week eleven: Turkeys and Traditions...

29 November 2009

So, I haven’t written in a while… just been a bit caught up in class and whatnot… but, I did get the chance to do something incredibly American the past couple of days!!! Thursday was Thanksgiving, a clearly, NECA, being sensitive to US traditions, gave K and I a Thanksgiving break… way to remind us we’re not home for the holiday!!

Originally K was supposed to go to Austria and Hungary, but her plans didn’t quite pan out… so, she was stuck in Italy with me :) Thursday night, we were invited to my friend L’s old host family’s house for an Italian Thanksgiving. L had been here a few years ago for her junior year abroad, and had kept in touch with her host family… now that she’s back doing her doctoral dissertation, on a Fulbright scholarship nonetheless, she decided to invite them to Thanksgiving dinner. Her husband, J (a composer) was all set to make due with their small apartment, filling it with food and friends, but L’s old host family suggested hosting it at their place, and inviting some friends… So, K and I headed over to the apartment that L and J had taken over earlier that morning…

I got there a little before K, as she had decided to spend the day in Assisi (I had a lesson… and some practicing to get done…), and started to help with last minutes revisions and such… there was a huge turkey roasting in the oven, a spicy tomato soup, mashed potatoes (which I mashed myself with this nifty little hand-held device that made the potatoes come out like play-dough hair), gravy, collard green and onions, pumpkin and cheese pie (yuuuuum, def bringing home that recipe), a little can of ocean spray cranberry sauce (oh the comforts of home… at what price?!?!) annnnd… stuffing!

So, it wouldn’t be a proper Italian meal without apperativo, and clearly, this was meant to be an Italian-style Thanksgiving, so, we started with prosecco, olives, and little baby sausages… followed by bread and soup, then the main course… served with several chiantis and other red wines… to top it all off, L had made apple pie, which, was incredible, thick like strudel, and all warm and apple-y… yay American traditions :) but, if you thought they’d end there, as I did, you were wrong… what would an Italian meal be without café at the end??? Clearly nothing at all… so, after several helpings of stuffing, turkey, greens, and pie, we were obliged to have coffee, biscotti, and after-dinner wine (that was more like liquor than wine, but at this point, who’s keeping track???)… Not to mention, less than half of those present were American (we were outnumbered by Italians… actually the majority of the conversation was carried on in Italian, making for a rather interesting ‘American Thanksgiving’… some things just don’t translate… and some things just get lost in translation…) so… midnight rolls around (dinner began around 20.00) and K and I are barely rolling ourselves back to our apartment, and up several flights of stairs, and flopping into bed… buuuut, not before skyping my family, and wishing I were lying in my turkey coma on my grandparent’s couch with all the chatter lulling me to sleep…

One thanksgiving was far more than I expected, being in Italy, but, being the poor college student that I am, I was invited to yet another thanksgiving at the home of an American couple from church. R is in the choir with me, and he and his wife have lived here for somewhere around 14yrs… their son is now at university in England, and he, unfortunately, couldn’t make thanksgiving… but, they did have L and J over, plus Father Lawrence and his wife, K and I, and another American woman… so, we had a nice warm Sunday evening dinner with even more amazing Thanksgiving food and, unlike last time, a more American-ized dinner than our Thursday night adventure… not to be completely forgotten, however, some Italian traditions managed to creep their way into the night… starting with the prosecco… no Italian meal, or event for that matter, seems to be able to start without it… but, from the prosecco, we moved onto the meal… turkey, stuffing, greens, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and plenty of other amazing things that I stuffed myself with… L brought another one of her amazing apple pies, and we finished off by gorging ourselves on pie, and biscotti, but much to my delight, tea instead of the Italianate café :) it turned into yet another late night of laughing, talking, and eating, though this time, it was much easier to follow, no translating involved, only good-old-fashioned American-ness (well, plus the two English present, but there was no language barrier to speak of!)…

On my walk home, with K and I dragging, or rolling as the case may be, ourselves back to our apartment, I got to thinking… I am truly thankful for everything in my life… from food and friends to family and travel… this has been quite an amazing year for me, many ups and downs, and twists and turns, and the year’s not through yet… I am thankful for every moment here in Florence, and for all of the love and support of those people back home… for all of the friendships and bonds created here, and for the opportunity to live my life in this crazy-wonderful way.

For all this and more I am thankful… I can’t wait to see the faces around next year’s table!

week eight: Siena

6 November 2009

Siena… I was going to write a big long epic about going to Siena… then just decided to show you pictures instead… a picture is worth a thousand words, right? So here are several thousand words on Siena :)

week seven: Pubs and Prisons...

1 November 2009
8.30 came pretty quickly… but M, K, C, A and I were determined to see the sights despite the cold (and ignoring all traces of sleep deprivation…) so, we got bagels (ahh… the comforts of home…) and headed out for the day… first stop: Guinness brewery… we’re in Dublin, what did you expect us to do?? Yes, it was barely 10am, but c’mon!
So, we walked through the huuuge complex and learned about the beer process… it was all very interesting, and I managed to pay attention despite the exhaustion… they’re very serious about their beer… I felt bad though, because much of the experience was lost on me… I don’t like beer! No matter how hard I tried (and trust me, I gave a valiant effort… I tried several kinds, and just wasn’t convinced…) I just never enjoyed drinking it… the closest I got was Bulmer’s… a hard cider-like beer that also came in pear-flavor :)
After the tour of the Guinness brewery, we headed over to the old jail… which was possibly the best thing ever… not only was it in this old creepy stone building (with the cold grey of the Irish autumn sky as a backdrop) with heaps of history, buuuut… it was the site where one of my favourite movies of all time was filmed: In the Name of the Father (with Daniel Day Lewis… if you haven’t seen it, I strongly recommend renting it… now!)… I think I turned into a five-year-old for .5sec with my excitement… it was the same feeling I got when I went to the House of Seven Gables for the first time… creepy, historical, excitement… ha…
From there, we headed over to Trinity to check out the Old Library and the Book of Kells… first of all, why didn’t I apply to Trinity??? That campus is absolutely gorgeous!! And I love Ireland, so clearly, bad oversight by me… anyway… walking into the old library was like walking into the set of Harry Potter with all of the dark wood and old books… seriously, if I had been allowed, I would have sat there all day… as that was not the case, I got to wander down and check out the temporary exhibit before entering the vault holding the Book of Kells… The temporary exhibit was on Napoleon, and it had the original Eroica Symphony by Beethoven… you could see the dedication crossed out and everything… again, huuuge music geek/ giddy school girl moment… which resulted in getting the opening movement stuck in my head… yay…
And then on to the Book of Kells… I’ll be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what it was before going, but remembered (with a little help from my friends :)) just before getting there… wow. Just wow. It was incredible to read (if somewhat badly, through who knows how many layers of thick glass) or, rather, look at awestruck, these ancient pages… I think what got me the most was Christ’s genealogy… you read all of those Dan Brown-like books, and hear about it on the History channel, but actually seeing a written account that old, depicting his blood-line is pretty impressive…
Dinner time… the five of us headed to a pub for dinner before heading back out into the streets… K and I had Irish stew (couldn’t leave without trying it!) and the other girls had some forms of meat and potatoes and the like :) the food was warm, the place was cozy, and we did not want to go back out into the cold! But we were determined to enjoy all of the time we had left in Dublin…
So. We had a list of pubs to visit. Obviously, we had to visit Temple Bar… it’s basically the Mecca of all that is Dublin, and like 5min from our hostel, so we headed there first… next, we headed to the Brazen Head, the oldest pub in Dublin, established in 1198 is at just over 800 years old the second oldest pub in Ireland, and possibly the creepiest. So we were told, or we read somewhere, that if you asked the bar tender, he’d tell you a few good ghost stories… clearly that was the top of our agenda, it just having been Halloween and all… so, we went in, ordered some Bulmer’s, and tried to decide who would be the one to ask… M stepped up, and asked… unfortunately, the bar tender told us he didn’t believe in ghosts, and basically dismissed us… we were annoyed and disappointed, and we sat and moped a bit… finally the bar tender came over, and started telling us a bit about the history of the bar… after several hours of moping, convincing, and probably annoying, we got to go up into the attic… which is one of the scariest things I’ve ever done (not that us telling each other ghost stories before helped any…)
Dublin is amazing. I’m going back as soon as I can.