Mi Piace....

Everything. I love blood oranges.  They are maybe my favorite thing about Italy. No, actually, they are not, but they definitely rank up there with the eighty cent cappuccinos and eight hundred year old buildings. Did I mention that the house I live in was built in 1265? (the same year of Dante’s birth.) I don’t know what I will do when I return to America and cannot find them anymore. Not only are they delicious, but they are so beautiful. Last week when I began to peel my orange after dinner I had to act like I was not surprised to find that it was half purple. They look like pieces of art. Actually, as lot of the food here looks like art. While I am on the topic of food Siena has this dessert which I have yet to try called “Baci di Siena.” It is gelato with chocolate chips, hazelnuts, sometimes cookie pieces, and whipped cream, all dipped in a chocolate ganache and frozen. Really Siena? Do you really think I need more reasons to eat gelato. The other thing is that eating gelato in the morning is totally acceptable. As is drinking a glass of wine after lunch. Which, I guess is sort of acceptable in America…

Anyway, learning Italian is hard, but I love it so much. Italian is maybe the most beautiful language ever. I thought maybe it was just me that thought this, but no, it really is. Most latin based languages are, in their modern form, derived from the dialect of the dominant city, so modern French is from a Parisian dialect, Spanish from Madrid, etc. Well, in the middle ages Italy was not unified enough for this to happen. People in Venice could not communicate with people in Rome, unless they spoke Latin. So Italians decided to take the most beautiful words from all of their dialects to make the basis of modern Italian. So it is not just me being infatuated with this language. Italian is just that beautiful. Just like Italy itself. I love saying things in first person plural so I can used the “amo” verb ending. it just makes the word sound like a song. Even in first person, Io sono piena, I am full, it sounds so much lovely, such a mundane phrase.