It's Peanut Butter & Jelly Time

Ciao, ciao, ciao! Did you know that Italians like to say that word multiple times in a row for goodbyes? Two ciao's in a row specifically means goodbye (as opposed to hello) while three or more ciao's in a row means "Goodbye, I'm in a hurry." It's common and it makes me laugh.

First Pharmacy Visit


Today Tyson started feeling under the weather, poor bambino, so we had our first visit to the pharmacy, or farmacia as they call them here. We needed Sudafed, so I looked up the Italian equivalent which is called Actifed.

There are no true 24 hour pharmacies and many are closed on Sundays. So how do Italians get their medicine? They designate one pharmacy to stay open 24 hours and they list the address of that pharmacy on their store window. Since it was a Sunday, we found the only open pharmacy and went to get his medicine. Tip: if you're ever looking for a pharmacy in Italy, find a green cross sign and there it will be.

I told the pharmacist that I only spoke a little Italian and told him that we needed Actifed. Luckily he understood me easily and I had the right name. He actually knew Italian, Spanish, French, and German-everything but English! He gave us instructions that were easy to understand and that's how we successfully procured our first medicine. Additional note: if you go after 10 pm, you have to pay a 3,75 euro convenience fee. Luckily we were there much earlier.

Another Movie


We were in the mood to watch another movie, so when we saw this poster for an Italian Christmas movie we decided to see it. It was called "The Worst Christmas of My Life" and it's based on a British television show. So how was it? Not bad. It had a lot of slapstick humor and it reminded me of a less funny version of Meet the Fockers. We probably missed some verbal jokes, but all of the physical humor was easy to understand.
We went to a different theater this time and it was way too toasty. They had the heat up really high. I probably prefer the other theater for this reason alone.

Food
Ever wondered what a traditional Italian breakfast is? It's a cappuccino with a brioche. Yum! Tyson and I headed down to a local restaurant on Saturday morning to try their special- a cappuccino and brioche for only 2 euros.


It was so delicious. The cappuccino was foamy and warm and the brioche had melted chocolate inside and brown sugar sprinkled on top.

We also tried out a restaurant called Due Giganti (two giants). At this place you pay a 4 euro cover charge per person and you can order any type of fresh, made to order pizza, plus you get a buffet with all you can eat pizza, sides, and desserts. So basically it's very American in style, like a tastier version of Cici's pizza. We even saw two girls sharing a pizza covered in French fries! Here's what we got:


It's half pepperoni and half potatoes/speck, which is like bacon. It was delicious! This is a great place to go if you want a cheap but very filling meal. It's a huge hit with students for that reason.

Kinder eggs: these things rule, it's sad that they're illegal in the U.S.


The chocolate is great quality and the surprises are fun, though mostly meant for kids. For those who don't know, kinder eggs have a chocolate coating over a plastic egg that contains a small toy, or surprise (sopresa). Tyson is especially enamored of the chocolate on these, so when I get the chance, I pick one up at the store for him.

Italy also enjoys the Twilight series and this fact is reflected even in the grocery store. Here are some Twilight-themed Pepsi cans:


He's ice cold...and he wants you to drink him!

Peanut butter and jelly time: our Italian class had a Christmas party and everyone was supposed to bring food from their native country. American ingredients are hard to find here, but we decided on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Now, Italians don't really do peanut butter. They typically use a hazelnut chocolate spread like Nutella. We found one grocery store that had peanut butter. Just one and it was more expensive because it's imported. We didn't think we'd have trouble finding the jelly because they have every flavor imaginable, but here's the thing: they don't like wasting grapes on jelly when they could use it to make wine instead. Tyson finally found a stand that sold boutique jellies and they had green grape jelly. This tastes almost identical to grape jelly, so all was well! Pb&j's were enjoyed by all.

Malls
We went to the mall here and these are the differences we found:
1. They serve lots of alcohol in the food court. I imagine this is handy for husbands who accompany their wives to the mall.
2. You can gamble in the mall. You can play slots or buy lotto tickets.
3. This is my favorite....there is a "sexy" portion of the mall. All the stores here are very sexy, so watch out. It's not for children.

Well that's all for today's blog, this Sunday we're off to London for Christmas, so next week's blog will be about fry-ups and Jack the Ripper!

Mercatino di Natale

Ciao ragazzi, come state tutti? Hi guys, how are you all? In today's blog you'll get to see Trento's Mercatino di Natale, or in English, the Christmas Market. I'll also describe our first movie theater experience in Italy and tell you about our dinner with Tyson's colleagues.

Mercatino di Natale
Starting at the end of November and continuing until the end of December, the Christmas Market in Trento is held in Piazza Fiera and is an absolute must-see. Many vendors set up wooden stands featuring local crafts, food, and wine.

Tyson and I stopped by the market on Sunday morning and it was so packed that we could hardly push through the crowds. We took a few pictures and decided to come back later that night when it was less crowded.
The market during the day:




When we came back later that night, it was still busy but not quite so stifling. The Christmas lights and trees are also prettier at night!
The market at night:












Walking through the chilly night air, we could smell mulled wine, roasted chestnuts, and homemade soap.

We saw a stand with hand crafted chocolates:




These creative chocolates were made to look like tools; I think my father-in-law would love these!




Slightly outside the market, you can find more stands selling mulled wine (2 euros), bombardino (3 euros), hot chocolate, strudel, and other tasty items:




What is bombardino? It's basically an Italian version of eggnog, made with brandy. We tried samples and I have to say they taste nothing like American eggnog but they are delicious! Tyson hates eggnog and he loved this, but I can't say why they're so different in taste. Also, whereas American eggnog is white, the bombardino is quite orange in color.

I did end up making a small purchase at the market:




Limoncello! An Italian favorite. The zest of lemons are soaked in grain alcohol and then mixed with a simple syrup. This is typically used as a digestivo, which is an after-dinner drink to aid your digestion. This was my first time trying it. Verdict? Excellent if you like lemons, which I do. It's not sour, but the alcohol content is fairly high, so it may be too strong for some. I think the taste is improved by chilling it before serving. Cin cin! (cheers!)

Another Italian drink I wanted to try was Grappa, a pomace brandy made by distilling the skins and pulps of grapes leftover from winemaking.




Grappa is also used as a digestivo. I think this particular grappa was too strong for my tastes, but I'm not sure if I bought a good brand. I may do some research and see if I might find another kind more palatable.

The Movie Theater
I wish I had taken pictures, but I didn't think of it. The movie theater we went to shows one movie at a time and only has one screen in the entire facility. They show both American and Italian movies, but all the American movies are dubbed in Italian. This didn't phase us as we're trying our best to learn the language.

Movies are a huge part of our life as well. Tyson and I had our first date at the movies and when we were in America we were well known for seeing a movie in the theater once a week or more. We won't be seeing movies that often here, but it's nice to keep some of our old routine.

Differences: instead of picking your seat, you are assigned a seat. This wasn't a problem because the theater wasn't crowded, but I could see that on a busy night it may not be ideal. Another difference is that there's an intermission during the movie so you can use the facilities. We thought our movie had cut out! In hindsight, I had experienced a movie intermission in Russia, but that was 7 years ago.

The movie prices are about the same as in America. The snacks and drinks are smaller but probably similar in price.

Our Italian was alright enough for us to basically understand the movie, but not good enough to tell if anything was lost in translation during dubbing. I'm looking forward to seeing another movie soon!

The Dinner
Ty sent me a text message that said, "We're going to dinner with (bosses' name) tonight." I automatically assumed the we he was referring to was his other colleague! I was very pleased to find out it was actually me who was invited. The dinner was at a nice Italian restaurant called Antico Pozzo, which means the ancient well. Here's the menu:




Everything was so delicious, including the different wines that they paired with each course. I think my favorite course was the lavender and rosemary risotto. Very fragrant and I had never had lavender in a dish before, quite unique.

Tyson's boss/colleague was very nice, as were all the other people who were in town attending a conference. The Armenian ambassador to Italy was also there- how cool is that? I especially liked one woman there who made me feel very welcome in Trento and gave me my first double cheek kiss! It's hard being a foreigner and it makes you appreciate all the wonderful people in the world who try to make you feel at home. Of course that doesn't mean they didn't make fun of us. Apparently Americans "put ketchup on everything" and "have none of their own cheese." We corrected them on the cheese part, have no fear. It's impossible to find cheddar here!

Addio amici,
Susie

The papa has a papá

Let's see what we've been up to this week...

Italian language classes

Tyson and I started taking free language classes at night. The classes are taught immersion-style, which means they use only Italian when teaching, with a few exceptions. We've attended 3 classes so far and they've been very helpful.

Things I've learned so far:
Basic introduction sentences like "My name is" and "I'm from America."
Basic vocabulary like grandma/grandpa, etc.
Basic verbs and their conjugation-to be/to eat/to go/to understand
Adjectives-young/old/fat/skinny
I know colors and numbers now.
But that's just a basic list, they are teaching us so much every class.

Important word to know in Italy: "allora", which means "so" or "then". They use it all the time here.

I had a funny moment in class where I was asked to read a sentence in Italian aloud. The sentence was talking about how Francesca lived with her papá. Apparently where you place the accent on this word matters. Place it at the end and it's her father, place it at the beginning and it's the pope! So I definitely said she lives with the pope.

I've noticed I'm starting to understand what people are saying and I'm getting pretty good at reading, but speaking in Italian is harder. I think that's pretty normal, but it's annoying not being able to respond to things. I'm sure this will improve with practice.

Our classroom is quite diverse. We have people from all over the world: Ethiopia, Pakistan, Bulgaria, Bangladesh, Senegal, Romania, Ukraine, and Canada. We are the only Americans in the class.

The teachers are wonderful and friendly. We ran into one of our teachers the other day and she wants to get together with us sometime to practice her English, which is already very good. I'm all for it because she said she could help us practice our Italian too!

Food

Here are some pictures and descriptions of restaurants we've been to in Trento.

Restaurant: Birreria Pedavena (German beer hall)
Type of food: German and Italian
The atmosphere of this place is amazing; there are strings of lights everywhere and it has big, ambient rooms. You can also see where they brew their beer on the premises.


I had the Wurstl, seen below. It was okay, but not great. The roasted potatoes, on the other hand were crispy and delicious.


Tyson had the wiener schnitzel and he liked it a lot. I tried a bite and I thought it tasted exactly like a chicken mcnugget from McDonald's. I wasn't a fan, but it wasn't bad either.


Here's a pic of the bread they give you; it was fluffy and tasted like rye.


Here's the beer! They give you a generous amount and it tastes great.



Restaurant: Sushi Zen
Type of food: Japanese
We discovered this restaurant the day we moved into our temporary apartment, since it's right across the street. The inside of the facility is beautiful. It has low lighting with sparkly lamps. It also has some seating where you sit low to the ground and you place your feet in a recessed area. The food here is absolutely amazing. I wish we could eat here every day.

Here's the restaurant


I had the California rolls, or as they call them here " California Speciale". These are inside out rolls with rice, avocado, crab, cucumbers and sesame seeds sprinkled on the outside. So delicious and fresh, especially with wasabi. I got this dish because I'm new to eating sushi.


Tyson accidentally ordered the wrong sushi and didn't like it much. It was an adventurous spicy tuna roll and had green roe (fish eggs) on top.


He also ordered some tonno (tuna) tekka maki that he enjoyed, but we forgot to take a picture of it.

We also had tori yaki meshi, which is fried rice with chicken and teriyaki sauce. Super yummy. It was hard to eat this with chopsticks, but by the end of the meal I was a lot better at it.



Restaurant: The Green Tower or Terra Verde
Type of food: Italian
This is a great restaurant to visit if you want some authentic Trentino-style cuisine. They also have employees that speak English, but we always use Italian so we can learn.

Below is what I ordered at Torre Verde: strangolapreti "strangled priests" which are gnocchi made with spinach, sage, and butter. One of the explanations for the name is that priests enjoyed the dish so much that they ate it until they choked! I followed it up with some excellent espresso.


Tyson gets the pepperoni pizza here, which is some of the best pizza in town. I'll take a picture of it next time we're there.

Trento at Christmas

Trento puts you in the Christmas spirit by decorating trees and stringing up lights everywhere.









They also have street vendors who sell vin brûlée (mulled wine), bombardini (alcoholic egg nog), and caldarroste (roasted chestnuts). We had steaming cups of mulled wine yesterday and they helped warm us up and get us excited for the holidays!

fino alla prossima volta,
Susie

Plane, Plane, Taxi, Train

Hey folks,
Sorry it's taken so long for me to update! We've been busy getting accustomed to our new city and trying to find consistent free wi-fi. I finally decided to painstakingly update the blog with my phone. So here we go...

Travel
Traveling to Italy was absolutely exhausting. We hopped a plane from Houston to Paris--9 hours of flight time. This leg of our journey was wonderful with plenty of room, lots of food/wine, and movies. Tyson even ran into a friend from high school and spent some time catching up with him.

Our in-flight menu on Air France:


After the first leg, we had a 7 hour layover in Paris. This sounds like it would be enough time to leave and explore but it really wasn't. At this point we were extremely tired, so we took shifts napping. I also got to try some espresso from Illy, which is an Italian favorite and it was quite good. Finally, we boarded a one and a half hour flight to Verona and slept the whole way. Once in Verona, we went through customs. Here's how the exchange went: "Do you have anything to declare?" "No." Then we walked out. Simple.

Next, we took a taxi from Verona to the train station. The taxi ride was pleasant, with Tyson attempting to make small talk with our Italian speaking driver. Ty's comprehension is great, but he didn't have a lot to respond with! Haha.

After the taxi ride, we had to figure out where to catch our train to Trento. It was confusing because everything was in a foreign language and we didn't know the norms, but Tyson figured it out for us. The train station was the most stressful part of the travel because we were freezing, exhausted, and carrying way too much luggage. In our defense, we brought a small amount for living here for 3 years. At one point, we almost missed the train because they changed where it was coming in at the last minute; amazingly, Tyson somehow figured this out from the overhead announcements which were in Italian. I was too frazzled to pay attetion, so he was a lifesaver. Anyway, I was freaking out a bit on the train because we had so much luggage and limited time to find somewhere to put it all on the train. Some cute old Italian men and women thought I looked worried because I couldn't find my seat, so they were speaking Italian to help me find it. I thought that was sweet, even though I was looking for luggage space. After about an hour on the train, we had arrived in Trento! We wearily walked our bags to Hotel Buonconsiglio, where we gratefully went to sleep.

Moral of the story: traveling so far is tiring--get plenty of sleep and pack lightly if possible.

Our Temporary Apartment
FBK kindly arranged for a temporary apartment while we look around for a place to live. My favorite part about the apartment is this lamp:



It's a lamp made out of a Trento champagne bottle! Other than that, the apartment has everything we need since it's furnished. The apartment is where we experienced some culture shock. Where everything is bigger in Texas, everything is smaller in Italy! The apartment itself is a decent size but the cups, wine glasses, plates, washing machine, and even the towels are much smaller. I had to laugh when I was drinking red wine from a glass that looked like it was made for port. I'm guessing one of the reasons Europeans are thin is because of these small plates. Though I have to say, in restaurants everything is "normally" sized.

Other differences-they don't tend to have clothes dryers here. We just hang stuff up to dry and it hasn't been hard to adjust. They also rarely have bath tubs, which is harder because I like baths! We are currently looking for a permanent apartment, so maybe we'll get lucky and find one that has a tub.

Public Transportation
Public transportation is great in Trento, as one would imagine. You can easily hop a local bus to anywhere in the city for about a buck. They also have fast and fairly cheap trains to get to other cities. Airfare is also reasonable. We plan on doing a lot of traveling while we're here and can take advantage of cheap rates. I'd love to go to Vienna, Rome, Florence, Venice, Bologna, Bolzano, Paris, Alsace and anywhere else I can. So excited to see where we go!

We got off on the wrong bus stop last week and found this view:




The City
Trento is so beautiful. Cobblestone streets everywhere and a lovely view of the Alps/Dolomites! The people here are very friendly, so it makes sense that it's known as "The smiling city." Compared to the U.S., it's not that smiley, but I think they're smiley for Europeans.

The people here don't usually speak fluent English, but they know enough that we can communicate between their small knowledge of English and our small knowledge of Italian. Hand gestures help. I've already learned several words and phrases, mostly related to eating at restaurants or buying things. Immersion is such a great way of learning.

Pics of Trento
This is the Piazza Duomo, which has a cool statue of Neptune.


We had beer and wine at this cafe in Piazza Duomo, it's called Caffe Portici.





The cafe gives you free chips and peanuts when you order alcohol. Trento has a lot of German/Austrian influences, which is why there's a good selection of beer, apple strudel, and schnitzel. Next time we go to this cafe, I'm going to order their signature drink "uno spritz", which is a mix of prosecco and Aperol--yum! It's basically sparkling white wine mixed with an Italian aperitif, similar to Campari.

Food
Of course I'm loving the food, since Italian is my favorite cuisine. I had heard from many Americans that the pizza was not good, but I personally love the pizza here. We have already had pizza 3 times while here and every time the pizza was excellent. I'd say the pizza is thinner than American pizza in general, which is why I like it. We had pepperoni pizza at a place called the Green Tower and Tyson loved it. So we may bring family there when they visit.

Here's a cool product I found at the grocery store called Pocket Coffee. It has liquid espresso inside of a chocolate. It's tasty.



I also tried nutella for the first time and really enjoyed that. I never knew that it was created in Italy.


In Conclusion
We wanted to get more pictures of the town, but the weather has been unusually (so I'm told) rainy. Hopefully the weather will clear up and we can get some good pictures for the blog.

Starting on Saturday, we are going to attend (free!) Italian language lessons, so hopefully we will start understanding our surroundings more.

Ciao bambino!

Location:Trento, Italy

We've got our Nulla Osta!

Great news: our long awaited Nulla Osta (nothing blocking) from the Italian government has arrived! We just finished applying for Tyson's visa at the Italian embassy in Houston today. We had heard that it was good to look professional, so Tyson wore a suit and I wore a dress. It seemed unnecessary based on what other people were wearing. We heard some people speaking Italian there and tried to figure out what they saying but most of it was difficult to understand for beginners. The process was fairly quick (around 30 minutes) and there weren't many people at the embassy. Hopefully our visa will arrive in good time.

Tip for people going to get a visa: bring plenty of cash, they don't tend to accept any other method of payment. Luckily, this particular embassy had a Wells Fargo underneath it, so I could just run down and get cash for Tyson's appointment.

We also booked our plane tickets for Trento; We're leaving on OCTOBER 29TH! Whoo-hoo!  This means we'll be spending Halloween in Italy, which is sort of a shame, because they don't celebrate this holiday as far as I know. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, so I'll make sure we do something fun. Right now, I'm thinking we'll watch some scary movies.  We could also dress up and scare the natives. That's always fun.

We also received information on our temporary apartment and it looks very nice and convenient. It includes all utilities/furniture and we can stay there a month or two while we're looking for a more permanent residence with an agent. It's in the center of town, right over a bakery/pizza shop that looks super yummy. We'll probably try that out when we get there.

I'm excited to hear that many of our friends and family are already planning on visiting us.  Hopefully we'll settle in soon and be able to show you all around.

Until next time!

Hey guys,
Welcome to my blog about our move to Trento, Italy.  I (Susie) will be the primary blogger, but Tyson will occasionally step in with some writing of his own. I hope you will enjoy reading about our adventures and feel free to e-mail me with any questions or picture requests you may have.

My first reaction to the news:  I had that feeling that you get when you win something--butterflies in my stomach and the urge to jump up and down. I had seen pictures of Trento and it looked so beautiful; I was very excited to get to live in such a lovely town. The first thing I did was call my family and let them know the good news. They were excited too, but admittedly a little sad that we were moving so far away. They thought we lived too far away when we were in NY. Hah. Tyson and I have started learning Italian using the Rosetta Stone and it's a great starting point.  I can't wait to become more fluent in Italian, learn about their culture, and eat all their delicious food! Or as I can say now, I want to mangio the food and bevo the vino. Still a bit of learning to go.

A new culture:  Although we are not yet in Italy, we've already learned some things about Italian culture. For one, it's very laid back and slow-paced. People take their time getting back to you and seem to go on vacation quite a bit. One of things I'll have to work on is just relaxing and not worrying about getting everything done in a timely manner. I think if you try to do that in Italy, you'll just end up stressed out. Right now, we're currently waiting on our "Nulla Osta" which means "Nothing Blocking" and will allow Tyson to apply for his work visa. Until we get that document we just have to be patient and wait. 

When are you leaving?:  Since I've been asked this question repeatedly by many different people, I figured I would put it on the blog for all to see. We don't know yet. But what we do know is that we're leaving NY on September 26th. Everything depends on when we receive our Nulla Osta, which can take a while to process. Until then, we'll just have to chill like a couple of Italians. We'll be in Texas while we're waiting, so if anyone wants to hang out, let me know!

Preparations:  Tyson loves to make fun of me for this. I love planning things. For me, it's a way to relieve my worries about the unknown. Obviously a move out of the country is a huge unknown, so I've been busy packing away our things and getting things we'll need for the move. Ty loves to say "Why did you pack that thing up? I needed that!" Usually it's some fairly obscure kitchen tool that he hasn't used in about a year, but apparently needs for cooking right now. I still maintain that I haven't packed away anything too important, though I did regret packing away the wine glasses. I should have kept those babies out. Tyson, you win this time...

Sentiments: One of the coolest parts of moving to Italy (for me) is that my beautiful and wonderful mama was Italian. She passed away almost 3 years ago and I still miss her every day. I know she would have been so thrilled to hear the news and would definitely want to come visit us.  

My mom wasn't from Italy, but she was raised in an Italian-American household. One of the biggest lessons she taught her 5 children was that "Blood is thicker than water" or "Il sangue non è acqua."  This phrase is apparently German in origin, but I've always associated it with Italians because of how much they cherish their families. I think that's part of the reason their culture is so relaxed--their priority is hanging out with their family, not their job or career.  

I really wish my mom could be here to see everything, but I know that this experience will be great for me and Tyson and we'll learn so much from it. I plan on learning everything I can about the country where my mom's family is from. I think it will help me feel closer to her.

Also props go out to my dad, who is also part Italian despite his French last name. Really we're mutts, what can I say? I look forward to you and the rest of the family coming to visit us! Thanks for all of your love and support over the years.

ROC peeps--I am going to miss you guys so much! What would I have done without you? When we first moved here 5 years ago, we didn't know anyone and you were all so friendly and made us feel right at home. I hope that we'll see you guys in the future at conferences and if any of you ever end up in the northern Italy area, please come stay with us! Maybe by that time we'll know enough of the language to show you around.

Ciao for now!,
Susie