Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Sunday Night Lights

Word of the Post: Calcio (Soccer or Football)

Crowds. Vendors. Lights. Security. Players. Cheers. This was Sunday night football (European soccer).

On Sunday I experienced my first European soccer match. Roma was playing InterMilan. No sporting even that I have ever been to in the states compares to the game that I attended on Sunday.

When I walked into the stadium, chills went through me as I saw hundreds to thousands of fans gathering for the interleague match. Security checked my bag and asked if I had water on me. I responded no and wondered of all things why they would ask me if I had water on me. I wondered even more later why they asked me if I had water on me, when I took note of the opposing fans setting fires in their session. I couldn't bring water into the stadium, but fans could lights smoke bombs and fires. It is a totally different world over here.

We took our seats and I looked around. Unlike a baseball stadium fans were already standing and yelling back and forth at one another. The opposing team's fans were being guarded by security so that the Romans wouldn't jump them. The fans were intense, the energy level was ridiculously high, and the seats were a sea of maroon, yellow, and white. Everyone was ready for this game.

Everyone except the Roman players. Roma ended up losing the game 4-0, a huge disappointment even though they were playing one of the best teams.

The thing that I really enjoyed about the game was that it was all about the game, and not sideshows. When you go to sporting events in the states, at least professional events and even some college events, people are focused on catching the shirts that the mascots are shooting into the crowd, or the fan who gets to attempt a half-court shot at half-time. Not here. Here it is simply the game and that is it. No one cares about anything else, because nothing else is going on. Fans are there for the pure enjoyment of watching the game--something that I def. think has been lost in American competitions.

One other thing that I found awesome and hilarious was that near the end of the game there was an announcement that the visiting guests had to remain in their seats until security escorted them out for their safety--maybe they should start doing that with Boston fans at Yankees stadium.

After my first Roma game experience, I will def be rocking my Roma jersey and Roma scarf to a few games in hopes to catch a win, and if not a win--at least a laugh at crazy Roman fans.

"600,000 Kaboodle Please" A Weekend in Praha


Word of the Post: Preferita (Prefer)

Three months ago I had a list of several places I hoped to see while I was in Europe. I tried to narrow my list down to three, and when I got down to three I thought I was set. The list included Barcelona, Greece, and Switzerland. I have not been to any of those yet, but if I had to rewrite that list knowing what I know now, Prague would be at the top.

A week and a half ago six of us booked Prague on a lucky deal we found--and I wouldn't go back on the decision we made to come.

The people, the food, the architecture, the sites, and the travel couldn't have been anymore perfect. Not only were there several Starbucks (though I didn't give in to an American coffee), but there was also a castle, a concentration camp, an awesome hostel to stay in, and bohemian toast. I just wish I had more than one full day there.

I was surprised that I enjoyed Prague so much, because it hadn't even been a thought in my mind before coming here, but after our first dinner on Friday night I was convinced the trip was set for "amazingness."

Days before the trip I looked up information on the food in Prague. All the reviews I read were terrible, and I declared that I wouldn't be eating for an entire weekend. All the reviews were proved wrong after we sat down for a Czech dinner and received beef, dumplings, potato pancakes, and Bohemian toast. The following night was not disappointing either as I got pork, dumplings, sour kraut, and Bohemian toast--aka greatness.

Prague and Rome have several things in common: each have many bridges, each have a river running through the middle, an old city and a new city, great architecture, great food, and cobblestone. But on another scale they are completely different. Prague is much more modernized as bright lights fill streets, cars aren't all a different type of mini coop or fit, and night clubs can be found on roofs. The only thing that was different that really confused me was the money exchange there. Instead of using Euro in Prague, they use SK. Instead of paying for everything in increments of 1's or 10's, you pay for everything in increments of 100's. A dinner is about 250 SK, but that equals about 11 euro. I was at one point holding a 2000 dollar bill!

My favorite part of the trip was the river boat ride we went on Saturday night. I have now been on more boats in two weeks than I think I ever have been on in my entire life. But this boat ride was different. On this ride, we learned about the history of Prague, it's architecture, the bridges, buildings, and the food. We also saw a restaurant tha was being held up by a tree.

The trip came to an end with an awesome breakfast at a Bohemian restaurant just a few hours before our plane took off for Italy.

I try not to buy too many souveniors on trips--actually I normally don't buy any. But I enjoyed this trip so much that I had to buy a shirt. I now own a shirt that says "Czech Me Out." It was definently a necessity to my collection of T's.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Chef Libs


Word of the Post: Cucinare (To Cook)

My friends, my housemates from school, my apartmentmates in Rome, my brother, and my parents can all attest that I am no cook. When I came home from home ec class in 6th grade, I told my family all about the mini pizzas we had made that day. I was so excited that I told them I was going to make the mini pizzas for them. It ended up being a tragedy. I burned the mini pizzas. I never really tried to cook again after that. I can do soup on the stove and in the microwave. I can make macaroni and cheese. I can throw Ellios into the toaster oven. And I can make a grilled cheese sandwich.

At school, my housmates would cook the dinner and I would do the dishes, except for the nights when we just wanted soup and sandwiches. Then I had it covered.

So when I got to Rome one of my goals was to learn to cook. None-the-less the first week I found myself doing dishes and my roommates cooking dinner all over again.

That was until last night when Nino and I went to the grocery store and picked up pasta, onions, garlic, bread, parsley, pie, gelato, canned tomatos, cheese, basil, and several other items. Last night, Nino and I cooked a feast.

We made meatballs by rolling meat into egg, cheese, parsley, salt, and pepper.

We then made sauce by using the canned tomatos, onions, garlic, basil, salt, and pepper.

We also topped the baguette of bread with oil and parm cheese so that we could have a break from the usual garlic bread that people make with their dinners.

We mixed up a salad with oil and vinegar.

We put together an appetizer tray of artichoke, mozzerella, prosciutto, and bread.

And then we boiled water for 20 minutes before cooking pasta for the final piece to our meal.

We cooked a feast for four of us, and no one was dissappointed, just full.

For dessert we had blueberry pie with nocciola gelato.

I joked that I slaved all day trying to bake the blueberry pie, and I got a chorus of laughs--maybe next time Libs. I told Nino that it was hard to be Italian. They need hours to start dinner! We began making dinner at 5 and we didn't eat until 8! Patience is a virtue I had to remind myself.

So, now I am basically the next Rachel Ray.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Breakfast With the Pope

Word of the Post: Colazione (Breakfast)

Every year my brother and I go to Christmas mass with my family and my grandparents. Every year we sit there and observe everything that goes on. There is always the bass singer standing right behind us who is singing louder yet deeper than everyone else on Silent Night, and there is always the Priest that has a hard accent so it is hard to understand the Hail Mary.

There is always the choir of singers up in the left hand corner of the alter with young children who haven't had voice lessons yet, and there are always the people you haven't seen since the last Christmas mass. The observations are always relatively similar.

For the first time in several years my observations at a mass were completely different.

On Sunday morning, I woke up for breakfast with the Pope--and 50,000 others. When you live four blocks from the Vatican, it's easy to have to share your neighbor (the Pope) with many other people. So it wasn't really breakfast--it was really a canonization of four saints. I have never been in one spot where there were so many people from so many different cultures. There were Italians of course, but there were also people from France, London, India, Germany, and hundreds of other places.

The booklet for mass was almost 60 pages long. And it was filled with languages ranging from Latin, to Indian, to English, and of course to Italian.

Our group of people sat down about one fourth of a mile from the Pope. Just like at concerts, I had a huge problem seeing so I watched most of it up on the big screen hanging down in front of the Vatican. I tried to follow the booklet, but all I could do was tell where we were in Mass, until we got to the English part--then I understood every word.

Like Christmas mass, I had the louder than the normal singer standing behind me, each Priest had hard accents, and there were choirs of people--only this time they sounded astonishing compared to the glee club chorus at Christmas mass.

My friend went to say something to me, and I didn't even realize it. I was too busy being astounded by everything that was surrounding me. Mass was coming to an end and soon enough the peace offerings were coming. I realized that I would probably shake hands with people from 7 different countries, and I wouldn't know what to say to them except the good old English way of putting it, "Peace be with you."

Following our peace givings, we watched several Priests come out into the square. That is when we hopped into line to receive Communion. 50,000 people standing in Saint Peter's Square, and over half were looking to receive Communion. That's a lot of Jesus's body to be given!

We received our Communion and there was such a crowd that it was too difficult to head back to our seats. Three of us headed out and were just in disbelief of what had just occurred. We went to mass with the Pope, and received Communion in Saint Peter's Square--that is something to tell the grandkids one day.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Four white lines, two goalcages, hundreds of whistles...Feels like home

Word of the Post: Parlo italiano un po. (I speak only a little Italian)

The white lines. The goalcages. The whistles. The feel of sweat dripping down my face. The shadows formed by the lights cast over the field. It felt like home to me.

When I stop onto a field hockey field, I am immediately content with every single part of my life. When the lights are on for night practice or night matches, I begin to bubble. When the pitch is soft and quick, a smile remains on my face. And when the lines are perfect, I get even a little bit more tingly inside.

The last time I walked onto a hockey field to play was in August at Drexel. The last time I walked onto a hockey field at all was to coach my high school team three days before I left for Rome. It was a long enough period of time away from the good ole pitch to miss it.

Last night, I was home again. Nerves flowed through me, and my heart was literally racing. As I hopped on the metro for my first practice, I began to think to myself, "What if these girls don't like me?" "What if they kick my butt?" "What if I can't understand them?" "What if I am not in good enough shape?" "What if I am not welcome?" As all these questions entered my mind, I began to think about heading back to my apartment. It had been such an easy twenty minute metro ride there, and it could be just as easy of a twenty minute metro ride home. But instead, I stayed and waited for my ride to the field to pick me up. I had waited for this day every since I received an email telling me there would be a team for me to play on, back in July.

When the two girls who were picking me up arrived, the one immediately began talking to me in Italian. Very quickly, I said, "No lo so, Io parlo italiano un po. Parlo Inglese." And then the girl giggled as we got in the car. She said to me, "Io parlo Inglese un po." We attempted to have a conversation on the way to the field, but it didn't work so well. It was still fun to try. We arrived at the field and the team had to first watch a short presentation. It reminded me of the presentations that we had back in high school on our senior nights. They had a slide show and several people make speeches.

We then headed outside.

When I stepped onto the field, I flashed back to all the times I have stepped onto a field hockey field. The feeling that cast upon me, was similar to the one that a child would feel after seeing his or her parents for the first time in months. I took in all my surroundings. This field felt like a masterpiece in comparison to the URI field hockey field.

The lights were bright, the pitch was smooth, and the lines were perfect. I was home.

I snapped out of my astonishment and began to put on my shinnies and turfs. No one really talked to me or took notice that I was there at first, but right before the warm up run, I introduced myself to everyone. I said, "Ciao, mi chiamo Libby, sono American." Then everyone gave me their name, but I can at this point only rememeber two! I feel bad but I was so overwhelemed that I couldn't think straight.

I learned that our coach is from Argentina, most of the girls are Italian, one is from Holland, and another is from Spain. Some were 25 and some were younger than me. It was a very mixed team.

Some of the girls knew a little English, many did not, so that was difficult.

We took our warm-up run, stretched, and we did agilities. When we finished that and were standing around one of the girls came up to me. In Italian she asked me how many years have you been playing hockey for? I told her 7-8 years. Her next question was "Are you good?"

I laughed. I didn't know what to say, because I didn't know how I would compare to them. I didn't know if they were all really good or not. I went with the safe answer and said "cosi cosi" which in English means "so-so". They laughed and said okay.

We then immediately went into a drill. The coach explained the drill, but it was all in Italian so I did not understand a word. I just tried to follow what the players were doing.

After twenty minutes of splitting into two groups for drills, we were put into two teams for a 6 v 6 scrimmage. This was my chance to really go hard and see how I compared.

We began to play and it felt great until I realized that the words "back, flat, through, go, right, left, and center," don't work in Italian. I kept having to say "come si dice back" "come si dice right" "come si dice left?" But still, I played well and I had so much fun--now I am just really sore.

It was also fun to watch some of the other girls play. Some of them are very very fast, and some of them hit very very hard. It was a great first experience with an Italian field hockey team.

Most of all it just felt amazing to be back on that field.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Food of the World

Word of the Post: Cibo (Food)

When I made the decision to go to Rome at the beginning of the summer, I thought about all the monuments I would see, all the cities I would get to travel to, and all the people I would meet. It wasn’t until a month after my decision that I realized I was going to be in the country that produces my favorite type of food. So this summer I saved plenty of room in my body so that I could taste test several hundred types of food while I traveled through the pasta capitol of the world.

Before coming to Italy there are several things I never had any interest in. I’ve never liked mushrooms, and I have never liked eggplant. Since coming here, I am a changed person. Mushrooms are now almost on everything or in everything that I eat, and eggplant is one of my new favorite dishes.

I have decided to go ahead and make a top 10 list of the foods thus far:

10. Lemon chicken with Pasta
9. Drinks: Cappucino and White Wine (all kinds)
8. Octopus Salad- Naples
7. Risotto- Lance made the best mushroom risotto for dinner last week.
6. Nocciola- Hazlenut Gelato- From the Gelateria by the Pantheon. Absolutely delicious.
5. Napoli Pizza with zucchini and mushroom- Naples
4. Zucchini Ravioli- Naples
3. Rabbit- France
2. Eggplant Parm – Florence
1. Lasagna – Florence


Now some of these sounds like great things that you could get in the States, but I just think everything tastes better here. If I had made a top 11 list, fruit would be right there too. And if I had made a top 12 list, the cereal here would be right there. I believe I told Courtney that she had to come to Rome because she loves cereal and the Special K, Rice Krispies, and Fruit Fitness here are phenomenal in comparison to the cereals back at home, and I have no idea why.

Things I haven’t liked
1. A panino on white bread
2. Fake gelato
3. Cup of Coffee in Pompeii

Things you should know about real Italian food:
1. They don’t have fettuccini alfredo
2. They have spaghetti, and they have meatballs, but they don’t make them together. It is two separate meals.

Next on the list of things to try is Tripe, but we will see if I can stomach that one.

Monday, October 6, 2008

Eruption

Word of the Post: Chicco di grandline (Hail stone)

Have you ever looked into the mouth of a killer? I have.
Thousands of years ago Mt. Vesuvius erupted and whole cities were destroyed. On October 4, 2008 the sky above Mt. Vesuvius erupted and our entire AIFS group was pelted by hail stones.
When the trip to Naples was planned for us, we were told we would hike Mt. Vesuvius. I did not hike Mt. Vesuvius, I ran Mt. Vesuvius. The day started overcast, and then turned to blue skies before we arrived at the ancient volcano. While our bus climbed the road leading to the volcano, we took in all our surroundings. In front of us, we saw the path the lava took when the volcano erupted thousands of years ago. Crumbled rock scarred with burns lay on a straight line down the side of the original volcano. I could imagine seeing the boiling red hot lava coming down and the feelings that people must have felt as they saw an entire mountain coming down before them. Even though I was looking at miles of ash and silt, I knew that the people of the town of Pompeii had not died from the lava, but that the people had suffocated from the smoke and ash. Other cities weren’t destroyed because of the wind pattern the day of the explosion. The wind pattern traveled in the direction of Pompeii, which is why smoke and ash were cast upon the city.
Eventually, our bus reached the beginning of the hiking path, and soon we were walking through what felt like ash and broiled rock. At points it became easier to do a slow jog up the side of the volcano. I was bundled up in a hooded sweatshirt and my high school rain jacket as the wind blew and the temperature began to drop by the second. I felt as though I was climbing to the top of Mountain in Canada for a skiing trip. We reached three quarters of the way of our twenty minute hike (we had driven an hour up the mountain before our hike), and we saw the inside of the volcano. I was looking inside the mouth of a killer.
I was looking inside the mouth of boiling hot, molten lava that on any given day could choose to erupt. As I stared down into the deep cave, smoke began to bubble up from below, clouds started to cover our faces, and the air we breathed came out like the smoke from the caterpillars pipe in Alice in Wonderland. It was what a New Yorker would call a winter white out. Rain began to hit my jacket and my hands numbed to a red. Umbrellas were up and a bunch of us focused on making it to the top. As we reached the top, I saw what looked like a snowflake hit the ground. I thought to myself, “Hail?” Then BOOM—we were being pummeled by marbled sized hail stones as the top of Mount Vesuvius. Ten of us ducked for cover under the roof of the café at the top of the mountain that was closing. We huddled nervous that it wouldn’t stop. A car arrived and a man opened the window to tell us that we had to go down and that we couldn’t stay there. We waited twenty seconds for a slow spot in the hail and then our adventure down the volcano began. I felt hail hit my jacket and I took off-the wind hit my face like a drop on a rollercoaster. I now was experiencing a true wind-sprint—my field hockey coaches through the years would be proud. My momentum carried me down the hill as I dodged rocks and as the hail storm grew stronger. I then saw the group that had left before us huddled in the café located halfway up the volcano. I ran in there, and the rest of our group followed. We caught our breath and the hail stopped, and the rain slowed, and we left. While we had been told to leave the top of the mountain, the other group had been told to remain in that café—How funny.
The second half of the mountain is a blur as we jogged the remainder to find heat at the meeting point. Our directors pointed us in the direction of a fireplace, and made sure were all okay. One of our students had worn only shorts a t-shirt. He had pellet marks all over his body.
Twenty minutes after warming up at the meeting point we headed onto the bus. As we looked back at the volcano and the weather that had erupted over us, we took in an observation. The clouds were parting like the seven seas, and not before long the sky above was clear of all clouds and the bluest of all blues. It just wasn’t in our marbles to enjoy the mountain that day.
But despite the hail, cold, and numbing rain it was an experience worth having. How many people can say that they survived a volcano in a hail storm?
I looked into the mount of a killer, and I lived to tell the experience.

When it Rains it Hails- Pompeii, Naples, and Capri

Word of the Post: In alto, in basso (Up Top, Down Low)

Gushing waters, dark gray skies, rapid waves—just another weekend vacation away from Florence and Rome. This weekend we traveled to Pompeii, Naples, and Capri. Just like Venice, our group was welcomed with thunder, lightning, and a whole lot of rain (even hail, but that’s the next post).

Things I learned from this trip:

  1. We can’t leave Rome or Florence without it pouring on us.
  2. Pompeii was destroyed by smoke and ash from a volcano, but the roofs of the houses were destroyed by an earthquake that occurred earlier.
  3. There are homeless dogs all over the ruins of Pompeii.
  4. When your group is going to be visiting a very sketchy city (Naples), your program will book a four star hotel on a cliff overlooking the water, outside of the city to make up for it.
  5. Lots of people like to run in the city outside of Naples.
  6. This is an unusually cold October for the southern part of Italy.
  7. Romans used to put marble skeleton heads on the dinner table by their plate as a reminder that death could come at any moment and you must live life as if every day was your last (Romans were way ahead of the game with that one).
  8. Naples has the best pizza in the world.
  9. The weather likes to change every 10 minutes in Naples.
  10. Capri’s beaches have many jelly fish.
  11. Capri is very, very, very expensive.
  12. When jumping off of a boat, make sure you are careful because the boat is very wet. Instead of jumping, you will slip and then proceed to do a “face flop” into the water causing your nose to bleed from the impact. (Least fun thing ever).
  13. Boat rides on hydrofoils aren’t for the Libs. Remember Dramamine.
  14. It does hail in Italy (see newer post titled Eruption).
  15. Always carry an umbrella.