Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Everything Is More Fun In Rome

...even simple things, like grocery shopping!

Yesterday, my roommates and I headed down the block to the open air market (mercato trionfale) to check out some of the local vendors. It was so amazing! My one roommate Erica described it as "Reading Terminal Market [in Philadelphia] on crack." I have to say, she is right.

This market was incredible. It was humongous and the prices were great. We bought a ton of fruit for under 2 euros. We bought fresh bread and pasta. The market also sold all kinds of poultry, fish, beef, cheeses and wine. We bought 3 bottles of wine for 6 euros! You can't beat that.

Bread and pastries

Wine

After, we bought a few things at the market we headed up the block to our local grocery store. It was such an adventure looking at all the different brands, and comparing it to what the item would be in America. It cracks me up that the only cream cheese we saw in all of Rome so far is Philadelphia Cream Cheese. So funny!

The roommates and I made a delicious dinner with all our new food from the market. We made pasta with tomato sauce, salad, bread and oil. Delicious!

Dinner

Later that night, Andrea Bocelli was performing a benefit concert for the earthquake last month at the Coliseum, so we headed over there to see if we could hear anything. We got there too late, but we had a great time hanging out at the bars in the area. The Coliseum at night is just breathtaking.

Coliseum

Today was the first day of classes...more on that later!

4 comments:

Andhari said...

I always like visiting local markets in foreign country. It's like finding the whole essence of differences lol. Why does ROme has so many Philly things?

Lindsay McHugh said...

You'll find that in many spots in Europe (Italy being one of them, France another) wine is often cheaper than water and is ALWAYS cheaper than coffee. They're just asking for trouble makers!

Natalie said...

i'm so proud of my little chefs! that market sounds amazing..

EP said...

Awesome! I loved that wine was cheaper than water where we were, as well.

One of my favorite things to get at the grocery was a can of tuna (canned in olive oil), ciabatta bread, fresh mozzarella and pesto from the grocery. They make the BEST sandwiches! And I don't even like canned tuna!