that I feel like I am not living on my own but I guess I feel grown up or something. I am not in a 'dorm' I am not eating in a dining hall, it feels a lot more adult to me. When I go back to the Rock, even if I am on the meal plan, I am going to try to cook dinner for myself.

I spent the morning drawing again. I am really glad I did. I am not drawing nearly as much as I would like, I miss being in arts classes. I am going to try to draw more this afternoon, so I will post any successful drawings later.

Also on a side note, the other day I was walking home from class with my roommate Savannah and we had a great conversation. (Well I hope it was a conversation and not just me babbling away - sorry Savannah if I talked your ear off.) I mentioned how being here made me realize that I can live on my own and out of my comfort zone. At the Rock I go home every 5-6 weeks, and if I wanted to could go home on the weekends. I never did go home unless it was a break, but it was nice having that security blanket. But it also meant that I didn't really feel like I *left*. Right now I am in a different country, timezone, culture, everything. There is no way that this was in my comfort zone, but I did it/am doing it. I have always sort of joked about wanting to move to Ireland or the UK but I never thought I would do it because I didn't know if I could be that far from my family. I didn't even think I could leave the East Coast. But being here has really made me think about it. I would love to live abroad for a year or two after I graduate. I need to take time off anyways before doing grad school, so if it would be an feasible option I would love to spend that time somewhere else. We will see.

Well I will end this post with some pictures that I took last week when I went on a 8 hour adventure with Catherine Kate and Savannah. We just wandered around the city and it was amazing.  We started up by our apartment and meandered all the way down to the Bocca della Verita, which we didn't actually go see/touch because the line was too long.

Catherine and I just love all of the water fountains in Rome. The Water is just so good.

We found a children's museum by us, the outside was so cute.

Savannah at the museum

We went to the Leonardo da Vinci museum. So much fun!

Kate outside the da Vinci museum

Catherine sitting at the Piazza del Popolo

About halfway through the day Kate got a little tired outside the Santa Maria Sopra Minerva.