Pasta, Pasta and more Pasta

The other day I put up a question on facebook asking, ‘It’s ok to drink wine everyday.. right?’

I should also be asking the question, ‘It’s ok to eat some form of pasta everyday.. right?’  Haha, I’ve been in Italy now for about 5 weeks and I think I’ve had either pasta or pizza at least once.. everyday.  I mean, it could be that I just love pasta that much - but I think the truth is that, pasta is just so stinking cheap here.

I buy 3 boxes of pasta for about €1,80 that lasts me about a week and a half or so.  Then I buy some tomato sauce, some bacon, and boom - I’m set on dinner for the next few days.  It’s incredible.  My roommates started making fun of me for making pasta with tomato sauce everyday - so I decided that starting about three weeks ago - I would make a ‘different’ type of pasta every Thursday for the rest of my time here.

The first Thursday was pretty awesome.  I went online and learned how to make pasta carbonara and it actually turned out really good.  As you can tell from this picture - I was extremely proud of myself.

Oh man, look at that beautiful pasta

Anyways, after that first Thursday, I started to get pretty excited about the next week.  My confidence took over and we invited a few people over to our apartment and me and my buddy Martin, from Sweden, cooked up some classic Fettuccine Alfredo.  It didn’t turn out too bad, and the good thing was we were able to cook dinner for about 6 people.

Here’s some of the leftovers

So after word got out of ‘Pasta Thursdays’, people got pretty excited about the upcoming dish of some homemade lasagna.  Now, the stuff that I made was one thing - but homemade lasagna is a whole different ballgame.  Anyways, Sebastian, my buddy from Colombia, who is training to be a cook - came over and basically did the whole thing himself, which turned out to be a good thing, because the lasagna came out incredible - and I got to learn how to make it myself for the next time.  I didn’t take a picture of the lasagna, but basically we had about 10 people over and we enjoyed some incredible dinner and about 8 bottles of wine together.  Stay tuned for this next Thursday, when we come up with another round of pasta.

Well besides pasta, I’ve also been introduced to the most incredible pizza place ever.  Basically, you order a €6 pizza, and you get the most giant thing placed in front of you.  It’s just about impossible to finish it in one sitting, and I always make sure to get it ‘da asporta’ - so I can enjoy the rest for lunch the next day. 

Here’s my favorite pizza: ‘La Messicana’ and there is my roommate Eva, with a Calzone.. yes, that is one Calzone.

It might seem like all I do is eat… which may be true.  But, I’ve also done a little exploring of the city that I live in.

Bologna, is one of the oldest and was one of most important cities in Italy.  The Towers of Bologna, are just about at the center of city, and are the place that everyone meets before going anywhere. 

You can climb up the giant structure on the right and look over the entire city.  I thought it sounded like a good idea - but, unlike in Germany, there isn’t an elevator to take you all the way to the top.  This may not seem like THAT big of a deal - but if you are afraid of heights like yours truly, seeing stairs like these… kind of make you think twice..

Anyways, after what seemed like forever - we finally made it to the top and just look at how excited we are: Sophie (Norway), Eva (Sweden), Sebastian (Colombia), Me, and Charlotte (Germany)

Oh my other roommate, Felicity (England), was also there.  So ya, it was a good time, and looking over the city was pretty incredible.  In this picture, you can see the center (with the main church, San Petronio Basilica, on the left)

Well, ya.  I think that may be it for this post.  Hopefully the loads of pictures made up for the fact that I haven’t written anything in 3 weeks.  I’ll try to make this a typical Saturday afternoon thing.  I’ve got to make sure to keep track of my last two months here in Italy!  Ok, well, until next time - God Bless!

19 February 2011 · Comments

• Tags
• Pasta
• Bologna
• Towers of Bologna
• San Petronio Basilica