k_laflowergirl (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} k_laflowergirl) wrote,@ 2009-01-07 10:50:00 |
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more on italy
soooooooooo... yesterday we ate lasagna and meat (i'm not really sure WHAT it was.. but it was good) and salad for breakfast... then we went over to fabio's friend, Pico's house and had an interesting meal. everything that was offered for the appetizers was salty.. for example.. olives, peppers in olive oil, peppers that had olives inside of them in olive oil, little onions, liver, and 3 different types of salted or smoked meats, the main course was homemade ravioli to good to describe, and then more of the lentils and pigfoot for good luck. i've eaten pigfoot almost everyday since i've arrived! it's their tradition to being in the new year with good luck! afterwards we had a desert that was a little piece of chocolate and 3 pieces of bread shaped into cylinders that were drenched in liquor... wow! interesting like i said. fabio said that that is a napoleten desert. wow! i'm still digesting. i think i'll just drink a lot of water for a while today since that was so salty. i tried everything though! liver and pigfoot and all! besides that we listened to many good stories from pico's parents who have basically traveled around the world. his dad told us stories of how the mafia in peru thought he was a spy and followed him to his friend's monostary. together his mom and dad traveled from san francisco to san paolo brasil. it definitely got the traveling gene pumping in my veins. i'm ready for the next adventures of my life. the year 2009 will be full of them. i'm happy to be in italy. i've been speaking 99% italian for a week so far and doing fairly well. some people can't understand me at all though, which is because they aren't used to my accents and all the mistakes i make. the most common mistakes i make are mixing up the masculine and feminine articles with the nouns, and plural and singular, which in the end are fundamental, but i argue that we don't really have these concepts in english, and i must have never really grounded it into my head in another language. so i can say i am still improving and learning. i've been here a week and already i can tell a little difference. as for understanding that is easier than speaking. it really depends on who is speaking, but most of the time i can understand 60 - 80 % of what is going on. there's so much to learning a language. the most important thing however though is that i can communicate. the next days consist of fabio's birthday, soccer game, and then we take off for southern italy. yesterday we called some of my distant relatives and talked with carmela giugno and the wife of andrea giugno who both know antonio giugno who my mom and sally met. also, antonio giugno has a brother who is a priest in forenza. so our adventure will begin on sunday january 11, 2009 when we fly from milano to bari and then take a train from bari to forenza.. we will be staying with either a couchsurfing friend or my distand relatives who on the phone already invited us to stay with them. we will then call everyone and try to arrange a meeting.. they even said they would feed us and that we could call them anytime even in the middle of the night. i wonder how it will be when we get there. our plans are basically to stay 3 nights and take pictures and meet and talk to these distant relatives to get their story and pair it to my family's story. i am very excited for this adventure. i learned that when my great grandparents left there was about 13,000 people who lived there and now there's about 2,000 people. forenza is a town in the mountains, the closest train station is rionero which is a few kilometers away. it'll be cold there, but in milano we are used to that since there is literally about 10 inches of snow!! his mom couldn't go to work today because the car is stuck in the snow. people don't have scrapers, so they are using umbrellas and brooms. so then we will stay in forenza for 3 nights and just see where life takes us, either we will go to naples, or to bologna. then i will stay in bologna for 3 nights with some friends... and then head back to milan to fly back to minneapolis. i'm excited for this next week and a half.
soooooooooo... yesterday we ate lasagna and meat (i'm not really sure WHAT it was.. but it was good) and salad for breakfast... then we went over to fabio's friend, Pico's house and had an interesting meal. everything that was offered for the appetizers was salty.. for example.. olives, peppers in olive oil, peppers that had olives inside of them in olive oil, little onions, liver, and 3 different types of salted or smoked meats, the main course was homemade ravioli to good to describe, and then more of the lentils and pigfoot for good luck. i've eaten pigfoot almost everyday since i've arrived! it's their tradition to being in the new year with good luck! afterwards we had a desert that was a little piece of chocolate and 3 pieces of bread shaped into cylinders that were drenched in liquor... wow! interesting like i said. fabio said that that is a napoleten desert. wow! i'm still digesting. i think i'll just drink a lot of water for a while today since that was so salty. i tried everything though! liver and pigfoot and all! besides that we listened to many good stories from pico's parents who have basically traveled around the world. his dad told us stories of how the mafia in peru thought he was a spy and followed him to his friend's monostary. together his mom and dad traveled from san francisco to san paolo brasil. it definitely got the traveling gene pumping in my veins. i'm ready for the next adventures of my life. the year 2009 will be full of them. i'm happy to be in italy. i've been speaking 99% italian for a week so far and doing fairly well. some people can't understand me at all though, which is because they aren't used to my accents and all the mistakes i make. the most common mistakes i make are mixing up the masculine and feminine articles with the nouns, and plural and singular, which in the end are fundamental, but i argue that we don't really have these concepts in english, and i must have never really grounded it into my head in another language. so i can say i am still improving and learning. i've been here a week and already i can tell a little difference. as for understanding that is easier than speaking. it really depends on who is speaking, but most of the time i can understand 60 - 80 % of what is going on. there's so much to learning a language. the most important thing however though is that i can communicate. the next days consist of fabio's birthday, soccer game, and then we take off for southern italy. yesterday we called some of my distant relatives and talked with carmela giugno and the wife of andrea giugno who both know antonio giugno who my mom and sally met. also, antonio giugno has a brother who is a priest in forenza. so our adventure will begin on sunday january 11, 2009 when we fly from milano to bari and then take a train from bari to forenza.. we will be staying with either a couchsurfing friend or my distand relatives who on the phone already invited us to stay with them. we will then call everyone and try to arrange a meeting.. they even said they would feed us and that we could call them anytime even in the middle of the night. i wonder how it will be when we get there. our plans are basically to stay 3 nights and take pictures and meet and talk to these distant relatives to get their story and pair it to my family's story. i am very excited for this adventure. i learned that when my great grandparents left there was about 13,000 people who lived there and now there's about 2,000 people. forenza is a town in the mountains, the closest train station is rionero which is a few kilometers away. it'll be cold there, but in milano we are used to that since there is literally about 10 inches of snow!! his mom couldn't go to work today because the car is stuck in the snow. people don't have scrapers, so they are using umbrellas and brooms. so then we will stay in forenza for 3 nights and just see where life takes us, either we will go to naples, or to bologna. then i will stay in bologna for 3 nights with some friends... and then head back to milan to fly back to minneapolis. i'm excited for this next week and a half.
