Perugia - May 25th, 2010, 22:20

Today started out by sleeping in WAY too late (nearly 11). We went out and first thing bought some ceramics from a once-a-week street market. We bought a pizza platter, a fridge magnet, and a tea/coffee mug, all hand-crafted, painted, etc. Very nice. Then we headed over to a pasticceria for breakfast. We each had a little dessert that was basically a stack of cocoa-dusted cookies with creamy filling between each one. Elly had one topped with white chocolate and I had one topped with an orange jelly thingie. I had another cappucino, Elly had hot chocolate. It was a far cry from our milk-and-cocoa-powder. It was a think, soupy concoction that began congealing almost immediately. I had two sips, and it was almost too much chocolate for me. So delicious, though.

After breakfast we went for a bit more of a walk and then back to our hotel room for a bit. Elly had a nap and I did some reading. Her MS fatigue was acting up a bit, so she got tuckered out pretty fast today. It's fine, though; the forced relaxation was awesome.

After some hotel-room time, we both went back out for "pausa" (pow-ZUH). I had tortoloni stuffed with mozz and tomato and smothered in basil-spinach pesto. The pesto was subtly creamy, but I can't tell if there was actually milk involved. Elly had chittarini, with a red sauce of some kind. Chittarini (if I have the spelling right) appeared to be a think spaghetti. We sort of half-assed our "pausa", only doing a single "prima" course, skipping the main "secondi" course. I can't imagine eating that much food, though. We'll get another run at it tomorrow, I guess. We did save a bit of room for dessert, though. A scoop of french vanilla ice-cream on top of a bed of fresh, sliced strawberries. Not exactly Italy-specific, but still very good. I had a bit of a culture shock at the restaurant, desribed further down.

After lunch we went on a long walk around Perugia. We just started wandering off in whatever direction our feet took us, which wound up being a bad idea because of Elly's MS. She got to the point where she couldn't really go on, but we didn't know the shortest way back to the hotel. She sat on some steps while I ran around trying to find the way back. I couldn't just go running off, though, because then I wouldn't have any way to find Elly again. I came up with a pretty clever solution, though; as I ran through the twisting maze of Perugian "vias" I took pictures of landmarks with my finger deliberately in the shot to point the way to go. Then, once I found my way to the main city square (and thus close to the hotel) I used my photos to guide me back to Elly. Once I successfully guided Elly back to the hotel we were both pretty pooped (Elly most of all, though I did all the running around). Our lunch plus walk took nearly four and a half hours.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed from the disasterously long walk, we decided to pretty much call it a day. We retired to our hotel a bit early, and used the down-time as an excuse to get a wifi connection and get T-Mobile to enable international calling. All the buildings around here are six stories tall and made of solid stone, so indoor mobile reception is a joke. It is going to be VERY nice to have google maps again, especialy since asking an Italian for directions is basically a lost cause because of the language barrier... and the culture barrier. Italians are apparently notorious for giving crappy directions. And no wonder, with the cities bulit the way they are.

Culture Shock #6: This one takes some explaining... We ate at a SUPER fancy restaurant, "la Taverna". No wine cheaper than 45 euros a bottle, no "secondi" main course cheaper than 20 euro. Remember, Euros are... around 1.3 dollars today. So if we were to eat "prima e secondi con vino" it would have run us $130+ for the two of us to eat lunch. DESPITE the fanciness of our cuisine, our table was still just plopped into some alley somewhere, with cars driving so close to the table that I could reach out and touch them with my fork if I wanted to. The back of my chair was against a mechanical gate, which led to a tiny parking lot. Cars and mopeds zipped by us several times, in and out of the gated parking lot, which I think led to some sort of a multi-residence building.

Culture Shock #7: They drive like maniacs here, whipping around at 30 miles an hour, weaving through these tiny alleys, narrowly missing hitting pedestrians, dining establishments... up and down steep stairscases... there aren't "sidewalks" and "roads", just "vias" which, if they happen to be car width, have cars zipping down them. And parking? Very few labeled spots. If a driver gets to a plaza near to his destination he just STOPS DRIVING in the middle of the plaza and gets out.

Photos

Today's Vocabolario
"questo" - this. Useful for ordering. ;)
"ancora" - now.
"e" - and.
"questo e cappucino; ancora! per favore" - Get a move on, Starbucks barista! I know Italian now.