Pass the Cheese Please!

Parole: palazzo (palace, villa), musica (music), navigare in Internet (to browse the internet)

Yesterday consisted of a combination of a productive morning and a relaxing afternoon for all of us.  Liz and Lindsey got up at 7 and ran to the vet faculty (literally ran, because that is what they do).  They volunteered to milk a sick cow which stayed at the faculty for the weekend, so they milked her first thing that morning.  Aubrey and I headed to McDonald’s to use the internet to upload a blog post and to check out what was going on in the world.  The internet is still not working at our apartment.  It has been unusable for a little over a week now.  We have full signal of the city internet at home, we can always get connected to it, and sometimes it even lets us log in with our username and password, however, it never actually works well enough for ANYTHING to actually load.  It is very frustrating, however, the good news is, McDonald’s is only a 10 minute walk away for free internet, and we get free internet at the vet faculty.  It is just an inconvenience not having it in the apartment.  Anyway, once we finished using the internet, we went back to the flat, and headed to the TIM store to reload our cell phones.  All of us met back up again at the train station, where the ticket machine wasn’t working right, and we had to run to our train so we wouldn’t miss it.

The trains that we took from Parma to Mantova yesterday were the same ones as the first two trains we took when we went to Verona.  We took a short, loud, hot, rough-riding, two-car train from Parma to Piadena, and then took a large, fast, quiet, smooth-riding, double decker train from Piadena to Mantova.  (By the way, Mantova is actually spelled Mantua, however, it is pronounced Mantova, and so now many places read “Mantova” instead of “Mantua”).

Swan on Largo Mezzo

Once we arrived in Mantova, we grabbed some pizza for lunch wondered around the city.  We visited a duomo, walked through several beautiful piazzas, strolled through some parks, saw some palazzos, walked on the edge of a couple lakes (Mantova is on three lakes, whose names translate to Lake Inferior, Lake Middle, and Lake Superior), and walked around the outside of Castello San Giorgio.  The Castle still has a moat with water in it.  Most castles that we have seen have had their moat’s drained, and are full of cats.  In addition, the sun was bright today so it was a perfect day for photo taking.  I bought a pair of obnoxious reflective sunglasses on a street market, and used them and Lindsey’s aviators to take lots of “reflection” type pictures.

UPDATE! I forgot to mention the lady that told us where a good gelateria is!  We were standing at a small intersection deciding which way to go, and a little old lady walks up to us, and asks us what we were looking for.  Victoria took charge as she is the best and most confident Italian speaker of us, and asked where a good gelateria is.  She told us where to go, and said that she thought we were from Yugoslavia, and then she went on her merry way.  Older ladies seem to be around everywhere in Italy, always doing something, and walking like like they are on a mission (no matter how fast they may be walking or biking).

On our way home, we literally took the same trains back to Parma.  How do I know?  In the morning, Victoria had an orange on the train.  On the way home, we were eating strawberries and Grana cheese, and when we were throwing away the strawberry tops in the garbage trays by the seats, Victoria’s orange peels were still there!  We were on the same train, in the same car, in the same seats, as we were in the morning before.  And this was on the long, double decker train too, not the small, two-car one.

Castello di San Giorgio on the edge of Lake Inferior

Once we got back to Parma, we headed to McDonald’s for internet, where I also am this morning to post this.  They play American music here.  Last night I was sitting here, and someone’s cell phone rings.  The ringtone?  Super Mario theme song.  I laughed out loud.  The Italians are also always talking to us about American movies and pop culture, and sometimes they knowing more about it than we do (which really isn’t saying much considering my pop culture knowledge).  It’s amazing how technology really sends things like music, video games, and viral youtube videos across the world.

This afternoon we think we are headed to a Rugby game, and then, who knows what.  This week we are going on a lot of field trips for our classes.  We are excited to visit a lot of farm and new places.

Ciao!

Parole: cavallo (horse), delizioso (delicious)

Sam and Lucas arrived this weekend!  Sam spent the weekend getting caught up with some of his Italian friends in the area, and Lucas spent the weekend with us.  Because Lucas is an English speaker, I found myself structuring my sentences in a simple form, and talking slower and more clearly, as we do when we are speaking English to a native Italian speaker.  I caught myself doing it, and after that I made an effort to speak in my normal fast, mumbley, hard to understand American accent to him.

This past Saturday was the first Saturday that we spent in Parma.  So, we did more exploring around the city and showed Lucas around.  We visited the city’s market.  The girls bought “Italia” socks.  This market is much, much smaller than ones in other cities that we have visited.  We also went to Parco Ducale.  The park was full of couples (who made sure you knew they were couples), dogs, runners, walkers, bikers, and one roller-blader. There were so many people everywhere in the city!  Now and then Lucas would say things like “This is so Italy”, referring to the hundreds of people strolling around the city, socializing, shopping, relaxing, and enjoying themselves.  They were not in a hurry, and had no better place to be.  Such a difference when compared to the American culture.

Sunset on the pond at Parco Ducale

We exited the park on Via John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and walked through a food market, which featured local cheeses, salamis, and prosciutto.  It looked delicious.  Then, we headed went back toward the city center.

On our way, we found what I think is the best gelateria we have visited so far.  Attica Due Torri, literarily meaning old two towers,  gives you up to three flavors in generous portions on a cone for a whopping 1,70€.  What a deal!  I ordered a flavor called cookies, and another one called Due Torri.  It was odd ordering the flavor called “cookies” since it was an English word and we ordered in Italian.  The gelato was so delicious.  We took pictures of the place and will make sure that we visit it again when we are on that side of town.

Next we found a store called “Scout”, which is a clothing store that we saw in Bologna.  The girls wanted to go to, however we couldn’t find it when we tried to look for it again  (or I “forgot” where it was).  The Scout in Parma was neat, being retrofitted into an old stone building.  It included three levels in the small space that it took up, and it still had an original statue inside the building.  Scout is a little on the pricey side, especially if you are looking for Carhartt brand clothes. (getting closer to a Tractor Supply Company store!)  Apparently Carhartt is the brand to have in Italy.  Here, if you are wearing something that says Carhartt, it means that you are rich.  This makes sense as a Carhartt T-shirt was priced at 40€.  That is probably almost as much as my Carhartt bib-overalls!

We crossed the river, and went back to the city center, looking for a place to eat.  We found a place that looked promising:  Fair prices and a great menu posted for the evening.  However, like most places, this osteria wouldn’t be open for another hour (8pm).  So wondered around, and in the Italian way, we stopped at a bar for a glass of wine.  It was less than 2€ for a glass of wine, and they provided us with chips and bread.

We returned to the osteria that we spotted earlier.  It was called I Tre Porcellini, which literally means “the three little pigs”.  It was delicious.  I had gnocchi with gorgonzola sauce.  For desert we ordered something called semifreddo¸ which translates to semi cold.  It was so delicious, that we ordered a second one. We did some research and found out that it is a mixture of gelato and whipped cream, plus some other things.

Semifreddo

The good food didn’t stop there.  The next day Federico invited us to his farm.  For lunch, we enjoyed Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese with both authentic and commercially made balsamic vinegar, and with honey.  Real balsamic vinegar has the consistency of molasses, and is sweeter than normal balsamic vinegar.  Each year, people will add grape leaves to the top of a barrel to ferment, and drain the vinegar out the bottom.  It takes years to get enough of it to use.  For our primi piaitti, we had homemade lasagna (it was made by one of his neighbors who discovered that she makes really good lasagna, so she decided to start selling it).  Our second dish was chicken in a mustard/cheese/oil type sauce.  It was really good.  Even though we were all completely full by this point, we also had apple pie, which was actually like a lemon cake with apples baked into it.  This was a very filling and very delicious meal.

Since we were all stuffed full, we needed some exercise.  Federico gave us a grand tour of his farm.  It formally was a dairy farm, and now it is a hobby farm, with a pony, horses, donkeys, geese, a dog, and some cats.  He has a stud and he breeds horses to sell.

Next, Federico and his wife, Elena, took two horses across the road, where his father lives and where more horses are boarded.  We dressed the horses and saddled them up.  We rode them around in a field behind the barn.  The sky was clear, and we could see the mountains on the horizon as we rode horses into the sunset (well, I guess it was during sunset, but you get the idea).

Riding horses into the sunset

After it began to get dark out, we headed inside for some tea and some pastries.  Federico’s son, Samuele, (3 years old) was loving the attention that he had been getting from us all day.  He used his counting skills to put spoonfulls of sugar in our tea.  Then, when no one was not looking, he snuck an entire spoonful of sugar into his mouth.  Based on his actions and his ability to entertain us throughout the day, it was very clear to us that Samuele was just like his father.

It was such a great day in the countryside.  It was so nice to get away from a city environment and into open, green spaces to work with some animals and see another farm, and to be in a home.  I want to send a HUGE thank you to the entire Righi family-especially Elena, who worked so hard making food for us and helping us with the horses.  Again, the Italian hospitality is fantastic, as we felt so welcome by Federico’s entire family!  The weekend worked out great for Lucas so he could experience our great little city and the Italian countryside in a family environment.

I have one more thing about food to add.  Today, our food and culture instructor wanted us to experience our lessons first hand, so we went to another osteria.  Federico and Sam Fessenden joined us, as we enjoyed another big meal.  It included cheese from mild to strong in flavor, tortelli (not tortellini, its similar to ravioli) stuffed with potato, ricotta & herbs, and squash (ours was like a pumpkin filling, very sweet), and pesto di cavallo, which is seasoned, minced, raw horse meat.  For dessert we had tiramisu and cheesecake covered with chocolate.

I have no idea why we go through so much Nutella

As you can tell from the food we have been eating, I will be eating sandwiches (without Nutella) and salads for the rest of the week.  Lucas headed to Venice this morning to do some exploring there before he leaves Italy.  As for us, we will be in classes and visiting farms.

Cheers!

(I meant to post this last night, but the Internet was down)

Italian words: independenza (independence), maggiore (mayor), torri (tower)

It is amazing to wake up with the sun shining so brightly and to go outside and walk around in the mornings.  I don’t remember when the sun shone this much in central New York!  It may only be 35-40 degrees F outside, but it still feels great.

Friday night we decided that we would be going to Bologna today.  Bologna is about 90 kilometers down the rail, which is roughly an hour, and several of the Italian students we met with our first night here told us that we needed to check it out.  We texted one of our Italian tutors, Matteo, asking him what was good to do Bologna.  He told us he was already there and that he would meet up with us when we got there.

We arrived in Bologna, and not only did Matteo meet up with us, he, his girlfriend, Gaia, and another one of their friends, spent almost three hours with us, walking us around the city, showing us where good things were to see, taking us to neat places to visit, and showing us the University district where Gaia takes classes.  This goes to show the awesome courtesy of Italians.  I can’t imagine that an American tutor or mentor would spend 3 hours on a Saturday showing exchange students around the best sites of Ithaca, when he could be with his own friends!  (ok…so Ithaca and Bologna aren’t exactly comparable, but you get my point).  Gaia also speaks English very, very well, as she was in an American school system in Rome until 8^th grade.

via dell’ independeza

Piccola Venezia a Bologna

One of the places he showed us was called Little Venice.  It literally looked like what we have seen in pictures of Venice.  (I think we might go to Venice in a few weeks).  On most buildings, especially on via dell’ independeza, there are arches and pillars.  Arches are like a architectural theme for the city of Bologna.  It was really beautiful.  On the same street we saw a man that sits on the sidewalk all day, and occasionally plays saxophone.  They say that he is running for mayor.

Speaking of mayor, we visited the mayors plaza, Piazza Maggiore, a 13^th century plaza, featuring Fountana del Netto, a basilica, and an urban center (like a mini-mall/library), among other things.  There were even puppet shows.  The ground level of the urban center (level 0 in Italy) had a glass floor, and Matteo told us that below us was Old Bologna.  There are lots of ruins right there underneath the urban center.  The urban center was built inside the 13^th century plaza, so obviously the ruins were from the ancient Roman civilization.

Bologna is also home to a huge flea market, several ancient churches, and some specialty stores.  The market is located in Parco della Mantagnola, the oldest park in the world.  It was founded in 1088AD.  The venders seemed to specialize in cheap clothes and shoes, however there were some unique vendors, like this man who made bags out of tire tubes, and belts out of the outside of bike tires.  (Check out his website at www.ri-cicilo.com). Further down the road is Torri delgi Asinellie e Garisenda, which are two  towers (98 meters and 47 meters tall) built by Bologna’s richest families.  One of them was built at a slight angle, but no one really knows why.  As a result, for stability reasons, that tower is only half of the size that it used to be.  Further down the road, there is Santo Stefano’s church, which is a very large church.  It actually has 7 churches within it called the “Seven churches of the New Jerusalem”.  Many of them are not restored, but you can still walk around in them.  I thought it was really neat to be able to see the old, non-restored versions of some of these old brick buildings.  The specialty store that I was previously referring to was the world’s only Nutella restaurant, including Nutella pizza, quesadillas, ice cream, milkshakes, hot chocolate, and crepes.  We didn’t get a chance to stop by, but next time we go we will.

Starting Monday we will begin Italian lessons.  We try to speak Italian to ourselves both in public and in our flat.  I am sure the posts will slow down as we dig into classes.

Dopo!

Italian Words: proto (ready, quick, hello), alimento (food) andiamo (lets go!)

The Flat

The main hallway in our flat

First Impressions:  Awesome.  A bed was so nice after 35 hours of travel.  It has 3 bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom, and a living room/dining room.  Liz and Lindsey are sharing a room, Aubrey took the room with the double bed, and I was left with an echoey room with a very small twin bed.  The flat literally includes everything:  Extra light bulbs, towels, partial bottles toiletries, toaster, (tiny) washing machine, toilet paper, sheets, and TV.  It has artificial flagstone floors and is heated with hot water through cast iron registers.  In the morning we walk around until we find the warm spots to warm our feet (from the heating pipes).  When the doorbell rings, we have to pick up what looks like a phone receiver without buttons (weird) and we can talk to the people at the gate outside our building.  Then we press a spring loaded light switch to “buzz” them in.  We were even able to get WiFi provided by the City of Parma.  It is usually slow and very hard to connect to.  We can only have one Skype call at a time, and only one person can upload pictures to Facebook.  But hey, its free. (I have been told “you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth”…apparently it’s a saying).  At the University and in a local mall there is also free WiFi which should be faster than what we have here.  We bought a few groceries the other day, and last night we had our first real dinner together.  Today we finally figured out a good place to buy groceries just to the north of us, around a 10 minute walk away.  This place is in the shopping mall and has a variety of stuff.  It is called Ipercoop.  Basically a Wal-mart…good stuff…BUT we still can not find peanut butter.

The City

A typical Italian street

Parma is a very walkable and bikeable city.  Unlike Ithaca, and many places in upstate NY, it is flat.  Is so nice to walk on flat ground.  Parma, like most Italian cities, reminds me of Seattle in terms of having a coffee bar (also known as a bar or a caffetteria) on every block instead of a Starbucks.  (By the way, they do have Starbucks at the London Airport).  There is also a pizzeria or two on every block.  Yesterday we ate pizza for lunch.  1€ for a slice of pizza margherita and 1,80€ for a Coke. (note the use of a comma instead of a decimal point).  Our flat is located a couple kilometers away from the city center to the south, and a kilometer or so away from a shopping center to the north.  Usually a pleasant walk to Piazza Giribaldi, where there are lots of little shops, lots of banks, trattorias, a Champion Athletic store, and many gelatorias.  We made it our goal try as many of the gelatorias in Parma as possible.  We wondered around and found our favorite one, Grom, from when we were in Parma last year.  We have yet to find our favorite trattoria, down a sketchy alleyway past a stone arch, which we went to last year also.

The University

Federico took us to the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine today.  We took a tour of their offices, labs, library, and barns.  It is a very small campus.  There are about 50 students per class year at the faculty.  Our classes will be taught in English in the sense that the professors will be speaking to us in English.  All of our handouts and powerpoints will be in Italian. Next week, we will spend the mornings with Federico working on technical language, basically to learn agricultural terms and practice our Italian.  In the flat, we try as much as we can to speak to each other in Italian.

The People

We were informed prior to arriving in Italy that the Italians were nice people.  It is so true, so far.  We just have to make sure that we don’t get scammed being the naive Americans that we are.  At the train station, people were always willing to point us in the right direction or offer help.  Somehow they knew we were American.  (Again, probably because of Aubrey’s huge blue duffle).  Even the ticketers at the train station were helpful and seemed to enjoy there job a whole lot more than an American ticketer, and way more than a toll booth worker.  When we went back to the ticket booth after we missed our train, the man looked at us, and then had a surprised look and then glanced back at his clock, and looked back at us, and asked “what happened?!?!”

Also, all Italians that we have met have said to us “I apologize for my terrible English.”  Why apologize?  We are the visitors needing to learn the native language.  Apparently the older generation knows Italian and French, as it used to be the standard second language.  Now it is English.  When we went to an apartment with our tutor and a bunch of his friends, they made an effort to speak only in English.  Sure it was not perfect, but we could understand each other very well.  Many of them spoke well in Spanish, which the four of us are also familiar with.  It amazes me how well we were able to communicate using the bits and pieces of three different languages.  When someone would start a sentence, we could tell just from their body language (especially Italian hand motions) what they meant to say or were trying to say.  To me, this seems to be some sort of phenomena.

We enjoy our "family dinners". So far we have talked for almost 2 hours after dinner each night. I hope it stays like this!

That’s all for now.  I think we are going to head to Bologna tomorrow to do some more exploring.

Buenosera.