Day 17: Baking Lessons

When four teenagers get together, one should not have high expectations for any accomplishments. Yesterday we all managed to oversleep and miss our window of going to the sea. On the upside we got sleep. One the downside...no beach.

The morning wasn't a complete waste though! Mariella graciously gave me baking lessons on how to make Nutella/lemon desserts (same recipes, different filling options). I have the recipe so I will have to try it out at home. Warning: I suck at baking.

I watched her prepare the dough before helping Sofia use cookie cutters to make fun shapes for the shortbread type cookies. I even got to use a fancy apron which was probably a good thing because Sofia dumped half the flour bag on the table and it got everywhere.












We had the cookies for dessert after lunch and brought the fancier desserts to the dinner we went to tonight. I had at least four cookies and two slices of Nutella pie. Shhh...

We spent the majority of the afternoon outside. The boys played ping pong and there was a squabble of the rules between American ping pong and Italian ping pong. I'm telling you, boys fight over the stupidest things. There is way more important things to fight about rather than ping pong such as which gelato flavor is tastier.



At about 7:30, Giancarlo, Mariella, and I drove into town to pick up a pizza for the dinner party. We also looked in a really pretty porcelain store.

We met the boys and Sofia at a neighbor's house, a mate from their church. The neighbors had two children: a teenage boy named Carmelo and a young girl named Giulia. Both of them are extremely lovely people.

Dinner didn't start until after ten and by then I was so ravenous I inhaled my pizza in record time. Other than that, the night went by pleasantly. Mattia and Carmelo thought it was hilarious to say Italian words and make me parrot them back.

One thing that I have noticed about Italian families is that their children have a lot of freedom. While the adults talk, the kids are allowed to toddle, walk, and run around wherever they want to. It is havoc but also a beautiful thing.

We made friends with the children, I speaking the little Italian I've picked up and them speaking pieces of English. I taught them 'Trot trot to Boston' and Quinn and Mattia held races to see who could carry the children fastest.












Carmelo didn't speak much English so we had a conversation over google translate that lasted for a majority of the night. He told me that I could adopt his sister and I was perfectly okay with this idea.

I don't remember if I've wrote about this or not but I absolutely refuse to eat horse meat. The boys like to tease me relentlessly about this. This habit of theirs spread to Carmelo as well. Although he protested against eating horse, I know that he loves it. Everyone on this island loves it.

We stayed there until about 1am. Everyone is so friendly that it doesn't matter if I don't speak Italian, they still welcome you as apart of the family. It was a truly fun night.