Freddo!!

Its very freddo (cold) in Italy, especially when you are outside all the time!! Hehe. But, just like my trips to NYC I don't seem to mind much!!

The girls that I went out with last night came back here and we all enjoyed a fun night. One difference between home and Italy is that they eat later. Dinner is generally around 9:00 pm or 10:00pm (here it would be 20:00 or 21:00, as they use military time). The dinner was amazing. They made potato tortillas. Which here a tortilla is like an American omelet, so it consisted of egg, potato and onion. They also fried the little peppers, that looked like they should be spicy hot but they were quite sweet and very tasty!! I had a couple. Shortly after dinner I went to bed. I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer and went straight to sleep!

Today I spent the morning sleeping and was awaken by the sound of church bells!! Much better than the train whistles I wake up to at home. But, the bells were announcing that its now NOON!!

I got dressed and another roommate Keeara (one of the ladies that I went out with last night) made lunch of rice and vegetable. They cook the rice much differently here. She cut up different color bell peppers, onion, carrots, and zucchini and sauteed them in olive oil. Then she added the rice right to the pan. She slowly added water that she boiled with a bullion cube until there was just enough water. She added a few spices as she added the water and it was soooo good. I will be using the recipe a lot when I get back home!! Easy and tasty!!

Keeara and I spent the lunch speaking English. She actually only speaks Italian but is learning English to move to Germany. She has a boyfriend up there who she will me moving to be closer to and a lot of Germans speak English. So, she is learning this first and then will be trying to learn German. She thinks she is doing terrible but for only studying for less than one year she is doing amazing!!

After I cleaned up the lunch dishes I moved on to visit Frari Church. It is a church very close to here. I mapped out my route, left the house and then proceeded to not follow the route at all!! All the streets and compos (squares) here are very well marked, however there are so many and they are so windy that its too easy to get lost. Amazingly I made it directly to the church. It was like God was calling me there!! Hehe!! I say that because after I left the church I spent most of the time lost!!

I had a beautiful but very, very freddo (cold) tour. I used my Rick Steves' book as my guide had fun!! In the end I wrote out a summary of the visit in my book. I noted that I was amazed by how cold it was. Even though it was fairly warm outside inside the church I could see my breath. But it was so elaborate, beautiful and dark. A lot of the painting were in the Renaissance style and are very real to human emotions. I also was astounded by the tombs inside the church!! You don't see that at Buckhead Church!! LOL!! I was able to take non-flash photography so please view it here. In the link there are pictures from most of my day. Also, when I arrived home I told Andrea where I had toured and that is his perish here in Venezia so I may be going there for Mass on Sunday!! Well, as long as we are in Venezia. If so, that will be exciting.

After leaving the church I tried to map out another location but once again became completely lost and headed in pretty much the opposite direction. I remember from my walk with Andrea yesterday that I was heading in the direction of Coin (I keep wanting to call it Salt, I don't know why), an Italian style Macy's. After a lot of stubborn searching... I am so stubborn that I don't want people to know I am a tourist (just try to speak to me and they will know, as one lady found out today) but I have to get over that and just keep the maps out full time!! I pulled out both (yes I have 2 and I needed both) of my maps, followed signs and finally made it to Coin. If I hadn't gotten lost it would have been a 10 minute walk, probably took me about 45. I walked around Coin and enjoyed the clothing, the heat and the public restroom!!

Around 5pm - 5:30pm so I decided I needed to start heading back home. It should only take me a few minutes but I figured I would be lost again! And was I right. I headed every where but home. I followed the signs for Ferrovia, which is close to the apartment, and tried to use my map but still ended up lost most of the time and then finally ended up at Ferrovia (the parking and main information area).

After that I held my map out, jumped inside of it Joey (from Friends) style and made it home. Close to 7pm. What should have taken about 15 minutes took me about an hour and a half!! LOL!! I am just glad I was walking. I would have been very frustrated if I was driving!! This is a good city for me!

When I got home Andrea and Fletcher (aka Britt but everyone calls him Fletcher so I will be as well) were already here! I had Andrea's keys so I felt bad but they were able to get in. Fletcher had almost the same fight I did last night, meaning that he didn't sleep a wink, so he was exhausted. I uploaded a few pictures while Andrea and Fletcher took a quick break to lie down before heading to dinner. We went to an 'American Style' restaurant where all the pictures and painting on the wall are of American icons. We sat next to a painting of the Detroit Red Wings (that I haven't gotten from my camera yet)!! I thought my family would really enjoy that!! I got a pizza with ham, artichoke, mushrooms, and black olives. They call it the 4 stagioni (4 seasons). It was really good.... thin crust, all the toppings were on their own side, and the black olives still had their pits! Afterwards we all split dessert. Don't know what it was but it was chocolate and it was good.

Fletcher was ready for bed after dinner so Andrea and I dropped him off before heading out to a university party. Andrea and I were there by ourselves until some of the Spanish ladies from the night before arrived. Unfortunately the girls don't speak much English and I don't speak much Spanish. I was able to pick up some words and get the meaning of what they were talking about and Andrea was able to fill in the rest. The music was techo. The party was outside (which was quite freddo as it was right off the water). But I got to have a few more spritzas!!! Andrea and I had a lot of fun. Unfortunately I only remembered to pull out my camera one time and I have yet to upload.

However its almost 3am here and we are going to be heading to Bologna tomorrow morning so I need some sleep!!

Buona notte!!