Il Primo Vino

Caffé Ferretti. "Twerk School" night.  The club/bar/caffé is not yet packed but the potential is evident.  There are flashing lights and my favorite Fabri Fibra song, "Vip in Trip" is playing.  By the power vested to me by the foul-mouthed Italian rapper, I approached the bar.  Palms sweaty, I kept repeating "This is okay. You are in Italy. Don't be weird. Don't. Be. WEii-" only to be cut off by my quivering mouth spurting out "Vorrei un vino bianco per favore".  And I got one!  And it didn't taste like Church wine!

So there you go, family and friends.  A whole blog post about piccola Maria Rosa ordering herself some vino.


CIAO!

P.S. To make this post less inappropriately wine-oriented, I will add that I had Nutella gelato and that is the biggest threat to my life right now.

Feel free to listen to Vip in Trip and feel as if you were in Caffé Ferretti with me.

My New Parents!

Goodbye, Dan and Kathy.  You're too American for me now.  Thank you, though, for sending me to Italy where I met my true parents, Stefano and Saveria.  You may have seen them before in a Benigni film or any kind of pasta commercial.  They own this adorable little restaurant called "Cavallino" (Little Horse), which is where I had my first, second, and eventually will have my thousandth piece of Ascoli pizza.  Is it possible to adore two people so much that I barely know?  Yes, it is, especially when they have the keys to my heart: pizza and feisty Italian humor.  Saveria took out a bat to beat Stefano with after he told us for his love for a soccer player.  It was perfect, and the tears that came out of my eyes only could not even corrupt the perfect food that these two make.

After our lunchtime adventures, our little apartment group went on the hunt for gelato, but it was unfortunately siesta time, so our usual spot was closed.  Thankfully the Big Italian in the Sky graced us with the presence of Fabio and Matteo, who lead us to the most amazing gelato shop (His name was really Fabio and it was really perfect).  The Kinder gelato was so choice.

I'll leave you with this cliff hanger: tonight, we are going to Twerk School.

Ciao,

Mary Rose.

PS: Roommate Deremith (code name for discretion obviously) said my blog is going to get me famous which was very nice considering she said that while bowing down to me and fetching me wild Italian flowers.  She also complimented my passion for the ethical way in which I quote and portray my sources.

What's New Ascoli Piceno?

I know, I know.  Basic SLU girl goes abroad and starts a blog.  But I have a Grandma, damn it, and she deserves to know what I am up to!  (Sorry for saying "damn it", Grandma).

For the Italian-challenged, "sono Maria Rosa" means "I am Mary Rose".  I'm pretty excited to be able to introduce myself as Maria Rosa.  Props to my parents for giving me an easily translated name.  It's pretty cute that the flowing river of beauty that is "Maria Rosa" gets to be abruptly stopped by the guttural Berlin wall that is "Hefner".  "Maria Rosa...Hefner."  That's a wannabe Italian for you.

 Two days of travel and I finally arrived in Italia!  An 8:00 AM flight to DC, then a layover in DC until 5:00.  That flight brought me to Italy at 7:35 AM… and the bus to Ascoli left at 7:30, with the next bus not until 2:10 PM.  It was quite disheartening.  Eventually 6 out of the 8 of us got together in the airport, ate some food (Mozerella è Pomodoro per io) and we boarded our quick 3 hour bus ride to Ascoli… or so we thought.  Long story short, the bus ride took probably 6 hours due to traffic and a snow storm, but we chatted with a bizarre Italian man, I ate some pizza, and there was a dog on board.  Oh, and we eventually got to Ascoli!! So it was all worth it.

The three of us SLUdents (Meredith, Jessica, and I) and our lone UConn-er (Kelsey) have the cutest apartment ever.  Like, House Hunters International cute.  Complete with a ton of Ikea furniture, a terrace, and three bedrooms with beautiful views.  Missing a bickering yuppie couple.  Our apartment is only a minute away from the Piazza and about 5 from the school, which would be a great plus if I didn’t have the directional skills of a blind fish out of water. 

I’m still sort of tired, but I’m excited to get into a schedule.  The two days of travel were insane, but I already love Ascoli.  I’m trying to make Simone e Alida, my two Italian professors, proud by speaking to Italians in Italian (Edit: I put English here before. I'm tired and losing my mind a bit. My bad.) !  It’s worked out pretty well so far.  Big thanks to Fabri Fibra, the Italian Rapper on that front too. 

Ciao for now, tonight we are going out to dinner with our teacher and I will continue my lifestyle choice to eat pizza for every meal possible.