Awesome Pizza and the Nutella Calzone

I slept in a little bit today and just took it easy for most of the day because it was kind of a rough night last night. Not only did we walk quite a bit more than we expected trying to find the bus stop before the game, everyone at the game was smoking, so it kind of felt like we’d spent the whole night smoking.

I also got an e-mail from my cousin Sean (not my roommate Sean) letting me know that he and my other cousin Shad were going to come down to Rome on Saturday.

For dinner most of my roommates, Monica, and I all went to this pizzeria that we heard about from my roommate Mark’s Rome guidebook. The name is Dar Poeta and it is located only about a block away from the JCU campus. We actually decided to go there because the guidebook said that one of the desserts served at this pizzeria is a Nutella calzone (and seeing as how we are all obsessed with Nutella, we were very excited). When we got there, there was a short wait and they eventually ended up seating us right across from the wood oven. Because of this, the whole time we were there the cooks were right next to us…and they were cracking us up the whole time. From singing along to the American songs that were playing on the radio (to such classics as Aerosmith’s Don’t Wanna Miss a Thing, from Armageddon, and Beyonce’s “To the Left” song) to pretending to throw our food at us. I ordered the pizza with the name of the restaurant and, though I was skeptical, it put the pizza I had eaten on Sunday to shame. It was unbelievably delicious. It has a special kind of sausage, zucchini, a couple different kinds of cheese, a white sauce, and garlic on it and it was the new best pizza I have had in Italy so far (maybe the best pizza ever, in the history of everness).

Then came dessert. All of us but two ordered the Nutella calzone. We saw the cooks pull them out of the oven and you could see the steam shooting out of them. Needless to say, they too were amazing. I will definitely be returning to Dar Poeta whenever I have a pizza and Nutella craving.

NUTELLA!

Today was the first day of classes. My first class was at 10:30AM, I left my apartment at about 9:30 just to make sure that I made it on time. My professor for my first is from London and I think he is going to be pretty cool. The class is Ethical Theory in Business and I actually think I am going to enjoy it quite a bit. My second class for the day was my Italian 101 class…and it was a little scary. We walked in and the professor just started asking us all of the questions in Italian. I looked around and most of the class, including myself, just had that open mouth, deer in a headlight look on our faces. The funny part about it is that he just kept talking in Italian and didn’t repeat anything in English. Luckily one guy in the class actually knew a little Italian and started answering the questions and then we all just king of copied him.

After class we started on our way to the tram to take the number 8 home. We got there and were waiting for a little bit before it pulled up. Let me take the time now to tell you a little bit about how the public transportation system works here in Rome:

Basically if you are going to use any form of transportation it is partially based on the honor system. You can buy a ticket at any Tabacchi (which is kind of like a convenience store) and then when you get on the tram, bus, or metro there are little machines that you stick the ticket in to validate it. But nobody ever really checks to see if you are doing this. At random times, the Carabinieri will get on and check everyone’s tickets and those who don’t have them or don’t have theirs validated will get fined 50 euro.

Anyway, I was the only one with a bus ticket in my group, so we all walked on the bus and looked all the way in the back and there was a Carabinieri standing in full Carabinieri attire in on the other end of the bus, so everyone immediately went right back out the door. And then we all walked home.

We have spent many a conversation discussing whether or not it is worth it to spend your money on getting tickets for the bus and came to the conclusion that it is just a risk you are either willing or unwilling to take. Some people get by the whole time just staying attentive and making sure not to get, or stay on the bus, tram, or metro with a Carabinieri on it. And some don’t.

After we got back, I went to the grocery store and got a few things for breakfasts and dinners and bought my first jar of Nutella. I just want to say that Nutella might be one of the greatest inventions in the history of man…I only hope I can contain myself and not skip dinner every night just to leave room for more Nutella. But seriously if you haven’t tried it, it’s available in the states and you should definitely go get yourself a jar (David, I know you understand what I’m talking about).

This is Nutella, one of the greatest substances known to man.