Day 3: Waking Up To Italy

Day 3. It was the first time I woke up in my Italian bed to an Italian cell phone and to an Italian breakfast. It felt a little weird... like summer camp, but in Europe. Our day began with "classes" (if you can even call them that) in the Palace, where we got lectured on the rules of the Palace and our homework assignments we will have throughout the summer. Cinzia took us on a tour around our living quarters to show us how to use the dishwasher and how to use the washer and dryer. Both the washer and the dryer are in Italian, so if I come home with everything in my suitcase looking like Pepto Bismol exploded on it, you know why! Also, odd fact of the day #1, Italian's don't use dryers, so we are really special (and American) to have/use a dryer.

We broke for lunch at 12 and a few of us went exploring around Arricia to try and find somewhere to eat. After stumbling upon many restaurants with menus we couldn't read, we ended up at the safest choice--Pezzo Maxi (Pizza Max). A slice of cheese and a Coke Zero did me right! It was just what the doctor ordered. After that we came back to the Palace to piddle around, and I was lucky enough to catch my parents on Skype.

Our afternoon activities consisted of meeting the rest of the staff in our program, so we headed up (literally 10 feet away) to the main entrance of the Chigi Palace... YALL! The Palace is B-E-A-UTIFUL. Beautiful! We first walked back onto the terrace and all of our jaws dropped. Every single one of us were regretting that we all left our camera's in the classroom because we wanted to document. So I'll take pictures and post them another time. Here we met Maurizio (Mary-Lou and Marko's son who is just to-die-for funny), Francesco (the director of the Palace, who probably comes up to my shoulders, but is the cutest man I've ever seen. He's full of information, so he loves telling stories, and he's also pretty witty!) and Susanna (who is our Art History teacher, and she is a beautiful Italian woman. She was dressed in a gray pencil skirt, a black turtleneck tank top and a white cardigan and Francesco told her she was ready to go to a Disco Tech--like a club haha) But anyways, the terrace looks out onto this park that is owned by the Chigi Palace and is going to open to the public on Saturday. Since we are basically part of the Palace Francesco, Maruizio and Susanna gave us a personal tour this afternoon. Once again.. YALL! You wouldn't believe this park. It was like Central Park, but better--way better. Not only is it unbelivably green, but it was filled with all of these ancient artifacts that people have discovered over the years. Odd fact of the day #2-- people in Arricia and basically all of its surroundings, up into Rome, can dig in their yards and find ancient artifacts from the Romans. How cool is that? You could be planting some Petunias and dig up a gold earring from the 1800s.. I just couldn't wrap my mind around that.

Another adventure we had today was the Supermarkato.... Let me just tell you all the interesting things that went on with this excursion. 1) it involves a very uphill, lengthy walk to get there (so you don't feel guilty buying all of the Kinder chocolate candy when you're there). 2) It costs extra to have them bag your groceries in their plastic bags, so we all carried our backpacks and bagged our own. Can you say stressful situation when the lady is scanning and chunking my Nutella and I have to find a place to stuff it in the North Face? I'm thinking my skills will get better throughout the summer and maybe I'll have a potential career as a grocery bagger at Publix if this whole Apparel Merchandising thing doesn't work out. 3) Italians only buy what they need for the day at the Supermarkato, so it is very crowded. And considering my Italian is very, very limited, I'm lucky if I can say "excuse me" correctly--I didn't even attempt "do you have skim milk?" 4) Picture a pack of girls walking downhill, all wearing their backpacks (much of them with bottles of wine or water in their outside pockets). The Italian on-lookers were having a field day! Lesson learned: make eye-contact, smile and keep walking.

Since we all got fresh groceries, a few of us decided to try cooking in for dinner. The meal came together better than expected! With the industrial kitchen appliances, it was fairly easy for 5 of us to each prepare our portion of the meal at the same time. I somehow managed to decipher what were chicken breasts at the Supermarkato, so we had chicken (because we were tired of that other ambiguous, thickly cut meat), salad with balsamic vinegar and olive oil, asparagus, pesto pasta and potatoes. We were looking at our plates and came to the decision that it was a very American meal... we're going to have to work on expanding or horizons in the food category. Here are some pictures from our cooking in experience at the Palace:

This is our eating area! Note the cute tables and chairs. I think this whole place is decorated from Ikea. Another reason why all of us kind of feel like we are filming a season of MTV's Real World.

The kitchen... Becca over there slaving away on her delicious potatoes

Anna Curl is obviously excited about asparagussssssss

Me cooking my chicken, and praying that I don't give everyone Salmanila. So far we haven't had any complaints or emergency trips to the Pharmacia. Keep your fingers crossed this trend keeps.

The cooking group. Dinner was pretty good! I mean, we definitely aren't giving Giadia Delaurentis a run for her money, but by the end of the summer we could potentially take her in a Food TV Throw Down. (Especially once we get those cooking classes from Mary-Lou under our belt... Giada better watch out)

Oh and I forgot to mention, for dessert? Sugar cookies and Nutella. Probably the best part of the meal! Nutella is going to be a bad habit.. I can tell already.

Ciao!