Today was my first culinary experience in Italy, and it surpassed my every expectation. We took a bus out to the countryside where we met Colette, a Frenchwoman running an agriturismo and our cooking instructor. We were originally supposed to milk cows (or coos, as Colette pronounces it), but unfortunately we arrived too late in the morning. However, we did get to help make ricotta cheese in the old way, stirring it in a BIG pot with a wooden stick, making sur...

Yes, I know, I'm an updating machine! Anyway, we went to Palazzolo Acreide for Carnevale, which is about 40km away from Siracusa, up in the mountains. Sicily does carnevale a little bit differently than venice, as I found out. Floats would circle through 3 different piazzas, people were dancing to a dj in the piazza del popolo, shaving cream and silly string in addition to confetti, and best of all, the bopper. Yes, the bopper. People would have soft plasti...

Ciao y'all,Venice was a blast. The End.We arrived Thursday night (15 Feb), went directly to our hostel (about 15-20km away from Venice), had dinner, and crashed. I got up ''early'' to go sightseeing, so I took the bus in and arrived by 10am. Like a dork, I had forgotten to charge my phone, so I had enought battery to text my friends that I would meet them at the Rialto at 1pm, and if we didn't see each other, again at 2pm (I hadn't yet...

Ciao a tutti! As promised, I'm writing all about the fabulous weekend I spent in Catania and on Mt. Etna. I spent Friday in Palermo for my art and architecture class, and on the way home that night we heard about the Palermo-Catania soccer game, which was pretty wild. They have a rivalry almost as bad as the Red sox and the Yankees, so the fans outside the stadium rioted and threw flash-bangs, which killed a policeman. Because of this, soccer is canceled ind...

ciao a tutti!I just wanted to relay an interesting time I had the other night when a few of us went to salsa lessons, which happen to be taught by the world champions the last 2 years running. Only four of us went (all girls) to lessons and arrived maybe 15 minutes before our lesson ''began'' so we got to watch the group that was practicing, and they were pretty good.for some reason, they are short one woman towards the end (i guess someone had to...