Buongiorno!

View from the Kitchen

So yesterday I had no classes again.  My, what a strenuous life I lead... haha. I slept late, did some work on my computer, looked up some potential weekend trips, and did just about nothing productive.  I did, however, go with my roommate to the electronics store with my roommate to get a hair dryer and straightener and I got to use some Italian there, since the guy didn't speak any English.  On the way back, we stopped at the gelateria across the street, and I had half cioccolatta (chocolate) and half straciatella (chocolate chip).  It was absolutely delicious.  We sat in front of the school and watched the people as we ate them.  It was really nice.

The gelateria, as seen from the kitchen window

That night, we (me and 7 of the other girls) decided to cook dinner.  We made chicken parmigiana.  We (okay, mostly just Erin and Jessica) breaded the chicken breasts ourselves using flour, eggs, and breadcrumbs mixed with Parmesan cheese.  After they were fried, we baked them with tomato sauce and pieces of fresh mozzarella on top.  We made spaghetti to go with it, and bought bread and everything.  We set the table and ate together like a little family.  It was pretty cute, actually. Unfortunately, I still don't know how to cook, nor do I enjoy cooking, so mostly I took pictures and helped clean/organize things. Maybe someday. After dinner we went out for gelato... yes, again.  This time I had cannolli flavored and it, too, was delicious! I have yet to try a flavor I didn't like, and I've yet to try the same thing twice! 

Some of the girls, hard at work

Today I had my first Italian class.  I was really excited because Italian has been my favorite class for the last couple of semesters, but also really nervous because I hadn't practiced my Italian all summer and I wasn't sure how much I would remember.  The class is a combination of Italian 3 and Italian 5 students (I fall into the latter category).  The teacher is super-nice, but I felt like I knew nothing when she went around asking us questions in Italian.  We got our syllabus and took a placement test.  The test was really hard because it wanted you to know the difference between all the different tenses, and well, theres a LOT of tenses in Italian.  She said the test doesn't really count for anything, she just needs to see what exactly we're going to be reviewing.  After the test was over, we were free to go.  I stayed behind and talked to the professor about my Italian 4 independent study.  She said that since everything that I would need to learn in Italian 4 was going to be taught in my Italian 5 class, all I had to do was write one 5-page research paper in Italian about whatever I wanted to write about.  That means I basically have only 3 classes a week.  YESSS! We're also required to do community service for our italian class, which I'm actually excited for.  It'll be cool do to service in Italy! 

The chicken baking

After class I hung around for a while and then went and got some pizza taglio, which is pizza by the slice.  They basically give you one big square piece as big as you want, folded in half to make like a sandwich, and then you pay by the weight of your piece.  They wrap it in wax paper so you can eat it while walking.  The pizza place right next to school makes really good pizza.  I ate lunch and hung around some more.  Eventually I went to the grocery store with some of the other girls to get some food for our trip this weekend.  We figured it would be cheaper to get some stuff that we could make easily than having to eat every meal out.  This evening we went out for pasta at Pastarito.  I ordered Linguine Rustica, which had mozzarella, sun-dried tomatoes, and aubergines (which are apparently eggplant?).  It wasn't very good, and I wasn't very hungry (my pizza earlier was big AND delicious).  But I tried something unexpected and new! Thats important!

Frying the chicken

Tomorrow morning we leave for Capri bright and early.  The train leaves at 8:30 am, so we're leaving the school by about 7:15.  We're going to spend some quality time on the beach, visit the blue grotto, and possibly cliff jump? Who knows, but whatever we do, I'm super excited! I'll update again upon my return! Ciao!

The group at dinner!