Overdue Update! 9.22.10

Not really an interesting picture -- from my Digital Photography class' depth of field assignment

I've been meaning to update for a while now, but haven't been able to find the time to sit down and do it.  I'll have a lot more to talk about after this weekend's trip to Venice, but I'll sum up the past week here.  Since I've spent most of my time so far blogging about the amazing food we eat here, I'll start off with this week's food highlights.  On Sunday, family dinner was at a restaurant called Da I 2 Ciccioni (which translates to "from the two fat guys").  It's basically just the owners' personal kitchen, with rickety tables and chairs set up on the sloping street-side.  There was no need for a menu, because they serve you whatever it is that they've prepared for the night, and, although I have a tendency to make hyperbolic statements, this really was some of the best food I've had in Italy.  We had simple tomato Bruschetta, mashed orange squash, a bean dish, 3 different pastas (pepper and cheese, my favorite Carbonara, and a tomato/meat sauce) and finally delicious rosemary and white wine sautéed chicken on a bed of salad.  The house wine was also very decent.  Here's a link to the NYTimes review: http://travel.nytimes.com/travel/guides/europe/italy/rome/74649/da-i-2-ciccioni/restaurant-detail.html

On Monday, Jacob, William, Kate and I had dinner with our two Interns, Justin and Jessie (both Kenyon grads), at their apartment across the courtyard.  They had promised to teach us how to make their favorite vegetable pasta sauce, which is a good, cheap dinner option.  On Tuesday night (last night), the Pantheon Institute treated us to a pizza dinner at our favorite pizza place, Dar Poeta.  I guess they felt badly that all the architecture students had a huge welcome soirée when they arrived.  But we got our nutella/ricotta calzone, which is becoming a weekly necessity, so that's all I care about.  Otherwise, this week hasn't been too eventful...I'm reading a book I really like so far by Muriel Barbery called The Elegance of the Hedgehog.  I bought it at La Feltrinelli, which is the Italian equivalent of Border's or Barnes & Noble.  We've been working out Venice travel plans, which will involve a 6.5 hour train ride (half the cost of the express train) this Friday morning, and a hostel called "The Museum"....to be continued.

9.12.10

We've been doing so much over the past few days, so I'll try to include everything succinctly! On Thursday night, since we'd been cooking for ourselves all week, we decided to treat ourselves to dinner at a small, family-run restaurant in Trastevere called Da Augusto.  It's the kind of place where locals are lining up before the restaurant opens at 8pm (a group of 3 old-timers walked in around 7:45 and their dinner was ready for them).  The menu posted outside lists a number of options for primi and secondi piatti, but we soon discovered that our choices were basically whatever they were cooking that night.  We watched our waitress fill up carafes of the house wine from a spigot coming out of what looked like a giant wooden armoire with refrigerated sections full of mozzarella and salumi.  I ordered a rigatoni with a spicy tomato/pancetta sauce, "all'amatriciana," and then one of the best chicken dishes I've ever had -- simply roasted with a very light tomato sauce. On Friday, we did some homework and went for a run on our favorite bike trail along the Tiber.  We had read/heard about this place nearby (on vicolo del Bologna) called Dar Poeta, and decided to try it out for an inexpensive meal.  We originally planned on just getting their famous ricotta and nutella dessert calzone, but ended up splitting some pizzas as well.  The simple pizzas (like the Napoletana) were only 5 euro, so Kate and I split a pizza and the dessert calzone.  Both were delicious, but the ricotta/nutella calzone was definitely the winner, and worth going back for. 

Finally, yesterday was our day trip to Orvieto -- a Medieval hill-town about an hour north of Rome by train.  The town itself is beautiful, with amazing views of the Umbrian countryside surrounding the city walls.  Orvieto is probably most famous for two thing: the wine, and the Duomo (an enormous 14th-century cathedral).  We took a morning train from Termini and arrived in Orvieto around 10:30.  We got to explore the town on our own, and got lunch (a tomato/mozzarella panino + vino bianco di Orvieto) at a cafe near the Duomo.  There was a funny little flea market set up right next to the Cathedral, with old books, records, jewelry, cameras, weird oil paintings etc.  We heard some organ music inside the Duomo and I snapped a couple illegal pictures of the baptismal font and a few crumbling frescoes.  The Chapel of the Madonna di San Brizio is particularly stunning.  There also happened to be a wedding going on in one of the side chapels, and we got to witness the post-ceremony photo shoot on the cathedral steps!  I bought a bottle of wine at a small wine shop, because I recognized the label from a section of Hathorne's The Marble Faun that I'd just been reading on the train.  It's produced in Viterbo, at a well-known winery called Falesco and is called the "Est! Est!! Est!!! Di Montefiascone."  Kate and I found our dream home on a real estate poster in town, so we'll probably be making the move to the Orvieto area at some point soon. 

Arriving in Orvieto: the view

Some dried fruit at a street-side stand

On our way to the Duomo

The Duomo di Orvieto

Some old cameras at the flea market + the striped exterior of the Cathedral

A fresco inside

Where I'll be living soon

More of the Umbrian countryside

A few snapshots from Sperlonga...(enlarge all the pictures by clicking on them!)

  Kate on the train

A view of the Roman countryside out the train window

Sperlonga

The Mediterranean + Kate + 1/4 Jacob

9.5.10

A fountain at the Villa D'Este

It's getting laaate here and I have class in the morning, but thought I should write something since I haven't updated recently! We just got home from our weekly group dinner.  This week it was at a place called Pontesisto, where Meryl Streep loves to eat according to a framed article on the wall.  It was definitely better than our first "Family Dinner."  They served us a really good pasta carbonara and tiramisu.  This past Thursday we got to go on a day trip to the Villa D'Este and Hadrian's Villa in Tivoli, with the Pantheon Institute program director, aptly named Romolo, as our guide.  It was definitely an informative trip (maybe a bit too informative due to Romolo's general chattiness).  By the time we got back on the bus, we were all ready for a break from the 90-degree weather and lack of shade.  The Villa D'Este is especially spectacular though.  We were told to bring lunches with us, but Jacob, Kate and I got so hungry halfway through our exploration of the Villa's gardens that we found what we thought was a secluded place to sit on the ground and devoured our rolls, pesto and fruit, whereupon a large group of Japanese tourists rounded the corner and stared at us quizzically.

Yesterday most of the group decided to figure out the train schedule and go to a beach called Sperlonga about an hour outside of Rome.  We had perfect weather and it was easy to figure out the transportation from Termini station (only 6 euro each way on the train).  We got our first taste of the Mediterranean and a chance to relax on the beach.  I haven't uploaded those pictures yet, but will post some soon!  Goodnight!

Kate and I

A miniature orange tree at the Villa D'Este

We have the same roses in my garden at home!

A larger fountain at the Villa D'Este

William eating a peach at Hadrian's Villa

Food! Food!

Unsurprisingly, finding good, fresh, local food is not a problem in Rome.  We do basic shopping at the grocery stores, but have been trying to buy fresh breads, cheeses, and produce at specialty shops or open air markets.  Supposedly some of the best coffee in the world (I believe it after today) is right around the corner from our classrooms at Caffè Tazza D'Oro, although there is another rival caffè that I have yet to try.  After picking up our first photography reading assignment at school, we stopped by Tazza D'Oro, ordered caffèlatte freddi, and stood at the bar while we drank them.  We've learned that no one orders an espresso or cappuccino after 11am, after which point it is acceptable to order a caffèlatte or macchiato.  I was just reading on the roof, and decided to try one of the peaches (pictured above) that I bought at the Trastevere open air market yesterday after class.  Kate and I put all our fruit on the windowsill to ripen, and now it's perfect...possibly the best piece of fruit I've ever tasted.  NorthEastern kids move into our hall tomorrow, upping the number from 5 to 18 students sharing 3 bathrooms and a tiny kitchen. 

  

Last night's spaghetti sauce ingredients!

William's Birthday!

William's BIRTHDAY was yesterday! Here is William on the roof, our new favorite location. We tried to play Hearts, but William didn't understand the point of it. Today I explored the Northern part of the city with Jacob, Kate, and Brooke (Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain etc), got really good pizza right by the building where our classes will be held, and made friends with the man working at a gelateria en route to the Pantheon.  First seminar tomorrow at 10am!

Update! Orientation, Leaking Toilets, Heat.

Here are a few pictures of my room (in Trastevere, on the west bank of the Tiber), a chair in an alleyway near our residence, and a view of the river outside William and Jacob's window.  Today was very busy, and involved a lot of orienting.  We met up with Prof Clarvoe at 8:30 this morning after getting a little rest and walked to one of the Pantheon Institute's buildings, where all of the other American students from Penn State and Tulane were waiting.  There were pastries and espresso (I choked down an entire large cup, mistaking it for coffee).  The program director, Romolo, spoke to us for a while, and we met a few PI architecture professors, but a lot of the information was specific to the architecture/landscape architecture programs.  We took a break to go see the Pantheon, and then went back to pick up our Italian cell phones (my new number is: +011 39 06 335 714 6930...I think that's how the country code/city code work).  We bought some lunch ingredients at a market near the Pantheon, and made sandwiches with cheese, prosciutto, and fresh pesto.  The few of us who have some Italian language background had to return to the other Institute building to take a quick placement exam.  It's about 90˚ out, and I'm still a bit thrown off by the jetlag, so we're all back cooling off in Trastevere right now.  We're getting our first food stipend today and we're on our own for dinner!  Hopefully we'll be starting to do more exciting things for me to tell you about!  I found a fan in one of the other rooms and stole it to plug in next to my bed which is really great. And there seem to be leaks and various other malfunctions everywhere in this building, which is pretty old itself and is attached to a church built in 1059.  Our toilet leaks when we flush it, the sinks run water when they feel like it, and the floor around the night entrance was partially flooded just now when I walked through.