Wine Tasting In Torino

Through our program we took a trip to Torino for the weekend which included a visit to the Cinema Museum (very cool except I hadn't seen any of their movies) and the Egyptian Museum (second most famous in the world). On Saturday night we went to an Italian family's house for a wine tasting and full buffet dinner. We tasted two white and two reds and then a sweeter wine to accompany dessert. The things I learned about wine...

1. When you sniff each wine you try to find the emotion that accompanies it because certain aspects of your brain have an emotional attachment to that wine while the other part of your brain struggles to give a name to the smell... Regardless I was terrible at this part as people were shouting out things all over the place like "the smell of rocks after a rainy day". The only thing I could come up with is it smells like wine.

2. There are certain foods that accompany the wine and only if you choose the right food can you maximize the taste. For example we had a goat cheese with our first wine. It took me three tries to actually figure out how to combine the two tastes. Once I did it actually tasted incredible.

3. You must alternate one glass of wine with one glass of water. We were told this was so you didn't combine the tastes of the wine but seeing as our program coordinator kept repeating it to several of the smaller ladies on the trip I think it was most likely for other reasons.

4. I really don't know anything about wine.


A couple pictures from the evening...

New Food

Sorry for the delay between posts. Maybe it's a sign that I'm becoming more and more European and doing things without any issues... That was until today when I lost my apartment keys. I went and played soccer at the park today and must have left my jacket unzipped because they were missing when I got home. No luck in finding them either. Fortunately we left the window open to our apartment. Unfortunately we live on the 3rd floor. Tommy ended up climbing up onto the roof of the house behind our apartment and making it through the window to open the door. It was quite the adventure.

A big transition I've made while in Italy is trying many different types of foods (sorry Mom). Consequently, I now like peppers, artichokes, and eat tomatoes on sandwiches. One way I've been forced to try these foods is through our cooking course. Last week's meal was eggplant pasta and cavallo aka horse. It was my first time eating either food and I learned that when you eat a food for the first time you are supposed to make a wish. Two wishes and a whole lot of food later I left satisfied and quite surprised to find out that I like eggplant as well as horse. The majority of the girls either didn't eat the horse or tried one or two small strips. As a result, Tommy and I ate about 75% of the entire dish (meant to feed ten people). Here's a picture of the horse meat...

In the background is Aldo, our cooking teacher's husband. Anna has him wrapped around her finger which makes for a very fun dynamic. Aldo likes to try his English with us but Anna yells at him every time and demands he speaks Italian. Whenever Anna tells a story about something Aldo did wrong, he looks across the table at me and always says something like "see what i have to deal with".

Rome Take 2

My roommates from BC and I went to Rome for the weekend. We hit nearly every major tourist attraction and for simplicity's sake I'll just run through the major points of interest and share some thoughts...

Colosseum- We spent the most time here and it was well spent. I would highly recommend taking a tour (as we did) because they offer a 45 minute tour in English for 8 euro extra. Included in that is an hour walking tour of the ancient forum which essentially was a summary of the city's history. Warning: Going there really makes you want to watch the movie Gladiator. Fun fact of the tour: Commodus (the emperor played by Joaquin Phoenix in the movie) was hated just as much in real life as he is portrayed in the movie. However, unlike the movie he actually died after being strangled to death in his bathtub.

Trevi Fountain: In my opinion, it was overrated. Given it was raining when we saw it but I always thought it was a part of some huge square when in fact it's somewhat stuck in a small plaza between buildings.

The Vatican- Climb to the top. I had done this earlier when I went to Rome but it was an incredible view on a really nice day.

The Spanish Steps: Know what the Spanish steps look like before you wander around trying to find them! My roommate Tommy and I were walking around looking for them and as we followed signs for them we thought we were at the right place. Turns out neither of us had a clue what the Spanish steps looked like so we started asking people where they were. Naturally they were about 100 feet around the corner in the next plaza. Behind the Colosseum they were probably my second favorite thing in Rome because the view overlooks the city. Make sure you go on a nice day.

The most incredible thing we did was go to the AS Roma v. AC Milan soccer game in Stadio Olimpico. That was hands down the best experience I've hand in Europe. While all European soccer fans are nuts, we were warned (and found out) that Roma fans are the absolute craziest. We went into the Stadium two hours before the game and the section where the lunatics stand was nearly completely full. The traveling Milan fans were separating by glasses from the rest of the stadium. We were given big flags from the people around us to wave during the introductions. Several imporant things:

Go around the stadium beforehand because once you enter your section is blocked off from the rest (don't want Roma and Milan fans running into eachother). Wear neutral colors. Beware of flares which are thrown from the opposing fan sections.


Here are a couple pictures from the weekend:

Don't leave the Americans unattended

My roommates from BC are here visiting on spring break. We met them in Milan on Friday and spent the weekend there until coming back to Parma on Sunday. We had an 11:25 train back to Parma on Sunday so naturally we woke up late and scrambled into cabs and got to the train station. After separating for a minutes to get our tickets at the kiosk, we realized that one Henry was missing. So everyone got the platform and got on the train as I sprinted around the train station looking for him. As soon as I see him walking towards the platform, the train pulls away and Henry and I are stuck in Milan until the train the following hour. He had asked several people which train his ticket was for but he understood none of them. So we learned quickly that those who speak the language must stay with those who don't.
Ultimately no harm was done because we made it back in time for the Parma soccer game. We sat in the Curva Nord where all the lunatics were standing and cheering. The name of the fan club is "the Parma Boys". Formed in 1977, they convinced the new addition to the team Crespo (a Parma player for several stints with other clubs) to wear the number 77 in their honor. The head "cheerleader" actually never watches the game but simply orchestrates the crowd with his back to the field. The only cheer I picked up was "Par-ma" clap clap but to fit in I threw some Ole's and whistles when they blow a call.