Italy-Random Stuff

Watching soccer outside...

So, I’ve been trying to be at least semi-entertaining for those who read this, but lately I’ve been having trouble coming up with anything super interesting. We’ve got a regular schedule now. I get up every morning get Camilla dressed, get her breakfast, do some homework with her, then send her to play with her cousins, or her cousins come over. They are always concocting some sort of spectaculo. At around 10:30 we leave for the beach. We stay there pretty much all day. We swim, look for crabs, play foosball, eat lunch, build stuff in the sand, she likes to be buried in the sand…. So far we have only caught one crab. We usually bring our own lunch of fresh pasta, salad, and some sort of fruit. I have discovered a new love of fresh ricotta cheese. It is seriously the best thing ever. I’ve never been a fan of ricotta in lasagna, but this is like a dessert. I eat it with a little olive oil and vinegar. SO GOOD!

It’s nice having her cousins around cause they go and play something which gives me time to just sit there or go float in the water for a while. The water has been really nice lately. Its clear and there are big waves. I’ve been going out there with the kids, holding the air mattress while the waves fling them up and down, a few times the waves have been so strong that they’ve knocked me down too. I saw a small jellyfish today. There are a lot of them further out. I take the kids out with the peddle boat to swim and go off the slide, but we are constantly moving to another place because there are jellyfish (meduse). They are huge, or at least I think so. I would say twice the size of your head.

At around 4 we head back to the house, play for a while, have a snack…Dinner is at 7. They have a special type of zucchini here called trombete. I guess is only grown in this region. I eat it in pasta, by itself, or pureed into a soup. I think im going to try to bring some seeds home, so I can grow it. I don’t think it will throw off the eco-system or anything. We still eat in courses starting with a soup or pasta, followed by a protein, then vegetables or salad, then bread, then fruit for dessert. Almost every night we watch Camilla’s favorite tv show (Veline) at 8:30. (It’s a skanky girl dance-off. There are 6 girls from different regions or even countries. First, they have to do some sort of game. They are really random. Doing gymnastics, quoting a movie, guessing types of fish blindfolded… Then they dance for about 30 seconds and the winner is chosen. We try to guess who will win.) Then she goes to bed at around 9. That’s basically my day everyday.

And speaking of weird tv shows, I saw one the other day. It was a competition between housewives and transvestites. They had different competitions, obstacle courses, pole dancing, and a fashion show. The judges were a crowd of loud rowdy men. The funny part was that the transvestites won the competition for being sexiest. I don’t think that would happen in the US!

Old men playing bocci ball.