Buon Appetito!

Ciao, mi chiamo Ariel. Di dove sei? Io sono Americana di New Jersey e io studio psycologia a University of Maryland. Io parlo italiano!

For those of you do not, parlare italiano, I just said Ciao (ok fine, it’s hi, but Ciao is way more fun), my name is Ariel! Where are you from? I am an American from New Jersey. I study psychology at the University of Maryland (GO TERPS!). I speak Italian!

So its day 2 of Italian classes and I’m already forming sentences, yay! It’s really fun learning a language again and its bringing back lots of high school memories of the absurd exercises in my French textbook. I literally am doing the same type of homework I did in 7th grade, it’s nice to have easy, busy work homework again, definitely beats 10 page papers. French is definitely helpful because everything sounds similar and I don’t get as confused as the kids who speak Spanish because the spelling isn’t that similar (I’m getting really good at learning languages that will in no way be useful later in life, oh well). My Italian teacher, Mariangela (so fun to say!), is absurd. She just makes funny faces at everyone depending on what they say to her or if they make a mistake (in a completely nice way, don’t worry I don’t have some bitch of a teacher). She’s so funny, I love her, and she speaks English really well which is extremely helpful since some of the other teachers don’t speak English as well and its harder for those kids to get the information they need.

After class me, Miriam, Ali, and a few other girls grabbed some lunch and then me, Miriam, and Ali set in a café and I got the most delicious hot chocolate with homemade whipped cream (ciocolatta con panna!) We just hung out and people watched (which has always been a favorite activity of mine and Italian restaurants and cafes just bring it to a whole new level). After this, I went back to the room and rested (this early class thing is not agreeing with me) before cooking class!

Oh. Mon. Dio. (Oh my Gd). Cooking class was so great. I mean SO great. And by great I really mean beyond delicious. I cannot wait to make these dishes back in CP/Millburn/anywhere I have a kitchen. We made pici (it’s a kind of thick spaghetti) with tomato and basil, gnocchi with a gorgonzola cream sauce, and tiramisu (which I don’t even really like, but it was delicioso). This hardcore Italian woman taught us and we made the pasta by hand (which took a million and a half years, I don’t know how people do that all the time) and she had this amazing woman who translated to English for us. The translator, Jackie, is Welsh (we think) and moved here about 28 years ago to au pair for an American family, married an Italian guy and has been here ever since (living the life!). We watched the cooking teacher mix up the creamy gorgonzola sauce (cream, butter, and cheese…heart attack, yes, but definitely not going to stop me from eating it), the marscapone (always makes me think of Giada de Laurentis from Food Network), and the amazing tomato sauce, which made me even hungrier. We had to wait a while for dinner, but it was SO worth it. Homemade pasta is the way to go, its so fresh and just better than store bought in everyway, minus the convenience. During dinner Miriam and I got to chat with a few other girls from the program, who are so sweet and it was so nice just to relax and get to know each other. After dinner (which didn’t end till about 10) we came back to the hotel to relax, because early class is really tiring (and dumb for that matter, 9 am should simply not exist, although I think my morning grumpiness has been pretty under control). Sidenote: to get to cooking class we had to go down this maze of escalators and it was so weird because all of the sudden there’s this set of escalators in the middle of all these amazing, gorgeous, old buildings. But, on the way, I walked up the stairs for a little, and then gave up because I was way too full, but I tried (you’d be so proud Mommy!) Anyway, it’s time for bed. So excited for new parole italiano demano (new Italian words, and I have no idea if that was correct)


Ciao!