I have been in Roma for almost a week now (tomorrow it will be). Sometimes it seems like time is flying by, while at other times it seems like I've been here for at least a few weeks. Not sure if that is a good thing or not. Hmm. To start off, I'll give you a fun fact. Amor= to love and Roma spelled backwards.
Slowly, I'm learning to live the "Roman lifestyle". That involves making almost daily trips to the grocery store, shopping at the open air market, Campo di Fiori, having pizza for lunch, eating gelato, taking the side streets to studio instead of the main ones, loving the heat, walking everywhere...etc. Ha, just realized the first 4 things I mention involve food. Typical me; food is always on my mind. :-) Guess I'll talk about that first then!
Almost every day for lunch Katie and I have ate at the local pizza stands that are around. We've been trying various ones so we can find our favorite. We've been eating out for lunch because the price to prepare a sandwich or whatever on our own is about the same as getting pizza. Depending on the stand, sometimes it is cheaper. For lunch last Friday we treated ourselves nicely by going to a Chinese restaurant that one of our instructors pointed out to us. It tasted sooo good and pretty cheap! The entrees were less than 5 Euro, but the fried rice was just over 5 Euro. Obviously, next time we'll skip the fried rice. I've very thankful to know that I won't have any Chinese withdrawals here in Rome. I am trying to find a good sushi place and edamame, but haven't had any luck with finding edamame or been daring enough to try the sushi here. Not sure how I'll survive without edamame.
The easiest and cheapest thing to do for dinner is pasta. Thank goodness I love pasta; however, I am concerned that I might grow tired of it at some point. We'll see. A bag of pasta will give Katie and I two meals each to eat and only costs 40 Euro cents. We've been having various sauces with the pasta; tonight's was pesto! It is my goal by the end to know about 10 different pasta sauces to use. Thus far we've either bought them or made super simple sauces of our own. We'll have to get courageous soon. I'm thinking a homemade alfredo sauce will be next since only red sauce is sold in the stores, and I'm usually a white sauce eater. Other than pasta, we had one meal of sausage and tomato and another of mini-hamburgers (minus the bun). The rest equals pasta!
I can't forget to mention dessert aka gelato! Sooo tasty! I'm very proud to say that I've only bought gelato from the vendors twice. But Katie and I bought a carton of it, so I've been have a shot glass full every night. This carton of gelato that we bought from the supermarket costs about the same as one small serving from a vendor (2 Euro), so we figured why not-- at least we're being cost effective, forget the waistline. We did make a rule on Saturday that for every ISU football game, we have to go get a serving of raspberry and mango gelato (red and gold) from a vendor to show our support for the team. Sounds like a great rule, doesn't it?
Not to worry, Katie and I have been getting our servings of fruits and veggies, too. On Saturday, we went to Campo di Fiori for the first time. Campo di Fiori is one of the most famous open air markets in Rome. Tourists flock it every day, even on Sundays when the market isn't operating. We quickly discovered that all the produce was MUCH cheaper here than in the grocery stores. We bought lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, apples, bananas, peaches, and dried fruit, and spent about 11 Euro on the produce (minus the dried fruit). Today we made a return visit to restock. I bought about 15 Roma tomatoes for 1,90 Euro. The dried fruit is expensive here, but tastes so good! I ended up spending 8 Euro today just on dried fruit. Yikes! I divided up my dried fruit into 3 containers in hope that I can make it last longer than my last batch did. We're lucky to have Campo di Fiori just a ten minute walk away from our apartment, and it is on our route for our daily walk to class, so I can easily grab something for breakfast.
We've been going to various places for cheese and some meat-- still trying to figure out the best deals and offerings. There's so much cheese here that it is hard to know where to begin! Bread has been a little difficult to find. Good cheap bread, that is. We might have finally found the spot to go to today but it is across the river (a long walk from our apartment).
Now that I've finished talking about food, the bottomless pit is hungry again... Oh, and just to put your minds at ease, I'm not busting at my seams. In fact, the scale says I've lost a pound or two which I assume is due to all the walking. Then again, it has only been one week; I might be obese by the end. :-)
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