Brunch Americano

Last night, my sister and went to my favorite local trattoria and had a delicious, very Italian meal - bruschetta and stuffed olives as an appetizer, two pasta dishes, and tiramisu for dessert. We went out for drinks first, didn't even get to the restaurant until after 11:00 PM and left at around 1:00 AM, which is considered relatively normal here - maybe a little on the late side but still perfectly acceptable. Always the good influence on my little sister, I made sure we finished every drop of our 1 liter carafe of wine. Waste not, want not!

We were still full when we woke up this morning, so we decided to skip breakfast and fix an afternoon American brunch for all of my housemates. I left a note telling everyone not to eat because we were planning a "Brunch Americano" and we left to go shopping for supplies - when we came back, Andrea had written his replies all over it:

"Turn off the lights, cover the fires! Look out!"
"No! What is it, are they dropping bombs?"
"Indians, look out!!"
"Close the doors and windows!"

Yeah, he's very fond of Americans. :)

In spite of Andrea's comments, we started cooking and went all out - fresh squeezed orange juice for mimosas, french toast and pancakes with two different homemade toppings (strawberry or caramelized banana), hash browns, scrambled eggs and bacon.

Have you ever seen Italians eat brunch? Somehow I doubt it, so I'll go over the highlights.

As soon as we put everything on the table, Andrea picked up a piece of french toast, tore it in half and made a bacon sandwich. I explained in Italian "no, no, Andrea - you put either the strawberries or the bananas on the french toast" and he said "you want me to put strawberries on the panino?!"

I said "there IS no panino" and poured some strawberries on his french toast for him - at which point he started yelling that I was ruining everything, that the sweet food was too close to the salty food. He tried to say this in English for the benefit of my sister, and since "salty" in Italian is "salata," he said something like "The salad! It is too close to the sweet!"

Pier, on the other hand, was confused because there was no bread. I said that we didn't really need bread because we were already eating pancakes and french toast, and he picked up a piece of bacon and said "well how are we supposed to eat this, then??" I said "ummm by itself?" and he started shouting in Italian, saying things like "you crazy Americans, don't know how to eat!!"

Neither Italian liked the mimosas very much so they just drank the orange juice and champagne separately, and I think they were pretty disgusted by my attempt at hash browns. To be fair, they looked like greasy potato mush but I thought they tasted pretty good...

The whole meal was hilarious, with the Italians yelling that Americans are crazy, and my sister and I responding by saying that Italians are crazy... Marta (Portuguese) just sat by and laughed - her people were not involved in this American-Italian Brunch War.

Sisters in Bologna!

After almost 8 months, I finally get to be ridiculous with my little sister again.

It had been wayyyy too long.

We have lots of plans for traveling, eating, drinking and especially taking goofy pictures. I'll keep everyone posted. :) Yay!

Giardini Margherita

It's spring in Bologna, and I have nothing to do! I decided not to take classes fourth quarter in order to leave myself more time for traveling, reading, yoga, all the things that I wish I could do but don't when I spend all day in class.

This week, for example, I spent every single day at the park. It's only about a 5 minute walk from my house and when it's sunny outside, it just seems like it would be silly not to go. I take my guitar, a book, a blanket and some snacks, and meet anyone who feels like joining me.

The park (called Giardini Margherita) is really an amazing place. On the weekends it's completely packed with people, all doing something. In Berkeley there are always a few people doing yoga, a few others playing music of some kinda, but in Italy they really go crazy. The park is always crowded with jugglers, tight-rope walkers, drum circles, acrobats, capoeira, tai chi, people playing football of the American or European variety, volleyball, frisbee, unicycles, bicycles, tricycles and training wheels, dog walking, accordians, guitars, trombones, saxophones. Then there are the quiet ones, the studiers and readers and nappers. I usually fall into the category of people-watcher, daisy chain-maker or 1/2 of Kat and Kalen's street-singing duo.

On one particularly sunny day, Leslie came to the park armed with henna dye and proceeded to decorate all of us while we munched on fruit and cookies and played music. Beautiful!

Sometimes, when the sun is just too beautiful and the grass is just too cool, it's actually impossible to stay standing.


This leads to creative uses of the guitar, as demonstrated by James :)

Kat and I almost always bring our guitars to practice for our future street-singing adventures. I think we're pretty close to ready but we're still perfecting our harmonies on a few songs. Also, my guitar never seems to want to stay in tune... but I got it for free so I can't really complain!


Some days the hippie vibe really takes over, and there's just nothing that can be done except give over to it completely. No use resisting the peace and love!

The best part of being at the park on a sunny day is that I get to see all my friends, completely recovered from the Bologna winter slump that had us all feeling pretty dreary for the past few months. Everyone is smiling again, relaxed and happy. Of course I always love my friends, they're always amazing and beautiful, but the sun brings out the best in all of us!




And, finally, finally, FINALLY. I can juggle!

It only took me several months of practicing, but I can now "successfully" juggle - that is, for about 10 seconds until I get too excited that I'm actually juggling, and lose control. A little boy saw me the other day, though, and said to his friends "look at the juggler!" So at the very least, I'm a juggler by a 6-year-old's standards... which is good enough for me!

The wonder that is RyanAir

My amazing friend Kat (singing partner and travel guru) and I booked our next vacation today...

May 9 - flight from Milan to Fez (Morocco): 20 euro

May 15 - flight from Marrakesh (Morocco) to Barcelona: 42.10 euro

May 18 - flight from Barcelona to Cagliari (Sardegna): 20 euro

May 21 - flight from Cagliari to Pisa: 21.90 euro

2 friends, 4 flights, 12 days of adventure spanning across 3 countries? Priceless.

Or ya know, 100 euro.

How is this even possible??

Staying in Bologna...

So... when I said "I'm going to Stockholm" and "Woo!! Sweden, here I come!!"

Yeah that might not have been entirely accurate. Last night as I was finishing my blog, Marta got home from a party and said "so on a scale of 1-6, how much do you want to go to Stockholm in 4 hours?" and after some thought, I answered "2."

She didn't want to go either, so we called l'altra Marta and asked how much she wanted to go. L'altra Marta said she wanted to go, so my Marta and I decided that we would go too, and have a wonderful time.

I got about 2 hours of sleep and, in what was very possibly the most difficult feat of my life, got up at 4:00 AM to take a shower. After my shower, my Marta came to my room with the telephone and said "L'altra Marta is one the phone - she doesn't want to go."

So, long story short, we didn't go. The weather is perfect, warm and sunny in Bologna and below freezing and cloudy in Stockholm. I still have no ATM card which means I'd have to borrow money from one of the Martas. I am still recovering from a plague/fever/flu which I had last weekend. Yes, my first celsius fever knocked me out for 3 days - I was at 38,5 gradi which really doesn't seem high enough to do any harm... silly celsius.

Anyway, forget Stockholm.

I'm going to the park!

Carnevale in Venice

Carnevale.

That word has been on the tip of everybody's tongue since I arrived in Italy in August. All the best stories involve past trips to Venice for Carnevale, and it seemed like every party was just a preparation for the party, which lasts for almost the entire month of February.

After all the build-up, I obviously couldn't miss it, so I donned my mask (*ahem* bragging time - handmade mask, using only materials from the local dollar store...) and headed to Venice with a group of friends. My beautiful mask needed to make its glorious debut at Carnevale!

The minute we got off the train, I knew it was going to be an amazing day. There were people everywhere, almost all of them dressed up. People dancing and singing in the streets, artists painting peoples' faces, hundreds of vendors selling hats and masks, confetti covering everything, music and food and wine and concerts and Venice! Beautiful, beautiful Venice. It looked much different this time than when I visited last summer...

Finances allowed only a day trip to Venice, as couch-surfing was impossible to find and hostels in Venice cost about as much as a 5-star hotel in Bologna. I could have spent a week there and still not seen everything that Carnevale has to offer, but the time limit just added an incentive to see as much as I could! When we got off the train, our first task was finding vino. No, scratch that. Panino, then vino. No, scratch that again. Goofy hats and masks, then panino, then vino. No, okay: final answer. Bancomat (ATM), then goofy hats and masks, then panino, then vino. When you're traveling in a group of 15, that's kind of how decisions are made.

When we approached the bancomat, it looked like your average ATM. During the transaction, though, it showed its true colors and devoured my ATM card! Monster!! To add to my distress, (and I'm convinced that this was a part of the bancomat's evil scheme), it was Sunday and the banks were closed. There was nothing we could do, so I borrowed money from some friends and had my mom cancel the card.

Once we had successfully taken care of the next two items on our to-do list, (panino, vino) I was feeling much better - good enough to really enjoy the rest of our day. There were a lot of different events to see, but I think the best part was just wandering around and seeing all the amazing costumes. Venice was absolutely packed with people and everyone looked awesome - there were people walking around on stilts, dressed in full-body animal suits, and of course there were millions of different masks. My friend James got a lot of attention for his costume, a foam horse which he seemed to be riding. People were constantly asking to take pictures with him!

Venice is the perfect place for a giant festival like carnevale. The narrow, winding streets add an element of mystery - you never know what you're going to see around the next corner.

It's also hard to tell how crowded the city actually is, until you walk out into a huge open space like Piazza San Marco and see that it's completely filled with people, elbow to elbow. There were literally thousands of people crammed into Piazza San Marco for an evening show. The show featured a woman "dancing" in the air while hanging from a giant balloon. She was spinning and twirling to carnival music during a rainbow-colored light show. Amazing!

Most people complained that the show lasted too long (because yeah, how much can you do while hanging from a giant balloon) but I was so fascinated by it. I kept imagining how amazing the woman must have felt, spinning and dancing in the air like that - it must have felt like she was flying. I need to figure out how to get that job...

Every piazza had a different show or event going on. It's hard to choose a favorite, but I loved the open tango dancing (tried and failed - miserably) and one piazza with a really goofy band:

They were dancing with their instruments and it looked so much fun that we all joined in and danced with them. Perhaps, perhaps the wine had something to do with it, but they loved us! I think they were especially impressed with my rendition of the macarena.

Later on, I shared another dance with a tiny boy in a duck suit who was quite fond of my mask. I think it was true love.

I let him play with my mask for a little while but his mom made him give it back...

Even after the vicious attack of the bancomat, I had an amazing time in Venice. We stayed until the last train left for the night, and it was so crowded that we sat (and slept) on the floor for the 3 hour trip. I was exhausted, but it was one of the most interesting experiences that I've had since I arrived in Italy.

Tomorrow (in 4 hours, actually - technically today since it's after midnight), I'm leaving for Stockholm. I don't think wild horses could keep me in one place, but I have the entire world to see and just one lifetime to do it. Woo! Sweden, here I come!!

***All the photos in this blog were "borrowed" from friends - I unfortunately do not currently have a working camera. :(