Friday, May 28, 2010

A Little Holiday

I wasn’t prepared to be as sad as I was at the sending off of the students on their journey home. This trip was an interesting one….exhausting (emotionally more than physically) in many ways, but it was fun nonetheless. I will say that there were a few who caused me so much stress that it was a pleasure putting them on the plane.


Oops.


Did I just say that?


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But for the most….well, it was fun. Fun seeing a country/way of life that I love so much thru your first time eyes.


Anyhoo….British Airways was as lovely as ever (and I don’t mean that in a lovely way, either) and we basically got them on the plane (after being at the airport 3 hours early) about 8 minutes before they closed the gate.


For reals.


And then I had to say goodbye to my friend Ambra as she headed back to Rome. And I cried. But now I have a friend to come back and visit...

But what all of that meant was that M and I didn’t pick up our car and head out onto the open, crazy, Italian road until almost 2 hours after we were supposed to.


We were supposed to pick up our car and head to Padua, where we had made a museum reservation months in advance. Oh well. Missed that.


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Ambra suggested Plan B and said we MUST go to Ravenna…2 hours south of Venice. And because she is an Italian and because I like her, we listened.


But first, driving in Italy with a GPS sure makes it easy. Well....easier.



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Gotta love that.


On the way, we stopped and ate a piedina…basically, it’s a flatbread made with ground chickpea’s, grilled and stuffed with whatever you want. My fave is this white melty cheese that I can neither pronounce NOR spell, plus arugula…M’s is tonno (tuna in olive oil) with fresh tomatoes. There are little spots all along the sea road and we just picked one to stop at…the only downside was the bathroom, which was a hole in the ground. Yep. Welcome to Europe.



Ravenna is probably my new love in Italy. Mosaics so incredible they took my breathe away and quite literally brought tears to that guy that I like so much’s eyes. We found paradise and I cannot wait to come back.



We skipped over Florence and drove to Lucca, our ‘home base’ away from home. Lucca is special to us and I am loving spending time at watching all the families hang at the playgrounds that we played at with our boys years ago.


I miss my boys.


Lots.


Back to Lucca. We ate two of the scariest meals ever. EVER. We also had the best ever picnics here…prosciutto de parma, parmesan reggiano, toscano salame, fresh bread and olives. Yum.


Yesterday we took a road trip and drove 2 ½ hours to Montalcino…the home of Brunello wine. We stood in a room with a bazillion bottles of bazillion priced wine and tasted one glorious sample after another. We bought one of those bazillion dollar bottles to put away for our 25th anniversary next year…and I (shamelessly) tried the ‘my husband is a school teacher but we LOVE your wine so much and would buy more if we could afford it’ avenue and it was still a no go. No discounts for poor people. I guess in their minds, if I can afford to get my butt to Montalcino, then I don’t need a break on the price of wine.


And I see their point.


Though that doesn’t mean I have to like it.


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I love market days in Italy...though I am pretty sure I wouldn't be buying these.

Icky!


Zucchini flowers everywhere...I cannot wait to cook when I get home. All these fresh veggies have me inspired.

(plus, I am tired of eating out!)
The chicken man...I'm tellin ya. That chicken man makes the best chickens EVER...and under all those chickens are potatoes, which are getting dripped on with all those chicken drippings.

It's OK.

You can cry.

I know you want to.

It's THAT good!
I was tempted to try and carry a whole leg of proscuitto on the plane home...only euro 46 for one of these babies!

I tried to talk that guy that I like so much into it, but he couldn't be persuaded...somethin' about flies in the kitchen.

Too bad.
Tomorrow...Venizia and then HOME to my boys!

=0)



1 comment:

  1. OH, MY! I am so sorry that you made the great Padua reservation and then had to miss it! Major bummer. I do, however, remember the mosaics in Ravenna and they are indeed so gorgeous one could weep. Too true. Your picnics looked incredible-what a time you had. And what a great carry-on a full leg of proscuitto would be! The wine-oh, my. i literally salivated. How sad is that? And the chicken man with the potatoes and all-more saliva. You know, I can't swim and I could very drown just reading your journal and looking at the mouth-watering pictures!!
    Now where did you meet Ambra? That sounds great also. Well, thank you for sharing-yet again! Love it.
    Love, kathy

    ReplyDelete

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