Photo taken while walking back from the gym, when I got the idea for the photo-a-day project.

Today I made Liz's delicious recipe for banana bread, which came out mindblowingly.

Last night I had a dream about the chick pea soup I ate at the Trattoria di Mario a Firenze. It made me realize that eating in the U.S. just isn't the same as eating in Italy. When I first got back, I had very little appetite but thankfully I went to a quite authentic Italian restaurant which was incredible. However, when I told my host dad over skype, very enthused, that I had just "almost eaten an Italian-style meal," he responded, "Ok. Did you have appetizer, first course, second course, side dishes, wine, coffee, dessert and fruit?" "No," I said. "Alright, then. You did not eat Italian style. You know very well what it means to eat Italian-style!" In the dream there was this explosion of flavor, which is what it's like to eat in Italy. It's not just that their food is better-prepared with higher-quality ingredients and time-tested family recipes (all of which is true)-- it's that the food actually seems to be quite a different substance.

Incidentally, there was a bug that just landed on my computer and freaked me out, which reminded me of this one time early on in studying abroad, I was lying in bed reading around 11pm and I heard a thump. An enormous grasshopper was bumping up against my wall! I ran downstairs and my host dad came up to kill it.

It's just one of the little things I remember...

Beth, Chalene, and Elisa
After the Winter Carnival Ball, walking back home in the snow.

I'm Back

So I''m back in the U.S. and I'm back at Middlebury. This is already the third week of the semester, and as is typical here, time chugs along like a snowball gaining size and velocity at the same time, schedule expanding in every direction...

I haven't posted for ages. I really do want to sum up January and my travels, post some photos, and most of all, write some kind of closing something for the whole experience. I will do that in the next few days. For now suffice to say that the experience is not closed, because I carry it with me each day. There are moments when the immense sadness of what I left behind comes over me, and it could be triggered by anything... for example when a girl with an Italian last name came to pick up her package at the post office last week. But in those moments, along with the sadness and wet eyes, there is also an appreciation for what I was graced to experience in those five short precious beautiful months.

Francesco our yoga teacher told me in our parting exchange that study abroad fills in the spaces that aren't filled by studying in your own culture. He also told me that after one week in American, I would already have my American head back. He was right on both counts.

Leaving the topic of Italy aside for the moment, I want to propose a new purpose for this blog in the coming months. Because I may not have time to write that much, and because a picture is worth a thousand words, I plan to post one picture every day of life in Middlebury. It may be representative of how I feel or the day I lived or the whim of a moment. But I'm captivated by this project because something about it tells me that it will open my eyes to the world around me, the way that taking photos while I was abroad opened my eyes a bit to the beauty of the way the world is composed.

Allora. Comincio...
This picture is a bridge: Chalene and I cooked our first meal together, penne alla carbonara, using a recipe I got from an Italian cooking site, giallozafferano.it. We americanized it significantly, using whole-wheat pasta and pre-cooked ham cubes, but the Italian idea still made me happy.

Un po' di panettone non fa niente male...

...invece fa bene!

Oggi abbiamo mangiato la bistecca fiorentina! It's really raw and delicious. Dallas and I came home this morning. We left Prague yesterday at 1pm, then took a night train from Vienna to Firenze (7:30pm to 7am.) Instead of buying beds, which we did for the trip out, we bought chairs. Much better choice. The beds are like coffins-- 6 in one compartment-- and I did not sleep at all on the way to Vienna. Last night though we slept well enough, because the chairs slide out flat and our compartment had only two other people in it. At 11pm we turned off the light and the guy in the cabin said, "Facciamo un letto matrimoniale." So we slid all the chairs down and slept.

Then we came home and walked up the hill. We had to wake up Babbo to get into the house because the outside gate was locked... so he made us both big cappuccini and we ate breakast together (panettone di tre marie con marmellata e yogurt!) Later on this morning we went to an Italian supermarket, Babbo's favorite. He told us several times that Americans invented supermarkets... but I love Italian supermarkets more. They have some sweet inventions-- for one, you put in a 1 euro deposit to take your cart and get it back when you bring the cart back to its place... this way people don't leave their carts all over the parking lot. The other invention is a little wand that you use to scan all of your groceries as you put them in your cart. When you get to the check out, you hand it to the cashier, she reads the price and you pay-- senza attesa! Not to mention the buona roba che hanno dentro il supermercato.... caspita`!



When we got home, it was already lunch time so I set the table (apparecchiare) and Babbo showed us how to make the bistecca alla fiorentina. We made a salad and sliced the bread we bought.

Volevo raccontare le pezzette di saggezza che ci ha raccontato il Babbo:
- he doesn't understand vegetarians (they're half human.) oh, i have to agree after 4 months in italy!
- voipcheap is the way to go for overseas calling. wish i had understood when he told me that 4 months ago.
- secondo babbo a me piace mangiare cosi` tanto che basta mangiare e sono contenta. e` vero! diceva che e` una bella cosa... d'accordo. lo scrivo in italiano perche' va bene dice mi piace mangiare, ma in inglese c'e` qualche vergogna sul mangiare. beh io non l'avro` mai piu`.

For dessert we had torrone and panforte. Both are italian desserts eaten only in winter. Panforte is made out of figs and almonds and canditi... it's from Siena. Torrone is made from hazelnuts and fluffy stuff and yumminess...

This lunch also included 3 different wines: 1) aperitivo white wine, homemade from a former Bandini studentessa who married a Roman. 2) special red wine. every night we drink vino nobile montepulciano from this season... this bottle was from 2004. 3) dessert wine... veramente incredibile. from a small island south of sicilia where all of the clandestini land.

later i will upload photos!