Adventures of a Baker: Papa Francesco, la la la la la la la

Happy Feast of the Immaculate Conception!!!

I can't believe I am already 3 1/2 weeks into my Roman adventure!

It seems like just yesterday I walked into a room full of all of my friends and family saying goodbye to me!

I am learning so much and experiencing so many amazing things though!

Like Monday, I was taught how to properly make Roman style pizza and focaccia.

This was the workspace and it's right next to the bar so all of the customers can see the pizza masters hard at work!

I got to use a wood fire oven! SO COOL!

I learned a lot of their family secrets so unfortunately I can't divulge anything too juicy, but a lot more went into making this pizza than I had anticipated.

Tuesday was my roommate's last night here in Rome :(

She got here in December so her three months are up and I am roommate-less until May!

She spent her last night coming to my work and taking a class with our supervisors and some students from the American University in Rome.

We had so much fun making zeppole sale with various toppings

It was essentially just fried pizza dough!

Carbonara con spaghetti alla chitarra

To make this we use this cool tool that has strings like a guitar and you place the pasta dough on top and roll over the dough with a rolling pin. When all of the dough is pushed through, you "play" the chitarra and the spaghetti falls out. This is the perfect spaghetti for carbonara because it is thicker.

This is our pasta area (you can see the chitarra on the counter)

And of course, tiramisu

(all of these pictures were taken from my wonderful supervisor, Alessandro)

I rushed home after work so that I could try to get a little bit of sleep before waking up super early so that I could see Papa Francesco, as the Italians call him!

St. Peter's Square was so beautiful so early in the morning with no one around.

I was one of the first in line, of course.

But this means absolutely nothing to Italians. By the time 7:30 rolled around and the guards were getting close to opening up the square, all of these Italian old people came out of nowhere and shoved their way to the front. It was a hot mess to say the least.

Even though I was pushed back quite a bit, I still got a pretty decent spot and ended up next to these two girls who were here on spring break with their group from the University of Arkansas!!!!!

Such a small world!

We could see Papa Francesco on the big screens greeting the lucky lucky people inside and then we watched him walk outside and get into his pope mobile.

This is when things got even crazier! People were screaming and trying to figure out where he was coming from.

Well he came this way

Then this way

And then finally this way

And I couldn't resist a selfie....

Then he took his seat up on the stage

And he was greeted by about a dozen priests who all spoke different languages and spoke on behalf of the pilgrims there from various regions. The pope would then say something back and the priest would translate it in their respective language.

It was a very cool experience!

Then we sang the Our Father in Latin and he bestowed an apostolic blessing on us and our families back home!

Then, because of the fangirl I am, I stayed after while he went around shaking hands with the people who got special invitations (or knew important people). He did this for about 45 minutes before I noticed the pope mobile coming around.

Yep! It parked right in front of me. All of the Italian old women and I squealed in excitement and awaited Papa Francesco's walk to the pope mobile.

During this time, people were singing to the tune of Can't Take My Eyes Off of You (the part where it's like I love you baby)

So imagine and sing in your head, or out loud, Papa Francesco la la la la la la la, Papa Francesco la la la la la la la. And on and on and on and on until he was done talking.

Those crazy Italians.