Hi Everybody! I was hoping to write every week but I’ve discovered we don’t have an action-packed life after all - especially here in foggy Rovigo. The winter weather here is either foggy or rainy, but mostly rainy of late. We were told about the fog many times before we moved here and we’ve experienced it several times already. Today, however, was the worst we’ve seen. The visibility was less than 100 yards from morning to night. It was like a Dracula movie all day long – never saw the sun. We bumped into one of my technicians at the “mall” and he said it would be this way until March. I guess that’s why, when they don’t have very many modern conveniences here, they do have tanning salons. Go figure. And I haven’t seen a single tanned person yet. Speaking of the “mall”, we had our first McDonald’s hamburgers today. The burger was good but the French fries were just so-so. People in Italy are small, very small. Italian women are as skinny as French women. But if you want to find large ones---go to McDonalds. Funny how that works.

To update you on what we’ve been doing, we went to Venice last weekend for something other than Italian food. I may have mentioned it before but there is a Greek/Arab restaurant we love that serves tsatziki sauce, hummus, curry dishes….everything that’s not Italian. It’s our food-port-in-the-storm. If it weren’t for ruining our workout efforts, we’d probably go twice a week. Sad to say but Venice flooded the next day. I think they recover quickly, at least I hope so.

Milan was next on our travel itinerary. Milan is where the main office of Adriatic LNG is located and I had a meeting there on Thursday. (www.adriaticlng.it if you want to see why we’re here. Look at the photo gallery and you’ll see nice pictures of Spain and Gibraltar.) We took the train Wednesday afternoon for a relaxing 3 hour train ride. I tell ya’, that is the best way to travel. Texas should have passenger trains. I’d be more apt to visit Dallas, Fort Worth, or San Antonio more often if I could just hop on a train. Anyway, we went to dinner that night with 5 other Americans and 1 person from New Zealand who is also an American citizen. It was ‘America night’ at this restaurant and on ‘America night’ they serve hamburgers & french fries and show an English-speaking film. We didn’t watch the movie but thoroughly enjoyed the food. The next day Artichoke Heart hung out with Gary (married to my co-worker Debbie). It was Artichoke’s first trip to Milan so Gary showed him the Duomo, the cathedral in Milan which is very beautiful on the outside, maybe one of the prettiest we’ve seen on the outside but nothing close to the cathedrals in Spain on the inside (or maybe that’s my love for Spain coming out again.) He also saw a huge castle complete with a mote. I didn’t like Milan before we moved to Italy because it’s a big commercial city but after living in Rovigo, Milan is great. It’s the fashion capital of Italy and has tons of shopping and restaurants – exactly what Rovigo is missing. Word of warning though, it's very expensive.

On Saturday we went to Bologna for the second time. Artichoke, Romeo, Pierre, Jose, and I went for the day. Bologna is only an hour away, like Venice, so it’s a very easy day-trip. It’s a good place to shop. Advertised to have 40 km of porticos so even if it’s raining you can walk the city. It’s also good because I can find Clinique products there. It has your typical piazza (town square) with a church/cathedral. It’s also known as the culinary capital of Italy and we ate lunch – advertised as tavola calda or hot table – the meat was hot but I swear they don’t know how to keep vegetables warm in this country. For all of you who love Italian food, you’re going to be soooo disappointed if you come here. Please keep your expectations low. Back to Bologna though – many interesting things to see in a small area. Two towers that rival the Leaning Tower of Pisa as far as angle is concerned (also a must see, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, that is). A small angel sitting on a Saint's sarcophogus sculpted by Michelangelo at the age of 19. A photo display, individual pictures, of the people killed in the resistance against Mussolini at the end of WWII. And the Anatomical Theater, a room from the 1700’s where medical students observed surgeons dissecting cadavers. Bologna is also home to one of the oldest universities in Europe and is well known for its gay community. Artichoke just reminded me of the Neptune fountain at the entrance of the piazza. Neptune is surrounded by 4 mermaids and guess where the water is coming from – their boobs. Something all the guys seem to appreciate. A cool looking fountain all in all.

We’re still going to the gym regularly and enjoying Antonino and Maurizio. The other day Maurizio asked me how we liked the food here. I said ‘cosi cosi’, which means so-so, I was being generous. I told him I like spicy – picante – food. So he immediately goes to Mamma’s kitchen (the gym is attached to their house) and brings back this jar of pickled peppers stuffed with olives. OMG – muy delicious! Muy picante! So the next day I told him how much we enjoyed them and he brought us another jar of them along with 2 kinds of jam and 2 other jars of pickled veggies. Such a nice guy, my favorite person here. Artichoke Heart and Antonino are pals, Antonino is a big baseball and New York Yankee fan. That’s almost unheard of here, most Europeans live and die by soccer (which they refer to as football. American football is referred to as American football.) Anyway, Artichoke and Antonino talk smack about baseball the entire time we’re at the gym. Mainly because that’s the only English Antonino knows and Lord knows Artichoke doesn’t know much Italian. He does have an uncanny knack of understanding Italian though.

So December 16 (tomorrow) is my last day of work for the year. On the 19th we go to Bratislava, Slovakia to rescue Anastasia, Randu, and Grey Bear, our friends from Spain. They were exiled to the Eastern Bloc after failing to teach Aldo to speak English and we’re spending a few days there before bringing them back with us to Rovigo for Christmas. We’ll get to see Vienna and maybe Prague and/or Budapest while we’re there. I’ve been told Prague is the prettiest city in the world – hope that applies in the dead of winter. Then on the 27th we’re off to North Carolina, USA!!!!!! Home of Walmart, TexMex food, hair salons where people speak English, the place where stores and restaurants are open all day long, you can eat dinner before 8 p.m., go to the grocery store or drugstore before work, at 2 in the morning, or on your lunch hour if you want, serve more than oil & vinegar for salad dressing, home of Outback, IHOP, Denny’s, HEB, Sam’s, Macy’s, Dillard’s, have it your way no matter where you are, etc, etc, etc. Americans, at a minimum, be thankful that you have a choice in everything you do. That’s what freedom is all about as I’ve learned since moving to Italy. And believe you me, it is not a world-wide luxury, it’s a privilege. But off my soapbox and back to our plans…We’ll spend New Year’s with Miss Ellie and Button, their bipedal attendants and friends Al & Rose, and all those white bears on the Christmas tree. Grey Bear, you would love it, Miss Ellie’s mom decorates her entire house with white bears – hey, maybe you can go with us! Talk it over with your bipedal attendants, Lord knows you need a break from those two, especially her. And anyway, they will be busy in Rovigo with It and Them and learning how to drive a stick shift. For those of you who don’t know Grey Bear, go to http://thegreybear.blogspot.com. You are sure to be educated and entertained. You can also access his blog by looking in the left margin under My Blog List and clicking on the link there.

I probably won’t blog again until 2009 and Artichoke and I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. We wish we could be with all of our family and friends but it’s difficult to be everywhere at once. We’re grateful that our nephew Ben returned home safely from Afghanistan and nephew John is doing as well as can be expected in Iraq ( I assume this to be the case, Older Brother, a report would be great to have, please keep us informed.) I can’t wait to talk to them in person and learn about their experiences. Christmas should be fun with Coy, Will, & Dante. We wish we could be there to spoil them. We’re looking forward to Kaysie and David’s visit in the spring and wedding in the fall. It looks like we might be here longer than first expected so if anyone wants to plan a trip during the summer, it might be safe to do. If nothing else, Venice and Rome are must-sees and easy to do from Rovigo. Robin, if you and Alyssa want to do Paris, let me know when because we are definitely planning to go and it would be fun to do it with you two. I don’t recommend August because Italy/Europe shuts down in August – even more so than the rest of the year when they’re ‘open’. We’re hoping to be back state-side September/October latest. We definitely don’t want to spend 3 Thanksgivings and Christmases away from home. Please write and let us know how bad the economy is, all we know is what we hear on CNN International – and I never believe half of what I hear on the news. It’s really hard to believe that the US housing crunch has caused a worldwide economic disaster. Dan, how’s the real estate market treating you? Are we the only country that spends money?? People over here say “when the US sneezes, the world catches a cold”. I guess maybe that’s true.

Feliz Navidad!

Toasted slices of French bread

I thought my first blog might have been a touch negative so I figure I should take the time to tell you the good things about Rovigo. Since most of my time is spent working, I’ll start there.

The Office: At any given time there are around 6 of us in the office. Me, Snap (my Italian sidekick), Romeo from Australia (comes by his name because he’s married to Juliet from Australia), Pierre from Canada, Jose the Carnivore from England (he lives in Mexico), Tex from Houston, Bugsy from Las Vegas, and Sophia from Italy. A fairly diverse group wouldn’t you say? Pierre, Jose, Tex, and Bugsy are really supposed to work offshore but because things aren’t running very smoothly out there yet, they have the pleasure of working here in Rovigo for a while. We never lack for conversation and have a great time learning about our cultural similarities and differences. I’d say the common theme among anyone not from North America is American Football….they don’t get it. Yet they do get soccer, and actually like it - go figure. And you should know they were all very interested in our recent election. Anyway, I couldn’t ask for a better group of people to work with.

On top of that, the company pays for lunch! Yea, it’s an Italian thing, and I’m not complaining. Artichoke comes into town every day and has lunch with us (not paid by the company and that's him in the picture in the office.) So we’re one big happy family. Except Jose the Carnivore. But that’s a whole other blog about the food which won’t be included in this one since it doesn’t fall in the ‘good things about Rovigo’ category. I have purposely not used the more general description ‘good things about Italy’ for those of you who are sensitive about anything Italian. We did find good food in Bologna but so far, that’s it.

The Weather: We were fortunate for the month of October, before the end of daylight savings. The temperatures were warm, no wind, and we would frequently meet at the corner bar (coffee / pastry / sandwich shop – they are called bars here) after work for beer and potato chips. Comments on the beer also don’t fit in ‘good things about Rovigo’ (or Italy for that matter.) Once you’ve had beer in Spain………

The Train Station: Rovigo happens to be on a train line that can take you directly to Venice or Bologna in just under an hour. Fairly inexpensive, too. Rome is just 3½ hours away on the high speed train. We’ve been to both Venice and Bologna, well to Rome and Florence too but not by taking the train from Rovigo. So when all of you come to visit, you’ll have easy transport to any place you want to see in Italy and beyond.

The Wine: They sell it from the tap! In bottles also of course but it’s more fun to buy it this way. In Italian it's called Vino Sfuso or its plural form, Vini Sfusi. You bring in your own bottle, plastic water bottle or whatever, and they fill it up on the spot. If you don’t have your own bottle, they will provide one for free or you can pay up to 2 euros for a 5 liter glass jug. The wine is cheap, too, maximum price we’ve seen is 2.10 euros/liter. There are lots of wineries in this area but I must say, Tuscany wine is my favorite. If you ever see a Brunello di Montalcino, try it. A little pricey but good. I’m told the grapes for this wine are grown on only one hill in Italy. It was an Italian who told me that so I’m guessing one hill really means one region. Muy delicious. Also Nobile di Montepulciano. I think it's the oldest wine from Italy, dating back to the 700's.

Plants and Trees: The trees here are really beautiful. There is a wide variety of colors and types and now with the leaves changing, they are very pretty. Everyone puts flowers in their windows and yards and I do love flowers. Persimmon and pomegranate trees abound. And by the way, some of the farmers have planted what Artichoke says is winter wheat so there isn’t as much dirt anymore.

And last but definitely not least – The Gym: Artichoke and I have been trying to fight old age by going to the gym for cardio work and lifting weights. We started in Houston before we moved to Spain and kept it up in Spain. This doesn’t mean we look any better but we definitely feel better. And it gave us justification for all the beer, potato chips, and olives we ate in Spain. Not to mention the pizza and Thai food. But I digress; this isn’t about Spain is it? I miss Spain. Spain was almost perfect. It had good pizza, Thai, Indian, La Cabaña (my favorite restaurant), Mexican (believe it or not and luckily we didn’t find it until about 2 months before we moved), the place in the square that had good beer, olives, and garlic, the golf course that had good beer, potato chips, and olives. Again, I digress.

Ok, back to the gym. This place is probably less than 2 km from our casa as the crow flies. It takes less than 5 minutes to get there and we’re having so much fun! We’ve definitely raised the average age of gym-goers and we’re quite the novelty, not speaking Italian and all. But the best part-----we have a Personal Trainer for FREE! The first night we went, I swear he was afraid we would have a heart attack or something. He kept a close watch on our heart rate and wouldn’t let us do too much of anything. But we’re on our 3rd week and I think now we’re his personal challenge. He's trying to build up Artichoke's chest and reduce my butt. Good luck! I’ll call him Antonino. Anyway, Antonino and his brother Maurizio own the place. Maurizio speaks absolutely no English and Antonino speaks enough to get by so he’s teaching me us Italian and we’re helping him with his English. (Note: Artichoke’s Italian is better than his Spanish, bless his heart, he tries.) We're taking kick-boxing also and the Italian translation for it is feet-box. We're not very good at it so it may not last. We met Antonino and Maurizio’s mother the other night. She came in around 8:30 p.m. to workout – gotta be younger than us. They own a bakery where the boys work in the mornings and then they run the gym the rest of the day. They have even invited us to a ‘gym dinner’ in a couple of weeks and we’re definitely looking forward to it.

Well, I hope you’ve learned a little about our life here. I’m a firm believer that if you concentrate on the good, it will multiply. And if you concentrate on the bad, it will multiply. So I’m not going to concentrate on the fact that we don’t have an icemaker in our fridge and they don’t sell ice here; no caffeine-free diet cokes; no diet tonic; no internet at the casa; no decent malls (nothing even close to Dillards or Macys); no Bloody Mary Mix (like Spain) – and it’s not that I drink Bloody Mary’s, it’s just that we can't get it; no menus in English; no restaurants other than Italian (however I’m told Venice & Bologna do); no limes; no fritos; no hamburger buns; and they serve cold bread. We asked for warm bread last weekend and the waitress brought us toasted slices of French bread – cold toasted slices of French bread.

Ciao,

Snowflake

P.S. Coming soon... an account of the worst haircut experience in my entire life.....Linda, can you come to Italy?

Rovigo My Home

I find it difficult to muster much enthusiasm when sharing our adventures in Rovigo. I hope that changes soon or else this blog will dwindle away to nothing before it even gets started. We've been here for 37 days and it looks like we'll be here for another 206 (if my math is correct that's until the end of May 2009. And when I put it that way, it really doesn't seem so long.)

Rovigo is located about 90 km (56 miles) southwest of Venice and about 50 km (31 miles) inland from the Adriatic Sea. It sits smack dab in the middle of flat farmland. Of course there is nothing planted this time of year so what you see is dirt, miles and miles of dirt. I'm not sure of the population but it's probably between 20 or 30,000.

Artichoke Heart and I wanted to find an apartment near the city center so we could jump right in to the bustling city life. Almost everyone here rides a bicycle so we were looking forward to filling our tires up and hitting the road (we shipped our bicycles from Houston but haven't ridden them yet - that's over a year.) Anyway, as luck would have it, we're living about 10 km (6 miles) from Rovigo. It's about a 20 minute drive to work instead of a 5 minute walk or bicycle ride. It's really ok for me because I'm at least in civilization M-F but Artichoke Heart finds it a tad bit isolated.

It and Them love it. ('It' is how some people (not people we like) refer to Frisco. 'Them' are the cats, Michael and Troy.) Anyway they do love it and since their happiness is of ultimate importance, that's where we will stay unless something better appears. The place is called an 'agriturismo' in Italy and is really just a very old estate with lots of trees and pretty surroundings. It is surrounded by empty corn fields and Artichoke Heart is teaching It how to chase pheasants and rabbits. I'm not happy about that but they don't do it in front of me. It also has a chicken coop with roosters, chickens, ducks, a big turkey, and 2 huge geese. It now has a new nickname, Chicken Chaser or CC for short, after we found him inside the chicken coop chasing the chickens. He is no longer allowed out without a leash.

I'm going to close for now and will resume at a later time. I'm new to blogging but I think it will be a great way to keep everyone informed. Keep this link in your Favorites so you can check back from time to time to see how our adventure in Rovigo is progressing......ciao