Randi v. Ravioli: Italy: I obviously came for the food.

Ciao! I've been in Italy for almost a week now and I'm starting to get acclimated. I've learned a little bit of Italian, like how to buy bus tickets, and so far I've managed not to make a total fool of myself (as far as I know). It's hard to get by here without speaking Italian, since most people over the age of 25 don't speak English. Hopefully I'll get a little bit better with time.

I've been eating a lot. One of my first meals in Italy was, strangely enough, Chinese food. It was good and comforting since it reminded me of generic Chinese food at home. I had asparagus and "crab" soup and some sort of chicken with bamboo shoots which I ate too quickly to take a picture of.

That night dinner was prosciutto and bread. Yep, that's it! The prosciutto was so cheap compared to the US - something like 3 euro. At home this prosciutto would be like $10!

I tried my first Italian pizza on the first day of orientation. It was yummy but not memorable. Still, I love that Italians put eggplant on pizza. I think I need to start cooking with eggplant because it's ridiculously abundant here. I also cooked myself a little pasta dinner with pancetta, mushrooms, and zucchini. Yummm.

I went to coffee and lunch with my Hastings buddies. My first try of Italian coffee was a learning experience in two ways. First, coffee with milk is called a caffe macchiato here, and comes in a tiny little cup. Second, Italian public restrooms are often just a hole in the floor, and you probably won't have anywhere to hang up your purse.

For lunch we went to a nice restaurant around the corner from our school. Jenn and Joan had pizzas, I had gnocchi, and Pam had tagliatelle. I didn't taste anyone else's food, but my gnocchi was delicious and so filling! I didn't even want dinner that night because I was so stuffed. Oh, and of course Joan and I had to sample the house wine.

That afternoon I went with some people from school to see the migration museum in Torino. It was the first time I had strolled through the city center, and it's so beautiful! We walked through a lot of covered walkways that looked like this.

Learning about the history of immigration in Torino was really interesting. As a Californian I take diversity for granted, but people have only been immigrating into Torino for 30 years! Unfortunately, there was a lot of racism during the 1980s, and non-Italian people were seen as "outsiders." Apparently the view of immigrants has gotten better in recent years, and now 1/7 residents of Torino are from outside of Italy.

I also tasted some delicious gelato from Grom, which is a chain - there's one located right across the street from our school! Uh oh. I got salted caramel and hazelnut con panna (whipped cream). OK, it was a little bit indulgent - but it was my first gelato in Italy so I had to just go for it. And yeah, it was worth it.

Yesterday our school threw a barbecue for all of its students (there are only about 30 of us total). We had chicken, sausages, lamb, salad, bread, and of course wine. Although the menu was a little different from your traditional American BBQ, I noticed that some things are universal... for example, men will always stand around staring at the grill.