I have often felt Sundays are the best days. There is anticipation for Monday to come, but then the realization that you have one more day to relax at home. Sundays at home in America mean cornbread, church, family, and dinner. Since I was lacking the cornbread and church, I decided to focus on the family and food aspect. I hung out all day with my roommates, my Italian family, and made dinner for the next week.
While my one roommate was out and one was eating lunch at the table, I decided to make food so I could have a quick lunch or dinner if needed. I decided to boil pasta and make a cold pasta salad. I am used to huge Tupperware and fridges, both of which I lack in Italy. So into one tub went tomatoes, cucumber, and chickpeas, drizzled with olive oil and salt. In the other was pasta. My grand plan was you put some pasta, put on the veggies, add a little more olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and you get panzanella pasta salad! Panaznella is a salad of day-old bread and cucumber and tomato…. substitute pasta for bread and you have quick lunches! Florence has proved quick challenging in the food area. It is hard to plan out meals and with the Florentine mentality of buying fresh, making large quantities of food for the week are really limited to pasta dishes right now. I am really thrilled that I took initiative and decided to make pasta salad. I normally would have stood in front of the fridge or just had pizza for the rest of my time here. I can feel myself growing a little more independent and more able to make my own decisions. I also proved to myself that I can feed myself healthfully and on budget.
My family and I went to the San Lorenzo leather market and shopped. It was a nice bonding experience. It was fun looking at purses, jackets, and hats, and making our purchases. The merchants seemed really strict about price but I soon realized that they love haggling! I loved trying to make the price of our purchases as low as possible, enjoying the game just as much as the merchant. But I learned one thing – when a merchant wants to show you more purses in the store, not in the tent outside, just say no. He is trying to sell you bags that are triple the price than those being sold in the cart. One merchant showed me a beautiful bag – the downside was that it was €400. I told him that it was way to expensive. He told me that Italian boyfriends routinely buy bags this price for their girlfriends. As I left the store with my roommates, I thought, was that a pick up line or a comment that my non-existent boyfriend needs to drop €400 on a bag for me… hmmm.
Another quiet night, but this one was a little different. This was a school night. A first-day-of-school school night. I felt like a first grader. I picked out my outfit, packed my school bag, and planned what time I would wake up and what route I would take to school. I lay in bed, writing this blog instead of sleeping, excited to see what tomorrow will bring.
Sundays are a day of family, food, and quiet reflection of the past week and the week to come. I am glad that I will not have to give up my favorite day and it’s rituals while I am here in Italy.
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