Amalfi Coast

It's been hard to get away for a weekend since I work Saturday mornings and so it doesn't give us much time. However, Wednesday May 1st was a holiday, and so we decided to take advantage of it and go somewhere. My work schedule has lightened up a lot with summer nearing and nearly all my kids classes ending. So all I had to clear off my schedule was my Saturday morning class. Which I easily got covered, but did not go over well the school, which is whole other story in itself. 

We had originally wanted to go to Paris, but flights were just to expensive so we decided to do a trip along the Amalfi Coast. I had always wanted to visit the beautiful famous coast line, and funnily enough, before I studied abroad in High School in Italy, when I received my placement  "Revello" I went immediately to google and searched it. These amazingly gorgeous photos came up but only to soon realize it had auto corrected to "RAvello" which is one of the picturesque towns on the coast.  Two very completely different town. 

If you ever go to the Amalfi Coast: 

-Bring sunscreen and use it!

- If you get car sick bring something to help with the motion sickness! 

- Be prepared for everything to be over priced ( 5 euros/hour parking, 20 euros plates of spaghetti) 

- Enjoy good limoncello 

We thought it would be best to rent a car since the buses don't run so frequently and we wanted to be able to roam when and where we wanted. So we spent the first night in Napoli, eating the best pizza in the world, and then renting a car and driving down to the coast. 

Napoli is notorious for its terrible driving and we were a bit nervous at first trying to navigate our way out of the Hertz garage onto the highway. While waiting to take a left turn onto a two-way road, another car pulls up behind us and immediately starts honking. It was impossible for Luca to turn and so the guy behind decides to cut in on the inside of our car and bolt for it. In doing so, he clipped a man who was on a scooter.  Welcome to Napoli. 

The tight narrow roads along the coast offer the best break taking views you can   imagine and are also right on the very edge of the cliffs.

We stopped at Positano first, made our way down to the beach and then stopped to have lunch on a terrace overlooking the sea.

Positano

Afterwards we continued on to Ravello, where we visited Villa Cimbrone. This villa is one one of the most spectacular places I have been. There are beautiful flowers growing in every corner, it's peaceful, and the views are incredible. We read that the owner of this Villa was a British man who had been suffering from depression so he bought the villa to cure his moods. We thought it'd definitely help someone who is feeling down.

Villa Cimbrone - Ravello

Villa Cimbrone - Ravello

 We slept in Minori, which is one of the less famous towns that is part of the amalfi coast. And it was really nice because it was even more quite than the other towns, it wasn't as touristy, and we were able to talk to the locals and eat well.

View from hotel window in Minori

The next day we drove even further south, almost into Calabria, where visited Angel's Caves in Pertosa. This was definitely worth the drive, I had never seen anything like it. On the way back to Minori we stopped a Paestum, which has some ancient greek ruins, and three temples still standing.

And on the last day we stopped at Amalfi before heading on up to Napoli.

Festival della Lasagna

Today Luca and I unexpectedly went to a Lasagna festival. It is the first year this festival was held in Bologna and it may just be the first of many.  Lasagna is one of the typical dishes from the Emilia Romagna region made with the classic and famous ragù.

The festival was held in Piazza del Mello on the North side of Bologna. We had to decide between 1 plate for 3 euros or 6 plates for 15 euros. We went with my friend Giulia and her boyfriend Brais and we decided to split the 6 plate option between the 4 of us. However we very quickly realized that it wouldn't be sufficient and so had to go back for seconds. 

There were some of the better known Osterias from Bologna with pans and pans upon pans full of lasagna being swapped in and out of the portable ovens behind them. There were great options like Pesto Lasagna, Traditional Lasagna, Octopus Lasagna, Mussel/Anchovy Lasagna, Red Lasagna, Green Lasagna, and even Dessert Lasagna! 

     This week is the first week that it truly feels like Spring in Bologna. So it was perfect being outside,   

                                   enjoying the sun, 65º weather, and eating great food.

Home Is Where the Heart Is.

It's almost exactly a year since I came to Italy having followed my heart. And it was then that Luca had met with Paolo and discussed subletting his apartment for one year has he headed off to England. So as a year approached, Paolo returned and was ready to move back into his home, and so we were on the apartment hunt. 

It wasn't as easy as we had hoped, and I would say that there is an apartment crisis in Bologna. Since there are so many students and living in the city is in demand, there are too many apartments that are in terrible condition at a ridiculously high price. These apartments are purposely kept in poor condition since they know students will rent them anyway and will probably cause damage. 

Where we were for the past year was actually owned by the Vatican and so we were technically paying our rent to the Arch Diocese of so and so of somewhere. This meant that we paying very low rent and was a great way to save some money for year, but also meant that we used to not paying very much for a relatively large space in a great location in the city center. 

After a month of looking we found our new home  just a few streets down. It's a little smaller than our place before, however it has two spectacular views of the hills of Bologna and has recently been renovated and we were spared that horrible 1960's decor that still common today in Italy. 

The apartment wasn't furnished and so we too many trips to Ikea trying to buy nice enough, but cheap enough furniture that hopefully we can sell in the future. It's so nice to be in a place that's actually ours, not subletting, with our own things. 

Life of Pi

For my highest English class, Advanced 3, I proposed reading a book through out the course instead of bringing in short readings and the students really liked the idea. So back in October the students brought in some suggestions and in the end we couldn't decide between Life of Pi and The Giver.

We ended up flipping a coin to decide which book to read and the lucky winner was Life of Pi by Yann Martel. 

When we chose the book, I wasn't even aware that the movie was coming out, and I also hadn't realized that it was so popular. I had heard of it before and heard it was good so I was ok with reading it in class. 

The book starts with a prologue that leaves you with the idea that the whole story might even be actually based on real life events, however it's highly unlikely.  The beginning is quite slow and I would say a little difficult to get into, but once you start it's hard to put down. 

Even though the majority of the book takes place on a boat and you feel like there are only so many things that can happen when you're stranded in the middle of the ocean, the story moves along and is interesting to read. Many of my students complained that they were tired of reading and reading and reading about the life boat, fishing, catching rain water, staying away from the tiger, that the story got very boring. This is completely understandable especially if you must read slower than usual and over a few months it feels as if the story just drags on. 

I was frustrated with the ending, because I was hoping for something much for climatic. When I finished the book I felt short-handed, like I wanted a sequel to find out what happens to the main character afterwards. So many pages of reading about life on a boat, just to finish the story so abruptly with no solid conclusion was disappointing. 

I would recommend this book for a light, enjoyable read, simply for pleasure. 

Attempting to Snowboard

I have been terrible about posting new blogs and I apologize. I will try to do better! This post is long over due but it's never too late! 

Back in December, Luca took me into the Apennine Mountains in Northern Tuscany to go snowboarding for the first time. I had never been skiing/snowboarding in actual mountains before, my only experience had been the big hills of Minnesota which doesn't seem like such a comparison. 

I had also never been snowboarding. I had had many friends promise that they would take me snowboarding and teach me this cool looking, popular sport, but no one ever lived up to their promise, except Luca.  

I had been told many times before that you need more than just one day to learn. You need to be patient. You will fall, and fall again, and again, and again. It will hurt. It will be painful. You wont' be able to walk the next day. Etc. etc. etc. I had heard it all before ..... and it was definitely all true, even though I thought I would and could do better. 

I spent almost the whole day on the bunny hill. It was frustrating since the hill isn't long enough to even get a good trial run in. When you think you actually are getting the hang of things, the hill ends and you have to go back up to the top, work on standing up, making your way through all the other beginners, and then going just enough to stay on your feet for 5 seconds. 

However, at the end of the day, I was able to make it down a blue run (which here is our green, and thankfully Luca told me that, because it would have been a terrible mistake to go down a green run!) even though I probably didn't have any proper form. 

And I'll admit that at the end of the day after having fallen so many times, I was in tears from falling on bruises. My knees were bruised, my butt was bruised, I couldn't raise my arms, it killed to walk stairs, and I felt like my wrists were going to fall off. 

I haven't decided yet if the next time we go, I'll grab a pair of skis which I feel totally comfortable on, or try to conquer the snowboard again! 

Death Comes to Pemberley

I was so excited when I received a Kindle for Christmas! I was eager to buy a good book for the plane ride back home and I decided upon Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James. The description said that it was a cross between a murder mystery and Pride and Prejudice.  I thought that was a loose description, but it was actually quite literal. 

To be honest I have never read Pride and Prejudice, but have also been a fan of the film and am willing to watch it on any sort of whim so my only knowledge of the story comes from Kiera Knightly and Matthew McFadyen. It was fun to read a book and have the Bennet family, Bingley family, and of course the infamous Darcys return. 

It was a light, easy, read and very enjoyable. I would recommend this book, but only if you want to read about a fictitious continuation of life in Pemberley with our lovable characters from Jane Austen. 

Holiday Festivities Have Begun

It has been quite the start to the month of December. Luca and I put up our first Christmas tree together just a few days ago. We went to the large local grocery store just outside of town to get a nice big fake plastic tree ( a tree is better than no tree). His parents were kind and lent us some of their old decorations  and they remind me of my mom's old ornaments that were passed down to her. We stuck to my family's tradition of having pizza and putting the tree. Luca tackled making a deep dish pizza by hand, and I have to say it turned out delicious enough for seconds! 

Then this weekend we had the annual "Cooking Contest." A fun contest between friends, however taken quite seriously. This year there were two categories, has everyone had decided it was just too easy to win a whole contest with a dessert. You could make an "antipasto"(appetizer) "primo piatto" (first dish such as pasta or risotto) or a "secondo piatto" (second dish of meat) and of course a dessert. 

Luca and I both participated in both categories.

 Luca made Paccheri Rusticano, large round noodles stuffed with a leek, sausage, ricotta filling topped with beschemel and placed in the oven to make a delicious pasta bake. I made gorgonzola chicken cooked up with some white wine, rosemary, and olive oil, tossed in melted sweet gorgonzola and sprinkled with green peppercorns. For dessert Luca made molten chocolate cakes, and I attempted my first cheesecake ever- brownie cheesecake with a chocolate ganache. 

There were 15 people at the contest, however 8 people were there just to judge, because we couldn't have those cooking voting with biased opinions ;) 

Appetizers 

Matteo introduced Corn Dogs with French Fries to Italians
homemade and delicious!

The picture may not be the best but Barbar's "Sformato"
of potatoes, bacon, and cheese

Not pictured: Giani's Pastry Puffs filled with prosciutto cotto, zucchini, and cheese.
Primi Piatti 

"Paccheri Rusticano" Luca's pasta bake, the picture doesn't
give it justice  

"Orecchiette broccoli e bacon" 

Lorenzo's "Pasta Risottato" pasta prepared like risotto
with heavy cream and spinach

Not Pictured: Leopoldo's Vegetarian Cannoli with cauliflower , nutmeg, and cream
Secondi Piatti 

"Spezzatino di Pollo alla Gorgonzola" - My chicken 

"Triple Chicken" - Vittoria made three types of chicken
Curry, Almond, and Mint

Desserts

Matteo's Classic Italian Tiramisù

The 4 German girls who were visiting made a Macedonia
Fruit Salad

Brownie cheesecake with Chocolate Ganache

Not Pictured: Luca's Chocolate Molten Cakes, the German girls Apple Crumble, and Vin Brûlée. 

And there was the judging. The guests who took part of the jury were each given a piece of paper with all the listed dishes. They had to wait until the very end to vote. Once handed in Paola sat down and added up all the votes and it was announced that Luca won first place for the  Main Dish category which also means a very nice dinner out at Osteria Broccaindosso, and my cheesecake won first place for the Dessert category! Luca and I both won and are becoming one exceptionally culinary family!