Monday morning meant Paul was back to work. And so was I. 💻 I’ve been glued to my laptop, reworking a webpage for a local Grill & Brew Pub back home, that I help at. 😋🍔🍺 There’s really not much else to share about today. What? Vacation can’t be glamorous every day! 😂
`e tutto per ora (that’s all for now) 👋
Some interesting links to the local sights I’ve been talking about.
The monument to the fallen on Mt. Grappa
E’hila
That means ‘hey there’. Following the pie debacle, Sunday arrived with a cloudy dreariness only matched by my mood as I looked at a kitchen full of dirty dishes. Deciding to go back to bed instead, I slept in while Paul (ever up at stupid-early-o’clock) binged Netflix. But eventually I got up, only because of guilt over sleeping so awesomely, and we ventured out. As Facebook would later remind me, one year previously we had driven up the mountain and had a picnic. Which consisted of eating grocery store pre-made sandwiches in the car as we watched other cars pass by our turnout. Obviously FB is psychic, because we did that same thing today. I managed to only spill half a can of Pringles across the front floorboards, too 🤗 #GoMe
At the top of Mt. Grappa is a war memorial. This entire area was pivotal in WWI and saw heavy damage and casualties. There are memorials and small plaques everywhere, as well as bullet holes and reminders in many surviving buildings. By the time we got up the mountain though, it was raining and fogged in. The temps had dropped from 80F to about 55F, so we decided to head back down before it snowed. Our little, manual rental would be useless up there. We managed to make it about halfway back down, on a different road, when that road decided to be closed. 😒 So we backtracked several miles, and managed to connect to the original route up. And back down we came. Check out this YouTube video, though!
Fino a domani (Until tomorrow) 👋
Ciao 👋
Where were we? Oh yeah, Saturday morning Paul had to work. But only from 8am to 1pm 😒 Then I tried to bake a pie. But let me start at the beginning…
One of his coworkers, an Italian that’s from here, was having a small birthday gathering on Saturday night. And we were invited. That’s cool. Paul asked if he could bring anything…booze, food, girls? The reply was ‘something Kansas-y’ 🤔 Um, that would have been good to know four days ago, before I left freakin’ America! So Paul was like, can you make the Key Lime Cheesecake? To which I was like, 😂😂 No. 😐 This AirBnB is nice and all, but it doesn’t even have a measuring cup, let alone a mixer or springform pan. But I offered to try and bake an apple pie. It’s simple and definitely says ‘America’. Ha.
So Paul gets home Saturday afternoon, and we rush to the store to look for apples, cinnamon, something sorta like white flour, and granulated sugar. Those aren’t a thing here. I basically ended up with sugar cubes I had to smash, probable-pizza flour, a new rolling pin, and a pack of plastic Dixie cups. Not a single effing measuring cup to be found. This was at one of the bigger markets, mind you. 😒 So I set Paul to working out equivalencies for everything, and then trying to figure out what that meant in 200cc plastic cups.
Fail from the get go 😐 It was way too humid and warm to make a crust work, and the strange flour wasnt helping. The only pan I could find was a foil dish that was about 12 inches across and looked more like a deep dish pizza pan. So it took nearly 16 (small) apples to make the filling. I only realized that because Paul did 10 and was all ready to go, when they wouldn’t cover the bottom, let alone heap. So Paul peeled and sliced six more. The crust absolutely would not cooperate, so I ended up just smushing it into the pan like soft Play-doh. And there was no top crust, because of the size of the pan and the failure to roll. So into the oven it went. And out it came. Ugly pie.
Evening here starts late. Restaurants don’t open til 8, everything else closes at 7. It’s a wierd place. So this party was at an apartment half an hour away. The pie is still hot, it’s too big and sloshy to set in the car, so it ends up in a roasting pan on my lap. Have I ever mentioned how ziggy and zaggy the roads are here? Or the roundabouts at EVERY intersection? 🤔 Because yeah. Trying to hold this hot pie still, for half an hour of constant motion, not proud of it at all, it’s ugly and stupid looking. We arrive and I make Paul carry it in 😂 The hosts were polite but I don’t think they’d ever even seen a pie before. They kept calling it a cake. It would have been an even uglier cake. But anyway, we snacked and stood in the backyard chatting for a few hours, being eaten by mosquitos. Bonus, I can now find itch spray even when it’s written in Italian! Then we all go inside, about a dozen of us, and have real cake. A delicious, creamy, tiramisu type thing. It was pretty. #CakeEnvy Then, as an afterthought, the birthday guy asks if anyone would like my cake. It’s pie. Apple pie. About five of us try it. It actually set up well, scooped out way better than I expected for such a large, deep, dish, and tasted good. The crust was pretty crumbly, stupid Italian flour, and the apples were pretty bland, stupid Italian fruit lack-of-variety. But those that tried it praises it. Those that didn’t, didn’t even try to hide their revulsive faces. Seriously. We left it there, only bringing back the apartment’s roasting dish.
Chow. 🍏🍰
Buongiorno! That’s good morning/ good day! I’m behind on my blog (surprise) but I’m taking notes 😂 Today would have been Friday, I had a headache and laid around most of the day. Surprise again.
Paul’s factory is about 30 minutes away, so he drives there and back each day. Working 10a-10p, he eats lunch and dinner there. They have a cafeteria. However, there is also a small restaurant across the street where they go sometimes, for a change. And they actually serve steak. Like, real honest to goodness steak. All you find here normally is a very thin, very tough cut. So he gets pizza everywhere 😂 but the other guys all had filets at lunch Friday. He saw that, too late, and decided we needed to go back for dinner and have steak! After driving half an hour home. We drove half an hour back. It was only 6:30pm. They were sold out of steak 😒
Long story long, we had pizza. 😕 Then drove half an hour back home. Which sounds ridiculous, but over here everything is a string of tiny towns. You never really leave ‘town’, you just zig and zag like madmen until you find a parking spot, basically. So that was our Friday. Until tomorrow, three days ago…
Arrivederci (that means bye) 👋
That’s Italian for Vacation Day 10 😂
Now that we are settled in, and Paul has gone back to work, it’s really not that exciting here. Although we are on a hill overlooking the town, it’s a good five mile walk down to the city center, where all of the interesting things are. And it’s a very steep five miles back up 😂 This YouTube video shows some of the town!
But I keep myself busy. There is wifi, so there is work to do, writing this ridiculously mundane blog, and such.
Word of the Day: Per Favore
The formal use of ‘please’. Like much Italian, it is similar to Spanish (por favor).
Pronounced: per fuh-vor-ay
1am came way too early today. We were up and on the road to LAX by 2am. This was the plan because traffic is so terrible the rest of the day. We made it to the airport by 3am, which was a little early, but oh well. So Paul and I sat there until the gates opened at 4:30 and we could check our bags. Then it was a quick trip through security (another reason to arrive stupid-early), and more sitting. But we got to sit in the Delta lounge, because Paul flies enough that he gets the important treatment 😂
It was really nice, with a decent breakfast buffet, a quiet and calm area, and unlimited orange juice 🍊😋 We finally boarded around 5:45am and then it was a 5 hour flight to New York. Once in JFK Airport in NY, we found an Irish pub for lunch and then sat for hours in the Delta Lounge. They had cookies, drinks, and phone charging ports, so it could have been worse. And by worse, I mean boring-er 😂 But finally it was time to board, which we get to do first as Paul is a SkyMiles points-hoarder, but we were also in the next to last row (44) so we sat on the plane for another 45 minutes. 😞
Another 8 1/2 hrs of flight, and we landed in Venice. It was now noon local time, 5 am Kansas time. On Wednesday. But I will be time-lost for a week or so 😂 After forever in the customs line, and the rental car line, and the traffic, we made it to our AirBnB near Bassano del Grappa. You can check out our exact AirBnB here.
It’s amazing here, cheaper than a hotel, and definitely much more relaxing. We’ll be here three weeks, then move to a different apartment in a nearby town, for the last two weeks. Paul is working the 10a-10p shift at work, 5-6 days a week, so I’m on my own for lunch and dinner. But that is the great thing about an apartment…groceries and a kitchen! More on the daily life of Italians, coming soon. 👋
Word of the Day: Ciao
Like aloha, it is an informal greeting meaning hello and goodbye.
Pronounced ‘chow’
Saturday we were awakened to a power outage at our hotel. At 7:30am. We thought we would just walk down to the McDonalds a block over…but the power was out all around us. Fortunately there was still hot water, so we showered then drove a ways away to find breakfast. My friends Jason and Scott were getting married today, the entire reason we were here! We returned to the hotel to find power restored, put on our nice, suffocating dress clothes, and went to the ceremony. I didn’t cry, but it was a very touching and heartwarming service, between two amazing people that are beyond meant for each other 😍 Of course I still had a stupid migraine (too much bright sun and sinus-drying a/c) so we left the reception early. A nap at the hotel helped me though, and we were able to rejoin the celebrations that evening at a local bar for drinks and dinner.
Sunday, we packed up and headed west…er, to my mom’s house east of Los Angeles. She is car-sitting while we are in Italy. The drive from Phoenix to Hemet is only about 4 hours, but it is the I-70 of the desert. Boring beyond belief. The I-10 is nothing but trucks going 60mph and cars going 90. But we made it, her little dog actually liked Paul (Khaos is a man-hating monster), and spent a relaxing evening catching up.
Monday, we did some laundry and sorted through what we were taking to Italy and what we were leaving. When we return on June 28th, we’ll be staying in California for a few weeks. It was another uneventful day, we went out for pizza, did some work on our phones, and lounged around. We hit the sack early, as we had to be back up by 1am to head for LAX. Had to beat the traffic and check in early for our 6am international flight.
Friday dawned a *little* less hot, only mid 90’s. 😂 Paul and I had an entire day free to explore Phoenix. We did a little shopping, had an amazing lunch at Chompie’s, an authentic New York Deli chain in PHX, and then we went to the aquarium! But not to see fish…they were hosting a special travelling exhibition of Bodies Revealed! Learn all about the exhibit here.
I have wanted to see this show since I lived in Phoenix twelve years ago. I always missed it though, in Kansas and around the country. But it was amazingly worth it! The process they use to preserve the tiniest of veins and nerves is unbelievable. Paul was a trooper, medical things are not his cup of tea, but he knew how much I wanted to see this. 😘
After the bodies exhibit, we made our way back across town to a dinner of Panda Express and an early night at the hotel.
Did you know? The city of Phoenix has a little over 1 million people…but the greater metro area has 4.7 million! 😮
There’s a Bear in my room! ✈😍🐻
After already hitting 100º by noon, Phoenix reminded me of how un-acclimated I had become. Even with my sunglasses, it was so bright all day that I got a headache. The squinting is not only bad for wrinkles, but for tension in the forehead muscles.
Check out was at noon, so I had to venture out into my favorite big city and kill time until Paul’s plane landed tonight. Not much more to say…I wandered two Targets, a TJ Maxx, a DSW, a Kohl’s, and had an amazing omelette at my favorite NY-style deli!😋
We’re all checked into our home for the next three days, a Candlewood Inn, with an amazingly equipped kitchen, even for an extended stay place. 🤔 Aspirin has been taken and the lights are going off. 🛏
Useless fact of the day: Our hotel is on Baseline Avenue, so named because when Phoenix was being settled and mapped out, this road was the center (or baseline). 📐📏
Useful fact of the day: All of the numbered, north-south running roads in Phoenix start low in the middle and get higher as they go out. Streets go towards the east, Avenues towards the west. (< ave. 4 3 2 1 / 1 2 3 4 st. >) 🛣
The Mishafesto 