_di recente_

I haven’t written in a while, mostly due to the fact that I have been busy with work up until my final (today). It went well, though you can almost always hope for a better review than you’ve had. It’s really necessary in an environment and education such as architecture to deal with critique, with criticism, whether good, bad, or indifferent, and whether justified or completely ridiculous. I have received my share of all of the above. It is very easy to evaluate any criticism you receive as unmerited unless it was everything you hoped, to devalue the good critiques of others, and to bask and wallow in any good praise you receive. But I am trying ever so carefully (and often without success) to really “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and mourn with those who mourn.”

But I am definitely happy it’s over (for the most part). It was amazing how much sleep and how little stress there was leading up to the final review. Usually it’s much different. Ah yes, leading up to this weekend. This past weekend was quite..incredible. I feel like I never had a chance to breathe, though I really didn’t mind. I was having too much fun!

Friday: Crazy night of dancing, laughing, more dancing, and many, many strobe lights. It was the epic ‘Cherry Cherry Boom Boom’ party at the Jam Club with the entire architecture class, faculty..and all the other random people that happened to stop by.  A Lady GaGa –themed party in Italy. Yep, only slightly ridiculous. People…drank a lot. Danced a lot. As far as I know everyone had fun and was safe. There were some crazy happenings and some funny pictures. I only got creeped on by one guy, and Kateri and Alex were amazing friends and helped me avoid him. Thanks guys J Oh, and there was a guy (an Italian) with a University of Minnesota shirt on. So amazing.

Saturday…well, sleep in the morning. When you stay up late on a Friday night, even if you don’t drink at all, it’s necessary to sleep some. Saturday afternoon I went to the market in Torino at Porta Palazzo, which has to be one of my favorite markets/places in all of Torino. It’s so beautiful, colorful, chaotic, and generally amazing. There is sooooo much food there. So many different varieties. I will miss it so terribly when I go back to the US. It’s amazing having a continuous growing season. I love that everyone is yelling prices and calling out to you to buy whatever they have to sell. It’s pretty intimidating when you first arrive, But as soon as I’ve made my first purchase of produce, I LOVE just wandering and smelling and observing. My favorite are the elderly vendors, the ones who have done it so many times, who are there because they love it. It’s their life. The guy who sold me my sundried tomatoes was particularly sweet. Well, he didn’t exactly do anything…..he was just a sweet old Italian man. My favorite so far was the woman I bought my bell peppers from.  Usually the vendors select the produce for you, but she gave me a bucket so I could pick out the ones I wanted. Apparently I guessed almost correctly as far as the weight, because I was only a few grams off. She made the cutest “Oh!” sound, picked up a small tomato from the other side of her stand, placed it on the scale with the peppers, evened out to an even kilo, and asked, “Va bene?” Si!  Of course!!! So, purchases this market visit: Red and Yellow bell peppers, Roma tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, potatoes, pomegranates, onions, …and something else. Ha I don’t remember!

Later that night I went over to David’s house and made dinner for everyone – everyone being four people from church – David and the three Pursell’s. We made risotto and gnocchi…and an apple gallette. So, lots of cooking and baking! But it came out decently. Yay.

Sunday I think I got to go to about 20 minutes of the service before I had to go and meet everyone for rides to the barbeque for lunch. I was not very happy to leave. BUT the barbeque was amazing, so it kind of made up for it. Ah yes, the barbeque. We drove (apparently over an hour?) outside Torino to Marin’s boyfriend, Umberto’s, country house. ..WHICH WAS CRAZY BEAUTIFUL! I couldn’t believe it! We walked in the front gate, only to be greeted by nearly 30 people (more or less) standing around eating cheese and appertivi, standing in the middle of a giant courtyard covered with vines, flowers, and olive trees. And under one of the archways there was a ping pong table. ...So I played ping pong with Italians in an Italian villa. Awesome. The barbeque was equally amazing - with eggplant (melanzana), zucchini (zucchini), ribs (costate), wine (vino..of course), kebabs, steak (bistecca), ..and probably some other things I can't remember. All of it took place in a gorgeous painted dining room with one of the longest dining room tables I've ever seen. ..with shiny plastic yellow silverware. win. Everyone was so kind to us, even though we were really shy and awkward and knew no italian. But the Italians are good at doing that typically I've found!

I actually brought dessert to this event, though I didn't know it was going to be such a huge event.  I expected more like 6 or 7... not 26 or 27. So I made apple muffins. That's about as simple as it gets. And I didn't have internet to look up a normal recipe...so..... I completely made it up off the top of my head. No measurements whatsoever. One more, I wasn't even able to stay to take them out of the oven! I rush baked them before church and had to go before I had absolutely no time at church. So Sarah, my fabulous roommate, graciously helped me out (TWICE!) by taking the mystery muffins out of the oven, and by bringing them to our meeting point with Marina to drive to the barbeque. Thank you Sarah, very very much.

But anyway, I was pretty embarrassed when I came to this glitzy barbeque with the plainest apple muffins I've ever made. They didn't even have a decent color to them. And then the other part of dessert was this huge crazy fancy quadruple layer chocolate mousse cake. Embarrassed.  Surprise! They loved my muffins?! I was shocked. Very pleasantly surprised. I know it's slightly weird to say, but I feel like it was a total God thing. It's easy for me to get down on myself, to devalue myself. But sometimes God surprises me with crazy things - like Italians preferring ultra-simple plain apple muffins to a beautiful chocolate cake. But the day was beautiful, a breath of fresh air.