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