Advertisement
Published: December 4th 2011
Chiara's Room!
She says its messy...if only she knew the tornado that hits my room whenever I come home. Why Hello Everyone!
Welcome to my first blog from Italy!!
It was an early start, but well worth it! From the moment I stepped off the plane and was greeted by a kiss on the cheek from Chiara’s mom, Claudia, I felt so at home. Chiara’s Mom and Dad were very kind to come and pick me up because Bergamo is about an hour away from where they live in Lurate-Caccivio which is about 20 minutes outside of Como.
Even though it was cloudy out, Italy is still beautiful! I actually like the cold weather a bit because it reminds me of being at home in Nebraska at this time of year! Although, I think it is actually a bit warmer here than in Nebraska right now, and they don’t get quite as much snow.
When we got to the house Chiara wasn’t there because she was still at her university in Milan which is about an hour away by car. However, I got to meet Laura, Chiara’s sister; my gosh she looks so much like Chiara! She is very, very nice and speaks English really well! She showed me around
The New Wall
This is the wall Chiara's Dad made! Looks really good ,huh?! their house and introduced me to all of their pets. They have a really, really cute cocker spaniel named
Birillo, but he is getting pretty old, he is fourteen already, and a one-year-old kitten named Coccola and two turtle’s that Laura’s boyfriend gave her. It’s really funny because Birillo likes to go up to the turtle cage and he wines and pounces at the cage. I asked Chiara if he doesn’t like them, “I don’t know if he just wants to play with them or if he wants to eat them.” Haha!
At Chiara’s house their grandmother lives upstairs, so Laura took me up to meet her. Even in another language she is very outgoing! Laura had to translate everything she said and she did a really good job, because her grandmother said a lot! She wanted to feed us something but Laura politely told her that her mother was already making us lunch. However, she did give us chocolate. 😊 They are really cool, they are actually called “Pocket Coffee” and they have espresso inside of them!
Lunch was absolutely delicious. It was pasta with meat sauce, but it was
Italian pasta
Chiara and her Coffee :)
Chiara and her adult sized Italian coffee pot, now that she is older she has a bigger one! :) with meat sauce…it’s like going to Belgium to get Belgian waffles…Italy is the motherland of pasta. SO YUMMY!
Laura invited me to come with her and a friend to have hot chocolate a bit later in the day, but until then I got a much needed nap. I was SO tired!
Laura’s friend Julia came and picked us up and took us to a little café called Bacio which means “kiss” in Italian. Julia was really nice and they both speak pretty good English so we were actually able to talk quite a bit! They have a really mean English teacher who tells them that they don’t speak English very well, and I told them to tell their teacher that a native English speaker says they speak really well. They said she would never believe them, hahaha!
By the time we got home I only had to wait about 20 minutes before I saw Chiara through the window! If any of you heard the story, while Chiara was living with us about five years ago, her Dad, Emilio, closed in their garage to build Chiara a new room. We all joked
Appetizers
Yummy appetizers with Chiara's Dad, Emilio. about her living in the garage but it turned out really nice! The wall with the window is where the garage door used to be.
I was so excited to see Chiara! It really means a lot to be here with her. It is really nice because she is a part of our family so it is sort of like getting to see a family member. 😊 As November has been going on, I have been getting really excited to come to Italy and to go to Germany, because I have been feeling a little homesick. The other kids are getting ready to go back home and are getting prepared for Christmas with their families, but this will be the first time I ever miss Christmas. However it has been so comforting to be her with her and her family and I am very excited that I get to spend Christmas up in Germany with our family there. 😊
Chiara and I spent a little while catching up and then it was time for dinner! Oh, yum! More pasta! This time it was ravioli with some more cooked vegetables. Oh, just leave me in
Birillo loves his Turtles
This is Birillo either trying to play with or eat the turtles! haha! Claudia’s kitchen for the rest of my life and I will be a happy camper. Laura was joking and saying that whenever they have guests they are worried that they will get fat because Claudia feeds them so much, but I figure I will not get many chances to eat here in Italy, so, bring it on!
Chiara and I were both incredibly exhausted so we watched a movie (“How to Train your Dragon” or “Dragon Trainer” if you are in Italy). It is a really, really adorable movie. If you haven’t seen it yet, I would highly suggest it! Then we both passed out and I slept for like 12 hours. I haven’t slept that much since I got to Europe! It was much needed.
The next day Chiara and I went with her dad to a little bakery where they serve appetizers for lunch. Her dad goes every Saturday to sit and eat with his friends…sounds pretty similar to another Dad I know. 😊
We got to go to l’artigiano in fiera which is like a huge, huge, huge artisan market at the Fieramilano which is like a convention
center in Milan. We walked around for like four hours and we didn’t even see all of the different parts. They have areas of the market dedicated to all the different parts of the world. A large section of it was dedicated to Italy, but they also had sections for the rest of Europe, India, Thailand, South America and parts of Africa. Here is the link to the website so you can look at it! It was really neat! http://www.artigianoinfiera.it/ita/home-visit.php
The Italy part had some clothes and stuff, but it mostly had food, and free samples of said food. We walked around tasting lots of different types of olive oil, bread, fish, cheese, chocolate, and even some lemoncello! Chiara said that you can get all of the same stuff at the grocery store, but it isn’t as good because these are all homemade. It was kind of cool because even though Chiara could speak to all of the people at the fair in Italian she would speak to them in English just so that I could understand, I really appreciated it!
I can understand some of the words in Italian because they
Chocoalte Coffee Pot!
The only thing that could make Chiara's coffee pot better were if it were made of chocolate...and here it is! are similar to Spanish, but I can’t really hear the entire phrase really well. Sometimes Chiara’s Mom forgets that I don’t speak Italian so she speaks to me in Italian and I can sometimes understand what she is saying but other times I just look at Chiara with a really confused look and she tells me what is going on. I don’t actually mind not understanding everything they say though because it is a really pretty language and I like to listen to it.
We were really exhausted after the fair so when we got home we just wanted to rest, but as soon as I turned on my computer my parents were on Skype and they really wanted to see Chiara so we talked to them for about 45 minutes. Chiara got to come and spend Christmas with us two years ago, but that is they last time they got to see her so it has been a while! A lot has changed since then. Chiara graduated from college in October with a degree in physics, and is now working on her masters in Theoretical and Particle Physics. Her thesis from graduation was about quarks which
Chiara!
We thought these lights were really pretty, I was looking at them and I think I might be able to make some like it when I get back to the States! are the particles inside neutrons…there is more to it than that, but I was never really a physics fan so I don’t really understand it so much. Haha!
After dinner I got to go and meet four of Chiara’s friends from high school for hot chocolate; Clementina, Martina, Rosella, and Victoria. They are all really sweet and nice. Clementina studies dentistry in Siena, but she comes home quite a bit, Martina and Victoria are studying medicine and Rosella is studying archaeology! So they are a pretty diverse group! I enjoyed getting to hang out with all of them, though, and just get to talk a little bit and get to see what Chiara’s life is like! I’m enjoying getting to see how she lives because we only know her from living with us, so it’s neat to live with her!
So far Italy is just wonderful, but it’s not just Italy that is wonderful, it’s the people I am spending it with that is making it so nice!
Chiara has lots of big plans for us this week so it will be really, really fun! Stay tuned! Haha 😊
Love always,
Monster Bread
That may be the biggest bread of loaf I have ever seen! Devin 😊
P.S. Congratulations to the Clemson Tigers!! I knew you could do it!! 😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.227s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 12; qc: 52; dbt: 0.0456s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
