From Homemade pasta to Roma

Ciao everybody! It feels like its been forever. Hopefully the time off has given you all a chance to go back and re read all the previous posts. Ive been really busy - just got back from Roma a couple hours ago and I took about 650 pictures there so i have lots to share. It looks like i haven't posted since about Tuesday so ill go over a little bit from the rest of the week but it'll be a brief summary so i can get to Roma. So Andiamo!

p.s. since there are so many pictures i added them as "small" so click on them to see them better. I don't know why the text is going vertical like that so be patient- I'm trying to fix it.

On Wednesday in Italian regional cuisine we made pasta from scratch. Although when I was little my dad and step mom and mom all made homemade pasta occasionally I didn't remember how it was done and looked forward to learning the Italian way. We were going to be making ravioli and tortellini con carne. Before we made the pasta we made the filling. We were given about 5 different kinds of meat, like prosciutto, ham, chicken, veal and a couple other salted and sliced meat. We cooked that down for a while with onion, carrot, celery, nutmeg (a very important flavor in this dish) and olive olio. We also made a ragu with veal, tomato, basil, onion, carrot and celery.

When the meat was cooked we added white wine and cooked until the wine boiled out.

When that was done we pureed the meat and set it aside.

Damiano, our chef showed us how to make different kinds of pasta by using either the egg yolk, white or whole egg. The quantities were one egg for eat 100 grams of flour. We put our flour in a circle and dropped in the egg and added some olive olio ( not very much) and sale pepe. Stirring in a circle with our fingers we began mixing the eggs and oil with the flour. Once it is thoroughly mixed you may have to add extra flour. You want your dough to be firm and not sticky. Damiano then got out some pasta rollers and showed us how to make ravioli, tortellini, tagliatelli and a couple other kinds. Making pasta is pretty simple and once you get the basics down you can quickly make many different kinds.

To make the ravioli we rolled out the dough very thinly and made

two rows of spoonfulls of filling, halfway up the sheet of pasta and put a line of egg white along the edges and around each lump of filling. We then folded the pasta over and pressed the dough down around the filling. We boiled the ravioli in beef stock instead of water, which made a unique and excellent taste. email me if you want more details about pasta making. After class a couple of my roommates (Mario and Jason) and i went and played basketball with Chef damiano. I learned some pretty good italian curse words! He made up for all his early losses by winning the last game. We had to run to get to our Italian language class on time and got cought in a rainstorm on the way.

In Italian we had our first test and I

think i did pretty well, although I did forget some of the articles. Come ti chiami- whats your name. Mi chiamo- my name is. Da dove sei- where are you from. Sono da- i am from. Im starting to recognize alot more words in conversations and although its hard to learn a language it feels good to make progress. After class we had some fellow apicius students over to our apartment before we went out. There was an american DJ/Producer headlining the opening of a club (right down the street!) and we were going to go see him. Fatman Scoop is his name and the new club was is called mericano. We have hung out with and gotten to know the manager who also manages another club so he helps us out by making sure we dont wait in line and get discounts at the door. That night we also got to hang out in the VIP section for a while. Me, Jason, Mario, Anton and Will all went. It was a fun night and a very nice club.

Thursday was pretty uneventful, just walked around and packed for Rome. We did have an interesting dinner tho. We had rabbit stuffed with prosciutto and herbs. Very good. You can buy whole rabbit from the centrale market.

Friday morning we had to be at the train station by 6AM (we is me and Scott, one of my roommates that also went) so I quickly showered and headed out. We met inside firenze centrale and had to wait about 20 minutes for everyone to show up. Our chaperones would be Candace, who also does cibo vision, and Francesca an Italian lady from the art school that we are affiliated with. Both are warm, outgoing and good people. When everyone finally showed there were 26 students and the two chaperones. We got onto a large mercedes tour bus that was very nice, and actually pretty comfortable. Although it was alot slower than a train it was a much nicer ride. We set off for Roma at about 630AM. The scenery on the ride was nice, mostly farmland with sheep and corn. We stopped at a pretty cool place to use the bathroom and stretch. Over the highway, with stairs on both sides there was what looked like a large hallway with "Autogrill" on the side. Inside there were nice bathrooms, a gift shop, a restaurant and a store with fresh meats and cheese. Much better than our truck stops. After that we didnt stop again on the way to Roma. Ive always loved Roman history and had some preconceived notion about what things would be like and I was very excited, an excitement that built as we came closer to what used to be, basically, the capitol of the world. I looked out the windows and imagined the countless armies, peasants, artists, popes and the rest that had traveled the same road that we were. When we got to Rome we got off the bus and walked about 15 minutes to the metra, or subway. Id been on a aboveground subway in Atlanta, but not a belowground one like the one in Rome.

The train was covered completely in graffiti and was hot, but I didnt get the feeling that it was excessively dirty and felt very safe. After about a 20 minute ride we got off at the "colosseo" stop. Metra tickets are 1 euro for 75 minutes so you can move around the city pretty easily.

The walk from the bus to the metra had been through a rural area without too many people but when we came out of the station at the colosseum there were so many people.

The colosseum was directly in front of the station and dominated my whole view. It looked alot bigger than I thought it would be and was in better shape. We crossed the street and were in between the colosseum and the Forum. Behind me as i faced the colosseum was the forum, ruins of the aqueduct, roman homes, gardens and the silhouettes of towers, arches, domes, palaces and other massive works of art. To my right was the arch of Constantine,

which was beautiful.

We met as a group and francesca went over some of the history of the area and warned us about taking pictures with people dressed as gladiators and roman soldiers, as they will demand money afterwards. We had about 20 minutes to walk around and take pictures before we headed off towards the forum. The ruins were amazing, the marble still beautiful and the surviving structures looked strong. Everything was so close. I expected huge distances between each work of art but everything is right in your lap. It was like a museum or the coolest architecture you'll ever see surrounded

by perfect landscaping.

Very stimulating. After the forum and the aqueducts and colosseum and arches we went down a few blocks to palecchio victoria which had twin sets of chariots on top, that you can see for miles.

It was made hundreds of years ago by a king and actually not very well liked by Italians, who call it "the wedding cake" It was large and white and a little over the top but I thought it was amazing. While it was warm out all morning there were random downpours that lasted a few minutes and caused everyone to pull out their umbrellas. After the palace we walked to the Pantheon, which was a pagan temple to all the known gods that was converted into a christian church. It is famous for its opening in the center of its ceiling. Next we walked around and looked at some well known statues, fountains and piazzas. After that we went and ate in groups. Me and scott went and ate in a little restaurant on a sidestreet that was full of singing Romans, which was entertaining.

We ordered vino di casa rosso and insalata mista to start. For lunch i had a pizza with egg, proscuitto, mozzarella, artichokes and mushrooms. The pizza in rome was very thin but tasty. Rome has a reputation for having food of lesser quality but everything i had was tasty. For desert I had what was pretty much the Italian version of lava cake. Everyone met back up and we headed off to trevi fountains. They were beautiful. One thing about rome is that it is packed. There were so many people and it was much busier and frantic than Firenze. The fountains were enjoyable, even with the mass of people. An old saying is that if you throw a coin with your right hand over your right shoulder into the fountain that one day you will return to rome. Of course i did it. The fountain was in front of a large building that had beautiful carvings and statues all over it. The water in the fountain was a pretty shade of blue. After the fountain we moved on to the Spanish steps, named because of the proximity of the spanish consulate. They were 175 steps up from a beautiful piazza. Scott and i climbed them and found a nice church and a beautiful view of rome on top. In the spring the steps are decorated with rows of flowers. We were given an hour to wander and most of my time was spent on top of the spanish steps.

After that it was about 6pm and we headed back to the metra to get back on the bus. Our hotel was about 20 minutes away from the city but was a nice 4star holiday inn. We were scheduled for dinner at 8:30 so we had time to shower and relax. Dinner was in a smallish room and was set up very nicely.

Primmi Patti or first course was pasta with red sauce. Second course was spicy greenbeans and pork loin. Everything was pretty tasty. I got a nice bottle of chianti to go with it. Everyone wanted to go out but since we were so far from Rome the taxis would be pretty expensive. About 10 of us headed to the hotel bar where we faced 9 to 11 euro cocktails. After one of those i decided to save my money so scott and Liz, Brittany's roommate, and I just bought a couple bottles of wine. Im glad we left early because the next day we heard about a few of the kids on the trip getting drunk and acting stupid, being rude to the bartender and living up to the "ugly American" label. We went up to my room and enjoyed the wine, then went and waled outside for a while. We came upon a tree that was filled with either bats or birds. Filled as in HUNDREDS , poop dropping contiuously. The tree was shaking violently and whatever it was was very loud, all of them screeching at once. Pretty different. The next morning we had breakfast at 8AM and headed off to the metra, which we took to theVatican. The vatican is a completely separate country with its own laws, currency, leader and army. (Actually swiss men) The vatican is surrounded by tall castle walls that loomed high overhead. We met our tour guide, Roberto, who was replacing the woman who was supposed to be our guide. That might have been a blessing because Roberto was incredible. He was friendly, funny and knew every inch of the vatican, as well as everyone who worked there. We waited in line with the other tour groups for a while then passed through the metal detectors in to the vatican. While we were in line the Pope flew over us in a helicopter.

The tour started in a courtyard. It was large open area filled with greek and ancient art. In the center there was some modern art. A sphere with a sphere inside, meant to represent our moder world contained inside mother nature was in the center. It was beautiful. While in the courtyard Roberto went over a reproduction of the sistine chapel to tell us what many or the paintings meant. There were so many hidden features and double meanings to Michaelangelos work. Having read the agony and the extacy i knew the process that took place to make the paintings but Roberto gave me insight that had been gained over many years of study. I also got a closer look at "The last judgement" by Michaelangelo, which was incredible. There were so many amazing things inside and out and all around that it would be impossible for me to write about them all so ill try to hit all the highlights. Over the next few days Ill try to post more pictures. Next we began the tour of the vatican. First was the greek and roman statues. There was one of a man who had been hurt or tortured and you could see the agony in his face, and the fear and sadness in his childrens. Very moving. We moved through room after room of statue, most with beautiful mosaic floors. After the statues we came into seemingly endless hallways, with ceilings covered in beautiful paintings (every inch of every surface was decorated somehow) The hallways had old maps of italian cities on either side. After themap hall ways we entered through doors into a darkened room filled with old tapestries. They were huge and so intricately done that they looked like paintings. After the tapestries we started to get into the paintings. Not paintings like you think would be in a museum in a frame but entire rooms covered in perfect art. Not small rooms either rooms the size of gyms. Floor ceiling, wall, door, everything was decorated. It was like they trapped the worlds greatest artists in each room and told them they would be allowed to leave until every inch was painted. Where there wasnt paint there was artifacts or armor. Roberto describe each important painting and which pope comissioned what. He moved at a pretty brisk pace so sometimes when I stopped to take pictures I missed out on descriptions. One room that I really enjoyed was a room with paintings detailing the stories of Constantine. All around the walls and on the ceiling it shows him being baptised, fighting, knealing before the pope. My favorite was of him fighting another general. It showed Constantine surrounded by white light on a white horse with a golden crown and the opposing general coming out of the water and darkness looking evil. We continued through room after room of religious art, much of it very moving. Rafaels rooms were particularly great.

One famous painting was dont by him where he included all the great thinkers and artists, including himself. His eyes are the only ones on the painting that look out. He included Aristotle, Plato, Leonardo

Da Vinci, Michaelangelo and others.

Beautiful.

There was also the first painting ever now to be showing a scene at night time. After the Rafael rooms we came to a modern art section. There were some famous ones like a Dali but Roberto didnt seem too impressed by modern art so we breezed through most of this section pretty quickly. There were some i liked, including surreal one, one of the colosseum and a surreal portrait of a pope. After the modern art section we ate in a caffe and had some espresso. Next was the sistine chapel. Again i began to feel excited. For years I had heard of the chapel and seen pictures of god touching adam and some of the other scenes but now I was going to get to see it. I new the hard work he had put it. 4 years lying on his back on 60 foot scaffolding doing a painting under pressure by the pope. The ceiling was done by him at the age of 34. The painting on the fron, the last judgement, was done about 20 years later in his life. The ceiling is made of scenes from the bible, starting with god creating the earth then the sun and stars then creating man. It then goes on to show scenes of man from the bible. Including women being created from Adams rib, the snake in the tree and more. Many show man looing strong and in his glory, paralleled by man making mistakes and looking weak and grey. Along the sides are paintings of religious scenes by masters such as Botticelli, Rafael, Girlandio (sp?) and more. My favorite would have to be the last judgement. It has so much symbolism and its such a strong painting.

Roberto talked about how the Jesus Michaelangelo painted wasnt the kind, gentle Jesus most people were used to but a strong, judgemental jesus at the exact moment final judgement was laid on man. One hand up calling the good up to heaven and one down, casting the wretched down to hell. Instead of showing a joyous scene he shows with realism fear on the faces of many, even the good, at what could have become of them and what is happening to the others. The blue sections make both a skull and a cross. Also among the wretches he painted in people that had spited him and did him wrong, giving them doney ears and tails of serpents. Going in was breathtaking. Even now remembering it im filled with emotion. The color is so vibrant, the paintings so perfect that it was a life changing event for me. Ive been having many of those lately. How many life changing events does it take to make you a different person? I feel like im a better person for having experienced the passion and talents of the men who made the things ive seen. Inspiring. While they said no cameras most people were taikng pictures. Careful not to damage the paintings I made sure i had no flash on. The rest of the vatican tour was also amazing but nothing with the impact of the earlier art. there was another hall way full of maps, this time of the workd and hand drawn, before all of the americas had been discovered so theres only a rough outline of our continent. There was Jewel crusted objests, pieces of the moon, old bibles, old Roman art and more sculpture. Ill add more pictures later. At the end there awas a long winding staircase that had the crest and name of, i think, every pope. Felt like i was in there for days, not hours. Definitely on of the best things Ive don in my life. Next we went to St.Peters Basilica. Actually it was just me and scott and liz because we all split up again. The inside of the Basilica was beautiful. Huge altars and thrones and massive statues. The smaller Pieta by michaelangelo sent out waves of sadness. Its a marble carving of Jesus' mother holding him after he died on the cross. We were in the Basilica for a good hour or so. Another tradition that i did was I rubbed the statue of st. Peters foot. Supposed to be for good luck. I also got a chance to pray for a little while in a separate area. After we left we grabbed some food and took the metra back to meet up with everyone. We got back on the bus and got home a few hours ago. Amazing trip. Sorry for the wait! I put some extra effort into this one to make up for it.

ciao