Italy

Italy

Simone and Elizabeth’s dads both own a restaurant in Asti. From the train station, they took me there. I had lunch (pasta, of course) which was delicious. At this point, I could understand about 1/8 of what everyone was saying in Italian, and Simone was the only one who knew English. But everyone is so nice, and they were all eager to meet me.

After lunch, Simone and Elizabeth showed me Asti. The city is beautiful, with cobblestone streets, tiny cars, and buildings built straight up 3-4 stories tall. There are several squares, statues, and every intersection is a round-about.

That night I had dinner at the restaurant again. I had pizza (“real” pizza, as Simone says, not like Pizza Hut). I ate about half, and I had to really try to do that much. By then I had learned several phrases and could count to 10 in Italian.

The next day the three of us took the train to Turin. Simone gave me a tour of the city. It is sooo cool. There are ancient Roman buildings, and towers and churches. We went to a huge Cathedral, where they have the blanket that Jesus was supposedly wrapped in after his crucifixion. I saw the palace where the queen used to live, and the Po river, and the actual body of the Saint Bosco of Asti that they keep in a glass box from decomposing. Ew.

We also went to the Mole, which is a giant museum of theatre. We took a glass elevator to the top (80 meters high) where there was a balcony all the way around. From there, I could see all of Turin, and the view was amazing. Now, I guess Italians have the same concept of elevators as Ecuadorians do with cars: pack in as many as possible. If you didn’t know, I am a tad bit claustrophobic, and being in a tiny elevator with 12 other people for 10 minutes wasn’t fun, but it was worth it for the view at the top.

We took the train back to Asti, and that night had dinner with like 10 of Simone’s friends. They are all very nice, but not good at English. By then, I could understand half of what people were saying, and could usually answer questions. My Italian was improving really fast, and it helps that it’s really similar to Spanish.

The restaurant was a long drive away. By the way, Italians drive crazy. Just saying. The restaurant was really fancy, and is famous for their seafood. I told Simone to order for me, so he got me some of his favorites. So my appetizer was octopus and potatoes. The octopus kind of freaked me out, but it tasted good. Well, the meat did at least, but the sucky things were still on it and those had a weird texture. My main course was lobster spaghetti. Elizabeth showed me how to get the meat out of the thing, and the claws moved at me, I swear they did.

The spaghetti was delicious, but halfway through the meal, someone at the table discovered that I was CUTTING the spaghetti. I thought they were going to have panic attacks. “No!!! That’s not how you eat spaghetti!!! You can’t cut it! Only Germans cut spaghetti, and Germans are weird!!!” My bad…

After the meal, we went bowling. It was interesting – Italians have absolutely no form when they bowl. It was a lot of fun though, all of his friends were super nice and they taught me lots of curse words that Simone had refused to teach me.

Sunday I went to Italian Catholic mass, then we had lunch at Simone’s home. Ok something you should know: Italians have huge meals. And I mean huge. I couldn’t eat even half of the meals there. And they eat every single thing on their plate. So anyway we had a really good pasta, which I managed to eat all of. Just when I thought I was going to have to lie down because I was so full, Simone’s dad informed me what we were having for the main course. I thought he was kidding, making a joke to the American. He wasn’t. We had meat and veggies and then dessert. I couldn’t inhale by the end of the meal. I told them I wasn’t going to have to eat for 3 weeks.

That night I got to watch American football. Simone has U.S. ESPN, so the play-offs were actually on tv. I was so excited!!! The thing is, in case you’re not good at simple addition, Italy is 7 hours ahead of the U.S. That means that the first game started at 9pm. And if you know me, you know that I watched both games to the end. The Vikings-Saints game got over around 4:20am, then I changed clothes and we left for the train station at 5. It was worth it though.

I said good-bye to Simone’s parents and brother in Asti, then Simone and Elizabeth went with me to Turin. I’m glad they did, because we had to run for me to catch the next train. I said good-bye to them, then went onto Milan, then from there to Lausanne, then Lausanne to Geneva.