Today I learned a word that is specifically Italian,
mammoni, which describes Italians (mostly men I
think)
who live with their parents until they marry. My
teacher commented that my faccio, my face, did not
reflect approval of this concept. Sorry mom and dad,
but I just think that's a little weird!

We made a mistake in our planning. I guess the
actual mistake was that we didn't plan! We decided to book
our reservations for Florence today, two days before
leaving! Not exactly smart. We're learning from our
mistake, however, and booking for our other weekends
as soon as possible. We are planning on going to
Venice and Milan, Calabria and Sicily and Cinque Terre and
Pisa. If anyone has suggestions for a bunch of
college students for these places, I would be happy
to hear them!

I am about to go to a "Tandem" meeting that was set
up by my school, Umbra Institute, for us Umbra
students to meet Italian students from Perugia. The
people in my class have been assigned to interview
Italian students, so this is the perfect opportunity.
We have been talking all day about how to ask students
what they do for fun and how their lives are. I'll let
you know what I found out!

After the meeting, we'll go get a good dinner. There
is a restaurant, Dalla Bianca (From the White), across
the alley from our apartment. We've been twice so far and
they already recognize us. I had the best lasagna of my
life there, but they only make it once a week, so
we'll have to wait for more of that. Last night I had
pasta all'arrabbiata (angry pasta) and my friend
Brittany had penne alla norcina, which is a specialty
of this region and has a creamy cheese sauce and
sausage. Both were reallllly good! Maybe we'll have
more tonight.

Ciao! -Ellie

Ciao Ragazzi!

So I'm sitting in one of the computer lounges at the Umbra Institute in Perugia, Umbria in Italy. I'm finished with classes for the day and I am looking forward to an evening of relaxing. Having to wake up at 8 only to walk up 180 stairs and two hills to go to school for 6 hours is a little tough! But the first two days have been pretty good. It's basically been review so far- prepositions, irregular verbs, basic questions. Tomorrow we'll talk about the family and tomorrow night we'll meet Italian students and talk with them.

Last night my friend Rachel made pasta for almost everyone in our little group. Someone bought a guitar over here so we got to have some good original music with our dinner. It was just an ordinary pasta dish with tomato sauce, basil, garlic and mozzarella, but the difference was that all of the ingredients were totally fresh. Everything here just has so much more flavor than things in the United States because they come from local places and are fresh off the vine, they're not shipped all over the country. However wonderful the Italian food is here, it's still ALL Italian food. I've already had a lot of panini, pizze and gelati. Hopefully I won't be completely sick of them by the time we leave. There are some foreign places to eat here, but I haven't heard very many good things about them. I can't believe that Italians eat the same stuff everyday! I would die without barbeque and tex-mex.

Everyone that lives in Perugia has lived here forever. Both of our teachers, our taxi driver, our tour guides, etc etc were born and have lived here their whole lives, except for maybe studying for a year in the US. Their families are all here, too. That's how Italians are- they are VERY attached to the land and the family. Men sometimes live with their moms until they're 40. It's all very weird.

I'm going to go enjoy my afternoon now. Eat some baci, some mozzarella maybe, some pasta. Arrivaderci! -Ellie