Buon appetito!

Italian food is delicious...duh! But seriously, since arriving in Rome a month ago there have been two meals that inspired major foodgasms!

The first was the "Caccio e Peppe" at a wonderful place in Trastevere called Roma Sparita. This is a pretty simple dish-fresh pasta with cheese and pepper, but the kicker is that they serve it in A BOWL OF FRIED CHEESE. No joke-FOODGASM! This place and exact dish were actually featured on a recent episode of "No Reservations with Anthony Bourdaine" where he was exploring Rome. He refused to share the title and location for fear that it would become too touristy and instead called it "Restraunt X". Lucky for us we had friends already living in Rome who recognized it and gave us the heads up!

The second foodgasm came on at our local pizzeria in Monte Verde. They have delicious pizza normally, but a few days ago we found them serving slices with tortufa...TROUFFLE PIZZA! In case you didn't know, I am obsessed with trouffle oil on anything-pasta, potato chips, and now trouffle sauce on pizza? I was very excited to say the least and have been back about every day since.

I'm starting to get hungry now...

Il nostro appartamento!

I wanted to share a picture of our apartment here at the American Academy! The first photo is of the view out of our window to the courtyard below. We fall asleep to the sound of the fountain every night...good thing no one has had any "accidents" so far!

Buongiorno!

Well, we made it! Packed up our entire life and somehow managed to fit it into a storage unit. With only 5 suitcases between us (3 were mine...) and 20 plus hours of travel each, we have found ourselves residents of the American Academy in Rome! We will be here for the next 11 months during Brad's fellowship here as he does research and works on his dissertation.

I wanted to start posting this blog and pictures for everyone sooner, but we have just been so busy settling in! We have been here for about a month now and though there are new challenges every day, we are finally starting to feel at "home". Brad has been getting a lot of job applications and work done and I have been busy with Italian class.

The American Academy is a gorgeous property in the Monte Verde neighborhood of Rome. We are on top of the Janiculum Hill just above Trastevere. This means that we have a gorgeous view of Rome. It also means that we have to climb A LOT of stairs! I will post some pictures soon, but here is a link to the website, so you can actually see where we are http://www.aarome.org/about/place/academy. The apartment we have is nice and cozy with a gorgeous view of the Academy's courtyard. Brad also has an office. The yard in the back is amazing and the size of a small park (HUGE!) complete with a bocce ball court!

I will post again soon, but mostly just wanted to check in and say WE MISS ALL OF YOU!

Ciao!

Tarrah