Last night, over a hundred students from Umbra’s 2007 summer session attended gelato night at Gelateria Veneto. Gelato night, a popular Umbra tradition, gives students a chance to mingle with one another over free gelato. Students can practice their Italian, chat about their experiences in Perugia, or sample one of those elusive flavors they’ve been dying to try. What better way for students to gel with one another than over a cool cone of gelato?
Though ice cream has long been recognized for its icebreaking capacities, the history of Italian gelato is particularly rich. Before the cone became popular, Italian street vendors would serve a small quantity of gelato wrapped in waxed paper. This came to be known as “hokey-pokey,” a possible mispronunciation of the Italian “ecco un poco,” meaning “here’s a little.”
But there was no hokey-pokey at gelato night this year, and Umbra students happily clenched cones of gelato in the blissful night breeze, the perfect chance to chill out after a long day.
And that’s what it’s all about.