ROME
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| Wine and Pizza at Carlomente Ristorante |
That was one of my favorite days while studying abroad. Each of the eighty-nine were exploding micro-adventures, mostly because the Italian relationship to everything is precious and weird. We ate and slept in a villa spread over with orange and olive groves; the oil on our salads was once olives harvested by classmates before us, pressed by the monks who hosted us. In Rome, you have a relationship with the cobblestones, with the rooftops, with stairs and domes and nuns and beggars and bartenders, and if you spend enough time with anyone, you will probably dine with them.
Carlomente - Because we are students, we are poor. I mean, we're in Italy, touring ancient streets and chapels and museums, so no one is complaining, but we're not blowing Euro on leather shoes or seven course meals or aged bottles of Merlot. When we went out (and mind you, we took the time to go out) we were as frugal about it as can be afforded by a good time. We wanted to embrace the city. We didn't want to go hungry. Carlomente was the perfect place for this purpose. At night, the tented out-door seating is lit by twinkle lights and streetlamps. One night a cap-toothed street vendor leaned over the wall to offer us roses; another offered a tabby dancing robot cat. Pizza: two Euro. Half liter of wine: four Euro. Watching a mechanical cat dance under the stars: priceless.
30 Cent Pastry Shop - I really shouldn't have to elaborate because the name alone is testament to the wonder of this place. It is literally a hole in the ground; you'd miss it, if you weren't a manic caffeine addicted tourist desperate for cheap and plenty cornetti. Before we left for spring break in Poland (we'll get to that), we stopped for chocolate croissants on our way from St. Peter's Square. The evening we returned from Poland we ended up snacking on donuts from this shop after meeting in St. Peter's Square. Every important event was punctuated, invariably, by the thirty-cent pastry shop; and some days were just important because of the thirty-cent pastry shop.
Worth Mentioning - That one awesome panini shop between Via di Trastevere and Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere. Best sandwich ever: mozarella, pesto, melanzane (eggplant), and prosciutto, savored by a fountain, surrounded by friends, gypsies, and men playing cellos. We raced to that shop after classes ended around noon; it closed before two, when all the bread sold out.
FLORENCE
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| Roast pig at That Awesome Unnamed Market in Florence |
The day after exams two friends and I took one of the famed European fast trains to Florence on what turned out to be one of the best days of the semester. We had a snotty, meant-for-students guidebook with us, which we referenced for maps, but we completely overlooked its restaurant recommendations because on our way from the Duomo to the "fake" David statue we crossed a market of epic proportions only to discover that every stall offered free samples of everything. Like any self respecting traveling student, we filled up on free food: 150 year aged balsamic truffle oil, crumbly molded cheese, thick, crusty bread, salami, prosciutto, pastries, and chocolate.
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| Cheese, bread, and salami stall in Florence |
And not just any chocolate. Chocolate filled with extra extra extra virgin olive oil. Chocolate pressed with hot roasted peppers. Chocolate-basil spread, like Nutella, except with basil. Eighty-nine percent cocoa unsweetened hot chocolate. Florence has rewritten everything I thought I knew about chocolate. Also, my perception of a free lunch.
MILAN
In Milan, the last city I visited while in Italy, we got to hang out with real-life Italian college students, who were (some) younger than we were, (all) better at English than we were Italian, and (generally) cooler than we were in every way. On the metro to the Duomo from Milan's massive central station, we were told that in Southern Italy, Rome, people are very hot--- hot blooded, fiery, very loud and expressive and pushy. In Northern Italy, people are generally cooler, our guide told us proudly. The students brought us to a side street, a crowded, swift-moving shop that sold calzones, typical Milanese street food. They're little inside out pizzas, fried or baked, and stuffed with pizza toppings. The most popular, we were told, was a standard tomato, mozzarella, and anchovy, fried. We opted for tomato, mozzarella, and pepperoni, and brought our spoils to the piazza outside the Milan opera house.
Our guides left us in the evening, so we- a group of six or seven- wandered around in search of an open grocery store. (Shops close early in Italy; it was a challenge.) We found it, quickly threw together a dinner that could easily feed nine or ten, and ate (dessert first, so our boxed pistachio gelato cones wouldn't melt )in the piazza outside a closed church, with no utensils and only paper bags for napkins. Pure class.
My favorite meal in Rome, hands down, was the night of Holy Saturday. Holy Week is a big deal in Rome, what with the Vatican and it being the most important week of the Liturgical Year. And on the most important night of the most important week, it rained miserably. All of our classmates were in the city, either at the Vatican or St. Anthony the Abbot or any one of the many churches holding the most important Vigil to be held. I and one dear friend, however, were in the small chapel of the Villa, praying quietly, until we remembered we'd missed dinner traveling home in the rain. We put together a very late meal (classic Italian dining) ourselves: panini (the classic Italian sandwich), Peroni (the most popular Italian beer), and... Pringles.
Somehow, Italy has changed Pringles forever.
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