Uno, Due, Cheese!

Saturday I headed off to Genova with Joanna, who works at Bilingual European School. We wanted to go to the aquarium and wander around the town for a bit.

Can you see our feet? 

Genova was only a hour and a half by train and TrenItalia is running a Saturday special right now where some tickets are available two for the price of one. Our train trip was a great deal!

Genova's harbor

We arrived in Genova (you may know it better as Genoa in English) and walked to the aquarium, which was nearby. It's a little expensive per person at €24, but it was still nice to check it out. It is the largest aquarium in Italy and among the largest in Europe. They have several large tanks for manatees, sharks, dolphins and seals. When you arrive they have a queue for the picture that they try to sell you at the end of your trip, and funnily enough, the lead-up to the picture taking is "uno, due, cheese!" Thankfully, we avoided this part of the adventure, but I thought the catch phrase was worth remembering. I enjoyed the rana pomodoro the most (tomato frog) simply because of its name. Witnessing dolphins mating was also a first time experience for me.

Some of the marine life

rana pomodoro

After the aquarium, we were in need of lunch. I had a mental list of things I wanted to eat while in Genova that included Genovese focaccia, pesto and gelato. On a blog I found the names of a couple restaurants and I had one in mind when we went in search of lunch. We ate at Sa Pesta and it was a gem. We waited in line to get a seat and were the only non-Italians there. I did all the ordering in Italian and almost ordered us a plate full of fried anchovies, but even though my broken Italian got me into that mess, it also got me out of it. We tried a plate of various local specialities, including farinata, a flat tortilla like food made with chickpeas. Then we had trofie con pesto. Pesto is a big deal in Genova and is the place to have some and trofie is simply one of a million pasta shapes here.

Later we had some delicious gelato and wandered about the city before catching out train back to Milan.

Chosen flavors for the day? Cinnamon and pistacchio! YUM!

I'm keeping all my pictures in my Flickr account, so feel free to look around there. 

Now, a little added bonus for this post. 

I've been working to learn Italian since before arriving in Italy. Sometimes I work pretty hard at it and other times I've been a bit of a slacker, but I want to learn and enjoy when I can actually navigate entire situations in Italian. My language skills are still not great, but they're coming along. I'm a long way from being conversational and am a much better writer because I have the time to think about what I need to say. 

I wrote about my day in Italian for my Italian teacher, Bruna, on my way back from Genova. It was a rough draft and today I edited it with a little help from Google Translate filling in a couple blanks. Then during my Italian lesson, Bruna edited my draft. So, here goes...for all my Italian readers out there. (Please forgive the lack of properly accented words and letters!)

Sabato mattina mi sono svegliata alle 4. Lo so, sono una gallina, come Bruna mi dice. Mi sono alzata alle 6 e ho fatto una doccia e mi sono vestita. Ho mangiato i cereali per la colazione e sono partita per Milano Centrale. Ho incontrato la mia amica Joanna e siamo andate a Genova.

Prima, siamo andate all'acquario. Ho visto i lamantini, gli squali, i delfini, le foche, e tanti pesci. Il mio favorito era la rana pomodoro per il suo nome. 

Dopo l'acquario abbiamo mangiato a Sa Pesta. Abbiamo provato il piatto misto di farinata, torta di riso, torta di cipolle e altro. Avevamo anche le trofie con il pesto Genovese. Tutto era buonissimo, ma il pesto era un po' insipido. 

Poi siamo andate a provare il miglior gelato di Genova. Avevo gelato con cannella e pistacchio. E molto morbido e delizioso. Siamo andate a piedi e ci siamo sedute vicino al porto. Ho comprato anche due pezzi di focaccia- un tipo era Genovese e l'oltra era di Recco. E fatto con formaggio. 

Abbiamo preso il treno per Milano. E stata una bella giornata nonostante il sole andava e veniva.