May 17th 2020: Wow! It has been an exciting week! From class to food to adventures, this week was lots of fun! I had my first (real) pizza of the trip – the frozen ones from the supermarket don’t count- and I loved it! It was such an ordeal to actually order it which made the pizza all the better. After lots of research, I discovered that the best gluten free pizza in the city comes from Mister Pizza. Not the most traditional of places and located right in Piazza del Duomo it is the definition of a tourist restaurant. First I messaged them on instagram asking if I could order, then I followed instructions and downloaded their app but due to the lockdown it is not working, so finally I called my order in! The crust was amazing and so different than any GF pizza I’ve had before!
Another huge development is that Perché No reopened for individual orders. The man in front of us in line works for the Gelateria and recognized Nonna and me! He was super surprised at that I had stayed in Italy and that my Italian had improved so I understood his shock! I ordered “Vorrei un piccolo con limone e fragola per favore” and I will sleep tonight dreaming about the best combination ever.
Il giardino dell’iris opened this week and Nonna and I checked it out! It is usually open yearly for about a month but this year the gates are open for a week. To see the irises, a hike to the top of Piazzale Michelangelo is required. Unfortunately, the end of the bloom as well as huge storms earlier this week caused there to be less flowers but the ones we were able to see were spectacular.
Class this week was loads of fun. We are learning the hypothesis tenses so we spent a lot of time talking about impossible scenarios, plans for the futures and what ifs. A fun game we play is our teacher will start a sentence/scenario like Se — fosse mia mamma … or Se avrei sposato — …. (If blank was my mom and If I had married). My answers to these two were: se Meryl Streep fosse mia mamma sarei un cantante meglio e se avrei sposato giovane Bill, avrei ballato tutta mia vita su uno barca. (If Meryl Streep was my mother, I would be a better singer and If I had married young Bill, I would have danced all my life on a boat.) Now that the country is starting to open up, there is the possibility of our class happening in person. Our teacher is wonderful and she uses the prospect of a gelato (from the winner’s favorite place) to motivate us…and you know we will end up supporting Perché No!!!
Some of the really fun things I have seen on my walks around the city are the ways people are adapting to the new normal. People stand across the street and yell up to their friends who are in 3rd or 4th story apartments, and they take and leave food from the charity baskets scattered throughout the city. The baskets are hung by a string and are accompanied by a sign that says: If you can’t put something, take something.
This week I also cooked an amazing Thai chicken curry with coconut milk! It was insanely delicious and everyone should try it!
In other news: I learned how to add these additional photos into the post so that is exciting! Also, I did some online shopping all in Italian and it was super stressful! I can’t wait for the things to arrive and hope I didn’t mess it up too much!
Abbie Abroad 