Monday 6/16/08 and Tuesday 6/17/08

Tuesday 6/17/08

Today we started off the day by getting on a bus and heading to a cheese factory. This was one of the coolest experiences of the trip. We got to see how a couple different cheeses and meats were made. The best part was that we got to try them. First we had fresh Salami. It was so good and tender. I don’t know if tender is the best word to describe it however that’s the only one I can think off. The Salami was awesome with a piece of bread. I wish that I could of eaten some more of it, it was just that good. Next we tried three different cheeses. One of the cheese’s was aged in red whine. It was good however it had a very strong taste. Gina who was sitting next to me didn’t like it so I got to eat all of hers. I thought that the taste was a little much too by itself but with a piece of bread it was perfect. We also had a few glasses of wine that complimented the cheeses perfectly. Then we had fresh ricotta cheese right before we left. I have never eaten ricotta cheese by itself before. It was very good. The cheese doesn’t have a strong flavor too it, it is very mild. The texture of the cheese is different but nice, and it too tastes awesome on some bread.

After our cheese tasting we thanked the owner and got back on the bus. I was still hungry so I pulled out one of the sandwiches I made for the trip. It was a bologna and cheese sandwich. Neither the bologna nor cheese was up to par with what I had just eaten. I must say that the sandwich was a rather disappointment.

The next destination of our bus was Padua. While we were here Gina and I got hungry again so we decided to venture to find something to eat. We came across this little fast food place. It was a cone, kind of like an ice cream cone except made out of pizza dough. They had many fillings for the cones. In mine I got Procutto Crudo, Tomato Sauce, and Mozzarella cheese. It was so tasty. It tasted just like a pizza that you could walk with and eat. By the time I got to the bottom of the cone there was only mozzarella cheese left. It tasted like I was eating a mozzarella stick mmmhhmm. I am going to bring these back to the U.S. and make my own fast food place. I will be rich.

Again for dinner tonight I decided to be lame and heat up some leftovers from the day before. This time with the pasta I finished up the mozzarella sauce that tasted like Spaghetti O’s. I didn’t really care for it that much however I didn’t want to waste the food, or take the time to cook something new. For dessert, I guess you could call it dessert, I tried two the craziest beers I have EVER had in my life. While in Padua Mike found a specialty beer store and bought two different types of beer. The first one that we tried tasted like a loaf of bread it had so much of a strong wheat taste to it. I enjoyed it a lot and would definitely buy it again. However it was the second beer that really knocked my socks off. This was a smoked beer, the owner of the shop explained to Mike. We weren’t really sure what to expect. When we opened the bottle we were hit with the strong smell of a backyard BBQ. It was crazy, we spent about 5 minutes just smelling the beer and wonder how such a strong smell could come from it, before we even poured ourselves a glass. The beer tasted like smoked ham. That was the best way that we could describe it. I know it sounds kind of gross however I enjoyed it. It was weird to drink something and taste smoked wood. I felt like I was going to smell like fire afterwards. We were both amazed at the taste and by the end of the bottle we both were disappointed that Mike had only brought back one.

Monday 6/16/08

Today for lunch I heated up some pasta leftover from yesterday. I still haven’t found the best way to heat up pasta without a microwave. The two options I have found is too run the pasta under extremely hot water or two heat it up in a pot with some vegetable oil. I chose to heat it up in the pan. I added a little pesto sauce in the pot. The pesto sauce was really good. It was a “Mediterranean” flavored pesto. It was somewhat spicy and I believe it may have had a little eggplant in it judging by the small picture on the oustide of the container. However I’m not too sure.

Tonight’s dinner was delicious. Gina, Nate, Megan and Erin came over to Mike and I’s apartment to eat. We had fresh mushroom and cheese, and spinach and cheese tortellini’s. They were so good. We also had regular pasta with a mozzarella pasta sauce. The sauce was really sweet though and kind of tasted like Spaghetti O’s. Mike also decided to cook some Steak with the meal. Now steak is something I haven’t had since we have been here. That was a nice treat. I watched him cook the steak. He added lots of teriyaki sauce, with some salt and sugar and cooked it in a pan. It was delicious. There was also some salad and bread with olive oil for appetizers. For Desert we had a strawberry shortcake roll that I found at Pam. It was really good however it tasted just like the ones you could get back in the states. I was excited when there was still some left. That’s means that I have a little desert snack for later on.