Taco Tuesday

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Happy Wednesday! Even though it’s 12am on Wednesday right now. Anyway.

This week has been so far so good! On Monday in my Food History class we had a surprise eggplant workshop! The syllabus said there was supposed to be a wine tasting that day, and a quiz the next day, but that was some reason not the case. I still got a 14/15 on the quiz (stupid mistake on my part) even though I came in expecting a wine tasting.

So we take the quiz, and then continue on to our lesson. In the middle of that, the guy who works in the little grocery store right next to school runs in the room, smiling and yelling random things to all of us in Italian. It seriously seemed staged to me, but definitely wasn’t. He was holding a cardboard box with two pans of something covered in tinfoil. The professor was like “Ahh great thanks,” or something like that in Italian, and went on with the lesson like nothing happened. Maybe 10 minutes later he finally explained what I had been thinking about since that Italian man walked in with the mysterious package.

“We’re eating melanzana today!” he exclaimed! Melanzana, he explained, is Italian for eggplant. At first I was kind of disappointed. I don’t think I’ve ever really had it, but it never seemed appetizing to me. I only liked the color. Three kinds were presented in front of us: a marinated, kind of wet one, slices coated in what looked like bread crumbs and slices deep fried. I decided to be brave, remember my favorite quote that my sister’s friend always says, “never refuse free food” and try all 3. Actually, I’m paying for the class, so those were some pretty expensive “free” eggplants.

They were all surprisingly good! I didn’t necessarily love the marinated one but the other 2 were something I would eat again. Now I just have to figure out how to go about doing that. I was actually pretty impressed, like randomly those were some of the most delicious things I’ve had while being here.

The weather we’ve had yesterday and today (Tuesday) has definitely been the worst since being here. Abby and I braved the cold after class on Monday and ran some quick errands in ridiculous winds. Ugh. We had to take the MiniMetro to the train station to buy our tickets for our trip to Florence this Thursday! We also went to the big CoOp for groceries. The whole process of grocery shopping is such a hassle here. We have to pay to take the MiniMetro over 3 stops, get out with 70 minutes til our ticket expires, head to the CoOp and shop around a grocery store with a basic selection of stuff, have to throw the groceries in our own bags, then take the MiniMetro back and carry all those groceries up to our apartment! We complain that we miss Wegmans, and our cars, and all the things that a “normal” grocery store should have. Plus everyone shopping at that store is horrible at giving personal space and moving their carts/bodies when you’re trying to maneuver with your own cart/body in the aisles.

Yesterday, along with our train tickets to Florence, we also booked a hostel there for Thursday-Saturday AND bought our plane ticket to Cork, Ireland for February 24^th! That’s the first place we’re going for Spring Break. Just that we booked that much already has made me so excited. If everything goes as planned, I will be in London, or leaving there to go to Paris, in a month from today. Later that night I also got to Skype with my roommates back at school. I miss them and it’s weird to hear about what’s going on at school without being there. Right after, I talked to my aunt and uncle for a bit about what I’ve been up to. If you guys are reading this one, thanks and hello!

Tuesdays are my busiest days here. I had Italian 10-10:50am, then class straight from 12-6:45pm, with 15 minute breaks in between those 4 classes. It’s draining, but makes me appreciate Wednesdays where I only have Italian at 10!

Today was freezing again. In my 2 later classes, it started snowing! Some people were going nuts, like they seriously missed it from the US. I was like, “Are you serious?” I came over here to get skip winter for once in my life! Seriously I can’t get away. Before I came, I heard that if it snows in the city, which apparently it never does, the whole place shuts down. We’ll see what’s really open tomorrow, but tonight we got an email from the housing department that the local Italian Government allows people to keep the heat on for more than 7 hours because of this weather! Yay 10 hours of heat! Tonight, we had Taco Tuesday in our little apartment. We found tortilla shells at the store, along with salsa and ground beef. We had cheese, lettuce and hot sauce so we were all set! It was so great, finally something fun other than pasta!

Tomorrow is another Tandem meeting at 7:30, Thursday is a day full of classes then a train ride to Florence. On Friday I’ll meet up with my and another Food History class in Florence for a Renaissance Dinner. The plan is to meet at 11, walk around til 1 then eat til 4pm. I’m so excited to go there, and my next blog will have pics galore. Promise 😉

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Photos

Taco Tuesday!
Abby celebrating our new tradition