Ciao for Now!

Fact:

The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for

being the book most often stolen from public libraries.

I have nothing exciting to write about this week. I spent the majority of the past 5 days reading, writing notes, making flashcards, highlighting, rereading, rewriting. . . in an attempt to actually cram a little bit of what we learned in class into my brain. Monday was my Jewelry midterm. It was super easy because I knew exactly what to study. Tuesday's tests were the same way: Architecture and Italian. Totally got A's on all of those.

Today were my hard tests. Food and Wine. Even though they sound like they should be easy, they were not. I spent hours upon hours fretting over these tests. I typed up 22 (!!!) pages of notes for Food, and made a gigantic Excell spreadsheet over the wine regions, grape varieties (reds and whites), denominations (reds and whites), etc. I had to know about red and white wine vinification and sparkling wine-making methods and ways to analyze the wine (visual, olfactory, gustative).

After all that, I think I did okay. I got at least a low B on the Food test. I probably got a low A on the Wine test. And even if I didn't do very well, it's okay. Because IT'S SPRING BREAK!

Today is also the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy, and a national holiday. Last night there was fireworks, music, and lots of celebrating! I totally missed out because I was reading about the differences between Verdicchio, Vermentino, Valpolicella, and Vernaccia. But this is huge. It's like 4th of July for Italians, only it's not a holiday every year. It's special, just for the 150th year.

Since I've been locked inside studying, I've missed all the stuff going on outside. Click here to read about Lindsey's Italian holiday experience. She explains it wonderfully, with pictures. :)

Anyway, as I was studying yesterday, I almost went insane. I couldn't stare at the books any longer. I needed to do something. Naturally, I made some Irish Soda Bread! (Apparently I'm celebrating St. Patty's Day instead of Italian Unification Day. Oops.) The recipe is from Joy of Baking.

Straight Out of the Oven

With Dinner:
Some Delicious "Just Add Water and Boil" Soup

It was even better reheated this morning with jam on it. Did you know that Irish Soda Bread rises because of the reaction of the baking soda with the buttermilk? Cool! Oh, and it's SO EASY to make. Make some tonight. Do it.

Myself? Tonight, I'll be packing. I'll go to bed early because our train leaves early tomorrow morning. I'll go to bed, but I won't be able to sleep, because I'm so excited for our Spring Break trip!

I'll be back March 27 and will try to blog soon after I return. I won't have my computer on this trip.

Don't miss me too much. ;)