This weekend all of my roommates and I stayed in Rome. We've had a pretty low key weekend, but that should change tomorrow since we are going to the Roma-Genoa calcio (soccer) game and the Roma fans are known for their riots.
Thursday night, my roommates and I went out. We didn't end up leaving until 10, but it turns out that's about the right time for supper in Italy. We found a restaurant by the Pantheon (pretty romantic, really) and ate outside. The prezzo fisso (fixed price) was 10 euro for a drink, bruschetta, and pizza or pasta. I had spinach ravioli, which does not even compare to Chef Boyardee.
The way they do supper at the restaurants is each menu is usually prezzo fisso, between 14 and 30 euro (or more if you go to the really classy places) and then you get to pick one of each: drink, antipasto (appetizer), primo piatto (first course of pasta), secondo piatto (second or main course of meat/fish), contorno (sidedish), and dessert.
After supper we (of course) had to get some gelato. I don't even know what flavors I got--hazelnut creme and a creme and chocolate one I think. I just pointed to the ones that looked the best and said "Posso avere questo?" ("Can I have this?") without really reading the flavors. I'm convinced it doesn't matter what flavor it is anyway, I'll still eat it.
By this time it was probably just after midnight which in Rome means the night is still fairly young. So we decided to check out Campo dei Fiori, a square lined with bars and restaurants. We've heard this is one of the most touristy areas of Rome and that it draws a particular type of American (ie, the alcoholic type) but we wanted to see what it was like for ourselves.
It actually wasn't too bad, although it was a Thursday night. There were a few clusters of Italians at each bar, drinking wine and smoking, and there were Americans spread all about the square, drinking beer mostly. We sat out at one and had some prosecco (sparkling wine), trying our best to fit in with the Italians.
After going out on Thursday, we decided to spend the night in on Friday and make a roommate supper to eat together like one big happy Italian family. We went grocery shopping and cooked together and it was one of the best meals I've had in Italy so far.
Our menu was pan-fried rosemary chicken, rosemary and garlic potatoes, Caprese salad (I've never had this before but it was amazing. Please go make some right now.), garlic-sauteed zucchini, fresh bread, and a bottle of vino bianco. We thought we made too much, but it turns out five girls can eat a lot. Because after we ate all of that, we finished off two tubs of store-bought gelato. We had one caffe (coffee) flavored one and the other was amaretto and creme.
We stretched our supper out until nearly midnight and filled it with stories, proof that we are slowly becoming Italian. Hopefully you hear from me soon since I'm sure I'll have stories from the game tomorrow!
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