Merry Christmas!

Just got back from midnight mass at the Catholic church in Beijing. Tomorrow we go to the Great Wall. What an interesting Christmas . . . . I'm happy to be experiencing it, and also greatly missing family at this moment.

Just a quick note to wish everyone a happy and joyous day - however, and wherever, you may be spending it!

Lots of love,
Vic

Cucino, or at least, I try to cook

I have had students over to cook and bake about seven times this semester, and it has been so much fun. The students do not have access to kitchens in their pensioni, and so they enjoy the normalcy of baking cookies, and I enjoy the company (and also, obviously, the cookie dough). It has been really interesting learning how to adapt to baking cookies in Italy. Baking powder doesn't seem to exist, and baking soda is sold in the soda section of the grocery store, so it took a couple times to actually find it!  They also don't have real vanilla and I haven't yet found chocolate chips. But it has always been fun, and has always turned out something delicious . . . even if it took some trial and error!  Here are some cookie pictures:

Elaina and Jayne at the first attempt

Don't they look pretty?

Uh Oh! Something definitely went wrong

The next batch went better

Laura, Mariah and Amanda at another baking attempt

By this time I had a better idea of what to do, these came out much better!

The school does Glee watching nights, every other week, and we try to make snack for those events. I have successfully made chocolate chunk cookies, peppermint bark, and tiramisu (which was a big success). Although I must say it's a workout whipping egg whites for the tiramisu - I miss my hand mixer!

We did a Thanksgiving dinner for ten people and I made a green bean casserole (of sorts, it turned out more "gourmet" than I planned as there's no mushroom soup or French's onions, so I made the mushroom cream sauce with fresh mushrooms and the onions on top ended up being shallots. 

Federica (Assistant Director), Christina B, Christina I and Mary

Mo and McCall

Shelley and Linda

The Thanksgiving Table (from left to right: brussel sprouts, potatoes au gratin, the turkey, stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, green bean casserole and fresh baked bread)

My green bean casserole

My brussel sprouts with pancetta and chestnuts

An up close shot of the turkey

Carving the turkey!

Mary, Mo, Christina, James and McCall are ready to eat

The dessert table (I made the apple cake on the right)

Last night I made a delcious chicken stuffed with prosciutto, basil and a pepperjack/pecorino cheese - turned out surprisingly well considering I didn't have a recipe!  I also had a salad - it's crazy how much I miss salads!  I need to start making them more frequently!

Tonight I think I might try eggplant caprese and a rosemary garlic chicken - hopefully this all turns out good too! A couple of students who don't leave just yet are coming over for dinner. 

Adventures in Travel

Ok, so since I last posted, I have been on three trips, and I have one really, really big one coming up.

On November 10-13 I went to England to visit family.  It was truly a whirlwind trip; I stayed with different family members each of the three nights. But it was so lovely to see people, especially since less than a year had passed since I had seen them the last time. That is especially nice for me, as before my trip last Christmas it had been five years since I had been in England. I also got to meet my two new first cousins-once removed (my cousin Amber's two beautiful boys).

I really enjoyed being in England, and would definitely be interested in a move over there at some point in the future if the right job opened up. I'm excited to be so close and be able to travel there with greater ease and less expense!  I'm hoping to make it out for a couple more weekends in the Spring.

Then, for the Thanksgiving break, the school took a group of 70 students to Edinburgh, Scotland.  This was a fantastic trip, I absolutely loved Scotland - although it was really, really windy and quite cold. We stayed in apartments for this trip, and the students really enjoyed that because they had access to kitchens for the first time this semester. We did two really great full day bus tours of Scotland and had a super funny Scottish bus driver who pretty much insulted every group of people - but in a funny and ridiculous way. One big bit that he had was that there is no soap in Glasgow and people there don't keep clean (he's from Edinburgh). He kept mentioning this over the two days, and at one point one of our students actually asked me if Glasgow really didn't have soap!

One of the small towns from the top of a hill.

On the boat cruise

We saw gorgeous countryside, went on a boat cruise of Loch Lomond, and saw some incredible castles and walked through some really quaint little towns.

With Shelley and Linda outside of the Balmoral Hotel

The staff and a few students had gotten together the weekend before to have a Thanksgiving dinner so on Thanksgiving itself Shelley, Linda and I ate dinner at the Balmoral Hotel and it was delicious and a really nice evening. It was nice not to have pasta at every meal! I also tried haggis and loved it. We actually drove past the area of Edinburgh that my mum lived when she was a baby! All in all it was a really awesome trip.

The weekend after that I went on the last school trip of the semester - to Rome. I had been to Rome before, when I visited Claire. Most of what the school did was the same as the amazingly thorough tour that Claire gave me, but we did visit the Villa Borghese which is a beautiful house with insane works of art. I really enjoyed that tour. I think the thing I liked most about the trip to Rome was that I knew so many of the students well, and it was really nice to just have a fun time with them. By this point they all know all of the rules, and so it was just a nice, easy trip.

The Trevi Fountain at night

We head back to Rome at the beginning of  January for Opening Tour with the Spring students (same with Summer Opening Tour) so I have the feeling that I might soon be becoming a Rome tour pro!

And, if you've made it all the way to the end of the post, I am going to China on Wednesday!!!!  Each year our school does a Christmas Tour trip, and this year it is going to China. Usually it is staffed by Shelley (the Associate Dean), Linda (the Director of Travel) and the Dean of the School, but this year the Dean isn't able to go, and so I am going instead!  I am so, so excited for this opportunity. We will be flying to Beijing on Wednesday, spend Thursday through  Sunday night in Beijing and then transfer to Shanghai on Monday and we'll be there through the New Year. It should be such an interesting and great trip. It's a small group of students, all of whom we already know and I think it will be so fantastic. I feel so lucky to have this job and all of these incredible travel opportunities.