My Adventures in Vittorio Veneto

Before I begin, I want to apologize for the format with the pictures and paragraphs in the blog...I have been trying fix the font, colors, paragraph spacing and it just won't work. I have given up on this whole computer thing here so bear with me as it is just going to have to do for now! I am just glad that I figured out how to put the pictures up! Today, I woke up with the family and headed off into the city by myself for the first time. I took Anna and Giulia to school with Gianna and met their teachers. They all wear smocks of either blue or pink, just like a uniform in the states for private schools. They have their own little lockers to put their coats, shoes, and other things they need for the day. Then, Gianna went to work and I headed off into town to a market they have once a week on Mondays. It has everything you would ever need, kind of like a WalMart on wheels in the street. All the vendors have large trailers that have all kinds of fresh food, fruits and vegetables, home supplies like pots and pans, clothes and shoes...literally everything! I found a few fun things for gifts and for myself. I bought the girls more fragole (strawberries) because they love them so much. They are already gone tonight, we ate them all! After the market, I tried to find a museo (museum) that is small but has many artifacts from WWII that I thought would be interesting but I couldn't find it. It sounds like I went too far on the wrong street and went past it....I can try again tomorrow. It was very interesting to walk around the neighborhoods during the weekdays because they are very quiet. I could count how many people I saw walking around because everyone was working because school is out for the older kids in town. As I walked around town, I found a bar that I had a piece of pizza and some water. This kind of pizza was not like normal pizza, it was on thick bread. Northern Italy mostly has very thin pizza and a lot of it. I stopped later at a bigger pizzeria that is just down the street from Gianna's parafarmacia. I didn't really know how it worked, do you seat yourself or do they seat you? I walked up to the counter and they thought I was pretty weird I think...they immediately gave me an English menu and told me to go outside on the patio for a table. The waitress came to my table and I had no clue what she said to me...I tried to tell her that I would like water with no bubbles and she finally understood what I said. I really need to work on my common words that I will be using a lot because it is very embarrassing. Thank goodness the menu was in English because I really had no idea what they had to eat on pizza. I thought I would just order cheese because that is safe but I ended up ordering proschiutto, cheese, and mushrooms. It was very good but the biggest size for one person! There is no small, medium, or large in ordering food...you order an item and they bring it to you in whatever size it comes in...good but so much food! Thank goodness there was a group of men that were done before me so I could see how they paid their bill. They took their ticket that was attached to their table and went inside to pay the main desk. It was easier and cheaper than I thought. For a very large pizza, one coffee, and a water, the bill was 8.40 euro. One tip that I learned is that even if you have more than one euro, it is not euros....it is considered slang to say it that way. Also, there is no tipping here. I believe it is included in the bill. Also, everyone always has caffe (coffee) after every meal. I have been liking it because it is refreshing after such a big meal. Remember the coffee is not in small, medium, or large either...just one size, always very tiny! Like a small cappucino cup back at home but very strong. Then, I walked for a long time in a huge rain storm to meet Gianna at the swimming pool where she swims twice a week on her lunch hour. It is a much bigger lunch hour than we have, it is called Pranzo or Pranzo I think. Gianna closes the parafarmacia around 12:30 and then comes back around 4:00. It leaves people enough time to relax, work out, or go home and make lunch or take a nap. I waited for her to be done and then we went back home. Their maid, Maria, who comes twice a week came today to clean and she was very nice. She doesn't speak much English but when I was teaching the girls colors and shapes at the table, she came over and helped me translate a few words. Giulia knows the numbers in English from one to twelve. Hopefully we can get her to know them much more after this summer is over. After our lesson for the day with the flash cards I brought, Gianna and Angelo told me that they were going to their friends house for dinner and I could stay at the house by myself. I am happy to have a night in this nice house all to myself! I warmed up more pizza and had fresh mozzarella and pomodoros (tomatoes) for dinner. I haven't been sick of pizza yet so we will see if that happens or not! There are no locks on the inside doors so it is difficult to take a bath or change in my room when the girls come in without knocking...I don't think they know what knocking is here very much. With them being gone tonight, I took a nice long bath with no interruptions. They do not have a shower here so I have been bathing every night...it is pretty hard to wash your hair in a bathtub everyday but I try to do it well, without making a mess. I just figured out how to make the water hotter because it is a different switch. There are no pictures or directions on the handles that make sense but I finally had a hotter bath than I have had here. On a very good note, my outlet adapters and converters are working reallly well for everything that I brought. My straightener even works, even though I have been too lazy to use it here much. Yesterday, I did my first load of laundry here. Their washers and dryers look like ours but have some big differences. First, the washer has a place to put the soap but not on the side or front. Gianna makes her own soap concoction with two dashes of baking soda, two splashes of vinegar, and some regular laundry soap in a small little cup that you just throw in the washer with your clothes. It has no lid but it seems to work fine because all my clothes came out clean. I am very glad they have a dryer because I would not want to hang dry all my clothes. The dryer is the same only there is a large tray that fills with water on the top that you have to dump out everytime you run a load. Also, Gianna just throws whatever she has dirty in the washer and packs it very full everytime, not worrying about sorting colors or fabrics. She uses one of the dye sheets and it doesn't change the color of the clothing at all, even on my white pants! Tonight while they were away at dinner, I figured out how to change the language to English so I could watch "13 Going on 30". It was nice to hear English for a long time, even though I could recite that movie anytime even if it was playing in Italian. Well, enough for tonight. I am ready to relax and read a good back right now. I am in the middle of reading "The Perks of Being A Wallflower", very good so far and the movie is amazing of course! Ciao from Vittorio Veneto and more tomorrow!