We eventually got dressed to walk to school to meet Lilla, and we thought to meet Virginia. So, we started our walk and stopped at this place I had been seeing, to get some sweets for Lilla. When we got to school we discovered that Virginia was not going to be at school until 4. We were waiting in the teacher's room when some of Lilla's students came in and summoned us. So, we went upstairs and talked to them a bit! THe student that talks to me on facebook some is in this class. He is one of the only ones who speaks English! So, Andrea talked to them some in Italian, and talked a bit about her research upon Lilla's prompting. One girl came up to Andrea, and Andrea addressed her in English, but the girl did not understand anything. I am still shocked to meet 5th years, who have now had, typically, over 5 or 6 years of English, and do not understand anything. I am curious how this happens; how do they get passed along to the next year of school. I am by no means judging the individual student, but rather I am questioning the system as a whole.
When the bell ran, and we went back outside (which by the way is where MOST of the students were when we arrived over half an hour before school ended). We told Lilla that we were taking the bus, and we went to get it. We took the bus to a stop that would put us near the big grocery store. There we bought stuff for Andrea to make cima di rapa, and we also got some bread, prosciutto, and burrata (like mozzarella...ish) for our appetizer.
We made lunch, talked, and just enjoyed the afternoon. The food was sooooooooo good! The cima di rapa smelled bad, but tastes AH-MAZING! We made it with the orecchiette pasta, which is the ear shaped pasta. It was a long, lovely, tasty Italian lunch! It was also nice to have some different things to eat, rather than my norm! Next, I took a 2 hour nap because I could barely keep my eyes open!
Once I woke up, we got dressed and walked to the Corso. We were also in search of some sweets for Andrea to try. Cosenza really does not have many "typical" treats, unless it is for Christmas, so we were just in search of something that grabbed our eye. I took her to the bar on my corner. Now, on our way there, I started telling her about this stuff that I had seen there once, and asked about it...I explained that they told me it had chocolate, nuts, and I thought apple in it. She asked me about what it looked like, and started telling me that it might be this stuff that has pig's blood in it, and I heard mele when he would have said, maiale. So, we get there...and sure enough...it was sanguinoccio. However, we kept moving for the time being. The plan was to go to a few stores on the Corso and then come back for sweets if that's where we wanted to get them. So, we went to the Calabrese Specialita' store to get Andrea some spicy stuff made in Cosenza. We took our time and just enjoyed the walk.
So, before we returned to Bar Bronx I was telling Andrea that the guy had offered to let me try it when I asked what was in it. So, our plan was to ask, and see if he offered. Sure enough, he did...and we took him up on it. He gave it to Andrea first, and then a little bit to me. She took a bite and said it was fine. I was fine to try it...UNTIL I put it in my mouth and then I could NOT get over the idea of eating pig's blood! I know most of you just fell out of your chair, off your bed, or maybe just over (if you were standing)...but yes, I ate something that I knew had pig's blood in it! I could barely swallow it, and I definitely did not have anymore of it. So, we picked out actual sweets, and went home.
We came home, had our sweets for dinner...wine...and more conversation for hours! Eventually we went to bed full of sugar, a bit of wine, tea, and well...a little bit of pig's blood!
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