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.

May 5 – travel day

Today has been a surprisingly great day.

We found out yesterday that we are flying into the wrong city. Our hosts are in Genoa but we are flying into Bologna. That's a three hour drive from one city to the other. But no problem, we can catch a train. It will take us four hours and cost us 65 euros, but that is a relatively inexpensive solution to our big problem. So that incident could have dampened our spirits, but it didn't.

We left for the Kiev airport via taxi and the drive was easy. There were few people at the airport so going through security was a breeze. We were fed sausage, bratwurst, and mashed potatoes on the plane and they were delicious! Then we arrived in Vienna and it was rather grey and cold out, but the airport had some great places we could do some window shopping at. After we got to our gate, Kev went off in search of food and found that there was free wireless. Sweet!!! And then it started to rain.
It didn’t just rain, it poured. They were big fat drops coming down in sheets. It was incredible. I haven’t seen rain like that in years. And then it thundered. And then there was lightning. It was a beautiful display of Mother Nature flexing her powers.
And then our flight was canceled. Apparently there was a malfunction with some of the wiring on the plane, or something of the sort, so we would be re-booked on the next available flight. Many people were not pleased; however, this potentially provided us with a chance to get rerouted to Genoa without an additional cost to us. A stewardess lead the pack of nixed-passengers to the departure which required us to leave the airport and then reenter it.
I somehow managed to stay at the front of the cue of people so Kevo and I were helped out first. And life just got better and better. Not only were we going to be rerouted the following day to Genoa (albeit we’ll now have a transfer in Munich), but they were going to put us in a hotel, get our luggage for it, and give us food vouchers! Yeah!!! Oh yeah, and the hotel was across the street – 50 feet across the street!! And to top it off, it was a very, very lovely hotel. The bathroom is in my Top 10 List of all time great Hotel Bathrooms, ever.

I watched the news and took and nap while Kev indulged himself by taking a bath. After a wee bit, we headed back to the airport to pick up our luggage and to get free wifi. After about 30 minutes, we headed back to the hotel, got our workout gear on, and headed down to the Wellness Center (i.e. that is code for gym). We did some light cardio and some stretching. Life was good.
But then things took a turn for the worse. My luggage was damp. No, not damp, wet. I would say that 90% of my clothes were wet in some way or another. The bottom and the entire left side of my luggage must have been sitting in a puddle. How depressing. Kev and I were cheery customers and were flexible….why was I thanked with wet luggage? Yes, it was raining cats and dogs, but come on. Sigh. I spent the next half hour hanging up my clothes (t-shirts, performance outfits, pants, and all my socks) around the room. Some of them were over lamp shades, near the tub, and on hangers in the closet or the bathroom. The only hope was that everything would be dry by morning.
We had to move on from this unfortunate moment, so we headed downstairs to eat dinner. OMG, it was lovely. There were three platforms of food: salad bar and mini fixings, hot food, and dessert. Kevin made himself a monumental salad and I grabbed bits and pieces here and there. Highlights: lasagna, grilled vegetables, a breaded tomato thing, pesto-crème vegetables, chocolate pudding, and the satisfaction that I was able to order drinks in German with a flawless accent (the downside of that, of course, is then I was presumed to speak German and then when I was further questioned about something or rather, I couldn’t answer). I felt like I was making progress towards my goal of being a secret agent who, naturally, spoke six languages fluently. Note: I don’t speak any languages fluently….English pending. :-D

Then it was off to bed. We’ll be getting up in less than 5 hours. I will need to repack my luggage, eat, and check my luggage in.