The rest of my week...as in Wednesday and Thursday before leaving Thursday afternoon involved very little. I met with my group for Financial Management for the last time ever, thank goodness, to do our last case study for the class. It went relatively smoothly and man is it nice to be done. Apart from the group work not much else happened. Rosarinho's boy friend has come into town from London to visit and work here in Madrid for about 10 days. He seems like a good guy, I have only seen him once at dinner cause he leaves early and I am usually out late, but everything is fine, well except for the fact that he SNORES like it is going out of style! Other than that, nothing really happened last week, a few runs, and lots of relaxing. OH YEA, and I made a big Mexican spread for Cinco de Mayo for the roommates, neighbors and another friend. It was definitely a hit.
Ok brace your self, this is going to be long, full of food and good times!
Preface:
In Italy there is a branch of the military called the Alpini (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpini), which are the elite mountain warfare soldiers of the Italian Army; and every year the current and retired Alpini's get together in a city (which changes year to year) for a festival, reunion, PARTY. These are mountain men, and few women, that are expert campers and have a reputation of being expert drinkers as well! Now imagine 400,000 Alpini in the city of Bergamo (population 100,000), camped in any tiny open space (public or private), while racing around the city in mountain jeeps, carts, motor cycles and many other forms of motorized vehicles while always having some red wine in hand and blood stream.
Here we go:
Thursday is when things got going. I arrived in Bergamo around 8:30 in the evening where Domingos and Sebastian were waiting for me with open arms. We went straight to Sebastian and Martin's Grandma's house for dinner. At dinner we were 7: Martin, Sebastian, Domingos, Tio Alejandro (Martin and Sebastian's dad), Nonna (Tio Alejandro's mom, Sebastian and Martin's Grandma), Monica (Tio Alejandro's friend), and I. Nonna made a huge Paella which was fantastic and we all enjoyed the meal and each others company. As if dinner would be complete with just Paella, Nonna then set out a spread of deserts that was all sorts of amazing: Tiramisu (homemade by Sebastian and Domingos), Chocolate cake (homemade by Nonna), Hazelnuts, Strawberry, and Vanilla Gelato, and then a variety of cookies. It was great to get to meet their grandma and enjoy the homemade meal. After dinner we headed off to fabricate some make shift Alpini hats, and we were off on the town! We met up with some of Martin's friends at a local bar, and then headed up to Citta Alta (the old part of Bergamo, up on the hill) to take in the Alpini in their best form. Thursday night was relatively mellow because they were still heading into town, but all the same it was quite a sight. At one point we saw a group of about 15 Alpini piled onto what looked like a nursery cart, doing a wheel stand (driving simply on the back wheels down the road!) After all the shenanigans, we made our way to a place called Bergamo 1...When you pull up to the palace it looks like an old warehouse in an industrial neighborhood, which it is, but it is also a bread factory that serves hot pizza by the slice, or mini pizzas to anyone that knows about it for a mere 2 euro! This quite possibly, is the best pizza that I have ever had!
Friday we woke up at a decent hour and went up to the top of Citta Alta and went for a walk and caught some views from a mini castle at the top of the hill. It was great to overlook the city of Bergamo and tour around a bit. For lunch, we made a a type of ravioli that was cheese stuffed with a butter, sage, and pancetta sauce. These guys know how to cook and eat well. Apart from the ravioli, we also made homemade bruschetta which was really good. Later in the afternoon it was off to go see what all the Alpini where up to. The streets were really starting to fill up, and the Alpini were coming into their form. We enjoyed a bottle of wine while cruising the streets before stopping in at an art exhibition that Tio Alejandro was having in Bergamo. It was really cool to see his art and the space that he filled. It was a room about 4 meters wide by 10 meters long, and apparently it is the smallest space that he has ever worked in, but it turned out really well. After lunch we cruised around and tried to be as Alpini as we could! We ate some roasted suckling pork sandwiches, drank some more red wine, and were one of them! For dinner, Martin made a polenta with cheese mixed into it and a red sauce with sausage and cubes of pork to go on top...some people would call that Heave on Earth! That night, we stayed in the downtown area with some of Martin's friends and just took it easy, and of course before calling it a night we went back to Bergamo 1 for a bit of pizza!
Saturday morning was an early one. We were supposed to try to be out of the house by 9:30a.m. but ended up leaving closer to 11:00! We met up with the other 6 of Martin's friends and began the caravan up into the Alps for some river rafting. I am not quite sure how but we were following on of his friends with a GPS and still managed to get split up and lost on the way there! We arrived around 2:00p.m. had a lunch of bread, cheese, and cold cuts; and within no time we were putting on wet suits and getting debriefed for the river rafting. Once we got to the river they made us all jump in the water to show we knew what they meant when they told us to float with out feet down river, and which ever other commands they gave us. Everything was fine until you hit the water and with a full wetsuit on the cold went right through you and hurt your bones! It has been quite some time since I have been in water so cold. We split up into the different rafts and the water fights began immediately! The trip down the river was relatively quick, I think we were on the river just over an hour or so. Yes, there were people that went over board...at one point we were laughing at the a guy from the other boat that had fallen in and sure enough when we went down the rapid right after them we lost 2 people! Sebastian was one of the ones that went swimming, and the other two were a couple of Martin's friends. There was also a bridge that we stopped at to jump into the water. I think that almost everyone did it but one or two of the guys. It was pretty fun, maybe about 4 meters or so. I was setting up to do a flip off of it the second time and the guide started yelling at me and getting all worried, so I turned around and asked if it should be a back flip instead! Not sure why he didn't want us doing flips off of it, but I complied unfortunately. After the rafting, we hung around the place where we did rafting, played fooze ball, threw darts, and just chilled out. The place we stayed was right near the rafting company, and was an apartment building that they rented out rooms of so we got 2 of them and we all crashed in this place right on the river. the last event of the day was a typical Alpine Italian dinner at a mountain lodge. It took a while to drive up the longest drive way imaginable to the top of a mountain to come to this little community of houses with slate stone roofs. The views were incredible from the top, and we all came with a big appetite. There was no menu at the restaurant, we sat down and the plates started flowing out of the kitchen! The first thing to come was of course, wine and bread. After that, a plate of white cheese with walnuts came that was pretty mild. The second appetizer was Anti-Pasto that consisted of a bean salad, asparagus with a mushroom sauce, Prosciutto, a couple other dry cured meats, a baked salami, a meatball wrapped in a grape leaf, a type of empanada filled with onions and leaks, and a pickled pepper salad. The first first plate was two types of sausages with boiled potatoes which were UNBELIEVABLE...I know you are saying, boiled potatoes how could they be so good; I am not sure how they did it but they were perfect. The second first plate was Asparagus Risotto with Parmesan cheese over the top, another wonderful dish. The main course was the next thing to come, and it consisted of whole wheat polenta with three different dishes: Baby roasted goat, Stewed frog (in a white sauce), and rabbit. All of the plates were amazing, a typical Italian Alpine meal with ingredients from the region. As if that were not enough, they then brought a homemade tart that was almond flavored with raspberries and blueberries, coffee, and lastly 4 different liquors to help digest! There were three different types of Grapa (Grape Liquor), and one artichoke liquor of all things. I tried them all, was not impressed by any except for one of the Grapas which had a mint flavor to it. Needless to say it was a meal that I will remember for the rest of my life! We headed back to the house to hang out, laugh, joke, and tell stories and call it a night.
Sunday morning we were going to go get groceries for a barbecue but people were not feeling up to it because the weather wasn't great so we all headed back to Bergamo. Domingos, Sebastian and I decided to try to catch the final Inter Milan game of the season, but after battling the crowds and rushing to get there in time, the cheapest seats that we could find were 110 euros so we decided that we would head home and watch it there instead. Once we got to Bergamo getting home was interesting. The street in front of their apartment building was being used as a staging area and we could not get any where near the house. We finally made it home, watched some of the game, and then headed out to enjoy some red wine and watch the Alpini parade around in their robin hood hats. That night for dinner we made a fish in red sauce, roasted potatoes with zucchini, and a mixed vegetable quiche. We did not have a single bad meal while we were there. After dinner, we headed up to Citta Alta to see what was left of the Alpini, had a cocktail and called it an early night.
Domingos had a flight at 6:30a.m. so we were up at 4:45a.m. to pack and get ready to leave the house by 5. Martin and I dropped him off at an airport in Milan, and then headed back to Bergamo where Martin dropped me off at the airport. For some reason Ryanair flies to the little Bergamo airport and not Milan, but it works out very nicely for me! The airport was quite hectic with people sleeping all over the terminal because the volcano in Iceland is acting up again and a bunch of flights were canceled Sunday. Luckily after some minor delays I was able to get a flight back to Madrid, and make it back to school for my last two classes. After class, I met up with Marc and a friend of ours Vanessa, who we met in Morocco, for a last minute dinner. We ate at La Llama and showed Vanessa what Spanish cooking is all about. We drank some sangria and ate Sepia, Carne Adobada, Patatas Bravas, and some Pollo a la Plancha...typical Spanish meal. I finally made it home way too late and called it a night.
Today was another semi mellow day. I had the last class for international Finance, and the second to last class for Financial Systems today, and my last class World Economics was canceled because last night there were only three of us there (Spanish students always skip class, we were three American exchange students there!) so we breezed through the material and she told us not to worry about coming today. Other than that, I have been cleaning up from the trip, and am setting to post the pictures to the Picassa album (UPPER RIGHT SIDE OF THE BLOG) for you all to enjoy.
I hope this finds everyone doing wonderfully, and that all you mothers had a wonderful Mother's Day!
Much Love Always,
Phil
I want to go to Italy again!!!! Glad you had such a great trip! Congratulations to Martin! I loved the part about Tio Alejandro's mother's house and the Alpini stories.
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