rain, rain, what the hell!?

saturday it rained. and by rained, i mean POURED. mostly the pouring scary rain was in themorning before we left, but we got to see it again for a bit on the way home... I was super excited for saturday because we were going to Parma!!! home of tasty tasty Parma ham and Parmesan cheese!!!! YES, why wouldn't i be incredibly excited for such a magical food bearing place! 

we got up and got on the road rather early so that we could spend most of the day there after the two hour drive down. Scott is a fantastic driver, and i didn't have any crazy anxiety with cars and trucks on the freeway my entire time in Italy!!! BEST WEEK EVER. Italy driving is crazy, the turnarounds and the lack of signals didn't make sense at first, it felt like complete chaos, however after being in it for a while  there, and then in spain too, it makes a lot of sense and traffic is rather fluid. anyway, we got on the highway and headed to Parma... 

Scott made sure that we stopped to get snacks at an Autogrill, which is basically the best thing ever associated with a road trip. In Europe, you have to pay to use the highway, so you don't want to get off the road prematurely... so they added little stops here and there.. these places are basically like a 7-11, but super nice with gourmet candies and snacks, the deli section of a supermarket with meats and cheeses and then a small take out restaurant all put together. You can get a kit kat dark or some kinder chocolates (that i'm really mad i can't bring back home with me) and some freshly cooked pasta and a cappuccino and get back on the road. We ended up buying better tasting cheeto-esque things, chocolate galore and sodas and whatnot before heading back out on the road. 

The rain cleared up for a while, but as we got closer to Parma, the heavier it became. We found parking on the outskirts of the city and grabbed our umbrellas and jackets and headed in. The city was gorgeous and I would like to go back when it's not 55 degrees and raining on and off while not being entirely prepared for it. The churches were great. We decided to go into one that was free and were pleasantly surprised by the frescas and the open layout of it. 

From there we walked around the city and found different monuments and things on the map we had.. the coolest buildings (i think) we saw were this one in a huge park, and another in one of the larger piazzas that had three different sun dials on it, date, time and location. It's too bad it wasn't sunny and "working" while we were there. We had pizza for lunch and roamed around the city some more. We had planned to stay for dinner and whatnot, but it got far too cold for Jen and I so we decided to start the trek home but not before getting caught up in a crazy traffic jam because the police closed of about 10 different streets and main access points while looking for a place to buy some sort of hammy product. We finally found a store on the way to the highway and we were greeted by the lovely dingy smell of aged meats and cheeses. I bought a hunk of speck that ended up being fantastic! Hopefully Jen and Scott are enjoying the rest of it. 

It went from rain to sun and back again on the trip home, but it was fun nonetheless. Always an adventure with crazy weather. We got back to the house, and putzed around for the rest of the night and getting ready for Sunday

Italy!!

wow. what a week. i'll try to break italy into a couple posts, but whow knows.. i might just go on forever.

needless to say, all the people that told me that i wouldn't want to come home were right, the ones that said that venice was going to be my favorite were wrong and the idea that i would love the food was completely spot on. the only bad thing about the entire week were my allergies. The part of Italy I was in is incredibly agricultural and therefore sneezy and crazy for me. oh... and the rain. so much rain, thunderstorms, lightening, everything. I was lucky that it didn't flood. When I was flying in from Madrid, we passed over a storm, and I saw the lightening but didn't think it would end up affecting much of my trip. Luckily it didnt. It ended up pouring friday and part of saturday but overall, rain is just water and it dries eventually

I landed on Wednesday night after an insane day and a half of traveling and flight connections. luckily all my luggage made it and we ended up landing 10 minutes early in venice..Thursday was spent getting registered on the army post, running errands and making sure that i had everything that i needed and getting food for the week. Part of my payment to Jen and Scott was that i had to make mexican food at some point, which happened. We went to dinner at a place called La Vecchia Fattoria that night. I had oricchette pasta with cherry tomatoes and broccoli. it was a great first meal and the food of Vicenza spoiled me, almost for the whole week! We also went to the fresh wine store and got three liters of wine from the tap. I had heard of this, but I'm still pretty sure it's magic. It was delicious wine and fairly cheap too. It was just over 5 euro for all the wine. Bring your own bottles, they fill and seal it for you, amazing.

Friday was spent resting and sleeping and then sleeping some more. My allergies had me incredibly congested and subsequently exhausted because of the inability to breath and sleep or just be comfortable in general. The different pollen was attacking my eyes and for 4 of the 7 days in Italy, i wanted to rip out my eyes. I fought through it though, no way i was going to miss out on such an amazing place. Friday night we went to dinner at a place a little further out of town. i don't remember the name, but I remember the food. I had the Bigoli pasta with duck ragu and had to take a moment while i had the first bite. It was heavenly. So good. Scott had penne with a pistachio sauce, and sliced chicken with mushrooms as his second course which was delicous and Jen had truffled fettuchini. All of us thoroughly enjoyed our food and I could have eaten that same meal the entire week and been happy. I am so grateful we didn't have a strict agenda and were able to move around plans so that i was able to get acclimated. The wine there was great too, I'll miss good house wines and the quality of the fresh wine available all over.

I never thought I would be so excited to not be in a plane for a week. Once I landed in Venice, this whole trip finally became real. All the work, the internet scouring for ticket prices, the stress and budgeting, everything was finally real and more than worth it. Seeing my friends was even better and knowing that they would get to show me the cool places they had found over the past couple years was ever exciting. After friday, I was almost back to normal, the swelling in my feet from the hours of traveling was about gone, the blisters were getting better and my allergies were calming down. I had scheduled a skype date with my family for Sunday afternoon (early morning back home) and was looking forward to the rest of my time in the Veneto area.