March 1st 2020: Cinghiale is the best!! Nonna’s friends from Syracuse arrived at the end of last week so we got together for a fun lunch. I haven’t seen them in years so it was fun to catch up, and the food was amazing! My go to order in an Italian restaurant you ask?? Since I was 9, I have been a HUGE fan of cinghiale…wild boar! I had always had it served on pasta, and not all restaurants serve gluten free pasta so I have been making it at home. There are jars of cinghiale sauce that you can buy in the grocery store that are delicious. At the restaurant yesterday, I had cinghiale with fried polenta and it was amazing! So in summary, eat cinghiale if you ever have the chance!
(I just played a game of how many times I could say cinghiale in one story, I hope you enjoyed it!)
March 2nd 2020: Passato Prossimo on steroids. Sadly all my friends in my class left; the Argentinians went home as planned, and the woman from Macao had to go back. But, I’m no longer a full fledged level zero! One new person joined my grammar class today, so it was just the two of us. He’s a nice guy from Germany who also finds the prepositions to be crazy! But since he is only doing grammar class, I was alone for conversation. And while many people have told me that I am a great talker, it’s hard to carry on a conversation in a new language with yourself! The school’s admin had me join a different class so I could actually engage but they wouldn’t be my level. So today I went wayyyy outside the comfort zone and joined a level 2 class. They know three more tenses than me, and are all 15+ years older and yet I was able to communicate my thoughts!!!!! no worries, we stayed on brand: everyone still thinks Vermont is too rural and is shocked there aren’t discotecas everywhere but I did it! Only slightly terrified for tomorrow when they know another tense but it’ll all work out, it’s only two hours right??
In other news, a taxi drove on the sidewalk today to avoid a bicyclist that was riding with their umbrella up…I love Florence!
Abbie Abroad 