I am gonna start be playing a little catch up. I saw Harry Potter last week. The new one of course. It was absolutely amazing. The first night we went, it was sold out. The second night we went two hours early to get tickets. We ended up going to the theater 3 nights in a row trying to figure out if they were playing the movie or not. They didn’t know until the day before it came out. Which is something I do not understand. But at least we got to see it. That is all that matters to me J
That same night, after the movie, I went out for the first time in over a month. I went with Tynisha, Sam, and Guilia. Guilia speaks fluent Italian, so it was great having her along with us. At the end of the night, Travis walked us part way home and then we met Tynisha’s friend Keith who walked us rest of the way. Keith is from Spain and he decided it would be good to fight with me about politics. He is very liberal. All was fine and dandy until he brought up the war in Afghanistan. Then I got mad. The last thing he said to me that night was “I hate you.” I think I got my viewpoints across.
Wednesday night I spent four hours in the library. I had to finish writing a paper for classical mythology before I left for Venice. I figured the best way to do that was to lock myself into the library. For the paper, I had to go to a museum and sketch a drawing of a sarcophagus. Then I had to write a four page paper on it. It didn’t help that Michael was on facebook. It was a big distraction, but totally worth it…of course J
Then Wednesday night when I got home, I couldn’t get my laundry out of the washer. I was very angry because it meant I would have to leave my wet laundry in the washer for five days. Apparently I didn’t drain the water out of the washer, so it wouldn’t open. But I am 99% positive that I did. When I took my laundry out the next morning, it weighed about 20 pounds because there was so much water soaked up in it.
Let me start now with a little background on our Italian friends. For the 1993 Birkie, we had a group of Italians stay at our home. I was only 3 years old at the time. Despite an elapse of 17 years, mom located their email before we left for Italy. We decided early on that we were going to meet with them over our Thanksgiving break.
Now to the weekend. Our weekend with our Italian friends started Thursday morning. Although it was Thanksgiving, it sure didn’t feel like it. There was no snow and no bright orange for hunting season. I didn’t realize how much I would miss being with my family. This was the first time that I openly admitted that I missed mom and dad. I quickly came to realize that I really take advantage of certain things back home.
Our plane to Venice left at 10am. I had a ton of homework that I had to complete, so my bag was nice and full of books. I have several final papers to write by next week. I am not a fan of the end of the semester.
As we were going through security, the guy in front of us got stopped. The security people were going through his bag. And you wouldn’t believe what they took out of it. A butcher knife!!! It was a legitimate brand new 8 in long butcher knife! I turned to Bliss and said, “He better not be getting on my flight with that thing!” I am unsure of whether or not they took it away from him. I am hoping so, since they take nail clippers away from people. If they didn’t, there is a major problem in their security. I can’t believe this man thought he was going to be able to get on the plane with it!
We had printed our tickets off from the website online. Our tickets said our plane was leaving from B13. We sat here for awhile and were confused as to why no one else was at the terminal. We realized just in time that our terminal had been changed to B11. Thank goodness Bliss is smart enough to figure that out.
After the butcher knife incident, I felt much safe when an Italian soldier got on our plane. I told Bliss “I want him to sit right next to me if the guy with the butcher knife is on our flight.” Then a priest got on…”He will pray for our souls when the butcher guy starts killing people.”
When our plane landed, there were cops waiting. My theory was that they were waiting at the other end to pick up the butcher knife guy.
Federico met us at the airport to give us a ride to his home in Noale where we stayed for the weekend. On our way to Noale, we stopped at Torre di Tessera. It was a small church from the early 1300s. It was closed but the owner was there and ended up letting us in. The church is only open for religious holidays and is privately owned. We even got to see the base of the tower. Federico’s uncle was married there. It reminded me of the “Sengbusch” cemetery by Eddy Whipps.
Riding in the car was intense. I am not one to get car sick, but I was feeling very nauseas. There were a million roundabouts that made my tummy flip. I didn’t help that the vehicle was manual, so it was really jerky too. Despite the bumpy ride, I was so tired that I almost fell asleep in the car.
We finally reached the home of Federico and his family. They lived in a yellow apartment building. Bliss and I stayed in a room with a fold-out couch and large flat screen TV. After we got settled in our room, we went up one floor of the apartment building to Federico’s mothers apartment. Here we had our first real homemade Italian meal. We had a delicious pasta, some potatoes and an “Italian-style” turkey. I quickly noticed several things about a typical Italian kitchen (unlike our apartment). The refrigerator was hidden behind cupboard doors along with the dishwasher.
After our Thanksgiving lunch, we rested for a little while. We couldn’t get the wifi to work on my computer so I had to hook up to a plug-in. Then my computer toolbar disappeared and I couldn’t access anything on my computer. Luckily after restarting my computer, it all went back to normal.
I had to opportunity to talk to Michael on facebook for a few minutes. However, facebook stopped working. Luckily I told Michael before hand that my computer was having issues. So instead of being on facebook, I caught up on Fox News. I read Fox News daily.
We ended up going along with Federico to pick up Martina (his daughter) from her music lessons. Then the four of us stopped in downtown Noale and walked around for awhile. We saw a fortress and some swans. Martina got both me and Bliss a swan feather.
Once we got back to the apartment, by this time it was late, we started to watch Avatar. I also talked to Michael for a little longer this time. J Before the movie ended, we had to eat some dinner. We had rice, turkey, potatoes, and some slices of pork and ham.
After dinner I took a quick shower. Then we all sat and skyped with mom and dad. It was great to see them. And for everyone to be able to chat with each other again, after 17 years. After skyping we went to bed. It has been a long day and I was exhausted.
I came to realize very quickly that Martina was very much like me. She would beg her mother and when mom said no, she would go to dad. Actually, I told her that I always go to dad after mom says no and she followed my instruction. Oops!
Friday morning we woke up at 7am. I do not believe I have been up that early in several months now. It was a bit of a struggle. I could barely get myself out of bed. We had some Italian apple pie for breakfast. However, it didn’t settle with me very well since it was so early. I rarely ever eat anything before noon.
We left for the mountains at 8am. Bliss got sick in the car. I kept checking with her to see if she was okay. I told her to not wait until last minute to say something. It is better to have Federico pull over than for her to puke in his car! Right after I said this, Bliss finally asked him to pull over and she puked in her hands before she even got the door open. Ick! It was raining outside while Bliss was hanging her body out the door to puke, so Federico went and got an umbrella to put over her head.
At 300 meters up the mountain, it started to snow! I just about peed my pants in excitement. I almost forgot watch it was like to see snow. And that is saying something, considering I live in northwest Wisconsin. By the top we reached our location, it was a blizzard outside.
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| Mr. Bruno |
We met Mr. Bruno at the gate of what appeared to be a cave. We were driving to see the Vjoint Dam. Federico works as an engineer and had some really great connections. We got to go into this cave/tunnel. Mr. Bruno had the keys. There was absolutely no one else there. And this place was huge! We had to wear yellow hard hats as we walked.
We got to go on this bridge that has no public access. The dam was right in front of us, but we could barely see it because of the weather. It was amazing getting this opportunity that no one would ever have. It was kinda scary at the same time. I threw my first snowball of the season at Bliss.
Lunch was in the mountains as well. The restaurant reminded me off. It was a small, cozy wood building. As we looked out of the window, it looked like a snow globe. For a second, I almost forgot that I was in Italy. But my little fantasy world was interrupted when the waitress starting speaking to us in Italian. When I went to the bathroom, I found out that the men and women share. It is a typical bathroom with stalls, but there are male stales and female stales. Instead of all female or all male. I was very intimidated when I came out of the bathroom to find a ton of guys standing there.
We then drove to a power plant that Federico works at. There was a very long tunnel that we had to walk through. For some reason, it reminded me of a Harry Potter movie. We saw all kinds of stuff in the plant. There were four huge red things that generated the power, each producing 60,000 horsepower. Again, we had to wear our yellow hard hats.
We drove to yet another center where we met the supervisor. We had to head back to Noale by this time, but we stopped in Treviso along the way. Treviso is the city were Federico went to high school from 1971-1975. We went into a church were Stefania’s sister was married. Below the “new” church is where the old church “cripta” was located. The church used to be underground! It was creepy, but beautiful.
Once we finally made it back to the apartment, Bliss and I both took a much needed nap. We were completely exhausted from a very eventful day. At dinner we had some more turkey and then went right to bed.
Saturday we got to sleep in a little later. We didn’t wake up until 8:30am. We took at rain around 10 to Venice. It was about a 30 minute train ride into Venice. As we were crossing a large bridge, we saw a bunch of boats that resembled canoes. However, they were standing up. They had between 2 and 5 people, each with a paddle. Federico said they were almost flat bottomed because the water is so shallow.
We met Roberto (another of our Italian friends) and Sarah, his girlfriend right when we got off of the train. Roberto told me that I looked just like my mother. J We did a nice long walking tour all around Venice. Starting with a fish market. I can’t get over how the food just sits out in the open, with people touching it. It is so unsanitary. Not that I would eat any of it anyways.
At lunch, Roberto and I talked about the war.(Roberto is the best English speaker) It was very obvious that both of us had opposing viewpoints. But it got brought up because of Michael. Roberto asked what the general consensus of the Americans was on the war. I told him that I really don’t think people care anymore. Everyone has forgotten about it. The only people who pay real attention are the ones who have loved ones there.
I asked them if a microwave was not a normal occurrence in Italy. Roberto said he considered it a part of everyday appliances. However, many people don’t have him. Roberto went as far as saying it should win the Noble Prize! After eating, Roberto was telling us which way was east, then he pointed west and said “That way is Wisconsin.” J
We then took a boat to a tiny little island with a church. We went up into the church tower by elevator and got to see an amazing view of Venice. Venice is a very small island. I could see both ends. We took a boat back to the mainland of Venice and walked some more around the city. We ended at Roberto’s apartment.
Fabio came in with his twin sons who were 7 years old. Along with Roberto’s and Fabio’s (they are brothers) mother. She came in holding the picture that was taken 17 years prior. She spoke no English, but she was very excited to meet with us. So was Fabio. He came in bouncing around like a kid. He guessed who was who and got it right. Fabio didn’t speak much English, but it was very good English when he did speak. His best English involved him telling us how bad he was at speaking English. lol.
We were enjoying our time so much, that we ended up having to run to the train from Roberto’s house. We almost missed it and it was the last one of the night (7pm). When we made it back to Federico’s house, he took us to a mall where we bought some Murano glass.
Saturday we woke up at 8am. Stefania, Neata (another daughter of Federico), and Federico took us to Castelfranco. We got to see the house of Giorgione, a famous painter. It was a nice little museum.
We had some lunch back at Federico’s home and then headed to the train station, since our time with our Italian friends was coming to an end. Our train left Padova at 3:55pm. The train ride was a crazy one. I never get motion sick, but trains are just not my thing. I tried to sleep, but couldn’t. It was a 3 ½ hour train ride and I struggled the whole way. I was nauseas even once we got off of the train.
When we arrived to Rome, it was a complete downpour. I walked through about 4 inches of water, dragging my suitcase behind me. I did this several times and by the time we made it to the bus stop, I was soaked. We had to wait over a half hour for our bus to come. And the bus only took us as far as the tram stop. So then we had to hop on a tram to get rest of the way to our apartment. I had a growing hatred for public transportation.
Now I am back in Rome, with 19 days until I reach home. The next three weeks are going to fly by. I have several papers to write which will make time go by faster. I will be home in no time and can’t wait to see my family and friends!
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