Thanksgivings (Italian Style)

Wednesday night we all went out for Kelly’s birthday! We went to Scholar’s as a big group and had a great time! It was cool going out as a big group again because we’ve all kind of done our own thing for quite some time. I made friends with the very nice bartender named Oliver. He’s from Tunisia!

Thursday night was our big Thanksgiving feast! All of the students, professors, directors, and families went to a hotel restaurant and had a “traditional” Thanksgiving. It was very different than the Thanksgivings all of us were used to. It was more of a cocktail, since there were only seats for about half of the guests. They did have turkey however, but they left out my favorite dish: mashed potatoes.

My Basic Italian class with our professor, Bruno! (He's the cutie in the top left-ish corner with his eyes closed. :)

Me, Nick, and Megan waiting for our superlatives!

This is my Made in Italy and Cinema professor's 7 year old daughter, Matilda! She and I met at the beginning of the night while waiting for everyone to get to the hotel, and we were best friends since! She even held my hand while we were waiting for turkey. She is fluent, and I mean FLUENT in English! (She may even be better at the language than me!) 

Something else fun about the night was that my roommate Sara had put together superlatives for everyone. The week before, we had all submitted them for each other, and they were read off in front of everyone. I got “Most Likely to Win Miss America”. I have no idea why I got it, but I reacted like any good beauty queen would, fanning my face and princess waving!

The next morning, me, Theo, and Theo’s friend Daniela met up to head to the train station at 5:30 am. Our train to Milan was at 7:20, and we made it with plenty of time! We got into Milan around 10:30 and walked around the Duomo and saw a castle owned by the Visconti family.

The Duomo! The closer you get to it, the more breathtaking it is!

From what I saw, Milan was very different from Rome. It was a lot cleaner, more modern, and had a much more formal feel to it, which makes sense because it is the business capital of Italy! Around lunch time, we met up with their former teacher, Chiara and another American classmate of theirs named Chelsea. We went to the aquarium in Milan (which is NOTHING in comparison to the Henry Doorly Zoo, obviously)! The rest of the day we hung out at Chiara’s apartment, which is actually in a suburb of Milan.

The statue in front of the Italian stock exchange. You can clearly see the artist's opinion on the market.

The next day was our Italian Thanksgiving! We helped make all the traditional American foods including green beans, dessert, and of course, MASHED FREAKING POTATOES!!!!! I was a little excited. The funniest part of the whole thing was beforehand Chiara gave us the “Don’t be drunk Americans” speech (which clearly we would never do), but we got to her aunt’s house, where the meal was at and there were 29 bottles of wine! And there were only 30-some people there! Haha! Stereotypical Italians!

It was great to see so many of her friends and family trying to understand our traditions. We explained to them how you shouldn’t be able to see your plate and you ALWAYS come back for more. Also, it’s perfectly acceptable, actually, it’s encouraged for all your food to be touching, mixing all the wonderful flavors together. From that, the concept of putting cranberry sauce on turkey was a disgusting idea to them!  I showed Chiara’s mom (who speaks NO English) how I do things: make a perimeter around the plate of all the foods and put a big glob of mashed potatoes in the middle. A couple minutes later, she came running over to show me, being so proud of her creation. Afterward, we played some games and finally went home.

After a quick rest, Chiara and her friends drove us into Monza, which is a little fancier town near Milan. We walked around and got a beer at the Irish Pub (or EER-EESH POOB) as one of her friends pronounced it.

Sunday, we got up early and dropped Daniela and Chelsea off at the train station. After that, we drove to Bergamo, the town where Chiara’s boyfriend is from. The four of us climbed to the top of the hill where the fancier part of town is located. We walked around all day, finding new adventures everywhere. Probably my favorite was the little candy shop we found. I sucked Chiara into coming inside, knowing we both would by a bag full! It was delicious! For dinner, we went to a cool little restaurant in town, where we tried the traditional Bergamese dishes!

The next morning, we woke up and headed straight to the train station. Our train that was supposed to arrive in Rome at 10:03 didn’t get in until 10:45, causing Theo and I to both be late for our 11:00 classes. Oh well! Both of our professors were very understanding! After class, I went shopping, because you know what? I am tired of being cold! I spent 102 euro on two pairs of pants, two sweaters, a scarf, gloves, and socks. Yay!