Back at Home

I came back willingly from Italy, acknowledging that it wasn't the right place for me at the time. That said, there are some things I miss about my soggiorno (stay) in Italy.

I miss ordering acqua frizzante (sparkling water) at restaurants, or simply buying bottles of it at the bar or tabaccheria (in Rome, many clerks would make sure that I knew I was getting water con gas. I guess they are used to getting a lot of North American tourists who buy sparkling water by mistake). I miss buying cheap wine at the grocery store and sharing it with other travelers. I miss my juicy, meaty balls of mozzarella di buffala. But one of the things I miss the most is being able to share my pictures and experiences with everyone. Ever since I've been back, my life's been lacking the kind of adventures that are part of a traveler's daily life; the adventures that fed my blog.

So I've decided to persist with my writings. I've started another blog where I will be blogging about more trivial things: music, inspiration, quotes and the like, but I thought I'd keep this blog going as my personal diary, a place that will hopefully help me find adventures and fulfillment in my life back at home (at least until I can depart on my next trip!).

Alla Gelateria

Gelato, or rather sorbetto (sorbet), may have made its first appearance in Italy on the island of Sicily during the Renaissance, according to Elena Kostioukovitch in her excellent book Why Italians Love to Talk About Food (2006:345-347). Big balls of snow would be rolled down from Mount Etna at the end of winter, and the snow would be kept in caves between layers of felt.

 

Gelato, however, was popularized in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the Veneto region, when mechanics and metalworkers, with their forges and portable ice boxes, turned to gelato-making and selling while the industrialization was under way, cutting the need for their labour.

Now, ice cream is popular worldwide, but we bow to the Italians when it comes the refreshing dessert, and no experience in Italy is complete without at least una coppa (one cup) of gelato.

 Behold, the leaning towers of ice cream cones!

So many decisions! Usually, you get to choose between una coppa (a cup) or un cono (a cone), then how many gusti (flavours) you’d like, and finally, which ones! Here’s a quick and dirty guide to some of the more common flavours you might encounter.

Chocolate Flavours

Bacio	Chocolate with hazelnut pieces
Cioccolato	Chocolate
Cioccolato al latte	Milk chocolate
Cioccolato all’arancia	Chocolate orange
Cioccolato bianco	White chocolate
Cioccolato con peperoncini lll	Chocolate hot pepper
Cioccolato fondente	Dark chocolate
Cioccomenta	Mint Chocolate
Gianduja or Gianduia	Chocolate hazelnut cream

 

A personal favourite, obviously.

Nut Flavours

Castagna	Chestnut
Mandorla	Almond
Marron glacé lll	Chestnut
Nocciola	Hazelnut
Noce	Walnut
Pinoli	Pine nut
Pistacchio	Pistachio

Fruit Flavours

Amarena	Sour cherry
Ananas	Pineapple
Arancia	Orange
Banana	Banana
Cocco	Coconut
Fragole	Strawberry
Frutti di bosco lll	Wild berries
Lampone	Raspberry
Lime	Lime
Limone	Lemon
Mango	Mango
Mela	Apple
Melone	Melon
Pesca	Peach
Pompelmo	Grapefruit

Other Flavours

Caramello	Caramel
Caffè	Coffee
Cassata	Cream with dried fruit and chocolate chunks
Crema	Egg custard
Fior di latte	“Flower of milk” sweet cream
Fiore di fragola lll	Strawberry vanilla
Liquirizia	Liquorice
Malaga	Run raisin
Menta	Mint
Riso	Rice pudding
Stracciatella	Vanilla with chunky chocolate pieces
Tiramisu	cocoa, espresso, mascarpone and ladyfingers
Torroncino	Nougat
Vaniglia	Vanilla
Yogurt	Yogurt
Zabaione	Egg custard and marsala
Zuppa inglese	Custard with bits of cookie

After you've made your decision, it takes only a moment before you are handed your sculpture of flavours. Buon appetito!

A Change of Plans

I regret to announce that my Italian holiday has come to an end. My classes in Perugia turned out to be disappointingly dull, and rather than enduring a month that risked to be mediocre at best, I decided to admit that I was no longer having fun, to ditch my classes and to come home early. I spent a last weekend in Rome and then took an early flight to Frankfurt and then to Vancouver.

There I was, early in the morning at Rome's Fiumicino airport, with my headphones glued on, my mind clouded by a nutella-induced sugar-high, tapping my foot to the beat of some happy-go-lucky music that drowned out the the buzz of travellers and the airport's intercom announcements, and wishing I was up and dancing.

This was the first time I was returning home with a smile on my face. At the end of my both my trips to South America, I had returned with tears in my eyes, lovesick; the first time for the boy I was leaving behind*; the second, for the city I was leaving behind**. I had hardly been in a better mood on my return from previous trips from Europe.

I enjoyed my little blogging debut very much, and I regret that it should come to an end so soon, but until I depart on another adventure, I'm afraid that I won't have much to blog about, unless you're interested in knowing about my futile attemps to find a summer job, and what I will be making for dinner every night (it tends to be a lot of the same)

Thank you very much for following my adventures!
Until next time!

-Joëlle


*My first trip to South America, a series of unfortunate events ended with a fortunate one: a Bolivian boy falling madly in love with me. I was just starting to reciprocate the feelings when I was spirited back home.

**My second trip to South America, it wasn't a boy I fell in love with, but a city: Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. I still remember the tears rolling down my cheeks as my plane was taking off and the city becoming a web of lights at nightfall as we gained altitude.

Quiet Rome

 

I love the feeling of waking up with a purpose, especially when that purpose involves going off on an adventure. So I woke up in a good mood Saturday morning, I showered, took my bag and left (I will mention also, for Stéphane's sake, that I dutifully brushed my teeth). Before long, I was happily sitting on a train, on its way to Rome.

Unfortunately for me, all the walking I've been doing these last few weeks finally took its toll, and I arrived at my hostel in Rome with gigantic blisters under my heels. I stubbornly went out to explore anyways, treading carefully on the balls of my feet, but I wasn't able to do as much walking as I would have liked. Still, I enjoyed weaving in and out of the chaos of the city.

The miracle of Rome is that, bustling as it is, with its traffic and its hoards of tourist, you need only duck into a small street and you enter a completely different world: a quiet Rome of paved alleys, flower-adorned windowsills, little cafés, and few pedestrians.

It is particularly in those moments, when the sounds and chaos of the city seem closed off by a bubble, that I feel most connected to Rome. There is only me and the city, and from this nest of serenity hatch the little bursts and hints of life that make Rome a magical place: a sleeping cat, a piano melody drifting from an open window, and a lost tourist like myself, trying in vain to catch the magic around her with her clunky camera.

That is all I have to say for today, ragazzi. Hope you all had a lovely, and preferably blister-free, weekend.

Off Again

It's been a rather disappointing few days here in Perugia, so I've decided to take advantage of my last weekend before classes start to escape once more! This time, I'm off to Rome, and just for one night, but the prospect of a little more adventure is making me very happy. Classes start Monday morning, and I've asked for a sfida (a challenge) when I was taking the placement test, so hopefully I'll have my arms full when I get back!

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend!

Just Another Day in Florence...

Another view of the Duomo

Sunday, I had no specific plans for the day except to buy a pair of underwear (I decided to stay longer in Florence than I had originally intended), so I threw the sands into the wind, so to speak – I set off wandering after my blue-cheese-and-an-apple breakfast, see if anything interesting would come my way.

I started my wanderings by visiting a jeweler's workshop, where some of his past collections where displayed. There was some seriously cool stuff, most of it more sculptural than functional, centred around great themes like time, castles, music and alchemy.

After walking around and across the Ponte Vecchio, I headed for Florence's shopping district to get my undies (and perhaps a few things from H&M as well...). Just when I was getting tired of shopping, I came across the Palazzo Strozzi, which was holding an exhibition on Picasso, Miró and Dalí – how the first had influenced the latter two. Modern art being my favourite art period, I couldn't resist taking a look. I wasn't disappointed. Although the exhibition was rather small, it was really well organized, with panels explaining each painting in both Italian and English. The coolest part, though, was that they gave out free "design kits," comprising of a sketchpad and a graphite pencil, so that you could "sketch" your way through the exhibition.

Venus and Sailor (Homage to Salvat-Papasseit), 1925, Salvador Dali

I spent a few hours in the Palazzo, then walked until I found an internet cafe, so I could do some skyping with people back at home.

The highlight of my day, though, was finding a food shop that sold all kinds of ethnic goodies, including, to my surprise, many different brands of Argentinian yerba mate. I happily bought a bag, and was considering going back for more, mate being one of the things I regret not bringing with me from Canada.

 

 Yerba mate, yummmm...

Anywho, it wasn't a bad day, and for dinner, I made myself a yummy vegetable salad with a big ball of soft and juicy mozzarella di bufala.

A Date with David

As I mentioned before, last Thursday night, I decided that I'd had enough of Umbria, so Friday morning, I packed a light bag and headed to the station to catch the next train to Florence. I figured if I needed to waste a few days, I might as well fritter them away in one of the world's greatest cities of art.

I already knew where I was going to stay: Camping Michelangelo, the same place I had stayed three years before (almost to the day!) when I passed by Florence during my backpacking trip to Europe. Although they are a campground, they have permanent tents set up with beds for hostellers, like myself, who don't have their own camping gear. The campground is ideally situated, above the city, a two minute walk from the most gorgeous view of the city, and only about fifteen minutes from the centre.

A view of the Duomo

I arrived with enough time for an afternoon walk, which led me to get get lost a few times in the suburbs of the city, and also to make a few interesting finds. One of these was a cool vintage shop where I found a lovely anchor pendant. I also found a great big supermarket (ipermercato) where I bought everything I needed for dinner, and for breakfast and lunch the next day.

My vintage anchor necklace.

Saturday, I quietly enjoyed waking up in Florence, eating breakfast in the sun with a view of the Duomo, and walking along the Arno, watching the reflection of the Ponte Vecchio in the still waters of the river. In the morning, I ambled through the centro storico, munching on some fresh fruit bought at a fruttivendolo (fruit and vegetable seller).

The Ponte Vecchio, the only bridge in Florence to have survived World War II, reflected in the Arno.

Then, I had an important rendez-vous: a date with David. The David. We had missed each other the last time I was in Florence, three years earlier, but I had promised that I would make it up to him. As it turns out, he made me wait a good 45 minutes, but it was worth it.

David. Can you believe he's 511 years old? He doesn't look a day over 25!

At dinnertime, I joined a hodgepodge group of Canadians and Australians at the campground terrace and we all headed over to Piazzale Michelangiolo with some bottles of wine to enjoy the sunset over the city. The sight was simply breathtaking, eliciting a round of applause from the crowd that had gathered around to watch it.