Esercitare e Cucinare

         Buongirono! After sleeping like a champ, I felt drowsy and had no desire to go to class but I woke up,  had a light breakfast, and walked fifty steps to class. During class we watched a movie called Mine vaganti. Now if you know me, watching a movie in the dark when I am tired never ends well. I always fall asleep, but for some miraculous reason, I ended up staying up for the whole movie that lasted one hour and forty five minutes. I know you don't believe it. I don't believe it either. But it happened. I had to pay attention the whole time, because the movie was in Italian with Italian subtitles. I have never watched a movie in just Italian. At college during italian class, we always watched movies with English subtitles. Even though I didn't know every word they were saying or what exactly was happening all the time, I followed the story line, and figured out everything by the end of the movie. I highly recommend you watch Mine vaganti which means loose cannon in Italian
        Once the movie was over, we separated into our classes and talked about the movie. It was a very interesting class and I really enjoyed it. After class, I went to my favorite fruttivendola guy who is open on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday and I bought peaches, apples and bananas and fresh figs. For lunch I had a fig and tomato sandwich on the friselle d'orzo bread. This bread is the whole grain bread that never goes stale. To eat the bread you soak the bread in water for 10 seconds and the bread becomes delicious. This bread is very inexpensive and for a bag of 15 pieces it costs three euros.
         I then took a long nap in my room, because although I was feeling better, I was still exhausted. My friend Ari, woke me up at 17:30 and we went to the phone store so I could buy a phone plan for the rest of the months I will be in Italy. It was about a fifteen minute walk to Wind store (phone store), and Ari and I had a great conversation getting to know each other. She is the friend that convinced the strangers that I was an olympian tennis player and who asked to take a picture with me. I will never forget that story nor will I ever forget Ari.
         Once arriving back to the courtyard, I lead an exercise class. It was a Tabata workout I made up and eight girls participated. Tabata is a type of exercise that involves 20 second intervals of work time and 10 second intervals of rest time for the same workout repeated eight times. I really love making up workout plans and leading the class and when everyone told me they loved the workout, it made me feel even better. Although I was feeling better, I did a light workout, and only did some of the exercises. But I always was moving while I was leading the workout. Tomorrow we are going to Otranto, a city like Gallipoli but on the east coast of Italy, so there will be no workout tomorrow, just a lot of walking. Stay tuned for beautiful pictures of the scenery and of me.
            After workout, I had a plan to make dinner with three of my friends from Wesleyan. They all love food, and cooking but they wanted me to teach them how to cook. I know, everyone is thinking, Sam cooks? Yes I cook, and I think all the years watching my mom cook has really rubbed off on me. I decided I was going to make a pasta dish with a lot of vegetables. I chopped up an entire fresh eggplant, two hot peppers, fresh mushrooms, and opened a can of garbanzo beans. In a big pot I put some olive oil, and garlic and garbanzo beans, then added the other vegetables. After that cooked for a long time I added tomato paste, some sugar, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes. I cooked the sauce for forty five minutes and boiled hot water for some pasta. We made orecchiette pasta because the pasta is known in Lecce. The pasta was au dente and the sauce was spicy and tasty. I mixed the pasta with the sauce and popped open a bottle of red sparkling wine for my friends to drink. It was a lovely dinner, and everyone enjoyed it. I can't wait to make this dish for my family when I return. If you have any questions about the recipe, feel free to send me an email.
          I did all the dishes after making dinner, cleaned up the kitchen, showered and then did my homework. I took my Zirtec thirty minutes before bedtime and fell right to sleep. I can't wait to visit Otranto tomorrow and enjoy the ocean (il mare). Arriverderci. Mi manca la mia famiglia molto.
Con tanto amore,
Samantha 

Fig and tomato sandwhich on friselle d'orzo

Orecchiette with tomato sauce and vegetables

Fresh figs are delicious