Dear Reader(s),
So I have officially finished my English lessons with Sara, Martina and Sofia, and after my last lesson with Sofia (my little favourite) I was invited to a meal with her and her family. I went home after our last lesson and put on my dress ready for collection by Patrizia at 20.15.
When we got to the house, we sat in the sitting room for a bit, chatting about different things, Serena, Sofia's older sister who is my age, asked where my perfume was from even (Jo Malone). I really like Sofia's family, Patrizia is the madre, Claudio is the padre, Serena is the oldest and Sofia is the baby. I got along really well with Serena and we're facebook friends now. We talked a lot about when I will return to Modena, and that I can stay at theirs because Serena has a big bed. Patrizia is also desperate to see Jersey and to use me as the guide, something that I would definitely love to do.
So, the food! It was AMAZING. We had a pasta course to start (of course we did, this is Italy) which was tortelloni, which is the big version of tortellini, in other words pasta parcels, we had either spinach and ricotta or pumpkin. Both were beautiful, but the pumpkin was just to die for. Next course was the meat course, we had zampone di maiale con paté di patate, in other words pig's trotter with mash potatoes. This is so traditional of Modena, you just can't get a more Modenese dish. It's also a huge treat, and when it was served Claudio said 'this really is a special meal, we only get this once a year!' so I felt very honored. I ate every scrap of the huge portion I was given as it was simply delicious.
Next course was fruit, I had the traditional Modena option (obviously) but I can't remember what it was called. It's orange in colour, and soft like a plum. You cut it in 4 and use a teaspoon to eat the extremely soft sweet flesh. I loved it.
Next was coffee, I felt so mature having an espresso.
After the meal we went through, Patrizia and Claudio went to the sitting room but the girls and I played with Pepe the little dog for a while (while their new Spaniel puppy, Boss, was in his box and desperate to join in) after that we went through as well and played on the karaoke until 1am! It was so so so much fun, accompanied by whiskey (which I didn't have) and Ferrero Rocher (which I most certainly did have)
The evening was simply wonderful, I loved every second, and I will most definitely be seeing that family again in my future.
A presto...
Saturday 17 December 2011
Sunday 11 December 2011
There is no world without Verona walls...
Dear Reader(s),
Another weekend of Shakespeare, but in a different way; we went to Verona this Saturday. Christina, myself, Dani, Issa, Karim and Vitor. An early start saw us at the train station for our 08.14 train, which was... cancelled. There was a replacement bus, as in, one bus, to replace an entire train, so funnily enough we didn't get on due to lack of seats. We got a later train to Bologna, and then went on from there to Verona which wasn't too bad, but they charged us an extra 6€75 - we should be getting refunds surely! Verona itself is beautiful, officially one of my favourite trips. We did the lot (obviously) colosseum, Christmas Star, mercato, Christmas mercato, the four churches, the river and of course the Casa di Giulietta. At the Casa di Giulietta you can see the balcony, and the gift shop is nice but kind of naff, and there's a statue of Juliet, and the thing to do is put your hand on her boob, no idea why, but I did it obviously. The riverside walk was really lovely, the light was starting to go and the bridges got lit up which was very picturesque. When we walked back through the city to go to the station all of the Christmas lights were on, and they were just stunning. The walls of Verona were simply outlined by white lights, which was beautiful, there were trees giant Christmas trees all of which were lit beautifully.
On returning to the train station there were further mishaps. Our train was cancelled again (!) and the same solution was put in place, a replacement bus, just the one, which again filled up leaving us without a way home. We had to wait a further 2 hours to get the next train, so Dani and Isa (the two spaniards) used the time to complain, cause a fuss, and fill in complaints forms. I was pretty unimpressed by their attitudes and need to cause a fuss, because despite the annoyance of the terrible Italian train system, there was just no need to be so rude to people who were just trying to do their jobs, and then to fill out a complaint form which was probably going to be thrown straight in the bin!
We made it home by 23.00 and our bikes were still where we'd left them (Christina and I had convinced ourselves that they would've been stolen).
We slept very well that night!
That will probably be my last visit in Italy before I go home, I leave here on 19th December, and have already made sure that my mum is cooking my a big fat roast chicken with roast potatoes and lovely thick gravy (something I miss dearly).
A presto...
Another weekend of Shakespeare, but in a different way; we went to Verona this Saturday. Christina, myself, Dani, Issa, Karim and Vitor. An early start saw us at the train station for our 08.14 train, which was... cancelled. There was a replacement bus, as in, one bus, to replace an entire train, so funnily enough we didn't get on due to lack of seats. We got a later train to Bologna, and then went on from there to Verona which wasn't too bad, but they charged us an extra 6€75 - we should be getting refunds surely! Verona itself is beautiful, officially one of my favourite trips. We did the lot (obviously) colosseum, Christmas Star, mercato, Christmas mercato, the four churches, the river and of course the Casa di Giulietta. At the Casa di Giulietta you can see the balcony, and the gift shop is nice but kind of naff, and there's a statue of Juliet, and the thing to do is put your hand on her boob, no idea why, but I did it obviously. The riverside walk was really lovely, the light was starting to go and the bridges got lit up which was very picturesque. When we walked back through the city to go to the station all of the Christmas lights were on, and they were just stunning. The walls of Verona were simply outlined by white lights, which was beautiful, there were trees giant Christmas trees all of which were lit beautifully.
On returning to the train station there were further mishaps. Our train was cancelled again (!) and the same solution was put in place, a replacement bus, just the one, which again filled up leaving us without a way home. We had to wait a further 2 hours to get the next train, so Dani and Isa (the two spaniards) used the time to complain, cause a fuss, and fill in complaints forms. I was pretty unimpressed by their attitudes and need to cause a fuss, because despite the annoyance of the terrible Italian train system, there was just no need to be so rude to people who were just trying to do their jobs, and then to fill out a complaint form which was probably going to be thrown straight in the bin!
We made it home by 23.00 and our bikes were still where we'd left them (Christina and I had convinced ourselves that they would've been stolen).
We slept very well that night!
That will probably be my last visit in Italy before I go home, I leave here on 19th December, and have already made sure that my mum is cooking my a big fat roast chicken with roast potatoes and lovely thick gravy (something I miss dearly).
A presto...
Sunday 4 December 2011
Exit, pursued by a bear
Dear Reader(s),
During the week, while I was working on my YAWT in piano uno, an Italian boy called Marco came up to me and asked if I was English ('damn' I thought 'I haven't perfected the Euro-chic look') and then asked if I would like to help out a friend of his whilst improving my Italian. He said that he had a friend called Ruggero who was looking for a tandem partner; for those of you that don't know, a tandem partner is a person who you meet up with regularly and half of the meetings are in your language, for the other person's benefit, and the other half are vice-versa. I took Ruggero's number and said of course.
This weekend was an interesting one, on Saturday (after a bit of YAWT, which is going really well) Christina and I went for a coffee catch-up with the only other English (well, Scottish) girl here in Modena, Kelly. However, I tried to kill two birds with one stone by inviting my new tandem partner along. This was a mistake. Ruggero insisted that we speak slowly and loudly so that he could be included, which of course meant that we could not catch up at all. In the end I spoke to Ruggero (slowly and loudly) while Kelly and Christina spoke quickly and quietly to each other. I started to feel like I was in a Monty Python or Father Ted scene when it turned out that Ruggero's English was appalling and, to top it all off, he only had one good ear. We made it through the coffee catch up and got back to the residenza in one piece, however I'm going to have to do at least one more tandem partner meeting before I go home, just to be polite.
Sunday was a much better day! After a lie-in and a lot of reading of 'How to Write Essays and Assignments' I went to the theatre with Christina. The worst seats in the house and a student discount got us some not-too-bad-seats-really for 12€ to see Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale, but wait, it gets better, it was in ITALIAN! After 2 and a half hours our brains were somewhat hurting from the level of concentration we'd needed (a level most recently matched during 2nd year exams) and we were in desperate need of some Tetly. We cycled home through the fog (as per) and had a Tetly tea, a White Twix each and a chat. What a lovely Sunday! We feel enriched and cultural and clever.
A presto...
During the week, while I was working on my YAWT in piano uno, an Italian boy called Marco came up to me and asked if I was English ('damn' I thought 'I haven't perfected the Euro-chic look') and then asked if I would like to help out a friend of his whilst improving my Italian. He said that he had a friend called Ruggero who was looking for a tandem partner; for those of you that don't know, a tandem partner is a person who you meet up with regularly and half of the meetings are in your language, for the other person's benefit, and the other half are vice-versa. I took Ruggero's number and said of course.
This weekend was an interesting one, on Saturday (after a bit of YAWT, which is going really well) Christina and I went for a coffee catch-up with the only other English (well, Scottish) girl here in Modena, Kelly. However, I tried to kill two birds with one stone by inviting my new tandem partner along. This was a mistake. Ruggero insisted that we speak slowly and loudly so that he could be included, which of course meant that we could not catch up at all. In the end I spoke to Ruggero (slowly and loudly) while Kelly and Christina spoke quickly and quietly to each other. I started to feel like I was in a Monty Python or Father Ted scene when it turned out that Ruggero's English was appalling and, to top it all off, he only had one good ear. We made it through the coffee catch up and got back to the residenza in one piece, however I'm going to have to do at least one more tandem partner meeting before I go home, just to be polite.
Sunday was a much better day! After a lie-in and a lot of reading of 'How to Write Essays and Assignments' I went to the theatre with Christina. The worst seats in the house and a student discount got us some not-too-bad-seats-really for 12€ to see Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale, but wait, it gets better, it was in ITALIAN! After 2 and a half hours our brains were somewhat hurting from the level of concentration we'd needed (a level most recently matched during 2nd year exams) and we were in desperate need of some Tetly. We cycled home through the fog (as per) and had a Tetly tea, a White Twix each and a chat. What a lovely Sunday! We feel enriched and cultural and clever.
A presto...
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