Italia

I've just returned from a wonderful whirlwind tour of Italy! Almost two weeks and seven cities: Venice, Florence, San Marino, Rome, Naples, Pompeii, and Sorrento. And we managed to not only go to Italy, but two more countries as well...San Marino and Vatican City!

I'll probably write more detailed entries for each city later, but for right now, presenting my completely biased look at Italy...

Food:

Of course, the pizza and pasta in Italy was excellent! The pizza was a bit different than NY style---but still good. ;) And I learned that in Italy you eat pizza with a knife and fork. It's much too firm to fold over like you do with New York pizza. It's also quite basic: the classic Margarita (just mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, and basil) or Neapolitan (no cheese). The real treat, however, was gelato. Not ordinary ice cream by any means! It's similar to the Rochester classic Abbott's frozen custard in that it's much creamier and thicker than your average ice cream. Also it came in so many unusual flavors: tiramisu, lemon, Nutella, honey, caramel, Kinder biscuit, and I even saw popcorn flavored gelato (I didn't try that one).

In fact, real Italian gelato is so good that I made this pie chart to demonstrate:



So...the verdicts?

Best pizza: Naples, by a long shot. After all, it was invented there.
Best pasta: Florence.
Best gelato: Venice, by a long shot. It had the cheapest and most delicious...mmm....
Best coffee and cannolis: Rome. Also the best food overall.

Favorite city for...

Peaceful, relaxing atmosphere: Venice
Beautiful art and architecture: Florence
Nature: San Marino
History: Tie between Pompeii and Rome
Sheer craziness: Naples, hands down. I feared for my life in that city! Mopeds driving on sidewalks, no pedestrian crossings, no traffic lights, no lanes! Let's just say that taking a taxi in Naples was one of the most interesting moments of my life. I didn't know that it was possible to drive like Mario Cart in real life!

All in all, I loved Italy! It's such a beautiful country, and (except for Rome, which was weirdly chilly) it was so warm and sunny! I felt like it was summer!

More to come later!

Why I love the Chaplaincy

So, I realized that this blog is turning into a travelogue, so I thought I'd write about one of my favorite things about Warwick--the Chaplaincy! Not only for the awesome people there, but also because it's so different than UConn. To be honest, I now wish UConn had a chaplaincy, instead of a bunch of separate places of worship that don't usually interact.

So what is the Chaplaincy, you might ask? Basically, it's a little hexagonally (?) shaped building on campus that has a small chapel, lounges, a kitchen, offices, and an interfaith worship space for services. It's also the place where all the different religious societies hang out (hence one of the posters reading "Abandon all work ye who enter here"). I love how the same space can be used for Mass Sunday morning and then Christian Focus cricket Sunday night!

I like how it's interfaith--for example, one Friday night a few weeks ago I got to go to a Shabbat dinner hosted by the Jewish-Israeli Society. Not only was it interesting to learn about the Shabbat, the food was delicious!

Speaking of food, the Chaplaincy kitchen is amazing to have. Every Sunday night Christian Focus has a social with a main meal and dessert, all cooked in the kitchen. Of course, the rest of us who don't cook have to help wash up afterwards, but that's when the shenanigans start... ;)

Also, it's ecumenical. I've met all three of the wonderful chaplains--Catholic, Methodist/Free Church, and Anglican. And--I'm so excited about this that I can't wait to post about it in a few weeks--over the break I'm going with a bunch of Christian Focus friends to the Isle of Iona, off the coast of Scotland, to spend a week living with the Iona Community in an Abbey! Iona is an ecumenical community that is known for its great music (more information on their website here).

Speaking of music...I also love being part of the Music Group of the WCF (Warwick Catholic Fellowship). I'm seriously considering bringing back some of our music to St. Tom's. The WCF is so awesome, we even have our own "Warwick" melody for the Our Father and the Sanctus! ;)