Weeks 6-7!

6/19: We got up and went for a run about 9 – it was still pretty cool and there were less people so we didn’t have to do as much dodging. Ate some delicious eggs and bacon and then headed back down to the beach for a free sand volleyball tournament. It was all Italy teams and they were really good. We stayed from noon until about 7:15, only leaving to go get some lunch and get out of the rain a couple times. On our way home we saw a group of people doing some kind of dancing martial arts to music which was pretty neat.

6/20: We went to the beach with some of Casey’s coworkers, Guido, and some of Guido’s students from the university to play beach soccer…well not me, just Casey. I laid on the beach and watched. They played 4 on 4 for about 2 hours. It was a lot different, but Casey scored 3 goals and had a lot of fun! Everyone here is so good at soccer! We wanted to find a place to watch the Italy game but 1) no one goes out to watch the games and 2) it was Sunday so everything was closed. We watched some of it online and then talked to both of our parents for a bit – nice to see them and know they are doing well!

6/21: We woke up in the middle of the night to splashing rain and it continued until about 3:30 in the afternoon – lots of rain. I went to the grocery store with a giant umbrella! About 3:45, Luigi took us to the bus station to pick up our friends Cameron, Katie, and Cale. They are in the Air Force and were traveling around Italy on their 60 day leave and were able to visit us! Luckily, it stopped raining so we were able to walk home. We all talked about our travels, then went for a walk down to the Lungomare by the beach. We met Nicola at Caffe Venezia and had aperitivi (you buy a drink and get some appetizers) and some of the most delicious pizza we have had! We were able to get everyone a comfortable place to sleep!

6/22: We got up and lounged around trying to figure out train schedules and such for our guests. Cale left early to try to catch a flight out of Germany the next day because he had to make it home for a wedding. Cameron, Katie, and I went to the grocery store and did a little shopping. We ate some snacks at home while waiting for Casey to get home from work, then went shopping a little more! We all found something at this store called Oviesse (OVS) and were excited with our purchases! Then we took the guests to try some arrosticini (lamb kabob) and they thought it was delicious! We ate some pesto pasta, got some gelato, and sat around talking! Overall, a great visit and we were very glad they could come =)

6/23: We got up early to say bye to Cameron and Katie, then Casey had to go to work and I went back to sleep! I did a little grocery shopping and then went to pick up Casey’s friend, Kyle, at the train station. He is traveling around Europe for 2 months after graduating from CU and had a couple days to come see us. We watched the US win their game, again on the internet, and then went for a walk to show Kyle around Pescara. That night was another one of the English meetups so we were able to take Kyle. We went to a very neat bar on the beach and had aperitivi and pizza. There were probably about 15-20 people and it was a lot of fun. Afterwards we went to Historic Pescara and got a drink just to hang out! Got home around 2 and fell into bed!

6/24: Casey only had to work until lunch so Kyle and I hung out and did some little things then met Casey at the beach. Alessandra, Danilo (her neighbor), and another friend met us there too. We watched the Italy game at a pizzeria on the beach; unfortunately, they lost. Then we went back to the beach and played some volleyball in the water and laid around – it was a very nice evening! We came home to shower and eat some dinner, which was delicious spaghetti with chicken and pesto and some wine!! One of our favorite meals =) We ate with our two Russian roommates, Ana and Maria, and finally got to know them – now that they will be leaving soon. They are very nice and we learned that they can speak a little English and understand more so I could have been talking to them the entire time! I still can’t get over that they never mentioned it before…weird, but they are very nice so we are going to try to hang out before they leave! Then we headed to Historic Pescara again to meet up with Alessandra, Nicola, Danilo, and another friend Antonio at Il Cicchetto (meaning shots). We ordered a meter of shots (21) so we each got 3 and we could choose whatever kinds we wanted! They are mixed and they were all delicious! We hung around talking for a while, and then went to the Rugby bar Casey and I watched a world cup game at and got a beer. We got home about 1:15…another late night. Hopefully we can catch up on sleep sometime!

6/25: Casey had to go to work; Kyle and I went with Ana and Maria to a nice fruit market then to hang out at the beach for a while. We went to the beach where the volleyball tournament was before. This time they had another tournament for Beach Tennis, something we had never heard of but was pretty sweet! It was 2 on 2 (we saw mixed doubles) and they play with rackets similar to those when playing paddle ball. It got pretty intense – everyone was really good! I headed home to pack and Casey was able to get off early to come home. We tried to cancel our Saturday night reservation in Bologna because Guido (Casey’s boss) invited us to stay with him and Torrie at his mom’s house in Ravenna which is east of Bologna. Unfortunately we couldn’t cancel the reservation, but we decided it would be worth it since it wasn’t a ton of money to just pay and still go see Guido.

Our train was supposed to leave Pescara at 5:00 so we went to the station to validate our rail passes and get a reservation, only to find that all of the ticket offices were closed because there was a strike. The information lady said we would be fine without getting either of those things done, but we were a little nervous. This train was nicer and had AC, but of course it was a hassle on the train. Luckily, the train ticket checker helped us and all we had to do was pay the €20 reservation fee and we were fine. We got into Bologna at 8:00 and were able to get our railpass officially validated. We found our hotel pretty easily, not a bad place except for the grumpy front desk man – I don’t think he liked having the night shift!

We walked around the center of Bologna and found a restaurant to eat dinner in, which had ok food. I got pasta with Bolognese and Casey a stuffed steak thing with really good mashed potatoes and some wine. Then we got some gelato and walked around. They were a lot of younger people because there is a university in Bologna (which Guido told us is one of the largest and the oldest in the world, with almost 150,000 students, founded in 1088!). Headed back to the hotel to figure out our plan for the next day, then off to bed!

6/26: We first went to the train station to buy our tickets to Ravenna so we would be set later. We found a nice park with a kind of Jamaican/gothic market (seriously weird – there were bongs and people getting dreads and then there was hard core punk/gothic wear with studs and such). Bologna was built around canals, which you can’t see anymore, except for this one little window which we had heard about; you can see one of the canals, it looks like Venice. It was so beautiful, as were most of the buildings and streets in Bologna. We went to San Petronio and San Domenico, two beautiful churches, then through the main area of Bologna. We found this amazing embroidery store where we got some souvenirs.

Next, we went on a trek to find the Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna (MAMBO). It was free and very neat – other stuff was definitely very modern and weird! We got some gelato and then headed to catch our train to Ravenna, feeling like we had seen a lot of Bologna. The train was terrible – as soon as we got on we were instantly sweating. There was no AC and the smallest windows that didn’t let any air in. Luckily it was only a 1 hr 20 min ride, but it was a very uncomfortable one. However, Ravenna was beautiful with the most grass we have seen in Italy yet, and much quieter than other places we have been in. Torrie and Guido’s sister, Giuseppina (Josephina) met us at the station; we went for a walk around the town waiting for Guido to meet up with us. We saw Dante’s tomb and a 10K race in progress. There was also some kind of race with old men pushing wheelbarrows around and playing loud music. Not sure what it was, but it was funny!

Guido met us and we continued our walk to a bar and had “the best Prosecco in Italy” as Guido put it. We thanked him (a lot) and it was delicious, definitely one of my favorite drinks here so far! Then we headed to another restaurant for dinner; we had some pasta and ragu, only found in Ravenna, along with piedina (a kind of flat bread, similar to pita). We had ham, salami, mortadella, and some cheese to put on it. Delicious! Then we walked some more (we were very tired of walking and I was getting some really painful blisters) and then to get gelato. It was just after midnight when we got to the gelato place, the lights were off but the lady let us get some still. Then we headed back to Guido’s mom’s house in Piangipane (Crying Bread), about 10-15 min outside of Ravenna in the country. We fell into bed exhausted!

6/27: We woke up at 8:45 and got ready, then headed downstairs to meet Maria (Guidos’ mom) and have some breakfast, which consisted of tea, apricots, and “toast” (in Italy, it is a toasted ham & cheese sandwich). We headed back to Ravenna to do some sightseeing during the day. Guido and Torrie dropped us off at the Basilica di San Vitale and they went to get a coffee until we came back out. They’d seen the basilica too many times already. We couldn’t go in until 12 because there was a service, so we had an hour to kill. We went to Domus dei Tappeti di Pietra, a museum with huge mosaics and other ruins. Then we headed back to the first place – again a very beautiful church!

We drove back to Guido’s for a homemade Italian lunch! We met some relatives of Guido and had delicious pasta al forno (pasta with meat and cheese cooked in the oven), then some veal with salad, chocolate cake, and an apple strudel-type dessert – everything was amazing! We had more Prosecco and a white dessert wine. After lunch, Casey and I decided it was time to try a cappuccino (neither of us drink or like coffee). And to no surprise, we did not enjoy it at all! We drank it, making terrible faces! We had a small glass of limoncello (a lemon liqueur that is usually homemade – strong but tasty). We left about 4:30 with Guido and Torrie (who were kind enough to give us a ride back to Pescara). We made a quick stop at an IKEA store to buy some curtains. It was the first time Casey had been there and he fell in love! As did I, all over again – it is the greatest store ever! We got back about 8 and showered, ate dinner, and did some laundry.

Hope everyone is good and enjoying their summer! Love you all,

L & C

Week 5!

6/11: We were off to Rome. We found the bus really easily at the Pescara Station and the ride was only about 2.5 hrs (the train was 4!) and very pretty. Once we got into Rome, it was a Friday afternoon in rush hour, not too pretty. We were able to find the local bus to our B&B but went the wrong way when we got off so we took a nice little walk. We ate some delicious pizza and watched a world cup game, then off to bed for a long day on Saturday.

6/12: We got up and ate and were out of our B&B at about 9:45. Our host gave us a great city map which had all the streets and was perfect! Took the tram to Termini Station in the center of Rome and started our trek from there. Just so you know in advance…we did not go into the Colosseum, to the Pantheon, Vatican, etc. (bigger tourist places) because we are going in August with Casey’s parents and didn’t want to do everything twice. However, we did walk about 5 miles in a huge circle taking in: Piazza M. Fanti, Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, Church of Santa Maria Maggiore, Church of Santa Prassede, Parco Oppio, Colosseum, Trajan’s Forum, Victor Emanuele Monument, Piazza Venezia, Trevi Fountain, expensive shopping roads (Via del Carozze and Via Condotti), and the Spanish Steps. Whew! Casey’s favorite building was the Victor Emanuele Monument (white building above) and I loved the Trevi Fountain (minus all the tourists!).

It was unbelievable how many people were there and we weren’t even in the busiest time yet, which will be in August when we go back. It was a lot of fun taking pictures and seeing all of the beautiful buildings. The churches were so detailed and intricate at every place you looked! Beautiful! Overall, we were happy, but exhausted when we got back to our B&B about 6ish. We lounged for a bit and then went on a hunt to find somewhere to watch the US vs. England world cup game. We got really lucky and this guy showed us a restaurant that had it on where we could get good food as well! Ate some bruschetta and pizza and tried limoncello (very strong!), while watching the US tie the Brits. Lucky goal!

6/13: Got up and were out of the B&B at about the same time, but didn’t have a set route for the day. We got back to Termini Station and tried to find a locker to put one of our backbacks in, but it turns out they are closed for now so we got to lug around our backpacks all day (we’re hoping the lockers in our other destinations are available). We went to Trastevere to go to an open market I heard about in Piazza Portese. There were so many people and it seemed to go on forever! Casey bought a very neat chess set that is made in Tuscany from the wood of olive trees. A little bulky so we need to figure out how to get it home! We walked around there for a couple hours (partly because we didn’t know how to get out of the long roads of booths). Earlier we bought tickets to the National Museum of Rome which included a couple other museums as well. So, next we went to the Crypta Balbi Museum. We are not exactly sure what it was, but the building was built around the ruins of an old city or crypt (?). After that we headed to the National Museum, via a pit stop at McDonalds to eat real quick in the scorching sun. It was extremely hot!! We were happy to go inside the museum and get out of the sun for a while! We wandered around looking at sculptures and lots of head busts! Kind of neat, but a little boring too. After that, we went to Tiburtina Station, to wait for our bus. We were very tired by this time! Again an easy bus ride, getting back to Pescara about 9:15, then we walked backed to our place for some much needed dinner and showers!

6/14: Casey had a less-than-thrilling day at work, as his work-mates and he hung curtains over all the windows, since the afternoon glare is unbearable. After work, we wanted to find a place to watch the Italy-Paraguay game. Historic Pescara is full of small restaurants and taverns that are made of brick walls and archways inside. The rugby pub we went to only had 8 other people, which we were surprised to find, however we found that everyone usually stays home to watch the game. We wanted Italy to win, of course, especially to see the streets fill with people. We’ve heard from several people that after the World Cup Championship victory in 2006, every city in Italy erupted in the streets. We’re hoping we can see something similar…even though we’re supposed to favor the Yanks.

6/16: Went for a run along the beach after Casey got home from work and then went out for dinner with Alessandra to watch some more soccer. We went to Inn 88 in Historic Pescara, where we went the first week we were here and had some delicious steak! We really enjoy steak, but with our limited kitchen, spices, and cooking knowledge over here, it is a little too difficult to cook it ourselves. Got some gelato and headed home.

6/17: We went to the beach for a few hours when Casey got back from work and it was beautiful! Very nice temperature, still some sun, but not too hot. We played some volleyball and lounged around. Then we headed home to clean up and go get arrosticini! We went to a place a little northwest of Pescara with Fabio, Nicola, Luigi, and his fiancé Claudia, Alessandra, Casey, and I. Overall, it was pretty delicious (not as good as the last place, but still good!). We had bread, wine, dessert, and some mild liqueur shots called rabatia which had a hint of cherry. It wasn’t very strong which was good because we had to finish a full bottle of it! Then we came back to Pescara and went for a walk along the beach. There are always so many people out, even at midnight on a Thursday!

Our next mission is to find a good place for arrosticini in Pescara. We want to take friends and family when they come, but everyone keeps telling us we need to go inland away from Pescara to get good arrosticini and we don’t have a car…hopefully we can find one! We think we’re going to ditch our college degrees and open the very first Colorado arrosticini restaurant. We’ll throw in some gelato too!!

L & C

Week 4 (already)!

Hope everyone is having a great summer so far!! Here is the next installment!

6/5: We went and ran some errands and found this crazy fresh market. There were probably about 50 individual vendors where you can buy fruits, veggies, meat, cheese, milk – basically anything at the grocery store, but fresh. Pretty neat, but there were a ton of people and we were a little overwhelmed. We bought our own internet key so we can communicate with the world and were a little confused, but there was a nun who spoke English and was able to help us figure everything out! We went to the beach and it was a beautiful day; on our way home we were trying to figure out what to do for dinner, when Torrie and Guido invited us to dinner – perfect timing! They picked us up at 8:30 and we drove an hour south to a city called Vasto. We went to a restaurant that was in an old castle that was on a cliff and overlooked the city and sea below. It was beautiful! Guido ordered everything for us, including: two bottles of native white wine, three first courses (pasta with nettle, truffle, and prawn; pasta with a ragu sauce and tuna; pasta with mussels, clams, prawns, and some kind of bitter/salty green vegetable), two first courses (rombo fish and sea bass, both with potatoes), sorbetto (lemon dessert that you eat after fish), and sambucco (a black licorice liqueur). We finally finished eating dinner at 1:30 and then took a walk around the beautiful city! Guido told us about another city that is close to Vasto, called Termoli, where you can take a ferry to some beautiful islands, called Tremiti, so we are hoping to take a day trip down there soon! Then we drove home and got back about 2:45. Overall, a great night with delicious food and great people!! (Pictures above)

6/6: We were able to sleep in after our late night, and then went to the beach. It was very hot, finally! Therefore, it was much busier because it is finally to the temperature where Pescara people go to the beach and wear shorts and flip flops! We were able to talk to our families for a little.

6/7: I went to the open market on Via Pepe, which was amazing! There were tons of clothes, food, purses, and basically anything else you can think of! I bought a couple small things, then had lunch with Casey. In the afternoon, I met with Roberta. She is from Pescara, but lived in London for a year and had put up an ad at the university to speak with someone in English and also help with Italian. I was the only person who had answered her ad and she is very happy to have someone to talk with to work on her English! We walked down by the beach and had a drink. We are going to try to meet up about once a week! For dinner, we made some garlic chicken, with vegetables, Parmesan risotto, and bread and it was delicious! We get excited when our concoctions are tasty!

6/8: I met Casey after work so that we could go straight to the beach. It is a much better temperature at 4:30, than the middle of the day! We have heard that is supposed to be hotter than the season averages for the next week and you can feel the humidity much more now. Casey and I were playing volleyball and some kids our age asked us to play volleyball. They spoke a little English and we spoke a little Italian and it was a lot of fun! They were very nice and it was nice to interact with more new people! Then we hurried home to clean up and go meet some friends for dinner and a drink. We met up with Alessandra, Nicola, Luca, and Gianni (all from the meet-up group). We walked along the beach and went to Pizzeria Trieste and had very good pizza, then went for gelato. It was amazing the number of people, of all ages, who were out at 11:00 on a Tuesday night!

6/9: We went to the beach after Casey got off work and met up with Luca, Alessandra, Nicola, and a couple other new friends and hung out and played some volleyball. The beaches are lined with umbrellas and as you get closer to the beach you get an umbrella made of palms and more chairs (and of course more expensive). Luca and some of his friends split one, so we went from laying in the sand on the public beach to the front row on sweet lounge chairs right next to the beach! You just need to know the right people! (Pictures above)

Today we are off to Rome for the weekend! Hope everyone is doing well!
C & L

Weeks 2-3

Sorry it has taken so long for our second post. We wrote our last one, and then moved to an apartment for the rest of May which had no internet. But…we are back in business and have lots to tell you, so here it goes!

5/21: We moved to our new apartment which was huge. It had at least the essentials to cook and two twin beds with mattress covers and a washing machine. The only two rooms we really used were the kitchen and bedroom. Our beach towels were multi-use: they tripled as our beach towel, shower towel, and sheets at night and we used blow-up airplane pillows & clothes for pillows. We tried to go grocery shopping at about 1:20, only to be kicked out at 1:30 because most places close from 1 or 1:30 to 4, then open again. We learn something new every day! We took a walk through a nature reserve area near our place. Our apartment is a 5 min. walk from the beach and 15 min. from Casey’s work, so very nice minus the internet.

5/22: Didn’t do much – woke up at 11:30 and did laundry, which is a whole different story here. The washing machines are tiny and take about 1/3 of the capacity as our loads at home and about an hour to run a full cycle. Then we hang them up to dry and we get clean, crusty, and loose clothes to wear – perfect! A little different, but we are getting used to it. We went for a walk on the beach, which is where it gets exciting!! As we are watching the sunset on the beach, Casey said, “Well, I guess this as good a place as any” and knelt on one knee and proposed to me!! Of course I cried tears of surprise and happiness and said yes!! So…Casey and I are now engaged!! So, after a slow start, a very good day =) (pics above)

5/24: Casey went to his first day of work where he did some computer drawings, then went to Guido’s class he teaches at the university. For lunch, he wandered around with Francesco, Luigi, Nicola, and Fabio, who he works with, for about an hour and a half! While Casey worked, I read and tanned at the beach and took a nap – very difficult!!

5/26: I met up with Alessandra – from the English meet up group we went to. We walked around Pescara and she showed me some of the nice sights and good places to go. She has just finished school studying language (English and Arabic) so she is very excited to have someone to practice and learn more English with. I am grateful because I have a friend who I can actually speak with!! I do ask about how to say things in Italian and work on some small sentences in Italian, but I really don’t know a lot, hopefully I’ll get better also! She took me to the Coast Guard to see Luca (also from the meet up group) and then we went back to her apartment and she cooked lunch and I hung out with her and her flat mates! Overall, a very fun day! Casey worked and went to a conference at the University about Earthquake Engineering, which is what he is working on.

5/28: We went out with Alessandra and Nicola at 10 (which is still early for going out here!). We went to Historic Pescara to a Cicchetto bar (shots). 40% of people here smoke and there are lots of people trying to sell you stuff, but we are learning to ignore both like the locals! We walked down to the pedestrian bridge by the beach, which has lights and is very neat at night, then to a bar on the beach. You have to pay €8 once you get in to get a drink and a little card that says out so that you can leave. Also, throughout the entire night, we spoke mainly English, but were constantly learning words in Italian and Spanish (Nicola is from Peru)! We finally got home at 4 AM and went to bed, exhausted!

5/29: We went to a BBQ put on by Torrie for the English meet up group. However, it also ended up having a bunch of people who are a part of couchsurfing.com. They let visitors stay at their places, for small amounts of time for free, from around the world – pretty interesting. There were probably about 50 people there – many who could speak English. We met people from America, all over Italy, and South America. It was pretty sweet to hear peoples’ stories about what they have done and where they have visited. We had our first arrosticini, which is a sheep kabob, absolutely delicious!! It is a delicacy in Abruzzo, where Pescara is located in Italy. We also had goulash, Italian salami, other snacks, Prosecco, and wine. Again, got home at 2 AM, exhausted!! (pics above)

5/30: Went to the beach and to an open market called Le Bancarelle that was right near our apartment and bought a few small souvenirs. Then we decided to walk over to our new apartment and see what was around it, grocery stores, etc. Everything was closed and the city seemed deserted because there was an Abruzzo Championship soccer game. We would have gone, but we didn’t know about it until too late – kind of a bummer, but then we didn’t have to deal with traffic or anything. Our small walk turned out to be 3 hours long and we finally made it back about dinnertime. We heard fireworks going off, but we got downstairs too late to see any, but there was a procession of people praying, plus a band so we guessed it was some sort of religious holiday, but we never found out exactly what.

5/31: Casey worked and I finished packing and cleaning up the apartment because tonight we get to move to our new place! We were able to get everything over in two bus trips (just to make it easier on us). We are excited to have a place for the rest of our stay. The apartment has: sheets, pillows, wardrobes, a nicer kitchen, showers (our last place only had a bath tub), etc.!!

6/1: At our apartment, we have 3 roommates – Patri is from Madrid and Ana & Maria are from Belgrade. They are all here until the end of June studying at the local universities. There is obviously a mix of languages, so communication is difficult, but so far going ok. Casey went to L’Aquila with Guido, which is where the huge earthquake happened in spring of 2009 and saw some of the damage. The firm he is working with was proposing some seismic isolators for buildings in the city. For dinner, we went to Chieti with Alessandra, Nicola, Fabio, and Evo (works with Casey). We went to a restaurant and got more arrositicini! It was delicious, then we got some gelato…also delicious!!

6/2: We were able to sleep in because Casey didn’t have to work because June 2 is the day Italy became a Republic. It is a holiday celebrated by everyone so pretty much everything was closed. It was nice enough we were able to go to the beach, then some planning for our first trip to Rome in a week. After dinner, there was a huge downpour and we realized that the water streaming off the roof was splashing and coming under our door in our room. We had to soak it up with towels and then we used a piece of plastic attached to our clothes-drying rack to block the water, a hectic event! Our roommate, Patri, let us use her internet until we get our own so we were able to talk to my family and Casey’s brother. We are excited to again be connected to people at home!!

Until next time, hope everyone else’s summer is off to a good start! Love you all!

- C & L