Food and the Pope

January 30, 2011January 30, 20118 Comments

This weekend was full of food. All delicious of course.

Friday night dinner with Nancy and my apartmentmate, Joe.

I had Rigatoni al Agnello

and Artichokes

I ate meat. It was delicious. I don’t really feel bad. I have no intention of turning into a carnivore but I love lamb. And honestly, when in Rome…

Then the next day, Nancy

Kyla

and I walked around Trastevere. It was lovely! Great view!

Along the way we stopped for lunch.

Pomodori e mozzarella

In America we have ketchup and mustard in packets on every table. In Italy, they have olive oil and balsamic vinegar in packets.

A much better choice if you ask me.

Later that night, we had a gathering at our apartment.

Lots of cheese! and wine…

Delicious!

Then this morning, Nancy and I headed to the Vatican with the intention of going to the Vatican Museum (since it’s free the last Sunday of every month).

Instead, we hung out with the Pope

There he is!

After some more walking around and lunch, I headed home and took a nap. I woke up with a sore throat.

Please don’t let me get sick! My internship needs to start ASAP!

Figuring Things Out

January 28, 20113 Comments

So I’ve been in Rome 4 days. But here are a few things I’ve learned.

1. Supermarkets are expensive. Fruits and Vegetables are much cheaper at the market at San Giovanni di Dio.

All this fruit for less than 2€! Plus some sort of weird cabbage/kale looking thing and a lovely eggplant.

2. Don’t try to walk home from San Giovanni di Dio without consulting a map. I got lost, blisters ensued, I ended up just getting on the tram after an Italian woman gave me directions and scolded me for getting lost.

3. Walk like you know where you’re going and people think you actually you know where you’re going. I’ve been asked for directions at least 5 times in the past 3 days, to which I reply “Io non parlo italiano.” Then they look at me disappointed and walk away.

4. Crossing any of streets in the rotunda

in front of the Monument to Vittorio Emanuele

is scary as hell! You kinda just have to walk whenever there’s the slightest gap between cars and hope the on-coming traffic stops. Certainly not as pleasant as seen in Roman Holiday:

I feel like when I comfortably cross that street, I’ll know I’m comfortable in Rome.

5. Today I went to get a medical certificate. Because I can walk quickly, the doctor knew I was fit to start my internship. Great!

6. How to use public transportation. Well, sorta, I got the tram down. Next, the bus…

7. Coffee first thing in the morning is amazing.

I broke down and bought a coffeemaker (moka) at the market yesterday. 12.50€ I’ll take it!

Things I still need to figure out:

1. How the heck do you make it from 1-2pm lunch to 9-10pm dinner without gnawing your arm off?

2. How to pronounce things in Italian. Daniele, we may have to have a video chat date so you can teach me how to properly say guanciale. Yes, I have carbonara and amatriciana on the brain!

3. How to actually speak Italian. Work in progress.

Toaster

January 26, 20117 Comments

Who doesn’t love toast?

Luckily, I have a toaster in my apartment.

Looks normal right? Well I spent the better part of 10 minutes figuring out how it works. I pushed down, pulled, turned nobs. Finally I figured out how easy it is. Slip the toast in, turn the dial and when it’s done, pull it out.

I could have sworn I bought some jam, but apparently I didn’t. So instead I had cheese on my toast with a side of yogurt and green tea. I don’t know if I was just hungry, but this cheese tasted amazing!

Strangely enough we don’t have a coffee maker. As much as I love coffee, this just means I have to go to a bar/caffe to get coffee. I’ll survive.

After a getting ready and going to the Cornell in Rome campus to print some internship stuff, I decided to wander.

I walked around aimlessly, and it was great.

After a while, I picked up some lunch:

and sat in a piazza to enjoy.

Great view, right?

The did some more wandering.

Finally, when a borderline creepy Italian man hit on me, I decided I was tired and headed home.

Now, I’m going to do more internship prep to see how soon I can start!

In Rome!

January 25, 20116 Comments

A lot has happened in the past few weeks.

Sunday, January 16th, 1:00pm: Leave Ithaca

Monday, January 17th, 4:30pm: Left NYC for Florida.

Tuesday, January 18th, 12:30pm: Arrive in Orlando. My brother and I drove all night, we made it pretty fast.

Thursday, January 20th, 11:00am: Drive down to South Florida.

Saturday, January 22nd, 2:00pm: My cousin got married! The wedding was lovely!

Monday, January 24th, 11:15am: Leave Miami to Newark.

Monday, January 24th, 5:30pm: Newark to Rome.

Tuesday, January 25th, 7:50am: Land in Rome, gather luggage, pay 65 Euro to get to my apartment.

Living Room

Kitchen (with a washing machine in it)

Bathroom (with a bidet)

My bedroom (with one occupant, two beds and a big mess to unpack)

Tuesday, January 25th, 10:00am: Plug in my surge protector and the power went out. My apartmentmate must hate me.

Tuesday, January 25th, 11:00am: Long nap. Then wander around to find groceries.

I paid 15 Euro for 6 eggs, 2 yogurts, 1 loaf of bread, a block of cheese, a jar of strawberry jam, a premade salad, shampoo, conditioner and body wash. I have no idea if that’s a lot.

Off to my first class!

Discovering Indoor Exercise and Roasted Vegetables

January 12, 20119 Comments

As much as I hate to admit this, being at my parent’s house was driving me crazy. For some reason, being there makes me the most sedentary person on the planet.

Example: I watched every episode (5 1/2 season) of How I Met Your Mother in the nearly 3 weeks I was home. Hilarious show! But that’s wayyyy too much TV.

The truth is, I feel better when I’m more active. I like walking places and working out. It just makes me feel better about myself.

So now that I’m in Ithaca, I’m trying to find ways to feel better about myself and my health… despite this:

I won’t lie. The weather here can be terrible. I walked to meet up with some friends and my toes were numb even though I was wearing tights, thick socks and snow boots.

But to keep myself moving, I present to you, my home gym:

Real state of the art, right?

Lately I’ve taken to doing circuits while watching episodes of last season’s The Biggest Loser.

Circuit 1: 25 Step ups
Circuit 2: 20 crunches
Circuit 3: 25 jumping jacks
Circuit 4: 20 bicycle crunches
Circuit 5: 25 bunny hops (back and forth over my computer charger)
Repeat

Not the most exciting work out ever but definitely better than sitting and doing nothing. I’ve also recently discovered ExerciseTV online!

I made another discovery. It’ll revolutionize lunch (or dinner… for me, at least). Okay so I didn’t really discover it. Rather, it’s new to me.

Roasted Broccoli

Who knew it could be so delicious.

What you need:

Broccoli, Carrots, Onions, etc.
1 tsp olive oil
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper
baking sheet
oven preheated to 400F

Combine broccoli, other vegetables, olive oil, balsamic vinergar, salt and pepper. Put it all on a baking sheet like such:

Roast at 400F for about 25 minutes.

Makes a wonderful side dish. I’m so pleased! Last night I went and bought more broccoli just so I could have it again.

Definitely recommend it if you haven’t tried it.

Off to try to get some work done, or at least move myself a bit. Have a wonderful day!

Remix to…

January 7, 20111 Comment

…Ignition

Well, maybe not. More like Remix to Curried Kale with Lentils and Mango.

Somehow that doesn’t sound as good as Remix to Ignition. I’m going to stick to my day job… err that is searching for one…

Anyway, I remade curried kale with lentils and mango. I made a few changes, I only used 1 tsp of olive oil, omitted the shallot and used 1 tbsp of red wine vinegar instead of lemon. Everything else stayed pretty much the same.

Pretty delicious.

Take that R. Kelly… or something…

Speaking of day jobs. I’m off to work on some job applications. Wish me luck!