Grape Harvest

My Italian class went to a vineyard to do a grape harvest. It was REALLY fun and probably an experience I couldn't have had with anyone else. The tour was completely in Italian and we got to pick grapes, eat grapes, smash grapes with out hands, and drink the juice. We were all given scissors and we were let loose in the vineyard to cut as many grapes as we could. I immediately got distracted by eating the sweet grapes. They were so good! I felt like a little kid going fruit picking and sneaking tastes behind my mom's back. It was very fun.

We picked SO MANY grapes. We carried them back to our "camp" where they had set up a place for us to smash our own grapes. We got to get down on our knees and squeeze the juice out of all the grapes with our hands. It felt very strange. One girls said, "It feels like I'm squishing eyeballs!" I don't know about that... but it was pretty funny.

We we were done squishing the grapes, we put them in a press to squeeze out any juice we left behind. We filled up cup after  cup after cup of sweet, fresh grape juice. I've never had anything like it. It was thick and extra sweet but so much better than anything I've had in the US. I vote we use this grape juice in church instead! Ha.

Afterwards we went to a small hillside town and went to the park of monsters. We had been reading about it in class (my teach is obsessed with all things "molto creepy". I'm sure I've mentioned that before). The park was very interesting... It was filled with statues of Roman gods and "monsters". I enjoyed it a lot.

Last week, my roommates and I also had a family dinner. In Siena, Ken and I made a pact to try and re-create the soup we had at the restaurant so I decided to make it for my roommates. I didn't really follow a recipe so I just chopped up whatever vegetables I had laying around and threw them in some broth. It was actually REALLY good. I was quite impressed with myself. Even my roommates were impressed. We ate it all week. They actually got excited to go home and eat more of it! I suppose I'm becoming a good cook.

Here are my pictures from the grape harvest