Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope that everyone has a great Thanksgiving!  While I'm going to miss relaxing and hanging out with family at home, and having a traditional meal this year, I'm looking forward to enjoying some Thanksgiving spirit here by making an apple pie with my Italian family! And then Friday I'm off to Rome!

Tidbits

This past week was relatively low-key and I’m really feeling more settled in my routine. The big soccer news of the week is that Carpi beat Modena 3-2 in the big derby match (Modena is only 15 minutes from Carpi). Though Carpi currently sits 3 points behind Modena in the Serie B standings, winning the derby brings tremendous bragging rights. Simo, Luigi, and I were originally planning to go to Modena for the game, but because things could get heated between the fans, we decided it would be safer not to go. That decision ended-up being a smart one because we later heard that there was a group of Modena and Carpi fans that got into a fight after the game. The big win was probably the most exciting event of the week for the entire city of Carpi, but I had a personally exciting moment during the week too. It happened Saturday night when almost our entire class went out to celebrate a friend’s birthday at a pizzeria. I was having a conversation when I stopped and realized, “Wow, I didn’t even have to think about those last 3 sentences, the words just flew right out.”  It’s truly gratifying to realize you’re getting better at a language and that all of your hard work is paying off.  Another funny language side-note is that I found out that the Italian word “tipo” is the equivalent of the word “like” in English (when it’s like misused as like a filler). It would seem obvious that people of all languages would have “filler words” , but it surprised me nonetheless that there was an Italian version of the word “like”.  

I also had a great week in soccer last week. For the first time, I got to play in the midfield during scrimmages where I feel slightly more at home. I have only been at Carpi FC for a month, but I can already notice big improvements in my game. Probably one of the biggest changes is that my teammates are more confident in giving me the ball in scrimmages and drills, and I'm more confident in my ability to do something productive with the ball.

Making crostini with Simo and Cate

The following couple of weeks promise to be anything but low-key. Starting today, my family’s apartment is undergoing some pretty large-scale remodeling. One big wall is being completely knocked-down and I will be sleeping in Simo’s room for a couple of nights. My family actually owns two apartments (one is the grandparent's old apartment) and they want to make them into one.  And in less than two weeks, our family is heading to Rome for a long weekend. I can’t wait!

In Carpi with my family

Two Months

In a few days I will pass the “two months in Italy” mark. I’ve enjoyed myself immensely so far, and really feel that I am beginning to pick up the language.  Between home, school, and soccer, I am fully immersed in Italian.  The weather is finally starting to get colder, though the word “cold” is relative here. It is in the fifty’s and high forty’s during the day, and for my family and most Italians here, that warrants a full winter jacket, whereas I’m happy with just a heavy fleece.   In soccer, we officially moved to ‘winter training’ attire which means we are required to wear long sleeves…just when we hit the prefect short sleeve training temperature. 

School is difficult, but it feels great that I can now understand much more of what the teachers are saying versus when I first arrived.  In Italian class, we will be starting Dante’s Divina Comedia on Wednesday, which should be…. interesting. Needless to say, it would be difficult to read and comprehend an English translation of La Divina Comedia, but I get to read it in Old Italian. In Art History, we are studying ancient Greek art, and namely, the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders. We are just beginning to dip our toes into the waters of sociology in Psychology class, and are continuing the study of pre-Socratic thinkers in Philosophy class. At this moment, these classes (Italian, Art History, Psychology, and Philosophy) are probably my most difficult classes. Math and Physics have been easier for me, mostly because I’ve covered some of the material before and these classes aren’t as rigorous on the Humanities track (versus the math and sciences track). I am still strong at French grammar and reading, but find speaking French to be extremely difficult; the better I become at speaking Italian, the worse I become at speaking French.

Soccer continues to go well and I can already tell I’m making progress.  It’s difficult to explain just how good the soccer is here, especially at the national level where my team competes. I train several hours a day, four days a week with Carpi FC and get to play in some of the scrimmages. I’m playing mostly center back, but started to train with the midfielders this past week.

All in all, it’s been an incredible two months, and I’m looking forward to traveling with my Italian family to visit their friends in Rome at the end of November.

Carpi a Tavola

porcini mushrooms

porchetta

Coming off of a rather exciting and intense weekend, it was nice to have a relaxing week. November 1^st and 2^nd are Italian national holidays (All Saints Day, and a day to honor the dead), which meant that I got to enjoy a three-day weekend. I spent most of my time relaxing and recuperating, but I also enjoyed a fun mini-festival in Carpi’s main piazza over the course of the weekend. It was called “Carpi a Tavola,” and the piazza was full of vendors selling food specific to the Emilia-Romagna region as well as all over Italy. There were stands of Sicilian sweets, bread from the Alps and Dolomites, and of course Tortellini from Emilia Romagna.

Tortellini is a regional specialty that is either served with a cream sauce or in broth, never with any type of red sauce (my host family was aghast to hear that we prepared tortellini with red sauce in the US). Some other specialties of the Emilia-Romagna region include: Gnocco fritto and tigelle (special types of bread that you eat with prosciutto and other cured meats), gramigna (a small type of pasta served with ground sausage and a lighter sauce), meat lasagna, and of course Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Tigelle

Gramigna

Gnocco fritto

Another fun thing about the weekend was meeting up with my friend Clare from Norwich who is currently living in Bologna (Clare is also the older sister of one of my Hanover High soccer teammates).  She has been living in Bologna for the past two years and is working as an apprentice to a very high-end shoe-smith. After she arrived on the train from Bologna, Clare joined our family for a great Sunday lunch, and then we all walked around the town. We explored Carpi’s castle and grabbed a gelato before Clare had to catch a train back to Bologna. All in all, a great day and a great weekend!