Jeremy's edition

March 21st

Ditte is doing the dishes so I guess it's my turn to write. Last night as we were hanging out at the bar, which is a lot different than an american bar, and drinking our hot chocolate, an Italian man kept peeking in on us and finally came over and talked to us. In this small village no one speaks English except for maybe a few vocabulary words. So with the limited English he knew and the limited Italian we knew we were able to tell him we had 4 kids and was totally blown away and proceeded to tell the four or five guys in the bar how many kids we had. He was very animated and it was quite hilarious and came back and asked us a few times, "4 bambino's !?". We told him we were from California and his eyes lit up. He asked if it was hot or cold where we lived and we told him we were near the beach. He then asked, "Do you have TV in California?". We answered yes and he just cracked up and made us crack up. I cant help but think that might have been a phrase he learned in some English class he had at some point. It was quite the good time. This village is so small everybody knows each other so when someone new comes in, everybody is looking and staring, but they are all quite friendly and will give a friendly Ciao or buon giorno. We are going to go back up there tonight and see if hes there and get some hot chocolate. Plus as far as we can tell, it's the only place in town that has WiFi (wee fee in Italian).

Ditte made me go running again today. I can't keep up with her long distance speed, like I could at one point. I did beat her at our sprint at the end of our run, but now that I think about it, I wonder if she was just stroking my ego and let me win. Oh well, any which way it worked!. Now I'm really sore and we are going to do even more walking in Rome starting tomorrow and for the next few days. We are going to drop off the car because it would be a pain to have it where we are staying and all the sites are relatively close (a couple of miles:-)". Has Ditte mentioned that EVERYTHING costs here! You have to pay to use the toilette in public places, pay for parking, pay for autostratte (toll ways that connect everything) and everything is just more expensive here, including gas! I don't think we were anticipating everything being so much more money, just some advice for anyone thinking of coming to Europe anytime soon. I digress. . . . . .

We went into Sulmone today for the Wednesday market, which is in essence a kind of swap meet/flea market with clothing, produce, jewelry, etc. Everybody in town was there and it was hard to find a parking place, so we parked not quite a mile away right in front of a school. On our way back to the car, we found a nice looking restaurant and as soon as Ditte saw there were hamburgers on the menu, she instantly didn't trust there food would be good so we got up and left! To her defense thought, I'm not sure if she mentioned the burger I got in Sorrento, but we think the burger was boiled and it was pretty disgusting. I was just feeling like eating some comfort food and it didn't work out very well. There is no fast food here though. We have seen a McDonald's in the major train station in Napoli, but that was it.

So we won't for a drive through the country side to see lake sconno, which was quite small but very beautiful. Both of us we quite tired, so we went and found an empty parking lot, went pee behind the car, then repositioned the car in the warm sun and took a nap! It was quite nice. I love that my wife isn't afraid to take care of business when there aren't any bathrooms around, I'm quite proud of her! Luckily we learned early to always carry toilet paper because even the public toilets rarely have TP. On our way back, we stopped by this donkey farm which apparently has a breed dating back to Romeo and Juliet time frame (you're jealous you couldn't see the donkeys I know!) The donkey farm was closed (a collective ooohhhhhh from the audience) so we did the next best thing and took some pictures of my cute wife in from of the fence that held these ugly beasts that were heeing and hawing their little hearts out and we jumped in the car left!

I really feel comfortable driving over here now. Ditte had a revelation as to why NO ONE stops at stop signs. It's because they are all in English! The exact same stop signs that we have at home. A stop sign is a yield sign as far as they are concerned and unfortunately Im picking up some bad habits.

Off to the gelateria and bar (which has no gelato right now!) and hopefully get to see our friend that loves California!. Ciao!