We went via downtown Florence back to Pontassieve to borrow a much-needed GPS from our lovely new friends Agnes and Samuele, stayed for coffee and then got directly on the autostrada to drive across Italy to the east coast. This means Josh can now claim country, city and highway driving it n Italy.
The autostrada is as fascinating as a highway can be. Its totally straight and with very few exits, alot of tunnels and strange lights and glittery signs that make you feel a little like you are disco-driving. The speed limit is not that high (110 k) but in our tiny Spanish-made Siat Ibiza, it feels like we are rocketing through space. We chose to drive on the highway only because we were due in Marche at 6pm and would never have made it taking the very scenic, very curvy through around the mountains. Its nice though to have the choice of either very direct or very scenic. Even the view from the big highway was pretty, even though I didn't see to much of it because together with Ezra and Itzel, I fell asleep for the majority of the trip.
Maddelina is our host until tomorrow morning and she is a family psychologist living alone in a nice 3rd floor apartment with alot of nice things including a really well built Berloni kitchen, the formula for which is like Ikea x aweome x 1000, and a huge American movie collection that includes Shrek 1-4. Ezra and Itzel have been having a Shrek-athon as there are no other kids movies here. Ezra has been exhibiting surprising and wonderful table manners while here ("Mom or Dad, may I please have a bit more water? Its delicious.") and tells me if I want it to continue, I am going to have to buy all 4 movies.
We had a kitchen table dinner of pasta with pesto, pasta with porcini mushroom sauce, salami, bread, salad, local oil and vinegar. We finished with coffee (I love that! No matter how late, its always coffee after dinner) and a lavender boxed sweet bread cake, popular at Christmas time, of the type that until now I've only seen on a good week at TJMaxx.
Today we went on a diaper quest, to see the Adriatic Sea, and a for little tour of town of Senegalia. We spent far more time on the diapers than the rest because its Sunday and here all the markets and every damned thing it shut on Sundays and only a dumb American would run themselves out of diapers to coincide with the lord's day. We finally did find some Pampers at a farmacia in the old town which is a big relief, as its been a day of many poops, maybe due in part to the new diet of sugar for first and second breakfast. Ir was lovely to see the Sea and I hope tomorrow we get to stick a foot in it and maybe collect a shell or rock or two.
We had a take-away lunch from a lovely restaurant where I'd have liked to eat as it was full of local families but the wait was over an hour and I was not in charge. There were a handful of dishes accented with meats from an uncomfortably unfamiliar variety of animal species, including the regionally popular wild boar ravioli. Happily, we were given spinach gnocchi instead of the house specialty of duck gnocchi that Maddelina ordered for us, and there was some delicious deep-fried zucchini to go with it.
After lunch Itzel and I retreated to the bedroom for a long, dark nap and the others went out and had some big adventure that I have heard nothing about. Tomorrow we are supposed to spend the morning sight-seeing with Maddelina and then head an hour from here to Osimo where we are excited to meet our next and possibly final Servas hosts - Giacomo, his wife and two little children.
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