I've Never Had a November Like This One

Note to self: any amount of time alone in the company of Aven and Pepperoni will be ridiculous. Dinner at Le Fate was a riot and they are wonderful people who have the world's most complex love/hate relationship.

Wednesday evening we ALL went to Gatto's restaurant, Le Fate, to show Julie's mom and sister, also as a farewell since I didn't realize three of the Prati boys are out of town this weekend (for my birthday weekend!! it's like I'm not the center of the universe or something). We had a really great time and I got to talk with Jackie more, Julie's sister. Gatto told the owners that it was my birthday (Wednesday night, false.) so they brought out a candle for my tiramisu and were generous with the lemoncello after dinner. Also, new goal accomplished, I tried grappa!! I liked the grappa at Le Fate, tastes like raisins to me. I will keep experimenting. After dinner we wanted to show Julie's mom (Momma H) Trastevere and some of our preferred bars. We walked past San.C's and found the chocolate bar that the girls have been raving about. It is such a fun cool little place! The shot glasses are made of chocolate and the drinks are given very sensual names. Each comes topped with panne (whipped cream) and chocolate bits. I got the sveltina (rough translation to "quickie") which was yummy but I don't really know what was in the shot. You also don't shoot the drink but rather place it bottom down in your mouth in one bite and chew! oh so good. Momma H loved it! She ordered the sessanta-nove. After the chocolate shots we hit up Freni and Frizioni, a wonderful aparativi place for one more drink (guarda, guarda, guarda) before crossing ponte sisto back home. I enjoy Julie's family and I'm had fun conversations with both her mother (a PT) and sister.

Le Fate

Tiramisu for dessert while everyone sings

Momma H and her chocolate salami!

The crew

Preparation of our shots

Chocolate shot on my birthday
note the technique

Walking down Via Guilia looking crazy

Most of the roomies

Thursday, ugh, Thursdays are just so exhaustingly perfect and unbelievable. Federica wanted our Conservation class to meet at 9 instead of 9:30 because we went on another restoration site with Luigi (remember this day?) this time in San Lorenzo in Lucina close to Via del Corso. It was so early and I wasn't fully awake when we arrived. Climbing scaffolding tends to wake me up though! We first stopped for a while to talk about the cool frescoes they were mostly done cleaning and filling. It was incredible to see the incisions from the cartone so vividly from up close. Luigi is shy about his English even though it is very good (and most of us understand a good part of his Italian anyway) so he has Federica translate for us but they frequently bicker over phrasing and importance/support of facts. It's really fun to see such good friends debating art history and conservation, I love it.Then we climbed up to the top (yes the top of my head kept brushing the ceiling of the chapel's dome) to examine the stucco restoration and guilding. It was another experience that I would never have back home and I can always say I've been to restorations in one of the oldest cities in the world. Very cool. Since we started early we finished early and Federica took us across the piazza to a really good cafe for coffees! It was a nice morning for the six or seven of us in the class to spend together.

Scaffolding

Incisions!

Me and the window I love

View from the halfway point, including the tomb of Poussin
since this was his neighborhood church

Pasty and Ginny

More than half of my class

After Federica's class (and a little make up shopping on via del corso) Ginny, Madison, and I stopped for lunch and I bought my first connolo (cannoli for english speakers). It was incredible!!! I could taste the calories in a delicious creamy way. Eating a connolo outside the Pantheon in a t-shirt in November. Thank you Roma!  As you can imagine our field study with Gianni was in the Pantheon then to the Torre Argentina temples and San Ignazio, Hadrian's Temple, and finally the column of Hadrian. It was a beautiful sunny day outside (and inside the Pantheon) and I love Gianni's classes and chatting with him as we walk from one location to another. Here's a video of the Pantheon:

After my "classes" for the day I came home and took a quick cat nap. I woke up in time to brush up on my food vocab for my Italian quiz (in preparation for our cooking day on Tuesday!). This was a very long day. After Italian Julie and I were walking home, drooling over the jewelry in the window of Bijoux, the shop 15 cm from our front door. Sophia and Gatto were already inside looking around his shop and chatting with him so we joined! I've been eyeing some rings and earrings here. When we asked if I wanted to buy a pair I said "oh no ill wait until monday and come back to treat myself to a birthday present" his response was to take the earrings off the shelf, wrap them up, and give them to me for free right then and there. I was very uncomfortable with such a kind gesture, expensive gift, and from the nice guy next door who we always say "ciao" to!! but the earrings are beautiful and my roommates were pressing me to take them, so I now own beautiful light green long dangling earrings! After a little more shopping we all dashed back up to the apartment to talk about our fun days, our evening plans, and sat around the table with a bagna eating our warm loaf of bread from the bakery. It was a perfect evening!

New earrings!

After a little dinner we headed to Nico's winebar, Bacocco.

More to follow I need to go pick up MEREDITH!!!! :D let the weekend fun continue!

Galleria Borghese

Sunday night many of my friends tried to cozy up with tea and cold medicine to battle the cold going around. I refuse to jinx myself this close to my birthday. As a nice quiet evening activity I suggested watching a movie. Sadly either people hadn't finished homework or were too tired to stay up any longer. Pepperoni and I watched and Sophia watched enough to confirm she has seen the film before. I'm spreading the classics Dad, you'd be so proud! We watched Arsenic and Old Lace!! What a wonderful movie, I loved it especially since I haven't seen it in about a decade. Next up in my mind is Some Like it Hot ;)

Sweet little old ladies, no?

Monday morning classes went well. I received most of my exams back and I did well, still could've done better though. I want to work hard on my papers and finals to help out my GPA before Physiology and Anatomy in the spring. Monday afternoon was full of busyness as we prepared for another potluck. I love these and we are not getting anywhere close to sick of hosting. Julie's mother, sister, and grandparents are all in town to visit so we wanted to show them a fun evening. Her mom even made meatballs since I've been craving them so much (they were incredible). I got myself in a little bit of trouble because I've mentioned once or twice the famous "Aunt Sharon's Margaritas" so after some encouraging words from my roommates I made a nice summery drink for our autumn potluck! Sophia was more in tune with the damp weather and made mulled wine which was delicious! Along with some baked brie from Gatto, veggies and olives, buff.chick.dip of course, salad, and fantastic bread with prosciutto, cheese, and funghi bites we had the classici banana and nutella sandwiches. Nico finally found her way to one of our potlucks and her mother sent us little pizzas with artichoke or sausages on them which were delicious of course, along with a ricotta chocolate torta! Julie and her sister cooked at our apartment and then her mother showed up with i suoi nonni later! They speak Italian as well as English so we all got to practice speaking with Nico and Julie's grandparents.After the dinner Claudio and Isotta came by to pick up Nico for a night out because she's been working too hard recently and needed a break. It was such a fun night! Some guests stayed late playing Contact (a word game) and munching on leftovers.

Just when you think life in Rome doesn't get any better you wake up and spend two hours drooling (ok crying) over Bernini's sculptures in the Galleria Borghese! Julie and I woke up earlier than either of us wanted but caught a bus to the other side of the Spanish Steps for another jaw dropping adventure with Federica and our Baroque class. First off we enter the galleria which made me happy enough. It's amazing to think of all the pieces I didn't see or wasn't overwhelmed with just because we had a tight schedule and then Bernini, my man Bernini. His works blew my mind today! We saw his Aeneas statue first, his most conventional/earliest work, which made me so so happy to see how he treats the marble. Moving on I was grinning like the Cheshire Cat as we visited the Rape of Proserpine. The marble was worked so thin you could see the light shining through. Ok I've been rushing and trying to do each piece justice but the winner today for me was easily Apollo and Daphne. just. darn I really wish I could do this piece justice. Studying it I've always thought it was cool, and it's a Bernini so it's obviously top quality, but seeing in person today, real life. I was really over powered. I might go back just to spend my entire two hours in front of Apollo and Daphne and Titian's Sacred and Profane Love. Oh Galleria Borghese you are so twisted and political and evil but with such beauty inside I could never hate you. Nor will I ever love Bernini more than I did this morning. I was happy. I was so so happy this morning. In the words of a famous Gatto "I want to bottle this feeling up and keep if forever".  This is all before I even saw the love of my life, David. Bernini's David trumps all other Davids, I will defend that to my dying day.  I am a little disappointed because I wish we had saved Apollo and Daphne for last, it was by far my favorite. David was yummy and fantastic ma certo, I love a man in motion, bringing Goliath into the room with his deep gaze. It was such an honor to be less than a foot from these wonderful works of art.

Rape of Proserpine

detail: yes that's marble not flesh

Playing favorites: Apollo and Daphne

David

After my emotionally exhausting morning and a little bit of traffic on the way home I had my one hour Forma Urbis class with Gianni. Today we were discussing the Pantheon in preparation for our field study on Thursday. I'm very excited because I love Hadrian's Pantheon in all it's perfection and confusion. It was a lot of architecture and physics (unexpected horror!) today in class but that's only so we can appreciate the masterpiece when we go in person. I kind of hope it is pouring like it was earlier today because I didn't get a chance to sneak over to the Pantheon before Italian. I want to go see it in the pouring rain to see the rain come in the occulus. It's on our bucket list for Rome.

After lunch, a nap, and some light homework Julie and I made it to Italian class. We're starting to learn about the kitchen and cooking and we're making meatballs (polpette) next week! It's a fun topic and Anna, my teacher, is always so cheerful and makes class fun! Hopefully next class she can shed some light on our movie (Le Fatte Ignorante) because we didn't understand the ending.

Off to dinner with Aven and Pepperoni at Gatto's restaurant, but she isn't working tonight :( maybe it's tiramisu tuesday!? fingers crossed!

6 more days

Rain Rain Here to Stay

Yesterday after a day of researching for my upcoming papers and presentations (aww man!) I treated myself to aparativi with my roomies at Circus Art Cafe. We've past this place in my Italian class and finally stepped in. Even though we started with Italian the woman behind the counter called for another employee to serve us in English. I was bummed until I realized she called to a young British man who is fluent in Italian to serve us. Ok! hahaha We ordered some drinks and sat in this really funky lounge area playing a word game (contact!) for an hour or so. The drinks were ok priced and really delicious so hopefully we'll go back sometime. It's nice that it is so close too!

I stayed up rather late last night watching V for Vendetta in honor of Guy Fawks Day. After waking up to the sounds of our upstairs neighbor playing his instrument (xylophone?) I snacked on some breakfast and lounged. I pulled myself together for a run along the Tiber despite the ominous dark grey clouds forming over St. Peter's. I am so glad I went running, I ran farther than usual and felt great and despite the spitting rain I enjoyed my run. Another reason it was so fun was because right before Tiber Island I literally ran into Rad! Rad is my friend from Cornell who is studying in Rome also. I haven't seen him for a month or so. I stopped for a quick break to catch up with him but since he was doing a photo project I let him get back to work before the rain. It was nice to see him :D

After my run Gatto and Sophia and I went to the Jewish Ghetto for a late lunch. We ordered lots of appetizers to split: fried artichoke (Jewish style rather than Roman style), suppli, buffalo moz with a vegetable marmalade, and the best falafel with hummus cream that I have ever had. I want more. Just lots more of it. So good!!! After our appetizers we then ordered dessert! I had the millefeuille for dessert and it was delicious and flaky perfection to top off our meal. The Jewish Ghetto had a calm family feel to it, even the touristy parts. I liked it a lot and am eager to go back, the only downside is that it isn't an economical place for students. Once we were home safe and sound, with tea water boiling, we heard the thunder again and another downpour of rain. Poor Julie was trying to show her sister, mother, and grandparents around Rome in the cold rain! She is off to dinner with them in Trastevere and for her sake I hope the rain defies the forecast and stops. I'll stay here working on my homework and sipping tea thank you very much!

Sophia's dessert

Gatto

So jazzed for my millefeuille

Fall is here.

8 days people :)