Yesterday I went to yoga with D at 9 in the morning. My jet lag caught up with me around 10. I met a bunch of people that Des volunteers with and then napped until 4:30pm. After my reposa, we went to this town called Caltagirone, which is a town known for its ceramics. They have been making ceramics from local clay for over 3,000 years (this all started with the Cretins). They have this HUGE staircase that goes up through town and each rise of all 182 steps (I think that it is 182…) have tiles of a different design. We walked to the top of the stairs… and then back down. It was kind of scary, at least for someone who is afraid of heights and is walking on wet stones that slope downward =).
Apparently they have festivals where they decorate the steps with flowers and lanterns. D and B have pictures of it decorated on their website. I just have pictures of the undecorated steps because the festival is in April. I bought some very beautiful pottery.
It was 7:30 and still an hour before the restaurant (La Scala – The Stairs) we were going to eat at opened, so we went and got a cappuccino at one of the local cafes. Cappuccino, only .85 euros. UNBELIEVABLE. I am going to come back an addict and unsatisfied by American standards when it comes to espresso.
At dinner we had a 5 course meal, with wine, water, coffee, and champagne, all for 20 euro a piece. This is what we ate:
Antipasta – including prosciutto crudo (my first of the trip and freaking fantastic… better than any other prosciutto that I have had in the states), salame piccanta (spicy salami, It was bene), olives (good), formaggio (both provolone and mozzerella), panzerotti (we think these were the samosa-like things stuffed with something that we though might have been ricotta), arancini (fried rice ball with cheese), and bresaola con carpaccio di funghi champignon (bresaola =
salted beef, thinly sliced, so it was raw beef with mushrooms, the beef was awesome, the mushrooms were okay).
Primi Piatti (first plate) – ravioli di carne burro e salvia (meat ravioli with butter and sage) AND Tagliatelle Scala (I am guesing this is the house “special” pasta. It had a sausage-type sauce. Molto bene).
Secondi Piatti (second plate) – Fagottino ripieno di spinaci e salsiccia (we think it was some kind of bird, like pheasant, stuffed with spinach and sausage, with some sort of fruit compote. We didn’t know if fagottino was the fruit or the meat, but it wasn’t in either of my italian dictionaries. It was delicious, regardless of what it was.) AND arrosto di maiale in crema di funghi (rosted pork with a
mushroom cream sauce, the pork was a little dry, but the sauce was very good).
Contorno (vegetable side dish) – Insalata verdi e noci (green salad with walnuts. Honestly, I think they just brought this out for decoration. I ate one walnut from the salad and no one else in the restaurant touched theirs…)
Dolce e Frutta (Sweets and fruit) – Arance el maraschino (oranges with Maraschino liqueur, very good) and Cassatelle di ricotta (this was a delicious pastry filled iwth ricotta cheese. It was very pretty. The crust was kind of like those toaster strudels that Pillsbury makes, but way better because they were homemade… I swear, italian dessert will be the end of me.)
Plus we had a carafe of red wine with dinner, acgua naturale (still water), caffe (espresso, with two packets of sugar, thank you very much) and Spumante. We ate dinner from 8:30 until 11:30.
Tonight we are going to the opera, or what I hope is the opera, except it will be Brazillian. And I Went to the grocery store… but I will tell you all about it tomorrow. I think that the grocery store was the most fun I had since I have been here… and so far, everything has been really fun…
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