Italia: Day Fifteen

This morning I got up at 5am so that I could get ready to go to the Milan airport. It was a two hour drive from the hotel in Novellara, so we had to leave early to make it for our eleven o’clock flight. I had to sit next to an older man on the plane, but at least I got a window seat so I was able to sleep and read in peace.

When we rolled into Atlanta it was kind of sad saying goodbye to the group. I'll probably never see most of them again. I kept going on the tram after all of them got off. It’s nice to be alone, but at the same time it’s weird. My flight to Detroit will board soon after though, so I didn't have long to think about.


Truthfully, travelling is great, but it's just good to be home.

Italia: Day Fourteen

Today, I got up at seven so that I could run out in the countryside one last time before leaving Italy. I ended up getting lost and, in the process, running past a cow crossing sign. It was really strange because I was in the middle of a vineyard. I didn’t know they kept farms and vineyards so close together.

After my run, I showered and was really disappointed that the hotel didn’t have any of the chocolate cake that I’ve been eating the past few days. I ended up indulging in some ham and cheese with a side of the mini pound cakes that I’ve been gorging on for the whole trip.

We took the bus into Parma for the day and were able to walk around the shops and see a new city. We went to a supermarket and I was able to buy some of the pound cakes I’ve been eating. They were actually really cheap though, only 88 cents per package of six. We stopped at a bar after shopping and had a morning drink. We bought our last Bacardi Breezers (not available in the United States) of the trip as well.

Parma

The streets of Parma

We showed back up at the bus and carried our breezers on, which may not have been the best idea considering we drove over to meat factory afterward and saw them packaging meat. The smell was terrible. I wanted to gag. They took us down into the meat cellar too and it only got worse. I was so glad when they told us it was time for lunch because it meant that I got to leave the smell.

The meat was literally touching the top of my head in the cellar

Lunch was actually pretty good. I sat next to the people who had joined our tour group. It turns out Jeff, who was on his honeymoon, is a small town farmer from a valley in Idaho. He was telling me a lot about cheap ways to travel, which gave me something to do during the meal.

I’ve decided that I really like risotto, which is a rice dish with various things added into it. We had it for lunch yesterday and today and I couldn’t get enough of it. I really liked this meal in general though, except for the meat. The pasta was divine and they provided us with tons of white wine and the best bread ever. It was so greasy, buttery, and delicious - something that I've noticed severely lacking in Italy to this point.

The delicious risotto

After the meal, we headed back to the hotel to chill out for a couple of hours. We left just before five to go over to Andrea’s house again for a demonstration on how to make pasta. It was boring watching his mother make the pasta, but I got the recipe in case I ever want to make pasta:

Ingredients:

400g flour
3 eggs
Make volcano shape with flour
Windy/winter - about 1tsp olive oil
Add about half cup of warm water also

Instructions:

Use fingers to draw eggs and flour together
Knead with heel of hand and thumbs for about 10 min or until smooth
Wrap in saran wrap and let sit for 10 min
Roll dough until paper thin
-and-

Wait 1-2 hours for pasta to dry
Can then cut into shape
-or-If stuffing pasta, put spoon sized piles on dough when still moist
Roll dough to cover mounds
Cut dough from roll
Make sure to close all sides

Cook 8-10 min on high, will float to top when done

Mixing the ingredients

Adding the stuffing

Shaping the pasta

The group after making pasta

After the demonstration, we went back to Bar Roma, where we had lunch the other day, and had a much larger dinner that involved some delicious chips. I have missed my salt. I’m just now realizing Italian food doesn’t involve much of it.

The inside of Bar Roma

I’m ready to go home tomorrow though. Italy is not my place. It’s nice and all, but I much prefer Ireland or at least a colder climate.

Italia: Day Thirteen

We got to sleep in today, so I went for a run around town this morning. I got sort of lost and ended up running in a lot of circles because it seems like every road runs into the town center of Novellara. It’s kind of weird.

When I got back we took a bus to the cheese consortium, which is an official office where they determine whether or not the cheese that is presented to them is of accurate quality and production methods for certification. The presentation was really boring, but it was nice to be in a high quality, air-conditioned building for once. I feel like Europe is kind of behind on the air conditioning, but I guess that’s because so many of their buildings are so old. I made sure to take some of the cheese and chocolate they had out as souveneirs before we left the consortium.

Outside the cheese consortium

We went for pizza at sort of a high class place afterward, but the food wasn’t very good. It was supposed to be a “pizza tasting” so they brought out many different kinds for us, but the ham here is kind of strange in a lot of places and they also put weird bologna-like meat on pizza, so we didn’t eat a lot of it. Then we rushed over to a local education center where they specialize in teaching teachers how to use different methods in their classrooms to approach learning with a new attitude. The woman who gave us a tour around the facilities couldn’t speak English, so I found it really boring. I’ve learned that I need someone to speak English to me without translations for me to be able to pay attention otherwise I lose interest.

Pam, Chelsea, and I entertaining ourselves at the education center

I was relieved when the tour was over, even though it meant that we had to walk around in the city to kill time before dinner. None of the places were open, for some reason, so after we bought gelato, we were forced to walk around in the heat until we found a place to sit. We couldn’t even find a bathroom to use because everything was closed! It was kind of annoying because Pam, Beckie, Chelsea, and I, “the quad”, had decided to wear dresses today in honor of the floral prints three of us bought in Florence. It was a good idea, it was just too hot to be happy in any sort of clothes.

The "Quad"

For dinner, we went out to a newly opened ranch on the top of a mountain where they produce and bottle Lambrusco wine. We received information about how the wine is bottled and chilled for sale before indulging in a short dinner, compared to the others we have experienced in Italy. There was only three courses with an appetizer, main course of lasagna, and desert of rum cake. I didn’t really like the meal or the red wine, but the ranch was beautiful.

On the mountainside before dinner

Italia: Day Twelve

This morning we got up at seven so that we could make it to the local cheese production site and watch them produce the cheese. There isn’t much that they do differently between types of cheese, so it was similar to the production we saw previously. Today we saw parmesan regano, specifically, which I don’t even like because it’s a little bit too sharp for me.

Metal canisters allow the cheese to harden to the traditional shape

The cheese then soaks in saltwater

We were able to taste the cheese straight from the vat - it was very soupy

We also tasted some of the aged cheese from the warehouse

We got done with the tour early, so we walked around the town of Novellara for a little bit.We poked around inside one of the grocery stores, but they didn't have anything very interesting to buy, so we joined the rest of the group and got back on the bus. We went to Andrea's for a lecture on balsamic vinegar. The production site has been in his family for generations. He walked us through the buildings and explained how balsamic vinegar is produced. Afterword, the group tasted varying kinds of vinegar that differed by the amount of time they were aged.

Lecture on the production before tasting the vinegar

The vinegar ages on site

It was a full morning packed with lectures, and even though I wasn’t hungry, I was happy to go sit for lunch at a restaurant in town. However, this lunch turned out to be very similar to the dinner we had yesterday where there didn’t seem to actually be a main course, but instead involved a lot of passing of plates. I didn’t particularly like the food, but at least it was less complicated. I was able to gorge on ham and bread while avoiding the melon and desert foods.

We came back to the hotel to nap after we ate. I did my journal entry when I woke up and then it was time to leave and go back to Andrea's house. After everyone had made their purchases from his in-house store, we settled into the dining room and listened to a guy tell us about how you can tell if cheese is correctly produced. He is part of the group that assigns certification labels to cheese products within Italy.

It was really boring and I was starving by the time it was over, so I was glad when the bus picked us up to go to a local restaurant for pumpkin stuffed pasta, rissota, and ham sandwiches with a desert of chocolate cake shaped like salami. It was actually a pretty good meal even though none of it is something I would typically eat.

Italia: Day Eleven

With yesterday’s incident behind me, I got up at 6:15 to run this morning and try to see a different side of Florence. I ran in the opposite direction of downtown because that’s where we walked around yesterday and ended up getting lost because I couldn’t find the river to follow along. I was endlessly relieved when I stumbled upon a familiar looking place and, soon after, the hotel. I wanted to hug it. Miraculously, I still managed to make it back in time, so I wasn’t late meeting the group at 8:15 to walk over to the Ufizzi Art Museum.

I don’t know why I went to the art museum though. It was sooooo boring. We had a guided tour that included a headset so that you could listen to the tour guide anywhere within the same room. I ended up sitting on benches and listening to him talk while reading a book. I just got up and switched rooms every time they moved. I definitely do not appreciate art or visiting museums when I'm travelling.

Locks of Love, symbolizing the everlasting love of the couples whose names are inscribed on each lock, located on the river

I was so glad when we finally left. Pam, Chelsea, and I walked over to the Boboli Gardens and explored a bit. The gardens are actually a lot like the University of Michigan arboretum. I was surprised at how similar. The main difference was the six euro entrance fee. We took a lot of pictures while we were wandering around. I found an empty statue post near an overlook, so we all pretended to pose for some photos too. 

Inside the gardens

A view from the gardens of Florence rooftops

The statue post

After buying some more Bacardi breezers, we walked back across the Ponte Vicchio, a bridge with expensive storefronts on it, and along a pathway where artists had set up stands selling original paintings and sketches. I purchased a picture of one of the bridges on the river before we headed back to the hotel.

Dr. Fink and Kimberlie showed up at the last second to give us enough money for a meal at a nearby pizzeria. We all got sandwiches and water before picking up our bags at the hotel and loading them onto the bus to Novellara. The bus ride was really long, but it was through scenic countryside so when I wasn’t writing my journal entries or reading, I was entertained.

The hotel in Novellara is really cute. It’s small and quaint, stuck in the countryside but a small town is within walking distance. It is the picturesque Italian village that you read about. After arriving at the hotel, we hung out in the room for a few hours before Pam and I walked into town to get our daily gelato. I’m really getting sick of ice cream in general, but I just discovered the amazing flavor combination of fragola and ciccolato, which is strawberries and chocolate.

After desert, we gathered with the group to go to a dinner hosted at the local production site of balsamic vinegar. The dinner was really weird though. The wine kept coming and the food was very different. We passed all of the plates, so it never really seemed like there was a main course, just a series of appetizers. Pam and I ended up pretty tipsy at the end of the three hour meal. Her having five glasses of the white wine and me six. It would have been fine if only there had been more food.

The group before dinner at our host, Andrea's

Dinner

We came back to the hotel after dinner and passed out.

Italia: Day Ten

We got up super early this morning, at like 4:45, so that we could hop on a bus and go to the airport to catch our flight into Florence. The problem was that even with getting up early, we couldn’t get to the airport because our bus didn’t show up. We ended up taking four taxis so that we could catch our flight on time. It was especially urgent because only one flight goes out of Cagliari to Florence per day and we wouldn’t be able to see the city if we didn’t make it.

 After the one hour flight where I sat between two older businessmen, we checked in Hotel Albion and dispersed into the city. Pam, Chelsea, Becky, and I headed to an underground mall that while similar to the one in Montreal, was actually really ghetto. I didn’t find anything in the mall to buy, so we continued on toward the San Lorenzo market. The stalls were really a repetition of each other, but I managed to find a cute dress, a magnet, a postcard, a jacket, and some cigarettes for Daniel. I wish I could have bought the absinthe that I saw, but I wasn’t sure who I would drink it with and I can’t exactly take it back to the U.S.

The river that runs through Florence 

We stopped for lunch near the side of the market at a restaurant called Za-Za. I ordered the chicken breast and was really surprised by how bland it tasted once it arrived. I also had some potatoes with it. I’ve been craving chicken because of the lack of it since we got here, but the meal definitely did not quench the craving. If anything, it only made it worse because I wanted something that tasted good. The meal was outrageous too and had a 2.50 euro cover charge per person. I swear, the system with which they charge for food in Europe is so unusual.

After lunch, Pam bought a postcard and in our effort to find a post office for her to mail it from, we ended up stumbling upon the Duomi and taking pictures of it. None of us wanted to wait in line to go inside, so we turned back because Pam had lost her postcard by then. We headed back to the hotel so that Becky could unpack her suitcase and Pam could take a nap. Chelsea and I grabbed some delicious gelato along the way and I actually got a really good waffle cone. The man who worked in the shop was really nice too. We made conversation about Jeni’s.

The Duomi doesn't even look real

The bathtubs they have all over Florence

While we were hanging out in the hotel, I looked around on the internet for some clubs that we could go to. Florence has a club that actually sounded really cool, with five floors and different music on each one. It had an outrageous cover charge of twenty euros though, so I decided it wasn’t going to happen. A lot of the other clubs had similar cover charges or weren’t open on Mondays. In fact, only one was free and it was pretty far from our hotel. Monday is such an awkward clubbing night.

We tried to go to the Boboli Gardens after everyone woke up, but the gardens closed at 6:30 and no one wanted to walk all the way there. I tried to find us a bus route, but we had trouble. We ended up going back to the hotel for a little while before we got bored and decided to wander around.

Pam, Chelsea, and I walked along the river, which was feasible once the sun went down a little bit. We took a lot of pictures and walked along the quaint Italian streets. Florence really didn’t feel like home though. We found a market and bought some fruit and Barcadi Breezers then walked down the street drinking them until we found a cheap café for dinner. We all ordered sandwiches and ate them out on the patio before going back for desert. We were charged extra because we ate at the restaurant. I’ll never understand all of the hidden charges.

The expensive gelato in the center of Florence - 15 euros for a waffle cone!

Dinner of sandwiches

A bridge in Florence

After dinner, we wandered the streets of Florence in search of Absinthe, but it sounds like most of the stores that sell hard liquor close at 7PM. It was pretty much a wild goose chase from going where one person told us to where the next person said we would be able to find it. We ended up at some African picnic/dance party that may or may not have been political in orientation. I didn’t really feel like dancing and none of the guys were cute, so I didn’t really want to stay. But I did because Pam and Chelsea were having a good time dancing with the guys.

When it was time to go, Pam suggested that we take a picture with all of the guys that we had been dancing with. They had been teaching us moves and Pam and Chelsea had been sharing theirs, so a sort of camaraderie was formed. They didn’t speak English very well though, so it was difficult getting them into a picture formation. One guy kept doing weird hand signals too, but he would wait right until the guy was taking the picture to do them, so we couldn’t stop it.

Once the pictures were over, we went to leave and Pam noticed that nearly ninety euros were missing from the front pocket of her shirt. She immediately asked who had taken it, but obviously, no one confessed. We looked at the pictures that had just been taken and you could clearly see a guy reaching toward the same pocket the money was in. Everyone in the picture, his friends included, started blaming this guy and Pam got into an argument with him. A bunch of other people who had been sitting under some of the tents set up for the party came over to see what the commotion was. They also started arguing that Pam probably lost the money and there’s no way one of the guys took it because he’s one of them, one of the “hardworking people”. It all pretty much sounded like bullshit but we didn’t know what to do. Pam was really flustered and me and Chelsea were just standing on the sidelines, upset.

The guy that Pam accused gave her twenty euros and another guy came over and kept saying that we should be friendly and was trying to keep the peace while saying that Pam was wrong. Another girl came over and started arguing that no one was at fault, that they were just trying to have fun and we shouldn’t bring bad vibes into their party. She seemed kind of drunk while she was arguing, but she knew both English and Italian, so it made the most sense to pay attention to what she was saying. She gave Pam another thirty-five euros in an attempt to get us to stop worrying about the money.

We were still trying to figure out what to do. It sort of seemed like Pam wanted to report the theft and I had seen a few police cars drive by before everything happened, so I started to walk out to the street near the plaza to see if I could find another. Just as I started walking, one drove by. I ran over to the car with my hand in the air, trying to get their attention. The woman who spoke both English and Italian realized what I was doing and started charging after me with a beer bottle in her hand. Apparently, it was quite the sight.

I managed to get the police’s attention though and they parked their car nearby. One of the officers only spoke Italian though and the woman started into her side of the story in fast Italian before I even had the chance to explain what was happening. She put her beer bottle down on the ground while she was having the conversation with them.

Once the other officer walked over, I was able to tell them what happened, but I have no way of knowing what she said to them. Essentially the officer just kept repeating that we needed to be “friendly, friendly.” He said there was really nothing we could do except go to the police station and file a report in the morning, and even then, he didn’t really see what that would do since we’re just tourists. Pam was freaking out because she didn’t have her passport on her and she was afraid that they would ask her for it if she filed a report, but I tried to calm her down while conversing with the officer. The whole time my legs were shaking. I hate talking to figures of authority.

It was ridiculous though because it was like he looked down on us because we weren’t citizens and felt no need to help us whatsoever. I never realized foreign police were so rude. As much as I hate the local police and all that I’ve been through with the law, this has made me respect the way they enforce things in America a little bit more. On top of the lack of help, the officer proceeded to lecture me about trying to get their attention. He said that running after a police car and calling for help are things that you only do if someone is getting hurt or killed. He made it sound like their job was basically to drive around writing tickets and preventing murders. I wanted to fight back against the lecture, but I just tried to thank him for his assistance with the smallest amount of sarcasm possible before walking away. I needed to leave to control my temper. I can’t stand when people are rude and unhelpful.

We spent the walk back to the hotel trying to calm Pam down and figure out where we were. We were actually pretty far away when this all happened and we ended up being twenty minutes late for the meeting. I think Kimberlie and Dr. Fink understand though.

Italia: Day Nine

Today was really boring. We didn’t have anything scheduled except for a visit to the beach in the afternoon, so I slept in until 9:30 before going for a run around the city. I managed to get lost but locate our hotel over the roofs of all the buildings, so it wasn’t too bad.

For lunch we went to Il Pomodoro, but they didn’t have any pizza! It was really disappointing. I ended up getting French fries and chicken that might have been turkey. I’m not really sure. It was a good meal that I topped off with a Bacardi Breezer in orange that tasted like orange pop. I’ll need to look for them in the states.

We met up at the hotel afterward and headed to the beach. It took forever for the rest of the group to assemble though, so we waited for almost an hour before we actually stepped onto the bus. The ride was also long and boring. I have an allergy to the parasites that live in sand, so I started itching and breaking out with little red bumps the instant we got to the beach. I ignored it though.

Pam, Chelsea, and I went into the water. It was kind of cold, but definitely manageable. Plus it stopped the itching and now I can say that I’ve been in the Mediterranean Sea! The only problem was the bottom was kind of rocky in random places and I kept accidentally stepping on them, so we had to swim out far and tread water, but then we realized all the waves were closer inland.

The Mediterranean

The beach

When we got out, Pam and I went down to a little restaurant farther down the beach from where the group set up camp. I got a Sex on the Beach while Pam got a sandwich. When we were done, the group split up and left the beach. Pam, Chelsea, Becky, and I headed back to the hotel and I took a shower before Becky and I went to the market. It was closed though, so we ended up wandering around and trying to find some stores that were open for shopping. We only found two and I didn’t see anything in either place.

We met up with Pam and Chelsea back at the hotel and tried to go to La Cantina again for dinner, but it was closed so we ended up going down the street to Burgerlandia and getting pasta and French fries. Then we went down the street to a gelato shop, which actually turned out to be rather gross. The ice cream was really watery.

We came back to the hotel afterward and I got a slice of flipped pizza from Pomodoro on our way. We waited in the lobby for the rest of the group to assimilate for our evening meeting, but nearly all of them were late. It wasn’t us for once though, so no one could complain.

Italia: Day Eight

This morning I got up at 7:45 to shower and stuff before we went down to breakfast. I had the awesome bread again and some cheese and ham. For some reason, it didn’t taste quite as good today so I had an apple as well.

Our morning officially started at nine when we went on tours with the students. The whole day was rather disorganized though. It turns out the Italians hadn't had breakfast yet, so we hopped on the bus and stopped at a sit-down restaurant. Once we got there, they realized we didn't want to get anything to eat though and apparently not all of them were hungry, so we hopped on the bus again to go to a croissant shop that also had coffee. The Italians downed their espresso like it was a shot and we were off again.

It didn’t seem like they really knew what we were doing though. We wandered around the town, looking at the views from off the tops of buildings, visiting a park called Monteclaro that had a lot of turtles and odd-looking ducks, and getting on and off the bus. They seem to use public transportation a lot here, which I love. I just wish the buses weren’t so crowded. I like sitting down occasionally, especially when we’re doing a lot of walking.

One interesting thing I noticed though was that to get to the top of the buildings in the older part of the city, they have outdoor elevators built into the side of the wall. It seemed really strange to me. Wouldn’t the mechanical parts erode over time and the elevator stop functioning? It was actually one of the largest elevators I’ve seen since arriving though, so I guess they work quite well.

Views from the top of the city

The confusing streets of Italy

Man-made lake in the city park

I also got to see an Italian driver’s license, which looks a lot different than ours. Their license indicates what level they are at and, specifically, what type of vehicles they can drive on the back. It also includes the basic information listed on ours. They were all really surprised by the vertical appearance of my license and the warnings indicating I was underage. They were amazed that I’m only eighteen and that it isn’t legal to drink in America at my age. It turns out the drinking age is actually 16 here and no one pays attention to it either.

For lunch, we went to a place called La Cantina, where we feasted on fries and breaded chicken sandwiches. The amazing thing was this place actually had ketchup. I was surprised to find it and immediately ordered a healthy amount for my chicken. I swear, living in Europe, the first thing I’ll go through withdrawals of is my ketchup. This place does not appreciate the condiment.

We took a bus to an outlet of the university after we were done. At the university, we showed the students our video of Delaware and recapped our afternoon. After a short question and answer session, we say goodbye to our second group of passing friends and went back to the hotel for a brief moment before going to a shopping street in the city for dinner. We ate at a small restaurant on a side street that had a menu in English and Italian, along with a number of other languages. The waiter was really nice.

How Italians think of American clothing and New York...

The classroom we gave our presentation in

Before they brought out the first course of our meal, there was some commotion outside. It turned out to be a PRIDE parade, so we went outside and videotaped it. While we were watching, a guy heard us talking and asked if we were American. I started a conversation with him because he was cute. It turns out he’s a nineteen-year-old guy from Idaho who is studying as a foreign exchange student in a local high school. It's weird how you can find an American pretty much anywhere in the world.

Idaho

Drag queens in the parade

PRIDE parade

Garlic bread had appeared on the table since we had gone outside, so we indulged. Next came the pasta. Becky, Chelsea, and Pam had all ordered spaghetti, but I was confused when they brought me a lasagna looking dish instead of my cheese pizza. I ate it though because I was hungry and thought it may be some weird kind of pizza that I hadn't seen before. I was even more surprised when, after I finished the lasagna dish due to my hunger, they delivered a pizza to the table. Where did the lasagna come from?!

When the bill came for our meal, I was outraged to find out the lasagna that I didn’t order had been placed on our bill along with my pizza and the bread that we also didn’t order. I complained to our waiter, who had been funny and entertaining the whole meal. He seemed nonplussed to change our bill because as he claims “I ate the dish”. I explained that I thought it was what I had ordered and he lowered the bill by six euros, which wasn’t the full price of the lasagna. I was really appalled by how he handled the whole ordeal. In the States, if something like this would have happened, I definitely wouldn’t have been charged for non-ordered items. I might even have gotten something extra because of the mistake. I think this is just an example of people trying to take advantage of the tourists. While it was awkward at the time, I’m glad I didn’t stand for it.

The waiter playing around before the bill issues

We tried to go shopping after dinner, but everything was already closed, so we turned around and found the only open gelato shop to get our fix. They had terrible choices though, so I ended up with a melon flavor that I didn't really enjoy. It ended up being a disappointing experience all around because Pam didn't like her flavor either. I can’t believe they didn't have any type of chocolate.

We walked back to the bus stop afterward and ended up stumbling upon the PRIDE parade people having a party in the square. There was a stage with a band set-up and the drag queens were all hanging out ready to perform. They kept talking in between each song though and we couldn’t understand what they were saying, so we ended up coming back to the hotel.

Italia: Day Seven

Our hotel in Cagliari is really nice. It has a modern design to it and we are staying in triples, so I’m rooming with Becky and Chelsea. We took a Mercedes-Benz tour bus from the airport to our hotel and then we looked around real quick before heading up to the rooms and passing out. I've been exhausted this whole trip. It’s ridiculous.

The inside of The Hotel

This morning I got up at 7 and went for a run on my own. It was nice to see some of the town before everyone else and I did really good with not getting lost and remembering all the turns I took. Sometimes I think it’s easier to pay attention when it’s just me, the wind against my face, and the music in my ears. I can tune everything else out and focus on the next step.

The breakfast was really good too. There was some amazing bread in the hotel restaurant and I had some ham and cheese as well. We had to eat quickly though so that we could catch our bus to the university of Cagliari. It turns out that the students there don’t speak very much English compared to those in Torino and the language barrier was immediately evident. They gave us a tour of the school but we couldn’t communicate with them much because of it. The only thing that I was sure about was that they wanted us to come to a concert with them tonight near our hotel. They struggled through their translated presentation as well.

A sign on the back of one of the desks

Monkey watching the presentation

The lunch was amazing though. We just ate in their cantina, or cafeteria, but the pasta was the best that I’ve tasted. The beef and bread were okay too. The only thing I didn’t like was the oil that I put on my lettuce, but I should have predicted that.

Our presentation came after lunch. It was a lot to endure. We needed a translator for the entire thing to make sure all of the students understood what we were saying. It dragged on for over two hours once you accounted for the question and answer session that followed. We got to come back to the hotel immediately afterward though, so there was relief in that.

I took a nap for an hour and woke up when my mother called to say that I still haven’t received a check for my Holocaust grant in the mail yet. It was a good rest though.

I got ready and went with Pam to dinner at the il Pomodoro restaurant down the street. They had the most amazing pizza. It was a really strange experience though because we got our food at the counter and then sat down to eat. When we were done, we had to pay for it and remind the woman what we ate.

We walked around the streets near our hotel afterward in search of a gelato shop, but we couldn’t find one so we ended up having to go to McDonald’s and get McFlurry’s to meet our day’s gelato quota. I was actually surprised by how good the brownie bit McFlurry tasted. I made it chocolate ice cream essentially by mixing in the fudge to the vanilla and just had to suffer through the bits of chocolate.

Once we were done with our meal, we hung out in the lobby of the hotel and wrote our "homework" journal entries while sitting in the bar area.

Italia: Day Six

Since we stayed out so late, I decided not to get up and run in the morning, which may not have been the best choice, but I do need to try and sleep when I can. I got up at nine and packed my bag because today was our last day in Torino. The group met and walked to a local market together to look at their produce. After admiring the large amounts of fresh fruit, Pam, Chelsea, and I met up with Patti (Loredana’s Italian friend) and wandered around the clothing side of the market. I purchased a corset and tank top that were pretty cheap in price. I also found a bottle of white nail polish that I wanted to get because the color is in style. All of the people I interacted with in the market were very nice, although we were warned ahead of time to be wary of pickpockets. It was somewhat difficult to communicate that I wanted to try things on though.

We spent the rest of the day wandering in and out of stores on the Garibaldi strip, a large collection of fashion stores. Everything was pretty expensive though, so we just looked and tried things on. In a cheaper clothing store, we all tried on matching dresses in different colors and took some pictures. Then we went to an underwear store where we tried on fruit-decorated boxer briefs and took more pictures.

Trying on our fruity underwear

After buying postcards from a small, touristy shop, we sat down at a restaurant called Happy Days for lunch. We all got the pasta and it was amazing – possibly the best that I've had so far on this trip. It’s funny though because it was really just shelled noodles in a tomato sauce. The bread at the restaurant was really good too.

We met up with Becky and Loredana after lunch and stopped into a bar to get some drinks and sit on the patio. I got some weird strawberry and vodka concoction that was very strong and tolerable, but not my favorite. It was a little too fruity for me. Pam got a Amaretto and Coke that was really good though, so I vowed that I would try it at our next stop.

We kept walking toward the river and went back to the park in the center of the city that we keep visiting to rent a four-person bike/car (I don’t know what the technical name for them is but they're covered vehicles powered with your legs, like a bicycle, but that look like an old-fashioned car). We had trouble on some of the hills, but we managed by putting our brute strength into it. It helped that four of us were peddling. At one point, we picked up some random guy who spoke very little English and dropped him off at his bus stop like we were a taxi service. We also steered down this massive hill though and spent the whole way down screaming and having the Italians stare at us. At the bottom of the hill there was even an amusement park-style bump that Becky lost her bag on.

Our rental bike/car

 We wanted to go ziplining after we returned the bike, but the stand by the river was closed so we didn’t end up getting the chance. It’s a shame though because the experience would have only been seven euros.

On our way back to meet the group, we stopped for another drink at a different bar. This time I got the Amaretto and coke. I decided I didn’t like it very much toward the end of the drink because the Amaretto is really sweet tasting and not my style at all. I sucked it down though and proceeded to feel a little bit tipsy for the rest of the afternoon. I’m just glad the glasses we got at the second bar were two euros cheaper and double the size of the first.

We met the rest of the group at a chain ice cream shop, GROM, near our hotel and picked up our luggage before boarding a bus to the airport. I’m really surprised by how big the Torino Airport is. I was expecting a dinky little three-terminal airport, but it’s actually quite nice and decent sized. Even our plane is bigger than I expected. We did have to take a little bus out on the tarmac to board though, which reminds me of 
travelling to Ireland.

Boarding the plane to leave Torino