Buono Sera!

I figured I'd post a little update because as awesome as the trips are, all the day to day stuff is a lot of fun too!

I just finished my classes for the week (I only have class Monday-Thursday). Italian is going very well. My teacher continues to speak in all Italian every class but she acts everything out so we understand. A lot of days it's like playing charades since she doesn't know much English either. My History of the Italian Mafia class is definitely interesting and the book I am reading for it is pretty interesting. My cooking classes are awesome! This week in my class on Wednesday we made 2 types of lasagna (meat and vegetable), bruschetta, and an apple torte. What I like about the class is that we make almost every ingredient in the recipe for example we made the meat sauce and the pasta that was used for the lasagna. Everything was delicious! We always make lots of food so I leave that class stuffed. Plus it's nice to get a free meal on Wednesday and Thursdays J For my other cooking class I usually have it on Thursdays but instead of class yesterday we went to a restaurant called Dino which happens to be right next door to my apartment! At the restaurant we had 3 appetizers: bruschetta, some type of beans in a sauce, and cheese. It was all very good. Then we had 2 first courses: a risotto in a cheese sauce and pasta with a red sauce. Second course was eggplant parm and then tiramisu for dessert. I wouldn't say the food was amazing (maybe because I am spoiled with great Italian food at home! J ) but I definitely enjoyed it. It was fun to go out somewhere and even better that it counted as class!

Thursday morning my roommate and I headed to the market to buy a few things. I bought a leather bag. I bargained with the guy and got it from 75 euro down to 50 euro. I was pretty happy! (especially since 25 euro is about $38)

Also, for my fall break I have narrowed down my choices. I found out the food festival is 4 days long and everything will be included so I will only have to pay for my train ticket (about 30-40 euro). It is called the slow food festival. Here are a few sentences about it from the website:

"This Slow Food is a non-profit, organization that was founded in 1989 to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people's dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world."

The festival is supposed to be amazing (and I bet it will be incredible food!) so I really want to go and then I can hopefully leave from there and meet up with my friends in Ireland and Paris.

Today the school I go to offered a free trip to a vineyard about 40 minutes away. We got a tour of the vineyard and then got to do some wine tasting. The vineyard we went to was gorgeous. It was fun to get a chance to see a bit more of the countryside. We got to see the wine barrels and learn a little bit about the wine. It was a pretty quick tour so they didn't tell us much but it was still cool to see everything. The barrels were huge! (I didn't put my pictures up yet but I will soon!) We got to try 3 kinds of wine and we got some meat, cheese, bread and biscotti to have with the wine. The wines were very good and the biscotti were particularly delicious. We also got to try the olive oil that they make there. It was excellent! I have 2 more trips to vineyards this semester one with class and one with my study abroad program and I am definitely looking forward to both!

Also interesting thing I realized the other day. I did a little math and realized gas here is about $8.50 a gallon! Crazy huh? And we think gas in the US is expensive. No wonder why so many people here ride vespas or bikes!

Well tomorrow I am leaving for Cinque terre and Genova until Sunday so I will post about my trip when I get back and I will post the vineyard pictures too!

Ciao!