last night a few friends and i decided to join a group of native italians to go torggelen. the group was formed though couchsurfind- which, now i swear is such a great thing [=
torggelen occurs in the autumn in the south tyrol area when the new wine is made. basically, wine houses open their house (which is kinda like a bed and breakfast) for the public to come in and taste their food and wine.
i’ve always been convinced that good food would bring together good people, and that’s exactly what happened last night. there were a bunch of people from milan to verona to local bolzano that came out for our nightly excursion. it started at walther’s square, waiting for about maybe an hour for everyone to show up. people were mingling with others- complete strangers all there for the same thing. we were giving numbers and then started our hike to the house for food. sam and i were hiking with this girl named andrea. turned out she took a year off to travel the world and she just came back earlier this year. we were talking about all the different places she’d gone to and all of her experiences. she told me that the craziest drivers she’d ever seen were from vietnam hahaha! apparently the vietnamese are able to fit everything that we’d put into our cars onto their vespas! heck yes! that is so freaken awesome!
when we got to the house, it was about a 40 minute hike/walk in the dark. they started calling out pairs of random numbers to switch up the seating arrangements. i was seated with walter, an IT guy from local bolzano. soon, another man from verona (i totally forgot his name ughhh ]= ) sat next to me, then we combined 2 tables to seat 5 of us all together (don’t know the names of the 2 people who joined us)
i learned a lot about their travels and culture while enjoying fresh apple juice, fresh wine and a tray of meats [=. apparently, there are 3 languages in this area: italian, german and ladin. i’ve always thought ladin was a form of latin, but it really isn’t. ladin is still spoken while latin isn’t. also, ladin varies according to where you are- it’s different even city to city.
also, it is interesting to note their driving here. i’ve always thought of them as crazy drivers, but now i know they really are! haha all of their cars here are manual- automatic cars are rare to come by. when you receive your license, you get 20 points. as you break the law for various reasons, your points get taken away according to how ever many points each law you broke costs. when you lose all points, you lose your license. the couple that was added to our table was talking about it. the guy had only 1 point left on his license had to drive home, yet we were still sitting there enjoying our wine while he was saying he couldn’t drink anymore… oh italians. haha… also, the more south you go in italy, the crazier the driving is- especially naples. stop signs are basically suggestions. if an italian approaches a stop sign and no one is there, they don’t stop, they just go through. also, if they’re at a red light and there are cars crossing on their green light, then italians would inch into the intersection until it is clear enough to pass. i was totally shocked because i would think people could get so hurt because of this. i asked them what would happen if there was a car accident. the man to my right (the veronese guy) just said that nothing has really ever happened, and if anything did, “hey we’re italian. we’d probably go get some coffee and go on with our lives.” LOL!! i LOVE that! haha
some wine/alcohol drinking tips i’ve learned: when you are pouring yourself another glass of whatever alcoholic libation, make sure there is nothing left in your cup. it is bad luck to pour “new” drink and mix it into your “old” (leftover) drink. if you do so, you will have bad sex. also, in verona, when you toast someone and clink glasses, you take a sip of your drink, tap it on the table, turn the cup a little, then bring it back to your lips and lick the mouth of the glass- this will result in good luck with sex. haha i guess all of their alcohol traditions have to do with sex. why am i not surprised?
the veronese guy started asking different ways of saying “i love you” and “you are beautiful” so that he could say it to his gf who was sitting at the next table over. it was hilarious to hear him, because each time he would concentrate so hard to remember the pronunciation of the words and syllables. he learned how to say it in vietnamese, albanian, bolzanian ladin, and japanese- each time he said it to his gf, she would look at him with a confused face.
soon sam and i were talking to walter and his gf about american foods and american cakes. his gf LOVES american cakes and is tired of italian desserts haha. i guess because all of our stuff are very sweet and full of fat- which makes it taste ohh soo good…. [= we asked walter where we could get different types of meats because we wanted to cook thanksgiving here. he told us of a butcher in the city center, so we’re going to try to find it. he said that we can order turkey, but we have to order it days in advanced yay!
the night ended with pastries and apple strudel <3 i was definitely satisfied haha. my first CS gathering was a success. although i would have loved to sit next to people from milano, it was great nonetheless.
good food, good new friends and i only spent 20 euros
- - - - - - - - -
being here has really sparked my interest in cooking. now, i’m not saying that i’m going to leave everything and try to become a chef because i don’t like to cook that much lol but having to cook in order to feed myself has got me visiting foodnetwork.com very often. i’ve been writing down all of these recipes that i want to try here and a lot that i want to try when i get back home. that’s one thing that i totally miss. i miss having my stuff and things i need within my reach. i’m used to having more than 1 pot, or bowls, etc. seriously took that stuff for granted. now i’m wishing i could get me some measuring cups, rolling pin, mixing bowls, etc so i can cook/bake. when i go back home, i hope i keep up my interest of being in the kitchen. it is so satisfactory to create something out of nothing [=
