I imagine myself a princess of the middle ages, sitting in my Italian castle; it is winter and the cold winds drift into the stone room through the open window, the drafty air surrounds me. Now replace winter with early fall and a beautiful silk gown with a baggy old sweatshirt and t-shirt piled on under a robe complete with “royal slippers” and sweatpants. Fashion is thrown out of the window these days; the goal is to put on as many layers as possible to stay warm in this drafty old museum. We are comfortable bums indeed! The new “fashion accessory” of the palazzo has become the huge soft wool blankets. I never go anywhere without mine; It is all the rage! The past week, I wasn’t sure if I was in Ireland or Italy! The typical forecast last week was rain with a chance of more cold rain! I now know why UK inhabitants like tea so much! I think I consumed more than two cups a day to help keep warm. I am now regretting the shorts that sit in my drawers, wishing they would magically turn into a ski jacket and long johns! This cold weather is not what I am used to until about December. Christmas at the beach is usually warm, no colder than 40 degrees!
Besides tea and coffee, the new seasonal drink of choice is hot chocolate. The hot chocolate in Italy is more like chocolate soup that you eat with a spoon! Fabrizio has the best hot chocolate with 32 different flavors to choose from on the menu. I have sampled only a few but I hope to try many more! My favorite so far is the white chocolate with fruits of the forest. This past weekend, I sampled various kinds of hot chocolate at the EuroChocolate festival in Perugia! The endless amount of chocolate was a dream come true for any sweet tooth! I sampled little taste of what Heaven has in store for me; a feast of free samples and every kind of chocolate that I could ever imagine! Every European chocolate vendor was lined up in the streets of Perugia. The crowds multiplied by the hour, until it was impossible to walk without holding onto the person in front of you, forming an elephant train. The crowded gathered in this Umbrian town to sample chocolates from all over the world. My favorite part of the festival was the Mayan exhibit showing where chocolate originated from in the Americas. This exhibit was especially interesting to me because I have visited the Mayan ruins in Tulúm, where the first cacao plants originated. There were samples of the bitter raw powdered cacao. I dared to try this bitter sample; it was certainly not the chocolate that Hershey makes! It was interesting to learn about the origins of chocolate. I learned that the cacao tree was discovered 2,000 years ago in the tropical rainforests of the Americas. The pods of this tree contain seeds that can be processed into chocolate. The Mayans and Aztecs mixed ground cacao seeds with various seasonings to make a spicy foamy drink. When the Spanish conquistadors came to the Americas, they brought the seeds home to Spain. Chocolate was introduced to Europe, resulting in new recipes and flavors of chocolate. Since then, new technologies and innovations have changed the texture and taste of chocolate, but it still remains a favorite in most countries in the world.
Although the chocolate was good, I still miss other kinds of American candy, especially now that Halloween is drawing near! My grandmother did send me candy corn for my birthday! It was a nice little taste of home! The candy corn made me miss some of the American fall activities that I will be absent this year in Italy, such as The Barn Party with Crusade, The State Fair, and Halloween. This past Monday, I was asked to give a presentation to my middle school class about Halloween in America. I started off the presentation with an explanation of the history of Halloween and how it has become more of a secular commercial holiday in the USA. I explained that children in America like to dress up and go “Trick-or-Treating” from house to house, collecting a pale full of candy. I continued by showing them pictures of pumpkin carving and apple-bobbing, both of which were foreign concepts to these young Italians. The kids got a good kick out of my attempt at charades, to show them how apple-bobbing works. The kids asked me how older kids celebrate Halloween. I showed the class videos of a haunted house and told them that a lot of people like to watch scary movies on Halloween to get scared. The reactions were hilarious after they viewed the video; they just didn’t know what to think of this American tradition!
I have enjoyed my experience here in Sansepolcro thus far and I am excited to see what happens next. My experiences here continue to shape my views of the world and the people in it. I have learned about how to live in another culture, and going back to American culture is going to be strange. I am now used to hearing mostly Italian accents and the common activity of taking a daily stroll up and down Via Settembre. I love the people of Sansepolcro and the Italian culture! I feel like a citizen of Sansepolcro and it will always be engraved in my heart as a second home!
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