May 6 - We're in Italy!!!

I can hardly put my Italy Experience into words, but what I can say is that I have arrived.

Let’s back up. I woke up at 4:45am and started packing. Kev woke up a little after 5 and after he finished packing, we headed down for breakfast, which was more impressive than dinner. There were pastries, breads, bagels, and cakes; fruit, yogurt, and fresh squeezed juice; waffles, French toast, veal sausage, and eggs; lox, meat, and cheese section. It was the best breakfast I have ever eaten. Bloody amazing. Perhaps we ate more than was necessary, but every bite was out-of-this-world.

After our morning feast we headed over to the airport and checked our luggage in. We were off to Munich and then to Genova. Sweet!!!! This whole situation couldn’t have worked out any better. The flights were easy, security was a piece of cake, and there was internet. Life was looking good.

While we were taking the bus from the plane to the terminal, in Genova, we saw a darling, old couple who turned out to be from the Bay Area. The Missus and I chatted about her and her husband’s adventures and then our luggage showed up. I caught myself looking at the luggage sign; part of it was in English and the other was in Italian. Holy shit Batman, I am in Italy. I am really here!!!
I verbally exploded onto Kevin about how excited I was to be here but had to cool my jets once we exited baggage claim because I didn’t want to startle our new host, Silvia and Bruno. She has dark brown hair that is cut at neck length and is about my height and curvy, and Bruno looks like an Italian Rock-a-billy. They are darling!
Bruno must go back to work so Silvia takes us to her place so we can drop her stuff. Once we arrive, her three dogs happily greet us. They have a 12 y.o. husky, a short haired golden lab, and a new puppy that looks like a mastiff. We eventually get inside after lots of wiggling and petting and the view from her “villa” is amazing! Jaunted green hills stick out for miles and they are peppered with villa with orange-tiled roofs. Just lovely. It’s just as I was hoping it would be.
After dropping of our stuff and doing a quick change, we headed to lunch. Many windy road later we arrived at a place that didn’t look open; however it was overlooking a cliff that had a spectacular view. Here is me and Kevo: (coming soon)

Kev had a salad, some of the best pesto gnocchi ever made and some ice cream. I had a salad, handmade lasagna strips with pesto and Crème Brule, and Silvia has penne with pesto. Apparently everything is handmade there, and pesto is very popular in the region (go figure!) :-D
Ooh, we also talked about government and the Italian government sounds worse than ours! They have a president they compare to Bush (note: this is not a pro-Bush author), and their vice president is a huge racist! He doesn’t like Muslims, Blacks, Jews, Homosexuals, and other minority groups. Apparently they government is trying to do away with abortion and there are no gay rights. Appalling, just appalling. And and and, it’s so expensive to raise children there that there is now a negative population growth. The reason it’s so expensive there is that most things are now privatized meaning there is no help from the government (i.e. no tax breaks or free education). Everything needs to be paid out of pocket: primary school, middle and high school, and a college education cost about what ours does. AND to top it off, most college graduates can’t find work so they learn a trade afterwards. They are most likely going to do some form of manual labor. Wow. Oh, and they are trying to privatize health care too. OMG!! Well, other than all of those details, I’d still love to live in Italy, ride a Vespa, and say “Ciao” while my scarf is blowing in the wind.

After stuffing ourselves, we headed back to the house for a nap. After a few hours of rest, we got up and then went for drinks and tapas. OMG, there is so much food! And people are drinking! Not that that is a problem for me at all, but it seems like alcohol is appropriate to have at lunch, before dinner, at dinner, and then again as a digestive. Wow. But nobody seems to be an alcoholic here. Hmm…..makes me think about American Society….shame we can’t drink responsibly. Note: I am not saying drinking that much (above) every day is responsible; I am purely noting that people in the US seem to either drink like Frat Boys or not drink at all.
After drinking and eating, we headed to go teach class. And what a surprise, we taught people how to lead and follow again. I am kind of feeling like there is a trend here…people are not learning to lead and follow when they learn to dance; however, people are still dancing and having fun, which is “most excellent”. After class, we headed to a pizza joint, and I had the best pizza, ever. OMG, food is insanely good here. Italians really do Italian food!!!! I can’t describe it other than saying that think of the best pizza you’ve had, and it was better than that (unless of course you ate it in Italy). Kevo and I had beers, and I only made it about half way through before I was heavily buzzed.

We are now home and Kevin is watching the first season of Weeds, and I am organizing my Itunes. I have soooooooooo many songs: 38.4 days of music. Wow. That’s completely unnecessary, especially since I listen to the same 4 hours worth of stuff regularly. It’s about 4:15am so it’s time for bed.