They say one images says more than thousands words.. So look at these: on the left a picture I took yesterday. On the right, how it was today. It started snowing in the evening, just so you know…

and  then, that you have appreciated how much is snowing –  it is still snowing right now! – you can enjoy this last cool picture:

New experiences in Cornell. The kind of fun ones you say ” I’d do again if I went back in time… but only without knowing what I am going for!!” …

Late evening, after laundry and a bit of work. Outside is snowing a lot, but because of that the temperature is surprisingly warm. I have worked the whole week, I had to prepare a talk in the evenings. So when the idea of walking toward Collegetown just to take a tea comes out, it’s actually welcome! Let’s get out from these rooms!

So, we step outside. It’s snowing cats and dogs right now (I do not see why I cannot extend this idiom to the snow, if I am leaving in a place where the snow it’s the only things that comes down from the sky). It’s nice, after few minutes my scarf and hair are encrusted. And with my snow boots nothing and no-one can stop me! I am finally enjoying the TrueIthaca™ experience I was prepared for… ;P

We even take a (long) shortcut trough the wood…during the night…scary…if it wasn’t just a path parallel to the main road, a couple of meters below. But I have to admit, was pretty impressive…
So we arrive at “the Old Tea House”, a small small shop where you can choose among tens of different kind of black teas, green teas, milk teas… with taste of almond, peppermint, chocolate, lychees (Ema! a moved thought went to you in Paris..)… there is only one feature they have in common: they are extremely sweet! Or at least, most of them are, but when we tried to ask the (probably) normal one, we were discouraged by the seller “I’d rather suggest you to choose something else, this is a bit salty”… Americans love sugar. So much.

And the surprises are not ended. The tea is  actually known as “bubble tea”, you know why? An hint: read the title…a second hint: they give you LARGE straws..I mean, more than 1 cm of diameter…
ok, I bet you cannot guess, especially if you are Europeans. They put TAPIOCA bubbles inside the tea, that you suck up while drinking. So imagine. First sip, it’s quite sweet, maybe not your favorite but you still think you can handle it until the end. Second sip, here it is, unexpected, a jelly slimy dark bubble stop right at the beginning of your throat. I know it’s dark because I couldn’t resist to check what it was [see picture 1, among my tooth ]
And after that every sip just adds a sweet taste to your mouth, and tapioca bubbles in your stomach, and you cannot do anything else than start laughing and continue to drink, and laugh.. you start to be disgusted but you cannot stop, because it’s fun in a weird way.. that why I sad I would do again, if I had to go back… but not again now that I actually know.

But it’s not all. The end is still far; when you think you’ve reached the bottom, when you believe your tasting sense cannot be tested anymore, they offer you a Japanese cookie. The texture is like foam, the taste like.. I do not know, I am not even able to explain..and inside there is a sesame black thick sticky paste… oh, gosh! Look at my face to try to imagine how it was [last picture, I am holding the cookie]… the tea seemed suddenly desirable!

And that why I took another huge sip…Unfortunately because of the hurry – I wanted to delete the awful taste from my mouth with a less worse one – I drank from the straw  but the cup hole was directed toward me, not on the opposite site.. So, here is the deserving ending for that evening…tapioca tea straining over my scarf and sweater and shirt… Enjoy, Silvia!

Cornell! Again!
I left less than one year ago. It was warm, green and pleasant, but  almost empty. Now it’s cold, withe but alive.
And I know places and people, and I have the feeling I am not a total foreign.
Plus, it’s fun to try a different life style for some time, pretending being a college student … I am not betraying Munich – I swear! – but there are some things you cannot get.

Like that one for example! Something I was pleasantly surprised to find out. Once a week, in one of the campus canteens, few Italians meet few people who want to speak Italian. They sit and chat and eat…for free! So, what is better for a student to have a meal with nice new people? And meet young and not-so-young fellows who think about your country with the same mixture of excitement and misunderstanding you feel for their homeland. The retired Opera singer who has travelled all around Italy, the law student who went to Rome for an exchange. The young Italian couple whit their baby which everyone likes.
Here we are again, ready for another melting-pot of people and ideas!