Weeks 8-9!!

Hey everyone!! Hope summer is going great! It is getting hotter here – the nearly 100% humidity does not help! Also, I did not realize that you had to change settings for comments so now anyone should be able to leave one if you would like! You can click on it at the bottom of the post!

6/29: Our Russian roommates who we finally made friends with left today. Now we are alone, which is kind of nice – very quiet…inside, still all the traffic that is very loud outside! We went to the beach for a while after Casey got off work and then met Nicola and Alessandra for an aperitivo (drinks and appetizers). It was our farewell to Nicola because he is leaving to go back home to Peru until the middle of August. We are sad he is leaving too – he has been a great new friend! Afterward, we went back to Alessandra’s apartment and sat on her balcony for a while. It was a gorgeous night and we were able to see some stars!

6/30: Alessandra and I met up with Casey and his work gang for lunch for a final goodbye to Nicola. It was nice to see everyone together! After work, we were able to talk to Casey’s mom, as well as his grandparents who were in Colorado for a visit. Then we went to the beach from about 6-8:45; we played volleyball and soccer, read, and lounged around, and watched the sunset – relaxing! When we got home, we were about to start dinner when we got a text to have an aperitivo with Torrie and Guido, then another text that said Guido was coming to pick us up in 5 minutes. We got ready really quickly, and then went to a place close to the beach, near our old apartment. We ate and drank with Guido, Torrie, Fabio, Michaela (fellow professor with Guido), Beatrice (takes an Italian class with Torrie) and her boyfriend (Jonathan), and Simona (Torrie and Beatrice’s Italian teacher). After the appetizers, Casey and I were still a little hungry so we got some gelato (about 11:30) and while we were eating, Guido said that we were going to go get arrosticini. We never know the plans and forget that it is normal for Italians to eat that late at night!

So…we ate some arrosticini!! It was in a very small place, but super delicious! We have found the one place in Pescara to get arrosticini, finally! Everyone we met is so interesting and has lived in multiple places around the world and speaks more than one language (sometimes 3 or 4). Fabio brought us home about 1:15; it will be another early morning for Casey :( This was our farewell to Guido and Torrie because they were leaving to go to the US on Friday. Guido is teaching a class at CU and will be there until mid August, and Torrie is from Golden, CO and will be staying there until mid September. So we will be able to see them when we get back in August! But, sad they are leaving – they have been so great helping us meet people and enjoy our time over here!!

7/1: We ran some errands, first wanting to go to an Abruzzo soccer store, which specifically said it was open Thursday afternoons, but of course no one was there, when we went on Thursday afternoon! Ah! We ate some gelato and went to this shopping area with a bigger grocery store to look around and buy some food. While we ran errands, we talked in only Italian for about an hour! I was pretty proud of us, but it was exhausting! We ate some of our delicious chicken pesto pasta for dinner!

7/2: Casey did not have much to do at work and for once was able to come home about 2, but unfortunately Roberta had just picked me up and we decided to drive a little south of Pescara to another town called Francavilla. Casey was at least able to get into the house, but not in our room because I had the key. I found him napping in the little study room when I got home. We went to the beach for about 3 hours again, then came home and ate dinner. We decided to try to make our own Bruschetta and it is delicious!! We’ll definitely do that again. We did a workout at home, showered and off to bed! This was the first day it truly go really hot and sticky, ugh!

7/3: We slept in, lounged around and read, and then went to the beach. It was really hot! We went swimming a few times and the water felt amazing, but it was dirty from all of the boats and fishermen near the marina. We got some pizza and gelato for lunch, then went back to the beach. We were planning on going with Alessandra and Fabio to a church fundraiser that had arrosticini and pizze fritte (fried pizza) which we were told was really delicious! Unfortunately, neither of them could go. Because Fabio couldn’t drive us, we had to walk – it was pretty far away, but we found it after about 25 minutes!

At the outdoor church fundraiser, there were a lot of people and it took a while to get our food. The arrosticini were pretty good, but the pizze fritte – not too exciting. It was pretty much a piece of bread, fried, then folded in half with some tomatoes laid inside. Too heavy; not that tasty. There was a live band, playing mostly English music of course! We didn’t still too late, then walked back home.

7/4: Happy 4th of July!...to us, because nothing special happens here! It is our halfway point in our trip over here! We can’t believe how fast it’s going! Still a lot of fun and traveling to come!! Again, we read and lounged around, ate some lunch and headed to the beach around 2. It is really hot again so the water sounds like a refreshing treat after sweating all the time! We got home and hung out for a while, then went for a 40 minute run. I ran in front of Casey, which pushes me to go faster – we felt pretty good about this! However, we’re nervous for when we get back to Colorado and the high altitude again, it is going to be much more difficult! We watched some fireworks online, which were not nearly as exciting, but it will have to do for this year!

7/5: We got up early so Casey could go to the market with me because he is usually working during the main time it is open, and of course it is only on Monday’s. Casey got some Italy swim trunks, I got a pair of sandals, and a few other small souvenirs. I did some grocery shopping and then we went to the beach when Casey got home from work. Again, it is extremely hot and there is no breeze! We did a workout, showered, and off to bed.

7/7: I went to the beach, read, showered, and hung out until Casey got home. We tried to figure out where to get off the bus to go to a beach volleyball meetup group event that was happening in Francavilla because we couldn’t find a ride. We kind of figured it out and luckily, on the bus, I looked over at the right time, so we saw the beach area we were supposed to go to and got off at the perfect time. We played volleyball for about an hour or so, then went to a pizzeria to eat, drink, and watch the Germany vs. Spain World Cup game. We met a couple new people who hadn’t been to a meet-up since we got here – one guy from Pescara and another girl from Denmark, whose husband is Italian. They were both very nice and it was a lot of fun to hang out with everyone! We had to leave a little early to catch the bus, which wasn’t coming fast enough for us, so we decided to start walking. Of course as we’re walking, we saw a bus coming, so we had to sprint about 100 yards to the next stop. We made it; it would have been a very long walk otherwise! We got some gelato and then some reading and bedtime!

We are off to Siena this weekend, which we have heard is beautiful so we are very excited!

L & C