As American as Apple Pie

When a student goes abroad, she should try her best to immerse herself within the culture, but as a true American, I seem to be succeeding in exporting my culture as much as I’m absorbing that of my host country. On Sunday, Claudia and I finally cooked our first apple pie or, using the rules of Italian phonetics, “ah-play pee-ay.” No worries about the cultural immersion, though: our apple pie was served with Italian gelato. The very next day, we cooked a delicious (and spicy!) American pumpkin soup. I’ve come to appreciate the importance of food in Italian culture and have been bonding with my Italian friends over our favorite classically American/Italian dishes. Claudia and I even both got new notebooks in which we’ve been jotting down words in each other’s language whenever we come to one of those how-do-you-say-this, circumlocution-and-sign-language moments.

All the Italian students are finally making it back from their summer vacations and so the social scene in Pisa is seeing its revival. Last night, I went to the movies in Italy for the first time. Italians, unlike most people, never watch films with subtitles, so I watched the Italian-dubbed Kung Fu Panda! I understood almost every word and felt very proud. Afterwards, we wandered around Pisa a bit, got the requisite gelato, and sometime after midnight but before the evening drew to a close we decided to form our own co-ed fraternity. Now I’ve even got my own Greek family overseas, the ΠΔΠs. Not only am I bringing my cuisine here, but I am even instructing my friends in the ways of Greek life. We’ve already selected

• our colors: blu (dark blue, the color of the night sky when the fraternity was born, representing our awareness of the present) and azzurro (light blue, the color of the sky in the morning to come, representing our hopes and dreams for the future)
• our flower: il fiore del fico d'india (the flower of a plant classically found in Sicily), and
• our open motto: Non c’è rosa senza spine (There isn’t a rose without a thorn)

Still in the works are our symbol, our secret initiation ritual, and the day of the week when we will be required to wear blue underpants. The ΠΔΠ t-shirts are the next on the list after that.

On a side note, I finally got my first ride on an Italian motorcycle this past weekend. It’s every bit as fun as it looks and then some!