Italia

I just tried to log onto blogger and it took quite the while as the site was all in Italian! Wheeee!

So here we are, in Italy.

I had a plan to write a blog post every evening, keeping you all updated on our comings and goings, but the internet didn't work until today, so I gave up on the idea.

I'll do my best to recap the first few days in Italy.

Sunday
Woke up multiple times Saturday night to Elena having diarrhea in her sleep, which continued into Sunday morning. I was starting to freak out. She had barely eaten anything in days and yet she still was going to the bathroom constantly. Worry, worry! I went off to choir practice and Nate took Elena to our local ER to get some medical advice. Unfortunately he came back quickly, as our local ER doesn't have a childrens doctor. WEIRD!!! He had to hightail it across town to a childrens hospital to get help. WEIRD!!!

I explained (in German, yikes) what was going on with our little E-bomb and the doc basically said that there is nothing you can do for diarrhea, it just passes. She prescribed some electrolyte type stuff and told us not to travel. Of course, we ignored her and headed on the road to Italy.

As I kinda thought, Elena slept about 6 of the 7 hours of our drive to Piedmont. I honestly think it was the best medicine anyone could have prescribed. Maybe mother does know best? Or not.

After driving up the wrong mountain (Jeff and Abby, the GPS just doesn't work in backroads Italy!), we finally made it to... our own mountain top villa! If you didn't know, this trip was a big surprise for me. Nate planned it all for my birthday since he won't be with me on my actual birthday.

Thrilled about the villa, but not so thrilled about it being freezing. Nate tried (unsuccessfully, with wet wood and no matches) to light a fire, but we finally just ended up snuggling in bed until Elena got tired enough to go back to sleep.

Monday
Up early, relaxed while Nate (this time, success!) got a fire going. The itinerary was to just hang out around the area for Monday. We called the landlord for our villa and found out that Monday is basically a 'quiet day' or day-when-nothing-is-open in our local town, so we just started driving. We drove to a town called Canelli and found a tourist office that was open. The lady recommended a restaurant that was actually open, so we walked through the (freezing) rain to the restaurant and sat down. The menu was in Italian and I had forgotten our phrase book, so we just basically pointed and guessed! Nate got the menu of the day, which ended up being bruschetta for starter, potato soup, and then a few meatballs with carrots as vegetable for the main course. Elena loved the potato soup, and we rejoiced to watch her actually eat.

I ordered a risotto with spinach and ham for my starter, which completely and utterly filled me. Did I mention that Nate got sick the night we arrived? Yeah, he lost his cookies not too long after we pulled up to the villa. And I started feeling pretty nasty in the belly not much later. So anyhow, my stomach was feeling weird and then the lady brings me a plate full of ... steak! My stomach rumbled queasily. I ate some of it, but by making motions (literally) I got the nice waitress to pack it up so I could bring it home.

Well, if you've never been to Italy, you wouldn't know that everything shuts down for about 2 to 3 hours in the afternoon. As there was nothing to do, we went back to the villa and relaxed (napped!) until everything reopened. We were still feeling a little weak, so we just drove back to Canelli and went to the only winery that was open to the public. Lucky us, we were the only ones there, so we got a private tour of the winery by one of the owners. He showed us the ancient cellars, old bottles, the whole works before letting us test several of his wines. His wine has been reviewed by Robert Parker and was in the high 80s and low 90s (out of 100). Really good ratings, and really good wines. We bought quite a few bottles!

After the tasting went to the grocery store. Soup, soap, and a few other things in the bag and we headed back 'home'.

After a dinner of minestrone and crackers we retired to the living room and watched a movie. Nate bought a movie for me for my birthday, one of my faves, so I thoroughly enjoyed snuggling on the couch with him while Elena slept in my lap.

Tuesday
Another early morning wake up. Thanks Elena!!! Elena update I guess. While she does not have her usual solid excrement, the frequency of the diarrhea has gone down considerably. In fact she has not yet had a diarrhea as of 11:18am, Thursday morning. Yay!

Back to Tuesday. Nice slow morning and then we took off for the town of Bra. Yes, Bra! I saw a t-shirt in a window that said I 'heart' Bra and almost bought it for Katy. Nate told me that she would never wear it, so I resisted! Almost as good of a city name as Intercourse, Pennsylvania.

We arrived ONE HOUR later (thank you GPS, we loved driving through the mountains instead of those nice highways we could see below!) and found the tourist office. The nice man there recommended a restaurant (part of the slow food movement, if you've heard of it. very cool!) and a few things to do. We went to the restaurant, and ordered. This time I brought our phrase book so we had some idea of what we were getting. I ordered menu number 1 and got cold, sliced veal with some sort of tuna paste on top. Sounds bad, I know, but it actually was probably the best veal I've ever had. Delicious! I had a simple shell pasta in red sauce for the main course and a chocolate biscotti thingee for dessert. Oh yes, and my glass of wine was a Barolo. Lovely!

Nate ordered a meat dish that was like roast in a crockpot except it was marinated in a Barolo wine sauce. It was the most aromatic, scrumptious roast sauce I have ever eaten. Wow. He had a glass of Nebiolo, also tasty.

After lunch we decided to check out some local roman ruins. When we got to the area we couldn't really find the ruins, so we decided to do wine tasting instead (if we must!). We drove to the town of Barolo and started at their wine tasters center. We tried three different types of Barolo, but felt a bit overwhelmed at the warehouse-like store. So... we decided to just walk around the town. I'm very glad we did, as we learned that "little winery" means cantina in Italy. Or at least something close to that. We walked into a cantina and this little old lady poured us a variety of her family's wines. Well, we had to first tear her away from Elena, but eventually she paid attention to us.

We tried another cantina and then drove around to find two more. The wine was delicious, and at these little home-grown places they didn't charge tasting fees as long as you bought a bottle. Well, of course we bought a bottle, or two, or three!

After our thirst was satisfied we drove back to the villa and made a meal of ravioli and sausage that we had purchased in Bra. It is a special type of sausage that is protected by Italian law. It can only be made in Bra. It's made of veal and bacon, and is yummmmo!

We were exhausted and went to bed early. Elena slept well, and the heater in this old villa finally started working well so we weren't freezing!

Wednesday
A man came out to the villa and finally fixed the internet. Hurrah for having a phone (the phone is an internet phone) and computer again. Of course, we're going to turn it off after I write this update so that we're not tempted to spend the whole day online.

We don't have too many plans for today. Elena is sleeping, we might go shopping this afternoon... but the big thing today is my actual birthday present. Nate bought me a COOKING CLASS WITH AN ITALIAN CHEF!!!! WOW! So tonight I'm going to be learning how to cook an Italian meal, which we get to eat when its done. I am so thrilled! My stomach is still a little touchy, which reminds me that we need to figure out the Italian word for Tums. I think I'm going to need them!