Sto imparando come cucinare

Peppers, zucchini, eggplant, mushrooms, fennel, tomatoes, onion, garlic, and olive oil. Lots and lots of olive oil. This is what most of my diet has recently consisted of.  My roommate Fabio is a great cook and everytime he cooks I am always in the kitchen bothering him.  Here is a little summary of what I have learned so far:
1) Always start a pasta sauce with onions and, you guessed it, olive oil.
2) NEVER add salt to the pasta water before it boils.
3) NEVER EVER add salt to pasta after it had been cooked.
4) NEVER EVER EVER think you used too much olive oil.

A lot of what I have learned has been from things that I did that is VIETATO (forbidden) in Italian cooking (see #1-4 above).  I have also learned how important it is to enjoy the company of others around you while you eat. This is what I love about learning the Italian culture. About 5 out of the last 7 nights I have cooked and ate with all of my friends and roommates. Last night, Alex, Mallory and Maried all got together and made hummus, vegetables and baked bread.  The night before that 11 of us all got together and Fabio cooked us all a huge meal. The first course was pasta with vegetables, then he fried bread and potatoes and cooked sausage for the second course. We finished off the meal with cookies.  It is like my Italian flatmates have never ever had cookies in their lives.  The first time Mallory made them, I thought someone was going to lose an eye trying to get to the cookies first. For a while, the only referred to her as "Cookies", asking "Dov'è Cookies?".  Since then, she has taught Augusto how to make them for himself, thank god!

For all of you back in America HAPPY HALLOWEEN!  There is an actual Halloween party tonight hosted by one of my American friends and his flatmates.  It is not commonly celebrated in Italy so all of our Italian flatmates are really excited to dress up and celebrate!  Should be an interesting night!

Baci xx

Please Excuse My Grammar

I would like to take a moment and apologize for my poor sentence structure and overall grammar in the last few posts. This is especially embarrassing since I am currently teaching children English grammar.  My inability to express myself any longer in the English language was bought to my attention last night while I was talking to my mom on Skype. Our conversation went something like this:


Me: Hi mom. I am in a weird mood right now.
Mom: Really whats wrong?
Me: I am not really sure.  I am in a funk and can't shake it.
Mom: I have noticed. I can tell in your blog.
Me: Oh, really? How?
Mom: Well...you used to be such a good writer...
Me: Am I not anymore?
Mom: Well, have you read your last post? You sound like you don't how to speak English!


That is good and bad. Good for me because after I read my posts I noticed that my sentence structure is starting to look like Italian sentences.  Bad for you because you have no idea what I am saying. If anyone needs some clarification let me know.  I would be happy to help. 

Another thing I noticed is that I am holding back a little when I am writing. This started when I realized that my blog gets sent directly to some of my family members and after I found out that my roommates attempt to read my blog.  Well, be warned. I am holding back no longer. My birthday is in less than a month. I am going to be 23 (how weird does that sound!?) and I am freaking living in ITALY! I am throwing my inhibitions, fear and probably a little of my dignity out the window. Wish me luck!


baci xx

Bagel, Bagel, Bagel, CREAM CHEESE!

In the words spoken by my good friend Mallory Warner, "Can we get a Costco up in this country?"  I don't think its wrong that I want to go spend almost $100.00 (yes dollars) on processed foods such as cheetos, everything bagels, hummus, cheddar cheese, Home Run In pizza, and Clorox bleach wipes? (Alright, so that last one is not food, but living with 8 boys has me convinced that I could single handedly keep them in business.) I just want to drink Orange Tangerine juice and eat a giant bowl of homemade oatmeal topped with honey and walnuts.  I find it strange that, while I took about 5 classes last year that talked about how the world is so completely globalized that there may no longer be individual cultures in the near future, I cannot find a reasonable sized bag of pretzels in Italy.  I don't know if that is asking a lot. I mean, these people eat bread all the time. You would think they would have accidentally made a pretzel once and kept doing it?  Or what about refrigerated milk? eggs? I just cannot bring myself to do it.

Am I hungry or homesick? I guess I'll go eat some pasta...

Baci xx

Life

Yours truly will be featured as a "Student Spotlight" in the upcoming Bologna Consortial Studies Program newsletter. I know. I bet you are just as excited as I am to read about my internship.  I bet you can also tell just how sarcastic I am being. While I love both my internship and being abroad, this information was sprung on me as I was trying to study for an exam today.  So instead of cramming my head full of knowledge on how Italy was unified for the first time in 1861 by Cavour and Garibaldi, I was explaining how I taught my 5-year-olds the parts of the body using the song "Head, shoulders, knees and toes" and by tracing themselves and gluing down cards labeling the parts of their body.  Needless to say, I didn't feel as prepared as I could have for my exam but I still think I managed to do well. 

My life is continuing on here in Bologna just like your lives are continuing on from wherever you are reading from.  This past Saturday night, my friend Maried, my roommates Romina and I were invited to a dinner with my roommates and their friends who were visiting. It stared off really awkward because we sat the the end of the table and the table started to fill up everywhere but at our end. It got even more awkward when one of our roommates made everyone move down a seat so that he didn't have to sit by us. Things got better once the wine was served and we actually ended up making friends with some of their friends.  So after the 18 of us polished off what I think ended up being 12 bottles of wine, we headed out to the bars the finish the night!

C'è sempre tempo per un caffè

My history class started Monday and we did not talk about history at all.  Our teacher wanted to know what stereotypes we had about Italians an what we expected Italy to be like before we got here.  Here is what we learned!

1. There is always time for an espresso.
One girl in our class, Liz, shared a story about how she was running to pick up the girls she babysits with their mom and they were running a little bit late.  The ballet class the girls were at was going to end in 4 minutes and they were racing to get there when the mom suddenly asked "Do you want a coffee?"  Liz was like "WE ONLY HAVE 4 MINUTES TO GET THERE!" when the mom promptly replied "Four minutes is plenty of time for a coffee."  Lets review, 4 minutes to get to the ballet studio and they were running late, but there was time for a coffee.  At least Italian's have their priorities straight!

2. No one throws cigarettes buds on the ground.
In America, no one thinks twice about throwing things on the ground because "its not my ground" but in Italy,  it belongs to everyone.  I know what your thinking, everyone in Italy smokes, how could the streets not be filled with cigarette buds, but its really not.  There are receptacles almost every 20 feet and it is rare that you will see someone just throw the buds on the ground or in the gutter.  If you think about it, why would you? I guess people in America are just lazy!

3. Italians are very direct and do not hide their expressions from their face.
When someone is angry, they will tell you that they are angry.  They will not bat around the bush like we do.  The Italian's wear their emotions right on their face and especially in their voice. I was just in the library studying by a group who was working on a project. One of the girls did not like the work her group member was doing and she let him know it. She was basically yelling at him in the library that his work sucked. I don't think we would ever do that. We would just complain about it for the month that we have to do the project and then blame a lower grade on the person who didn't do the work!

4. After 10:30 in the morning NO ONE drinks cappuccinos.
Honestly, I think this might be a law in Italy. If you order a cappuccino after 10:30 you might as well have waved around a flag proclaiming that you are a tourist and give up ever trying to fit in.  I don't know why this is because I know that I sometimes want one after the are "illegal" to drink. Its not like it is illegal to drink orange juice after a certain time in the morning!

5. In Bologna, tortellini is served broth and never served with tomato sauce.
Having tortellini with tomato sauce is a sin here in Bologna. Tortellini originated in Emilia-Romangna and has traditionally been served in Bologna in a "brodo" or a meat broth.  There is also a very important difference, according to me, in tortellini and tortelloni.  Tortellini are stuffed with meat and cheese.  Tortelloni (with an 'o') is stuffed with cheese and vegetables.  That "o" is very important to vegetarians like me in Bologna, where the main ingredient in every dish is MEAT!

baci xx

Pop Corn and Soy Sauce

It's the simple things in life that make every day so enjoyable.  Like yesterday night for example, Maried and Nicola came over to watch movies and we decided that we needed popcorn.  So we went to the store and we were going to buy two bags of pre-popped popcorn when our eyes landed on "POPZ".  "POPZ" is the most American product that I have ever laid my eyes on in Italy.  Not only is it microwaveable popcorn but everything, including directions, are written in English. 

 We were amazed and we were not the only ones. Two of my roommates, both named Enrico, were infatuated with it.  We popped one bag and let them try some.  It wasn't but twenty minutes later when Enrico walked downstairs and asked if he could make some more. I told him sure and said it was in the kitchen.  Shyly he asked if I could show him how.  Wait a second.  Show him how to make popcorn? I am pretty sure my cousins knew how to make themselves popcorn when they were four, granted one cousin almost set their house on fire trying, but still. So anyways, I explained how to make it and he happily walked into his room 4 minutes later with a buttery bowl of popcorn.  Since Maried, Nicola and I were having a movie marathon we ended up making the last bag of popcorn but only ate a little.  When we asked the boys if they wanted to finish it, they replied saying "Oh, no we can't" while simultaneously reaching for the remaining popcorn. Guess they could!

A few nights ago, I had a few girls over and we made stir-fry.  We thought we were hungrier than we were and made enough to feed an army.  Luckily, I live with 8 boys and they were happy to help us finish it.  Once Enrico tried it he loved it. He asked me that if he bought the ingredients, would I make 10 kilos of it for him.  I told him I would but I have to do it.  Who knew that things as simple as soy sauce and pop corn could make people so happy!

Baci xx

La vita si muove abbastanza velocemente

Right now, I am feeling like my life here is flying right by.  It seems like just yesterday I was sitting around in a park thinking how class would never start and now one has and the others start next week. I guess I am feeling a little overwhelmed right now.  But for those of you who know me, know that I tend to over analyze and over dramatize things. I think that may be an understatement.

My day started out by waking up a little bit too late for work to shower (big surprise) so I had to rock a ponytail which is not hard to do with this new short hair.   But it turns out that I wasn't as late as I thought I was and got to work about 10 minutes early.  So I decided to hit up the nearest bar.  Okay fellow Americans. First Italian lesson: Bars here are not like bars at home.  You get coffee in a bar here not shots, beers, and booze.  I know. I bet you were all hoping that I was chugging down pints of beer before I was going to teach little kids English.  I know I was. So anyways, I went to the bar and grabbed "un cappuccino" and hung out at the bar like all the other Italians do. Except the bar I choose to go to had no one in it except for me and the baristo. It wouldn't have been so awkward if I just talked to him but it was so early.  Anyways, I think I might try to make that little place my coffee shop twice a week before work and befriend some locals! That is one of my goals here, to make some places my regular stops so that I can be like some people I see who know everyone when they walk into a store. 

Work was uneventful and so was my first lecture. Afterward, Lauren and I went to Osteria dell'Orsa, a cute little cafeteria that plops you down on wooden benches and really lets you rub elbows with the locals, literally.  Except we were put next to the only other English speakers in the place. Anyways, lunch itself was great.  We ordered bruschetta and I got a giant panino with melted Brie and mushrooms sauteed in wine sauce. I love Bologna!  Then we headed to our program's office.  This is where I started to freak out.  Some of the girls were talking about making a trip to London for the premiere of Harry Potter. Let me just set the record straight. I do not read, watch or pretend to be Harry Pot-ski as I like to call him.  But I decided to tag along because one of my friends, Stefanie, is studying there to get her Ph-D and I want to see her.  After I decided to go I started freaking out.  Here is my though process:

"Okay, if I go to see her the second week in November then the first week I will be going to visit Lina when she comes to Italy.  And the weekend before that is Halloween. What am I going to be?! oh and then after seeing Stefanie its going to be Thanksgiving, which means its my birthday, which means Kelly comes after that.  Then I have finals and its Christmas and then I am basically halfway done with being here and before I know it I am going to be home and I feel like I am not going to learn anything and I will never be able to come back and SLAP!"

This is when I mentally slapped myself across the face.  If someone had heard me say all that out loud I bet they would have gladly done it for me. Needless to say, I left the office a little stressed and not myself.  Luckily, I cooled down on the walk home and realized a few things. I am going to be here for at least 9 more months. Thats 3 more moths than I was here the last time.  I HAVE TIME.  I just need to take a step back and realize how lucky I am to be here at all.  I also realized that my Italian has never been better.  I am learning more and more every day and learning new vocabulary and slang (living with 8 men will do that).  I just need to stop and take everything in once and a while and remember that I have time and I need to enjoy every minute of it!

My Summer is Officially Over.

That's right. No more sleeping in until noon, no more staying out late drinking with friends, no more wandering the streets of Bologna without a purpose, no more visiting friends in different cities on a Thursday night, no more going to the library only to look at the roman ruins underneath them.  Well maybe not all of that is true!  Classes have officially begun in Bologna and I couldn't be more excited.  That is, until I got to the classroom.  There were no more seats left so I had to sit on the floor in the aisle. It was about 90 degrees in the room but I didn't dare take off my jacket because none of the other Italian students had and some even kept their scarves on! Honestly, if I didn't want to fit in so badly, I would have stripped off all my layers down to my tank top. It was that hot!  I don't understand how these Italians do it sometimes.  Today was a clear blue sky day and people were wearing jackets buttoned up with scarves. MOVE TO CHICAGO PEOPLE! This is the type of weather that people would be wearing shorts and tank tops in. Oh Italy....


So let me give you a run down of how an Italian class works.  All of the students come to class on time and rush in to get a seat and get all settled in (without taking off their scarves) and wait.  This waiting period could be anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes but on average is 15 minutes.  We sit there waiting for the professor to show up.  Once the professor gets there, everyone is silent for the next 2 hours while he lectures on the topic of the day.  Let me tell you, listening to a lecture in Italian for this long is hard.  Luckily, my professor is great. He is a world renowned professor and really knows what he is talking about and is also kinda funny.  This really helps the time go by. I am finding that I am understanding most of what he has to say. I think its going to be a really good year!


Now that classes have started, so has my internship.  I am working at the International School of Bologna.  I work with Sue Bell, their ESL coordinator.  I had my first day on Tuesday.  It was amazing! I will be helping out in the classrooms and also working with some students one on one.  The entire school is taught in English and there are students from all over the world.  Most of them are Italian and some speak English better than I speak Italian right now. The school starts with 3-year-olds and goes through middle school.  In of the classrooms I got to observe we taught the kids how to sing "Row Your Boat".  Most of the kids just watched the motions and mouthed what they thought were words.  One of the boys, Ray, however is fluent in English and had no problem at all standing up in front of the class to demonstrate the song.  The students also had to introduce themselves to me in English. When it came to be one of the boys turn, instead of introducing himself he just looked at me and said:

"Scusi, ma parliamo in italiano perche siamo italiani!"

Which translates to:

"Excuse me, but we speak in Italian because we are Italian!"

Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed!  It is also on top secret lock down that I know how to speak Italian.  If the kids were to find out, they would take advantage of the fact that I know it and only speak to me in Italian.  Right now, I am just cool Miss Ellen who wants to hangout.  I can do that, I can be cool! 

Baci xxx

la festa di San Petronio

Today is Bologna's saint day called la festa di San Petronio.  There has been small activities all weekend for kids and families and food all over Bologna.  What this saint day meant for me was that I had an long weekend.  My classes officially start tomorrow, well at least 1 of the 3.  I bet that those of you still in school have already taken midterms.  I have yet to open a book! That's not entirely true, I have been studying my butt off trying to comprehend complex  verb tenses and pronominal verbs. On the other hand, I have been doing this in the park, or looking off my balcony at the rooftops of Bologna.  My little fairytale life is about to end tomorrow with the start of class.  But not before I get to watch fireworks from Piazza Maggiore celebrating San Petronio.  Can we say spoiled?

Above: Me at Piazza Erbe; Below: Graffiti at Juliet's House and her balcony

Anyways, this past Thursday night I went to Verona, the city of love, to visit Azmeen! For those of you who don't know Azmeen, she is one of my roommates from last year at U of I who is also studying abroad in Italy. I went with my roommate Romina and our friend Maried. Its about a hour and a half train ride from Bologna, which we barely caught due to ticket complications and people not knowing how to use the ticket machines (yes, including me) and ended up standing for the first 20 minutes because there were no seats left. But we made it there!

The city itself was amazing. There was an old arena, Juliet's (fake) house, the river Adige circles the city and it is just gorgeous. We had lunch at this cute little place right along the river.  The city itself is pretty unique because there is a lot of graffiti all over it and locks piled up on bridges professing love. It is a common practice for lovers in Italy to latch a lock onto a bridge near water and throw the key into the river. Since this is supposedly the town of Romeo and Juliet, there are locks everywhere! Its actually pretty cute.  We also saw beautiful markets where I bought a scarf that I have seen everywhere lately and now I finally have it!  I cannot stress enough how beautiful the city itself is.  The quality of life is also said to be very high. I could tell by how well dressed all of the people where there. Everyone seemed to

be beautiful, or maybe that was just me getting sucked in.  Anyways, we stopped in Juliet's house to take some pictures.  Apparently, if you rub her right boob you are supposed to find a lover. My roommate and I ran right up there and did it. Now I am just waiting. It was a pretty cool little tourist spot, with people writing on the walls and lovers taking pictures of Juliet's balcony. All in all, it was a really nice trip! I want to start taking more daytrips just to see the smaller towns in Italy. Siena anyone?

I am still having a hard time believing that I am here in Italy.  Probably because my actual classes don't start until tomorrow and probably because I am living in an old castle and not speaking English all the time.  But I always looked forward to being able to move here for an entire year and its actually here! I just cannot wait for everything to happen but I am trying so hard to have it slow down at the same time. 

As promised, here are a few pictures from the dinner party that we had the other night. It consisted of bruschetta, salad, 5 types of pasta, bread, cookies, pastries, and way too much wine.  We feed about 27 people in total I think and managed to teach the Italian's a few American drinking games. For those of you who were there the last time I hosted an American party, it was not as intense and involve a lot more food and a lot less flannel. However, I still think everyone had a good time!!

Starting from the middle with the guy in the hat are my roommates Augusto, Fabio, Romina, Rodolfo and Alessandro