Class is cancelled!?

March 9, 2011

So even though I was up really late last night, I didn’t have class til 10:45 this morning, so I set my alarm for like the latest time possible where I could still ready enough to be presentable. We went to Italian class and Marissa had the great idea to ask Gloria if we could take a class field trip to the central market, because there were different things in the market that we had questions about, and knew it would be easier to ask Gloria in person than try to explain it to her. So, when Gloria walked in the room Marissa presented her idea and asked nicely in Italian, but we didn’t even have to do much convincing. Gloria looked at us and told us that we never go out for class, so she was more than willing to go! We made our way to the market and Gloria described different things around the market and was willing to be dragged to any counter and answer any question we had. We have seen these hunks of meat that look like pre-pared roasts with spices and vegetables already tied inside or outside of the meat, which Gloria said are really good. She told us that this one partially prepared meat was filled on the inside with cheese and bread, and was basically the Italian version of meatloaf…yum!

We made our way to the seafood section of the market because Marissa has been dying to make fish here, and wanted Gloria to tell her what kind of fish to make and how to ask for it/cook it. But once we got to the counter Jesse took over with questions because he really wanted to buy a little mini octopus that was sitting on the ice…gross! Jesse, Gloria, and the guy behind the counter talked and explained to Jesse how to cook it for quite a while before he finally caved in and bought the octopus…he is one crazy he boy…he even cooked horse a couple weeks ago! Marissa was finally able to steal Gloria away and get her questions answered before we headed outside to the fruit and vegetable tent. We did a little browsing around there, and it was getting close to the time class was over, so Gloria took us to a little place nearby that she said sold the best rice in bulk. I had asked her earlier in the day how she buys rice, and she told me that this place was the cheapest and best place to get rice and they had TONS of different types of rice as well as tons of spices, and beans. I didn’t really have any dinner ideas to make with rice at the moment, so I didn’t buy any rice, but I will definitely be going back there sometime in the near future!

From the rice store we were able to venture off on our own, and we just headed back to our apartment since we were closer to the apartment than to school. I really wanted to come back, eat lunch, and focus on my presentation which was in just a few hours! I started looking through my powerpoint, but realized I couldn’t get on the internet and didn’t feel like asking someone to get offline, so I headed to the school which I figured would be a place that would be easier to focus anyways. I got to the school and started reading a lot of articles and background information because I had no clue what the person who I was presenting with had researched, nor did I know if he actually did his end of the deal, so I wanted to have all of the information stored in my head in case of emergency, or in case someone asked me a question to clarify something. I had changed a few things in my powerpoint and was re-saving it onto my flashdrive with about 30 minutes to spare before class when I heard “class is cancelled!” I walked over to the area where I could peak down to the lower levels and screamed “what!?” Here my roommates had arrived at the school to find a sign that said our European Issues teacher was sick and class was cancelled. NOOOO! I was so ready to present now! I was beyond bummed because now I have to wait practically an entire week before I can present and will probably have to re-read everything to re-store the information in my head. I was not a happy camper.

We all walked back home and chilled out for a while before we started to get really hungry and I wanted to make dinner early enough so Danielle and I could go to mass for Ash Wednesday at 7 o’clock. I had an idea for dinner and Danielle and Marissa said they would eat whatever I made, so I went to the kitchen to be Chef Kala and started to cook. Danielle and I couldn’t have meat since it was Ash Wednesday, so I fried up some spinach and boiled some water for these neat little pasta discs that I found at the store. Once the pasta and spinach were done I drained the pasta, put it back into the pan, and dumped all of the spinach into the pasta as well as a little jar of pesto. Once everything was incorporated I yelled to the girls that dinner was ready! We had some rolls to have with dinner and before I could even get my camera to take a picture the girls were ranting and raving at how delicious it was, and how it reminded them of the pesto pasta that we had in Rome. Apparently I should open up my own restaurant because all of my dinner ideas lately are hits!

After dinner we had a little time for school work before we had to head off to church for mass. Danielle had a flyer for an English Ash Wednesday mass at this little church by the Duomo, but the only difficult part would be finding the church. We had to stop in this little shop and ask for help, but we realized we were only two buildings down from where we needed to be. The reason we probably didn’t see the church was because the town ambulances park right in front of it, and there is also this enormous construction zone directly in front of the church and you have to walk around it in order to get into the door. We walked in and discovered this really little, but adorable church that could maybe seat 60 people. Our priest ended up being the priest who held the English masses in the Duomo, so we assumed that this church was used probably only for special occasions. It was really frustrating though because the construction workers were digging and drilling and pounding almost the entire mass, so it was really hard to hear and focus. But the thing I found most interesting was that when we were about to get up to get our ashes, the priest commented that we were probably curious why didn’t see anyone today walking around with ashes on their forehead, which was true! I saw a group of people coming out of a church on my way to school this afternoon and figured that maybe the church just wasn’t Catholic, and that was the reason why they didn’t have ashes. But the priest preceded to tell us that in Italy it is tradition to put the ashes on the crown of a person’s head instead of the forehead. So, as we went up to the altar to receive our ashes we had to bow our head and the priest would sprinkle ashes on the crown of our heads. One funny thing however, was that I was wearing my hair in a bump, so who knows where my ashes ended up! Danielle and I came back home happy that we found the church, happy that the church was 12 times warmer than the Duomo, and happy to try and start challenging ourselves with our Lenten promises. 

My crazy delicious pesto pasta with spinach and rolls!