gelato, panini's, & cheers from Rome!

camay and i have now become regulars at Standa, which is their supermarket. i have officially become a die hard fan of baguette's (which btw is only .79euros). i think i'm going to buy a fresh one everyday (or every other day). i love to just walk into the deli and bread section and inhale it's beautiful, fresh breadi-ness. lol. supermarket quirks i've come to notice: pasta > rice (they only have small boxes of rice. they have a whole aisle on just pasta alone) cheese and meat come in slices of only 4, no grated cheese, everything is pork, plastic forks cost more than spoons (if it's the same thing in NY, it's something i never noticed), and wine is superrr cheap (too bad i can't bring any onto campus OR any home!). food quantities are smaller in rome. our standard size fridge in american is actually considered 'large'. we're living on milk for breakfast because camay bought oatmeal and cereal and we're filling up our water bottles from the sidewalk fountains. yes! sidewalk fountains. it looks like an open hydrant, but it's actually fresh water from the mountains running through the system to come out through these fountains in the middle of the sidewalks!

my diet has consisted of pasta, pizza, and cheeeeese. i am in either food heaven or on my way to hell. i always thought NY pizza was the best pizza 'cause, well, you can't fold a chicago deep dish pizza. but i don't think it can even compare now that i've had authentic italian pizza. you order by weight, so you can order as much as you want, depending on how much you wish to spend. they are cut into sicilian slices and you can, as they've all asked us, to 'take away' or to 'stay'. when you 'take away' your slices, they fold it like a sandwhich and hand it to you in wax paper and you can walk out and eat it. it's actually much more convenient than the NY slice! my favorite is the eggplant parmeasean (but i really enjoyed the sausage and mushroom one, too). i also had my first taste of this italian speciality called 'arancine'. it's amazing. it's a fried rice ball with anything you want on the inside, like mozzarella, spinach, ham, etc. i had mozzarella and ham. mm, good. from the groceries we bought at Standa, Camay was able to make us this chicken/cheese/tomato sandwhich. one of the semester students kept coming in saying that it smelled good. well, let's just say it smelled just as good as it tasted.

i had my first authentic gelato and it was to die for. 'uno conno, per favore!' (one cone, please!) and 'canoli e cioccolato, grazi!' (canoli and chocolate, thank you!). so yes, i had canoli and chocolate gelato scoops in this tiny cone and then strolled the streets of rome enjoying every lick. i also ordered a panini! the panini's here look nothing like panini's in NY! who came up with the idea of putting stuff into flatbread! not the italians! i haven't even seen any flatbread. panini is really just a whitebread sandwhich with whatever you want in it. but it's pretty cheap,so that's good.

i'm going for canoli's tomorrow with a group of students and probably will never look at canoli's back in the states the same way. i'm sorry america, but the original always wins.

speaking of america, what an amazing day it must of have been there! INAUGURAL DAY! while i was on break from my 3 (supposed to be 4) hour class, i ran to the TV lounge and caught the beginning of Bush And Obama leaving the White house and watched as long as i could before returning to class. the seats were already quite filled when i came and left. by the time class ended, it was PACKED. i can't even imagine the pride in America right now. but as the St. John's Rome Campus gathered to watched on two big flat screens in a lounge, you could definitely be sure that there were cheers from Rome about our 44th president and our FIRST black and biracial president!

i'm currently watching the live stream right now on CNN/Facebook. I think, especially for a lot of people abroad and unable to watch it on TV, CNN has made it possible for everyone to be apart of history. i am praying for the Obama's,Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd who needed medical attention (Kennedy because of seizures) during the presidential luncheon, America, and the world. i pray for everyone.

on other notes, i got to stroll rome at night and it's quite beautiful. but VERY quiet. 4 hour classes might possibly be the death of me. i loved how guys down the hall were blasting taylor swift and singing along. the bathrooms are disgusting.

here are some more photo's from my adventure. ALL photos will be available on my flickr. link on the side.




ciao for now!