Some things are just, well, different here.

Can you guess what this is?

UGGHHHH.....




Still not sure...




Keep thinking...



Yep, that's right. It is a lovely squat toilet.

Gotta love public restrooms in Italy!

A Restaurant By Any Other Name...

In Italy, good food is everywhere (so I hear.) As of yet, I am still trying to decode the names of establishments that serve food. The types of businesses that serve food are many and confuse the heck out of me. After a month, I am starting to sort out what each name means. Some places are actually just food vendors, like butchers others are restaurants or more casual "grab and go" type places.

Ristorantes are the nicest places to eat. Usually people dress up and plan on having a nice meal for a celebration  at a place like this. They are also the easiest to identify, because of the obvious similarity between restaurant and ristorante.

Trattoria, Ostaria, Pizzeria, Paninoteca, Enoteca, and Pasticceria are all other versions of food places.

• An authentic Trattoria serves local food specialties, but the term is sometimes used in larger areas to sound more "folksy." Usually you can view the menu outside these places and will be able to know if they serve something you are interested in eating without going inside. 
• An Osteria is a more casual place, more like an American "bar and grill." Often an Osteria is a family run establishment that serves local wine and food. An Italian told me, it is "where the truck drivers eat" so that means it serves good food and is affordable.
• The Pizzeria is just what it sounds like. It is a place that prepares authentic Italian pizzas, usually over a wood fired grill.
• A Paninoteca sells bread. Sometimes it also sells sandwiches to take with you.
• An Enoteca is a wine bar, which can serve appetizer-type foods, such as cheese and salami.
• A Pasticceria is one of my personal favorites. These businesses sell pastries, cakes and sweets. Occasionally they will sell some pizzas or other foods you can take with you.

Of course, I have forgotten to mention a familiar term to Americans, the "bar." A bar in Italy is primarily a coffee shop, but it serves  pastries or sandwiches. However, there is usually wine and types of liquor available as well.

Who knew it would be so complicated to figure out where to grab something to eat? I have left out a good deal of other types of shops, because I am still learning what some of these shops are!

Thanks to Cristiana, the teacher and guide to my "Benvenuti" class for helping me learn this stuff!

Odd things you will see in my Italian home

Getting used to being in a different country has many different sides to it. Even simple every day things are not the same. I thought I would share some of the things I found odd in my house.

First, in the bathroom...

There is the rectangular toilet with no tank...

The bidet....

The water heater, which incidentally, does not work as it should, so it's name is a bit misleading. It should say "really lukewarm or totally scalding" water device.

Throughout the house, you will see these fixtures.



Light switches...

Electrical sockets (Plug-ins)....

You'll see this in the kitchen. It isn't part of the house, but it made me look twice when I first saw it.


The incredible edible egg....

Complete with it's own identification code on the shell.

I am starting to get  used to everything in the house now. Well, except for the white slip covers on the kitchen chairs. The reason for that ought to be self-explanatory for those with kids!

The trip, part 2

So far, not so good on our trip to Italy. However, the trip from that point seemed to go a bit better. The annoyances were typical travel issues, no unbearable surprises.

The flight we were booked on was supposed to leave Wichita at 1:00 PM and actually did not leave until 1:40 PM. This left us only about 30 minutes to catch our connecting flight from Atlanta to Amsterdam. We met favorable winds and ended up landing 10 minutes sooner. My poor son Patrick, age 7, was a trooper. He was very tired and stressed out, but pulled the carry-on bag through the Atlanta airport at a breakneck speed. At the same time,  I pushed the stroller. We went down escalators with both a stroller and the pull carry-on and finally found the train, which was good.

We got to the ticket counter after most boarding calls had been made. The staff was relatively helpful in that they changed our seats so we all sat together. It must have been my comment that I would be happy to let my 16 month old sit in another section that got them to accommodate us!

Don't even get me started about the overseas flight. Jackson, the 16 month old, decided that he hated flying and cried the better part of the 8 hours. He did sleep for 2 short 1 hour stretches. A well-meaning gentleman would get him to be quiet every now and again. However, he did not know when to stop. He'd continue talking to Jack and teasing him, which started the bawling all over again.

Comatose was a good description of how I felt in Amsterdam. Navigating an airport that is rather large with only a few signs in English was an interesting experience. We did have plenty of time to find our gate. We ran into a family from Canada that were talking about the time and realized they were from the same time zone as us. I'm not sure why that felt comforting, probably the combination of English and the shared jet lag.

Looking back, I wish I would have been awake enough to take some pictures of the airport. There were quite a few interesting characters there. The one that stands out in my mind was a "gentleman" who was probably in his fifties. However, from the back, I thought he was a teenage girl because he was dressed in leggings, a mini skirt and high heels. His blonde hair was most likely a wig, but man he gave me a start when he turned around and had some facial hair.

The flight from Amsterdam to Venice was pretty uneventful, except for the fact that the stewardess or flight attendant yelled at me for changing Jackson's diaper on a seat. Never mind there were no changing tables in the plane's lavatory. I guess I was supposed to set him on the 12 inches of floor space that was available and do some contortions to change the diaper. The male flight attendant spoke great English and babied me and the boys. I think he recognized that I was very near a total breakdown and wanted to avoid it at all cost.

We saw some beautiful mountains as we flew over the Alps. When we landed in Venice, we got views of the famous canals. We were so happy to arrive. After landing, it was very obvious that while we had arrived, our bags had gotten lost somewhere in the transition of the four flights and however many airports that had been scheduled for us.

I waited in the lost luggage line for a very long time. Finally, I left the line found Gary. After handing the children over to him, I went back to the lost luggage line only to find I was now behind 3 people who had arrived in the two minutes it took for me to find Gary.

After getting in the car, it was less than five minutes and I was out cold. No memories of the drive to Vicenza or Camisano for me. I woke up and we were one block from my new house. All I wanted was clean clothes and a shower.

Getting to Italy, Part 1

As I mentioned before, out travel to Italy was not fun to put it mildly. I must add a caveat that I caused part of the drama by not getting truly packed for my trip until the last minute. I still was throwing stuff into suitcases at 5 PM on Tuesday. We flew out on Wednesday morning. Then, I decided we had to stay in Wichita rather than get up early to drive before my flight. I was already slightly wound up on the trip south to Wichita (my sister who was driving might have stronger words than this, of course.) I did not sleep much that night, partly due to my nerves and partly due to my toddler son who felt it was not okay to sleep in a strange place...

After eating a fairly relaxed breakfast at the hotel and running the dog and children to get some energy out, we went to Mid-Continent Airport at our appointed two hours before flight time. After arriving at the Continental Counter, I found out the the flight we were booked for (Wichita-Chicago-Frankfurt-Venice) was not going to work, because there was not a proper compartment for the dog to ride in on the initial hop to Chicago.

Problem number one.

The airline would find us another airline that would take the dog for us. However, because I had my positive attitude and a dear sister who supported that attitude, I remained calm. They would find us another flight and we would get to Italy at the same time as we were initially scheduled.  After some talk of flying through Paris, the flight changed again. The airline changed to Delta Airlines. Flying from Wichita-Atlanta-Madrid-Venice. After a major effort of checking the dog and some very over weight baggage; we headed to security to get to the gate.

But wait... my name was being called over the speaker to return to the ticket counter.

Any number of things crossed my mind, perhaps I'd left my credit card at the ticket counter or I had not completed some paperwork for the dog. Well, that thought was partially right. Because we were no longer flying through Chicago, but flying through Atlanta, the dog would not be accompanying us on our flight to Italy. There was a heat moratorium on animals shipped as baggage or cargo. So, our dear canine companion Shadow was not making the trip with us. 

Needless to say, I did not take this well. I had held myself together this far, but I had been kept waiting at the ticket counter for ten minutes, only to have a piece of paper shoved in my face saying I could not take the dog. The lady working the ticket counter was nice enough, the supervisor was annoyed that he had to speak to me or waste his time dealing with a customer. His attitude clearly showed through.

Oh...the trip just got better from here.

Because they had called me back to the ticket counter, I missed my flight. My sister, niece and the dog got in the car and left. So, it was me, the boys, a stroller, a heavy carry-on bag and no flight to get to Italy. It was somewhere at this point that the tears came. People who know me understand that I am a bit of a crybaby and tend to cry at things too much. Up to this point, they would have been proud of me. I lost it then and probably was quite a sight bawling my way back to the ticket counter.  I was pretty ready to stay in Kansas at that point in time.

Here in Italy

Wow, it has been over two weeks since we arrived in Italy. Things are starting to smooth out. However, we had a horrible start to our big adventure. Italy has a much slower pace of life and I am working on adjusting to it. Our house is great and we are comfortable, even though our things have not yet arrived. Getting the internet on Friday was the best thing that happened to me. My Vonage phone is working, so I can talk to family. I can play on Facebook and research the area.

I promise to have several new posts in the next couple days to catch everyone up on our travels and experiences to date!