So I caught a cold on Sunday. One of those classic "stuffed up, miserable, want to shoot the sun out of the sky and sleep for three days with no interruptions" colds. As I was browsing on G+ that Monday, I saw an article one of my friends posted about how honey and cinnamon can cure/help with a variety of diseases, aches, and pains. For colds, it said to combine 1 tablespoon honey and 1 tsp cinnamon and eat it once a day for three days to get rid of the cold. I was sold on this logic, and decided that I would go get cinnamon the next day.
Tuesday did not yield any cinnamon despite my best efforts. I did, however, get a 500 g jar of honey (that is almost gone now on Sunday). I went to both the supermercato and an erboristeria (yep, I'm going to teach some basic Italian as I write these. <3 ), but no luck. I did discover, though, that despite what my host mother said, cinnamon does not translate to "chin-a-mon" (I'm writing it how she pronounced it), but to "cannella". No wonder the erborista had a hard time helping me find any. I went into Torino Wednesday to check Carrefour, a different chain to see if they had any, but still no luck. I did have about 30 minutes left on my ticket, so I made my way up to where I would normally get off the tram for class and hurried over to Via San Secondo and to the erboristeria there. She did have cannella.... Though only as sticks, and I don't yet have the vocabulary to ask for it as powdered. So I got two cinnamon sticks (probably at least 25 cm long) for 1 euro. I hurried my butt back to the tram and back to Rivalta, and started the regimen.
I have to admit, I can understand why they say cinnamon will help with a cold. Taking it with honey made my sinuses open up! The children looked at me weird, though, because they had no clue what cinnamon was...
Tuesday evening the father brought home a new car. The children love it, and "rode" in the trunk while he parked the car in the garage. In all honesty, I do not understand why he bought this new car. It has the same number of seats as the last car (5, and there are 6 people when they have an au pair), and with two small children it's not going to stay clean long. But I'm only here for three months, so my place is not to judge. The middle child did ask the parents after dinner that night why the father hadn't bought me a car too... My host father translated after they started laughing (all I had understood was my name). I started laughing when they told me what was said, but that was more of the "yeah, no, I don't want a car, honey" laugh than out of actual amusement.
Thursday I went to my Italian class (I skipped on Tuesday) and afterwards went wandering around Turin with the only other English au pair remaining (the rest have stopped coming. If I was to be in Turin longer I would understand and probably follow suit, but this class lets me do a lot of solo work and does help, so I'm getting my 15 euros worth. Plus, with the card I was given I can go stay at the YWCA in Rome if I wanted for free!). After we parted ways I caught the tram to head back to Caio Mario (where I get the bus to go home). I just have to laugh because when we hit my stop for Italian class, our tram broke. Everyone stood there for at least 10 minutes complaining (at least, I think they were complaining. All I have to go off of is the tone of voice) about the fact that we weren't moving. The public transportation people then made everyone disembark and spent the next ten minutes running around trying to get the tram running again. In the meantime, 3 more trams of the same number were stuck behind us. The conductors got the tram going finally, then left without having the passengers re-embark. The vast majority flocked onto the next tram that stopped, but I decided to be patient and grab the tram after that. As a result, I got to sit down. It just made me wonder why so many people were so upset about this delay and did not want to get off the tram so that the conductors and engineers could figure out the problem. Are people really in that big of a hurry?
Saturday I went with the family to what I discovered was a chestnut festival in a neighboring town. I made the mistake of looking at what the boys were wearing and thinking that this was an occasion that I needed to dress up for. Once again: heels do not function well on cobbled streets, and nice pants are not a good idea when you have a three year old and a five year old boy who do not always like behaving. I did discover that chestnuts are incredibly tasty, and that Italians believe in having one drink for the children/anyone who doesn't like alcohol, and one drink that contains alcohol in the evenings. There was a choice of chocolate or something--that turned out to be mulled wine--being sold after dinner that night outside. I grabbed the mulled wine thinking it was a cider. Boy did I feel like an idiot after the first sip. It was good, though, so I drank it anyway.
Which makes me think that maybe I should start researching/trying various red wines.... Any takers for when I get back to the States?
I'm off to go get some pictures of Rivalta while there's still some light. Have an amazing week everyone!
(As for my tale of my adventure celebrating one month in Italy, that will come later... Hopefully. It will be a long one, though!)
No comments:
Post a Comment