I went to the Perugia Saturday public mercato this morning. It was so fantastic! They had everything you could possibly imagine. Lacy bras and thongs right next to the live chickens, scarves t-shirts, and fresh produce. I went to buy 6 beautiful tomatoes, and the crazy shouting Italian man working at the stand just started filling my bag with tomatoes. He was so excited I didn't want to stop him, but when he finally took a pause he asked me, "piu?" (more?) and I had to say "NO, BASTA, BASTA!" (enough!) or else I would have gone home with 100 pounds of tomatoes. I only wound up with 15. I also bought some dried & sugared stawberries (ummm, yum), and I was thiiiis close to bringing home a baby duckling. I also encountered the most enormous jar of nutella I have seen to date. It was bigger than my head. There was also a mini carnival/amusement park right there across from the market!
YESSSS
In exactly one week from right now, I will be in Barcelona! Our 10 day fall break begins this coming Friday and I still can't believe that it's actually happening. Two days in Barcelona, Two days, in London (ALYSON WITH A Y AND SARAH HIN!), and four days in freakin ATHENS, GREEEEECE! I am just hoping - spero - that my knee miraculously heals by then. I am on an anti-inflammatory now because I haven't been able to walk properly for 2 weeks. The doctor suggested that if I am doing a lot of walking that I should be using a cane. If I have to hobble around with a cane around Europe for 10 days like House, I will not be the happiest girl in the world.
and, family, please don't kill me ... break falls exactly over the time of the annual Eurochocolate Festival here in Perugia. They've already started setting up here, and I will be missing it. I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY WALDMANS!!! I am sad.
Even though I can't walk in them until my knee gets better, I finally bought boots. Beautiful, brown, authentic Italian leather boots. They are sitting in my bedroom and I'm hoping that the sight of them and motivation to walk in them will enter into my leg through some sort of osmosis and help it get better.
The opera I mentioned in my last post was beautiful! My first opera! The opera house was so legit, with box seats and everything. The opera itself was a bit hard to follow, considering it was in Italian and all, and the story got changed around a bit- the stepmother was a stepfather, the fairy godmother was a fairy godfather, and the chorus was all men although 4 of them were dressed as women. They added a few elements to the story as well- in this version, the prince dresses down as a pageboy and allows one of his courtier waiters to dress up as the prince. They visit Cinderella's house and of course the stepsisters google and drool over the "prince", but Cinderella falls in love with the "pageboy." In the second half as things begin to unravel, the courtier waiter reveals himself to the stepfather and, if I interpreted the theatrics correctly, makes a move on the stepfather. Oh, Europe. Of course at the end all is revealed, and gosh- the dress Cinderella wore at the end as the Princess is probably one of the most amazing pieces of clothing I have ever seen on a stage. The whole opera was such a spectacle and I really enjoyed it!
MELISSA AND BARI AND COMING TO SEE ME IN A MONTH AND HALF!!!! They already got their tickets so there's no turning back =) I am planning so many fun things that they will never come home! No vedo l'ora!!! <- That's my Italian phrase of the week, I learned in class on Wednesday- it means "I'm excited", although the literal translation is "I can't see the hour."
Oh, and speaking of, I had my Italian midterm on Thursday. No sweat, facile. The rest of my midterms are this week.
Yesterday I took a field trip with my History & Culture of Food class with Peter Fischer! to an organic, biodynamic farm in the middle of the Tuscan countryside. It's a vegetarian community, a farm run by 5 families. There we got to hear about how they produce all their food, go see the goats and cattle (who were all so happy! you never see happy farm animals!) and we got to sample FRESH FRESH FRESH milk, yogurt, bread, cow and goat cheese, and fruit juices. Incredible. Real, real food. I also tasted an olive right off of the tree. Don't ever do that. They had a small store where you could buy fresh organic products from their farm, so I got some incredible goat cheese and some potatoes that are enormous and awesomely shaped. My favorite one has a nobbin. The most memorable part about the the farm for me was something a community member who was showing us around said about the farm. Someone asked him if the farm was completely self sufficient, and his answer was something like this (obviously not a direct quote, but how I remember it):
"Think of this organic farm as an organism, as a body (organic<->organism ...). A well-functioning body has different organs (again with the root word) that work together to keep it healthy. The brain or head is the person who oversees all the activity to make sure all is going smoothly. The stomach is our animals- not because we eat them, but because they survive here and eat the grass and become healthy and hence they produce good products like the milk and the cheese, as well as the manure that we use to enrich our soil to plant the olives and other fruits, vegetables, and grains which we eat. So yes, we have everything we need. Only when something becomes unhealthy or missing must we reach beyond our farm to restore the balance- just as when becomes sick must you bring in a substance from the outside to help it get better."
I don't know what it was about it, but I thought his explanation was really pretty brilliant, and it made so much sense to me. I love organic food and organic people!
Potato with a nobbin. I love it.
Then we went to a restaurant about 45 minutes away from the farm and had an authentic 5 course Tuscan meal. It was so legit, from the antipasti of bread and salami & prosciutto to a ziti with a meat sauce, bisteca florentina which is a huuuge honkin' piece of rarely cooked meat that was seasoned to perfection and is traditionally eaten drizzled with crude olive oil, a salad, and a selection of 4 kinds of cakes for the dolce. Let's just say .. I'm not eating for weeks. I don't know how I am going to go back to American food. È schifo (<-another Italian phrase I learned this week. It means "it's crap" ... haha).
Basta for now.
OHH. Of course this has to be included: Andrea and Mel, it was Johanna. I'm ashamed that you didn't guess it. And last night, I heard yet another one at the bar. You obviously suck at guessing, so I'm telling now it was RUN THE SHOWWWWW. I did the dance, obviously again.
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