Bored, Italy info
I never did post exactly what I did in Italy, did I? Anywho, here is some info:
I stayed in a piccolo paese south of Rome, called Cecchina. It is really small and you can't see the sea or the mountains from there, although you can in the other paesi close to it. I won't give the last name of the family, but it is the lady here, Daniela's family. Her dad, Enzo, mom, Mara, and sister on the weekends, Valeria. Her kids are Helisa, Tulia, and Edward "Edo" (the names are Italian with a twist, you cold say). The house was decent, nothing particularly special, but it had a basement which I guess is not very common there? Not sure. I had my own room for once in my life.
I only did one day of real site-seeing, which was the day before I left. That is where the Rome pictures are from. While we were in Cecchina we went to the bars (which are more like cafes/bakeries/gelaterias, the park for the kids, etc. The paesi close by are Albano-Laziale (I love Al Bano and Romina Power, a duet from the eighties, haha) and Genzano. Genzano is pretty nice. They had a day there where they had a street covered with pictures made from flowers. Unfortunately I had packed a camera that was used up in my purse when we went so I didn't get any pictures. But I got a pamphlet a Japanese guy who couldn't speak any Italian was passing out. Turns out a town in Japan is a "sister" city to Genzano and does the same thing. It was pretty nice, even though a lot of the pictures were more like designs. Not many were detailed, although in the past apparently they were more so.
We went to a grocery store once, and I bought some Harry Potter books in Italian (I later got the rest at the Fiumincino airport before leaving, haha- and I got the DVDs at Blockbuster). I didn't think it was tooo different from ones here, except that you had to pay a euro for a cart...I think you get the euro back after though, not sure.
Gelato in Italy is reeaaally good. It is not like "gelato" here. It has no preservatives in it (the ones in the gelaterias at least, not the kind at the store in the box, thankfully). We had it alllll the time. I don't even eat ice cream at home, haha. Also, sparkling water is really popular. I hate it.
Winx, a cartoon which is also dubbed in the US, is huge. The girls and I watched it. I thought it was pretty stupid- spent more time on the transformations and fight moves than anything. It seemed to have a sort of anime style, but none of the depth of a lot of anime I've seen, including Sailor Moon. It was very similar to SM, though. The songs were cute. We sang them sometimes....
A small paese pretty close to Cecchina, called Nemi, was very nice. It is very old and gets tourists. It's famous for its fragoline, or little strawberries. They are tiny. And really cute. I bought a strawberry soap. It smells good.
We went to the beach a couple times. The salt water sucks! It burns your eyes and if you get it in your mouth, yuck! But the waves were fun. We also went to a place called ZooMarine, which had shows of dolphins, seals, parrots, eagles, and people doing stuff. It seemed very American in style. There was also a shopping outlet there which seemed very American but that turned out because the owner is American, haha.
I actually was in the real Rome four times, if you count at the airport twice, once to visit Valeria at work and to go to a park, and once for real site-seeing in a hurry. I saw the places that I have pictures of, plus the Bocca della Verita'. I went with Mitch, Daniela's husband, and Arthur and Domenica- Their nanny's son and his wife, who were visiting. They had come for Edo's Baptism. That was another place I went, obviously.
The weekend before I left, I went to S. Elia, which is where my family is from. It is very close to Cassino, and is in Frosinone, which is in Lazio, but closer to Naples than Rome, I think. First I stayed with my dad's aunt in Olivella (a frazione of S. Elia). It is just her, my grandma's sister-in-law, and her son Fabio, who is about a year older than me. I had met them once when they came to the US for a few weeks last year. Fabio was very trim then. Now he has gained some weight. Apparently he is very lazy and just plays on his computer and video games all the time, because he inherited everything when his dad died and when his grandpa died last year. But he told me he started school last winter, so I guess he was getting bored of that. He smokes, yuck. Zia Giuseppina, his mom, took me to Monte Cassino, where they have a famous church of San Benedetto on the mountain. We looked inside (I have undeveloped pics) but I was feeling a little sick, so we went back after a little bit). The next day, my mom's cousin's wife, Patrizia, picked me up.
She lives in S. Elia. It is really beautiful there, there are mountains all over the place. But very hot. Her husband, Mario, and his brother, Gino, live in a two-level house. One family is upstairs and one is down. Their mom is my grandpa's sister. She was nice to me but apparently she has always been a bitch to my grandma. Patrizia and Mario's kids are Paolo, 19 (only saw briefly because he as at work and out with friends), Laura (heee), 16, and Rita, 14. It was very confusing when people called for "Laura" and we didn't know which one. We went to the market on the street they were having and went to a couple stores.
At night they go to the "villa" which is just a little park, really. Everyone talks to their friends. Laura and her friends and I played a joke with two of her guy friends. We pretended I could only speak English so they would have to try to speak it too. It didn't help them that I was speaking really fast. Poor dudes. One of them was really cute. They were horrible. The cute one tried to ask me if I had been to St. Peter's (I hadn't yet) but he said the "cheese" instead of church... we were cracking up. Then he tried to ask me what I thought of the pope and imitated a guy holding a staff to show me what he meant. When I started replying in Italian after a while he was so pissed and embarrassed. Then he got in on the joke and found another dude to prank, who was even worse in English, even though he got good grades in it. Laura and her friend Giorgia were actually great at understanding me. Laura was a lot of fun and really nice. She should come here one time.
That is pretty much my trip. If I think of other stuff I'll post more but this post is already really long!
I stayed in a piccolo paese south of Rome, called Cecchina. It is really small and you can't see the sea or the mountains from there, although you can in the other paesi close to it. I won't give the last name of the family, but it is the lady here, Daniela's family. Her dad, Enzo, mom, Mara, and sister on the weekends, Valeria. Her kids are Helisa, Tulia, and Edward "Edo" (the names are Italian with a twist, you cold say). The house was decent, nothing particularly special, but it had a basement which I guess is not very common there? Not sure. I had my own room for once in my life.
I only did one day of real site-seeing, which was the day before I left. That is where the Rome pictures are from. While we were in Cecchina we went to the bars (which are more like cafes/bakeries/gelaterias, the park for the kids, etc. The paesi close by are Albano-Laziale (I love Al Bano and Romina Power, a duet from the eighties, haha) and Genzano. Genzano is pretty nice. They had a day there where they had a street covered with pictures made from flowers. Unfortunately I had packed a camera that was used up in my purse when we went so I didn't get any pictures. But I got a pamphlet a Japanese guy who couldn't speak any Italian was passing out. Turns out a town in Japan is a "sister" city to Genzano and does the same thing. It was pretty nice, even though a lot of the pictures were more like designs. Not many were detailed, although in the past apparently they were more so.
We went to a grocery store once, and I bought some Harry Potter books in Italian (I later got the rest at the Fiumincino airport before leaving, haha- and I got the DVDs at Blockbuster). I didn't think it was tooo different from ones here, except that you had to pay a euro for a cart...I think you get the euro back after though, not sure.
Gelato in Italy is reeaaally good. It is not like "gelato" here. It has no preservatives in it (the ones in the gelaterias at least, not the kind at the store in the box, thankfully). We had it alllll the time. I don't even eat ice cream at home, haha. Also, sparkling water is really popular. I hate it.
Winx, a cartoon which is also dubbed in the US, is huge. The girls and I watched it. I thought it was pretty stupid- spent more time on the transformations and fight moves than anything. It seemed to have a sort of anime style, but none of the depth of a lot of anime I've seen, including Sailor Moon. It was very similar to SM, though. The songs were cute. We sang them sometimes....
A small paese pretty close to Cecchina, called Nemi, was very nice. It is very old and gets tourists. It's famous for its fragoline, or little strawberries. They are tiny. And really cute. I bought a strawberry soap. It smells good.
We went to the beach a couple times. The salt water sucks! It burns your eyes and if you get it in your mouth, yuck! But the waves were fun. We also went to a place called ZooMarine, which had shows of dolphins, seals, parrots, eagles, and people doing stuff. It seemed very American in style. There was also a shopping outlet there which seemed very American but that turned out because the owner is American, haha.
I actually was in the real Rome four times, if you count at the airport twice, once to visit Valeria at work and to go to a park, and once for real site-seeing in a hurry. I saw the places that I have pictures of, plus the Bocca della Verita'. I went with Mitch, Daniela's husband, and Arthur and Domenica- Their nanny's son and his wife, who were visiting. They had come for Edo's Baptism. That was another place I went, obviously.
The weekend before I left, I went to S. Elia, which is where my family is from. It is very close to Cassino, and is in Frosinone, which is in Lazio, but closer to Naples than Rome, I think. First I stayed with my dad's aunt in Olivella (a frazione of S. Elia). It is just her, my grandma's sister-in-law, and her son Fabio, who is about a year older than me. I had met them once when they came to the US for a few weeks last year. Fabio was very trim then. Now he has gained some weight. Apparently he is very lazy and just plays on his computer and video games all the time, because he inherited everything when his dad died and when his grandpa died last year. But he told me he started school last winter, so I guess he was getting bored of that. He smokes, yuck. Zia Giuseppina, his mom, took me to Monte Cassino, where they have a famous church of San Benedetto on the mountain. We looked inside (I have undeveloped pics) but I was feeling a little sick, so we went back after a little bit). The next day, my mom's cousin's wife, Patrizia, picked me up.
She lives in S. Elia. It is really beautiful there, there are mountains all over the place. But very hot. Her husband, Mario, and his brother, Gino, live in a two-level house. One family is upstairs and one is down. Their mom is my grandpa's sister. She was nice to me but apparently she has always been a bitch to my grandma. Patrizia and Mario's kids are Paolo, 19 (only saw briefly because he as at work and out with friends), Laura (heee), 16, and Rita, 14. It was very confusing when people called for "Laura" and we didn't know which one. We went to the market on the street they were having and went to a couple stores.
At night they go to the "villa" which is just a little park, really. Everyone talks to their friends. Laura and her friends and I played a joke with two of her guy friends. We pretended I could only speak English so they would have to try to speak it too. It didn't help them that I was speaking really fast. Poor dudes. One of them was really cute. They were horrible. The cute one tried to ask me if I had been to St. Peter's (I hadn't yet) but he said the "cheese" instead of church... we were cracking up. Then he tried to ask me what I thought of the pope and imitated a guy holding a staff to show me what he meant. When I started replying in Italian after a while he was so pissed and embarrassed. Then he got in on the joke and found another dude to prank, who was even worse in English, even though he got good grades in it. Laura and her friend Giorgia were actually great at understanding me. Laura was a lot of fun and really nice. She should come here one time.
That is pretty much my trip. If I think of other stuff I'll post more but this post is already really long!