Sleep went as well as could be expected. Went to bed around 11, woke up at around 7. It’s a little warmer than I’m used to, but I’d say that jet-lag should be taken care of completely after another night.
David, Daniel, and I ventured out to the nearest grocery store, Desparo, this morning. We purchased milk and cereal for breakfast. The cereals there are much like Italian cars – familiar shapes and styles, but different names. Milk appears to only come in two types – whole or half-skim. A far cry from the nonfat I drink at home, but thus very tasty.
We had a walking tour of the Campo de’ Fiori today, directed by Prof. Lisa Schultz. There is a daily market of tents that sets up in the Campo with fresh fruits, vegetables, and seafood, in addition to handbags, dried goods, and flowers. The market is very colorful, though apparently this particular one is rather tourist-oriented (read: it has inflated prices).
In any case, there are many local butcher shops, bakeries, cafés, and restaurants. All are charmingly situated directly adjacent to one another, and there is a constant bustle of people. I will certainly be visiting the Forno (bakery) often for fresh bread and sandwiches. I had a spinach and mozzarella sandwich today for €2,90, which was delicious. It’s going to be very difficult to go back to store-purchased mozzarella after tasting this. Roman purchased some prosciutto (cured meat) from one of the local butcher shops, along with some bread and fresh mozzarella, to make his own sandwich for lunch. Everything is quite fresh and delicious.
I worked a bit on my art history project about Galileo, mainly still doing groundwork and planning. I hope to get into it tomorrow, and have it fairly complete several days before my presentation date (which is in a few weeks, I think).
Many of us gathered together today at 4:00P to watch the world cup match between the US and Slovenia. The café, called “Magnolia” is a popular, modern establishment. They have a number of HDTVs showing the game to all of their patrons. Unfortunately, however, we were only able to watch the two Slovenia goals before power was lost. I’ve heard that electricity in Italy is less reliable than in the states, but it was peculiar that only Magnolia seemed to remain out of power.
Dinner today was at a restaurant across the Tiber (I didn’t catch the name, unfortunately). Tonight I ordered gnocchi al pomodoro (potato dumplings with tomato sauce). Gnocchi is one of my favorite foods, and I was eager to try the “real thing”. Indeed, the dish was very good. Simple and unassuming (which describes a number of components of my diet, actually), gnocchi have good flavor without too much guilt. An interesting point – the gnocchi I had seemed to be cut into cube-ish chunks rather than formed into the ellipsoidal, football shape I’m familiar with. I’ll have to try it at some other restaurants to compare.
After dinner we went to explore the night market along the Tiber. There is a long row of tents along the river which house various eateries, carnival games, and advertisers. The river is strikingly lit at night by the market. Past that, I went to visit the girls’ apartment (which is very nice, but quirky because the entrance is often obscured by dining tables of the adjacent restaurant) before returning to our apartment for the night.
And with that, good night. More pictures/video coming soon.
No comments:
Post a Comment