New Years!

Welcome to a new decade! It's kind of amazing that it a new year already. For New Years in the United States, I usually spend a quite night with my family. I don't really go to big parties for this holiday. Here, it was completely different. Completely!

On New Year's Eve, my host mother literally spent the whole day cooking. She had even started cooking the day before. We had food everywhere. I became her personal helped with this and that. I did go out in the morning for a while. I went on a nice walk around the city. There is a walkway right next to the water and the port. I love to go there. There are trees and benches if you want to sit in the shade. The water is right there and fishermen are always there trying to catch something. Across the way, you have a clear view of Calabria. It is beautiful. Another plus about going there that particular day was because it was hot. I have always spent New Years in weather cold enough for there to be snow. Well here, it was in the 70's. :) I couldn't have been happier. My face got a good amount of sun. Since I was making a pumpkin pie for the huge dinner/party we were having with relatives, when I returned to the street where I live, I went into the grocery store to buy pumpkin. I already had all the other ingredients. It was only pumpkin that I was missing. Well, they didn't have any. Then, I walked a ways into another supermarket to see if they had any. They didn't. They did, however, have those flimsy silver cooking containers. I found some that were round. It was better than what I had originally planned on using. I walked back to the street where I live and visited a little store that only sells fruit and vegetables. Thankfully, the man there had a large chunk of pumpkin. He chopped off 500 grams of pumpkin for me and I successfully returned home. By this time, it was midday. I immediately started to cook my pie. My host mom was there to watch and help me with whatever I needed. I scraped off the pumpkin innards from the "meat" and then put thep pumpkin in a pan with water. It went into the oven. It took forever for the pumpkin to become soft enough for me to whirl it up into a puree. In the meantime, my host mother kept cooking and my host sister was arguing with her parents to let her go to a party. They wanted all of us to stay home that night because we were with family. In the end, she managed to get her way and went out. When my pumpkin finally became soft, I took it out and whirled it up. I had to weigh it to make sure that I didn't put too much in. It turned out to be the opposite. I was 100 grams short. I thought that the pie would be ruined, but I just guessed at the proper adjustments with the sugar and the spices. In the end, my pie turned out perfect. It tasted just like a pumpkin pie should. I am used to using canned pumpkin, so I thought that it wouldn't taste right for all the Italian's who had never tasted it before. I wrote "Buon 2010" in chocolate chunks on top. :) In the evening, we had all of the food ready and all the relatives started to arrive. They brought some food, mostly the dessert items. It was a pretty fun evening. We literally ate from about 9 until almost midnight. There was so much amazing food. My pumpkin pie was a hit. I feel like I didn't disappoint Italian's in their first taste of pumpkin pie...an American classic. When midnight rolled around, we all gathered around the TV to watch the countdown. We all walked around the room saying "auguri" and kissing each other on the cheeks. We then had spumante and made a toast to the new year. In America, you only light off fireworks on the Fourth of July. Well, here they light them off for practically every holiday. We went up on the roof and lit off fireworks. These weren't silly little fireworks either. They were the kind that shoot off into the air and explode in large displays. It was magical. People were lighting off fireworks all over the city. There aren't the safety measures here that there are in the States. There were fireworks going off around the Duomo. Across the strait, I could see the fireworks being set off in Calabria. It was like it should have been in a movie. There wasn't much more after we had finished lighting off the fireworks. People started to leave one by one. I managed to get to bed by about 2:30. I didn't sleep at first though. There are fireworks they call "cipolle" (that means onions). The sounded like bombs....I'm not joking.

I spent the first day of the new year sleeping. I woke up late and read my book. It was very relaxing. We had delicious leftovers to eat from the night before. The only downfall was that it started to rain.....hard.

Buon anno! Buon 2010! Auguri! Happy New Year! Happy 2010! Best wishes!

Love, Rebecca