La Vita Viterbese

More About Food (Because It’s Half the Experience)

lavitaviterbese — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:20:07 +0000

Things are back in full swing at school, so there aren’t a ton of updates. I’ve started cooking class, which got me thinking! The food here every day, any day, is out of this world amazing.

Here’s what I ate today:

7:45 – Special K cereal @ home
8:05 – Caffè Latte @ Caffè Cavour
9:00 – Special K cereal bar in math class
9:55 – Cappuccino from Caffè Cavour, in Italian class
10:30 – Caffè Latte @ Caffè Antico
12:00 – leftover barley in olive oil with curry from last night’s dinner
1:30 – pasta rossa, green beans, and broccoli @ Mensa
7:00 – chocolate coin
8:30 – white rice in olive oil with salt and grated cheese, oranges in olive oil, salami

Delicious!

Natale in Italia!

lavitaviterbese — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:06:20 +0000

Scrivo in italiano questa volta perche non ho parlato in italiano per due settimane e non mi ricordo niente!

Awesome translator: http://translate.google.it/?hl=it#it|en|

Sono tornata ieri da Roma! La mia familia ha venuto in Italia per Natale e siamo andati in Sicilia per dieci belle giornate! Abbiamo visto la Valle dei Templi, tante chiese, e un anfiteatro. E abbiamo mangiato cibo buonissimo! I cannolli siciliani sono troppo buoni, ma i miei preferiti sono gli arancini! Anche, abbiamo visitato Savoca, la città dove hanno filmato Il Padrino! È una piccola e bella città, e la gente è veramente gentile.

Poi, siamo andati a Roma per Capodanno! A mezzanotte, un fuoco d’artificio mi ha colpito! Non era tanto grave, però ha spaventato mia mamma!

^^Wrote that several days ago. My apologies for not finishing! After New Years, my family went back one-by-one to America, and I returned to Rome with a bunch of people for a friend’s birthday. School started Thursday. Sad face. But I’m a second semester senior!!

Love and truly miss everyone,

“Cara Caroliiiine” (what Angelo calls me)

P.S. A note on Christmas festivities in Italy: gifts are opened either Eve night, Christmas morning, or, more commonly, Christmas night. The 6th of January is Befana, basically a second Christmas for little kids. A witch flies-in and fills kids’ socks with candy and small presents! They do have Santa Clause (Babbo Natale), and he works pretty much the same way here, as best I can tell. I got an iPod for Christmas! Making my life complete and my training for a half-marathon much more pleasant!

100 Days in Italy!

lavitaviterbese — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 13:45:30 +0000

Wow. 100 days. In many ways, I feel like I’ve lived here forever, but in others it feels like I got off the plane yesterday! I really miss CA and everyone back home, but I’m really happy I still have 170 days to enjoy this beautiful country and all my friends here!

Got back from Florence yesterday! It’s a beautiful city. Visited several churches and wandered for a while outside of many museums… mostly I danced. Fun times with good friends!

Today is Immacolata in Italy, which marks the day of the Virgin Mary’s immaculate conception. It’s a big deal because she was the first person since Adam and Eve to be born without Original Sin. But mostly it’s exciting because we have no school and it’s the day the Christmas Tree goes up in every house in Italy! Here, we have a fake tree, which was kind of sad at first but ultimately still very exciting. I loved decorating (and setting-up) the tree with my host family! But I do really miss going to pick one out at the lot in West Memphis!

Today I have a huge essay to write on Hamlet, which I do not plan on doing. Whenever I start to feel like a bad student for my tendency to put things off till the last minute, I think of the most inspirational Italian song I’ve ever heard, “Domani” (Tomorrow). It’s actually about recovering from a horrible natural disaster and how we’ll all overcome and there’s always domani, but I prefer to think of it as an anthem of procrastination.

Tanti baci! xoxo

Torino, Thanksgiving, Marco, & Angelo’s Birthday

lavitaviterbese — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:14:41 +0000

Four major events. In my defense, it’s these that provide interesting material that have prevented me from posting!

Torino was wonderful. I can’t wait to independet travel there (what SYA calls it when students travel in groups of three or four)! We saw lots of old stuff: a monastery, a (completely reconstructed) castle, a few churches, a baptistry, a beautiful lookout tower, several Autogrills, and two really cool museums (Egyptian and Cinema). Also, we spent upwards of 20 hours on a bus, so… that was cool.

Shortly after our arrival back in Viterbo was Il Giorno del Ringraziamento (Thanksgiving)! All the host families got together Thursday night for an epic potluck. It was so much fun to be with friends and family! Our school is so small that I still feel like I can strike-up a conversation with anyone, so it was great to talk to people I don’t normally about Thanksgiving traditions and cranberry sauce (a precious thing in Italy)!

OK, backstory: the most popular show in Italy and the show my family is completely obsessed with (we’re watching the finale as I write this) is called X-Factor. It’s a lot like American Idol and Marco is by far the best and the most handsome. And get this: he’s from Viterbo! Hopefully he’ll win tonight! Anyway. Friday night I went with my host family and Sara (lives next door) to Marco’s concert at a discoteca close by!

Finally, Sunday was Angelo’s birthday! We ate pancakes for breakfast, which really made me nostalgic for home. In Arkansas, we always make pancakes for my dad’s birthday, too.

Pictures!

I Still Exist!

lavitaviterbese — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:53:35 +0000

I’ve become delinquent with my blog posts… I apologize. Would some pretty pictures make you forget?

I travelled independently to Rome last weekend with Tori, Penny, and Jade. We laughed lots and made pasta at the hostel with the concierge. (Oh yeah, and that sightseeing thing, too.)

I miei genitori are coming to visit me this Thursday! I couldn’t be happier, not only to see them, but to see Brownie mix and Bisquick (neither of which exist here).

Everyone is really situated in their life here, for better or for worse. There are definitely cliques, but I still hang-out with a wide variety of people. Also, I re-joined the gym to combat all this pasta and nutella but am going to continue belly dancing basically because it’s awesome.

Yesterday (Saturday) I went with my math teacher Mr. Chen and about 13 other students to the castle where TomKat was married! Anyone who knows me well knows that silly puppy voice I do whenever I see pictures of them. Fortunately there were no pictures at the castle and I still have friends. It was a really beautiful view, but there was an exhibit of Capucci avant-garde dresses, which was totally strange and not at all in keeping with the whole castle-torture-defense-death theme. (But I still thought it was pretty cool.)

Today, all day, I’m working on my English paper. But I love Sunday lunch with my family. My host brother Gianmarco has a friend here from Rome, Michele. He’s really cool and speaks about 100 times more clearly than Gianmarco (which is still really unclear…). It’s a really nice way to relax and forget about everything and just chat with my host family. Last night we had dinner next door with my friends Sara and Zoë, which was also really fun.

Magical Fruit

lavitaviterbese — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:32:34 +0000

In Italy, fruits are only eaten when in season. Yesterday the first oranges arrived at the dinner table, among other delectables…
The pears here are divine, simply put.
Also in season (for only 2 weeks!) are l’uva fragola (“strawberry grapes”), which are out of this world amazing. They’re used for making high quality dessert wines and are very sweet. Smaller and red-ish.
Note: All the grapes here have seeds and everyone eats them. I just can’t do it! They think I’m strange (and probably a little rude), and my host dad loves talking about the “OGMs” in American grapes to keep them seedless and in season.
But only 2 weeks?! I’ll take OGMs for these things all year round.
Plums here are great but are oval shaped.
They don’t peel peaches, but they do peel apples. (My dad also likes pointing out how strange Americans are, noting that everyone knows how to shuffle cards but nobody knows how to peel an apple.)
Tomatoes are in everything, as you probably knew.
The eggplant looks just like it does on Farmville, a game everyone plays.

A Typical Day In Viterbo

lavitaviterbese — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:40:06 +0000

This post in well-overdue. Not much to report; people are settling into their routines, figuring out their weekly schedules. I’m taking dance classes, a photography class, and have a voice lesson next Wednesday. Tomorrow is our first “real Friday” of the program (no school trips, no special meeting… when we finish class, it’s the weekend).

Last weekend I went with my family to the beach, where Camilla’s dad went spearfishing and caught two huge octopi. We ate them for dinner in, of course, pasta. So tasty!

But this week was pretty standard. I bought Me Talk Pretty One Day (Me Parlare Bello Un Giorno) and Sex and the City (in Italian!) at the Libreria del Teatro, an awesome bookstore with a carpaccio salad I’m dying to try. Right next to the dance studio and close to the gym. Maybe one day when I’ve been really good…

This week I switched from Corn Flakes to Special K. That was exciting. Special K is crunchier. Has more texture. Mi piace. Also, purchased tea.

I think this is an appropriate time to post some pictures of the school, everyday life at SYA, and an octopus:

Finally… Stitches!

lavitaviterbese — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 08:36:08 +0000

It had to happen eventually. Why not in Italy? A midnight visit to the hospital is that much more exciting when you can’t communicate.

Basically, my host dog Lillo bit me. Hard. I would have related this the night it happened, but it was my hand and I have been, until today, incapable of typing. Unfortunately I have no photos, but I promise to take some once the bandage is off. Actually, it was a pleasant surprise: the doctor I am going to works five minutes from the most beautiful view in Lazio.

A Family Picic & A Roman Holiday

lavitaviterbese — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 18:15:59 +0000

Sunday was the SYA family picnic, potluck style. As expected, the food was out of this world! (But my family’s was the best.)

Also this weekend, I went with some friends to Roma for the first time! (A wonderful trip promises future exploration of the beautiful city.)

We visited the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, The Trevi Fountain, and a great gelateria!

Check out the photos of each!

La Macchina!

lavitaviterbese — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:50:22 +0000

I promise you you’ve never experienced hype like this.

Parades literally every day. A miniature macchina carried on the backs of 100 Viterbese kids. And best of all… six hours of waiting in the hot sun in our seats. Sort of like tailgating?

Here’s the deal: every year for the Festa di Santa Rosa, the patron saint of Viterbo, they build a 5-story “macchina” to honor Santa Rosa. It is carried about 2 miles through town on the backs of 100 of Viterbo’s strongest men. Crazy, right?

La Macchina

…yeah.