Nikkilooch

It’s been raining non-stop for 3 days straight.  I’m starting to understand a little how Noah must have felt on that ark of his.  I got off work yesterday because the post closed at 1200 due to flooding there.  I haven’t left my house since Saturday.  It’s a good thing I’m a homebody or I’d be going crazy.

As long as I have the internet I feel connected to the outside world.  This morning my internet was down for a few hours (probably because of all the rain, since I have satellite internet out here in the boonies) and I started pacing and panting and panicking and doing other outrageous things that start with P.  I’m plugged in now.  Whew.  If I wasn’t I would have had to do something else like fold laundry or do schoolwork.

This post brought to you by the letter P!

**Update**
The flooding has gotten so bad they have closed the autostrada.  Post is still closed and I just ran out of sour cream and salsa.  How will I make my I’m-staying-home celebratory nachos?

Finally.  After the bands and the history and the batons and the beer we get to the good stuff: the cows.

Almost all the cows are wearing these huge bells to announce their arrival.  (As if the huge parade beforehand wasn’t enough.)  And for stampede control these men with sticks were walking in front and among the herd to keep them in line.  I’m not even kidding.  These poor babies endured a severe beating if they got out of line.  No trampling of babies or doggies pulling carts full of babies were going to happen.

Then they just kept on coming until the road was covered in manure.  The people rejoiced.

As for me, I hightailed it home.  The sky turned from baby blue to threatening gray.  After being soaked during my 5K the day before I wasn’t ready to have a repeat.

Every year about this time my town has a festival celebrating the cows trek from the top of the mountains, where they stay for the summer, down to our town for the winter.

There’s a parade on the first Sunday of the 10 day festival.  Old tractors start the fun.

Followed by baton twirling.

A marching band.

People dressed in period attire.

These guys were my favorite.

Especially the guy pretending to sell rosaries with the Italian flag strapped to his back.

The polizia stopped by to keep the party in check.

A new addition this year are the super adorable dogs pulling carts full of flowers.  There was on dog pulling a cart carrying a little girl.  Adorable.

Next were these guys.  Pulling something a little heavier than flowers.

No, I don’t live in Germany.  Italians like beer, but it’s way more expensive here.

Unless of course you’re lucky enough to be on the other side of the street during the parade and the guys handing beer out of the back of this van stop by you. Then it’s free.

My internet at home is anti-picture.  It takes forever to email or load pictures to any website.  While I’ve been taking some beauties lately, only 4 have uploaded.  Che no bene.

Upcoming posts and or topics or things I want you to know:

• Romeo and Juliet ballet in Verona
• I strapped on a harness and climbed things for Missy’s birthday. We have proof.
• Gelato in a brioche with whipped cream in Palermo
• I’ve worked the split shift this week (545 AM to 945 AM then back in from 1300 to 1800).  It has fried my brain.
• We are moving centers at work.  All day tomorrow. But our new center is awesome.
• I agreed to co-teach a Bible study at the chapel this fall. 
• I’m freaking out about co-teaching a Bible study this fall.
• MyCAA is pulling my finical aid for my school because they are poor planners.
• I have to be an even better planner to get them to pay for as much of my schooling as possible.
• Hello, long-weekends-of-schoolwork. Not nice to meet you.
• Cecilia is leaving me soon.  I don’t want to talk about it.
• My first 5k next weekend! 
• My first 5k next weekend. Pray for me.
• Read Jill Mansell’s Take a Chance on Me this weekend. Outstanding.
• Book give-away coming soon!
• If you’ve made it through all these bullet points are truly are a true friend.

It’s not very often that I get to go on a field trip with work, since I’m usually at the front desk.

But every once in a while I get to go with these blue shirted beauties someplace spectacular.

There’s magic about witnessing a child see something new and beautiful for the first time.

Being able to breathe while being underwater was pretty magical too.

What is not magical is being stuck in a 4 foot wide tube that’s about 80 degrees fahrenheit with Italians with questionable personal hygiene and vastly different concepts on where personal space bubbles should start and stop. American personal space bubbles are about 3 feet from the person in front or behind you. Italian personal space bubbles are more like “just so long as you’re in my back pocket and not down my pants” we’re cool.

Believe it or not it’s really easy to pick up these cultural differences in personal boundaries. The first time I went home to the States I was standing in line at Target to check out. I was an acceptable Italian distance from the person in front of me. You know, about 6 inches away from them. They threw me the dagger eyes over the shoulder and passive aggressively scootched closer to the check out. I blurted out in my typical socially awkward way, “Sorry, I’m just getting back from Italy.” I now realize why that probably didn’t help the dagger eyes I continued to receive from Americans respecting American cultural customs.

Oh, and by the way? This aquarium had one special display full of the full cast of Finding Nemo.

So I went this evening to see the new Karate Kid.  Instead, I ended up seeing this:

Incase you weren’t sure, this is not Jackie Chan. It did however have Jet Li. So I got some martial arts action.

How did this happen? We got the movie times wrong. On the small military installation where I live there is a one screen theater that shows 2 movies a day Wednesday through Sunday only. Karate Kid was at 3 and we got stuck with The Expendables at 6. It was a good movie and I don’t feel like I wasted the $5.00 to see a first run movie.

That’s right. It’s only $5.00 over here to see a first run movie. A first run movie is a movie that comes out here the same time it does in the States. You see, the movie industry is nice enough to donate a few reals of movies to the military theaters overseas. We only get a certain number, though, so they have to rotate Europe military installations on a schedule so everyone gets a chance to see them. We’re lucky enough to be a first run movie theater so we get a new release almost every weekend. I think they feel sorry for us because our guys deploy every other year so they give us new releases.

Did you know that in movie theaters on military bases they play the national anthem before every movie? They do. Everyone in the theater stands while a reel of footage from all the armed forces is played. There’s one part that shows a man in uniform crying a single tear. It tugs at my heart every time. But then they play a preview or two to get you back in the mood for the movie. These theaters over here are professionals.

Name that movie!

Lugano, Switzerland.

Even though I was there, taking these pictures, I still couldn’t believe this place.

It’s unfair that one small town can contain so much beauty, when other places could benefit from a fraction of what Lugano has.

Cecilia and I are in this one as proof that this isn’t a digitally altered post card.

The nice thing about this corner of Switzerland is that they primarily speak Italian. I’ve found another place in the world where I can use my hard earned Italian. It’s actually easier here for me to speak and understand because the Swiss speak Italian without a “dialecto” that’s as strong as anywhere else in Italy.

Did you know that about Italy?

In the States when we say people speak in dialect, it’s English with a certain region’s accent. We can still understand each other and basically speak the same language. In Italy, the children learn the dialect at home (where I live it’s the Veneto dialect) and don’t learn proper Italian until they go to school. Each dialect from each region in Italy is so different that someone from Sicily can’t understand someone from Venice unless they switch to proper Italian. The proper Italian is what they taught me in my classes. So Italians all over Italy can understand me when I speak to them, but I have no idea what they are saying to me most of the time because they answer in the dialect. When the Lugano people answered me, I understood.

*cue angel chorus*

I only got to visit for an afternoon, so I don’t have many stories, but Lugano kept a little piece of my heart. How could it not? I bet it already has a little piece of your heart now too.

Near Verona, Bonamnini sits surrounded by vineyards and orchards of olive trees.

They get a lot of visitors.

It’s very easy to get a tour of the olive oil factory. First they show you the old way of crushing the olives with the large granite stones that would roll around and around to press the olives.

They explain to you the old way of spreading olive paste on these white circles then having them be pressed by that large machine. The machine would then spit out olive oil and water, which are separated. The oil left behind is extra virgin olive oil, the water they use to irrigate the trees and the pits of the olives they burn and use as fuel for heat and such.

Then she took us to the new olive press.

It’s made out of stainless steel instead of granite. She explained that this is much better because the stainless steal doesn’t contaminate the olives like the granite would have having been used for only one season.

After everything is pressed and separated the new way they store the olive oil in these large vats. Then they eventually bottle it and sell it.

Interesting fact: olive oil people are liars. The experation date on the bottle is not the date from which the oil was pressed, but the date from which it is bottled. This can make for not so fresh olive oil sometimes.

Another dirty lie: there is no such thing as extra extra virgin olive oil. Just like there is no such thing as olive oil light. There is only extra virgin (which is what our lady guide produces and is the very best) and olive oil. There is no spoon. Name that movie. Olive oil has had chemicals added to it to make it palatable. Extra virgin has not.

After explaining to use the process of bottling we got to the good part. The tasting.

Small amounts to start.

It’s best if you warm the oil up in your hands first a little before tasting. It releases the flavors. Also, you know a good olive oil if when you swallow it burns your throat.

Did that sound official or like I just made that part up? I’ll let you decide.

After the olive oil we got to taste a few of their olive pastes and some pesto made with their oil. Oh my holy smokes the pesto. A.MAZ.ING.

I came home with some olive shampoo, pesto and artichoke hearts stored in olive oil. I’m saving the pesto for the winter time since I can easily make it now with so much fresh basil around.

The commissary stopped selling Lipton’s peach tea. My mom has told me that she hasn’t been able to find it around in the States either. Maybe they are cancelling it. Anyway I bought some from the Italian store.

On the side are the instructions. It’s nice that they use pictures for us non-native Italian types. At first glance everything seems to make sense.

And then I saw this step…

A little fuzzy here but I think you can still make it out. Person equals peach tea? Man equals tea bag? Super heros are equal to the power of peach tea?

I can’t make it out. What are your thoughts?

The nice thing about Carnevale is that it’s a feste. With feste there comes, what I call, the “State Fair” food. Near the Accademia, at the end of a large bridge, there’s a crepe stand.

I know crepes are french, but these Italian ones were just as good as the ones I’ve had in France. I got a cinnamon sugar one. I do not regret it.

A famous feste food in Italy is the frittella. It’s fried dough coated in sugar. The same idea as the American funnel cake.

Usually at the small local festivals the dough is molded into a flat disk, fried and coated in sugar. The ones we found in Venice were spherical and filled with… just about whatever you like.

Naturally, I chose chocolate. Another decision I do not regret. It was moist, sweet but not too rich. The sugar coating was flavored with lemon to make a sharp tartness followed by sweet, chocolately goodness.