Mia Madre a Roma, Paola

Well it seems like Paola has changed. Adam and I were surprised that she has been at every meal, except on Thursdays. On Thursdays she goes out with friends, we think, we're not really sure. Shes an extremely popular person and gets phone calls all hours of the day. Even on Thursdays she still has a great dinner waiting for us which is nice to come back to. Thursdays Adam and I have turned into our night to relax, watch TV on my laptop at the dinner table and eat, a nice little break from the marathon that is speaking Italian all day.

I digress again, Paola is amazing, and her food is out of this world. We have not had a bad meal here yet, we haven't even had a meal that was just ok. Every night its something different, somethings I have never had before and its always fresh. The best is that there are always three courses, the prima which is usually a pasta or a soup, followed by a meat or a fish and then finally dessert which is usually a fruit, a fruit salad or some kind of dolce. The fruit here is amazing, most of it is unlike anything I've tried before. I've tried all different things that I never had before, two that come to mind are zucchini and pesto. I never really liked these at home nore have I ever really had any desire to like them, but they are great here. Paola makes her our fresh pesto sauce that is great too. She is a stereotypical Italian mother, she keeps feeding us more and more until there isn't anything left. I feel bad saying no, so I just keep eating but on the other hand its great, so its not really a problem.

She also sets out breakfast every morning. This usually consists of espresso (which I am now a fan of, it really gets me up and through the early Italian class), fruit, toast squares with the best strawberry marmalade, an individually wrapped pound cake and a juice box. I'm not really a big breakfast person in the US, I've always been busy or on the go, but this has been the best set up. I can grab something quick, I actually eat and its just enough to get me through the morning till lunch.

Over the past two weeks I've really gotten to know Paola and I honestly don't think that I could have had a better host mother. At dinner its really easy to tell that she was a school teacher; neither Adam nor I speak Italian very well and she is extremely patient with us. She speaks slowly, if we don't understand something she will try and figure out another way to phrase it and we'll usually get it. My favorite part of dinner is the lesson, she usually teaches us something in Italian at dinner, first it was the numbers then the days of the week and then the basics of how to say things in the past. Its great because going into class I will already know some of the things we're learning. It may sound kind of geeky but I'm here for the next four months, so the more I can learn and the faster, the better.

In the past few days we've moved onto games like hot and cold to learn vocabulary. We also have great conversation, its amazing that even with the language barrier we are able to have interesting conversations. Most of them are based around our families, history of Rome, what we did during the day and much more. Its easy to understand what she is saying, but I feel like a three year old again. I know what I want to say it but have no idea how to express it to her. Usually we'll figure ways to get through that and she'll be able to understand what I'm trying to say. I've really come to understand why Paola opens her home to students every semester and its explains why she is such a great host mother.

Her son is grown, he is training to be a pilot in the Italian Navy and she is lonely. She is semi-retired, we're not really sure what she does with her day, but she enjoys having us there, cooking for us, talking with us and doing whatever she can for us. It's hard to explain, but she gets really excited when we come home, she loves to hear what we did with our day and she loves to give us hugs goodbye when we leave. She's interested in what we like to eat and how we like things. Last weekend I came back from lunch and told her where I ate and what I had. It was mussels in a marinara sauce at a restaurant. She asked if I liked fish and I told her, I like all types of fish (mi piacciono tutti pesci), and the next night at dinner she had made linguini with mussels, calamari and shrimp, followed by cod with vegetables in a really good sauce. She just loves to see us happy and enjoying ourselves.

The other day Adam and I told her about how we went to the train station to buy our train tickets for Venice because the website didn't take our credit cards. She offered to buy the train tickets for us next time and then we could just pay her back, so that we didnt have to take the trip all the way down there. It just amazing how giving she is of herself and she's always willing to do anything she can. Living with a host family was one of the biggest hindrances I had when I was first thinking about applying to the Rome program, but now I can see that this is something that will make my experience here.

(I'll get a picture in the post as soon as I can of Paola and I)