Black Beauty

Hi everyone! I originally had envisioned updating this weekly… that didn’t work out and so I thought monthly. Well, now it’s down to quarterly or maybe every 6 months. Oh well…here goes another one anyway. I’ll try to just hit the high points and not make it too lengthy.

In my last blog I mentioned what a difference a good place to live made after R and I moved into our new home near ‘downtown’ Rovigo. (Yes, I’m changing from Artichoke Heart to R.) Adding to that – what a difference good weather makes. Spring here in Rovigo began in March; the temperature turned warm, the flowers, trees, and roses started to bloom, the winter wheat and corn growing, and the sunlight longer. The flowers and trees were/are simply beautiful – reminds me a lot of Shreveport in the spring. Rovigo must be somewhat of a rose capital because there are roses in everyone’s yard and all over the city and countryside. I’ll have to say if you ever come to Italy, do it in the springtime. They also have a lot of linden trees which I wasn’t familiar with before but they bloom and have a very fragrant flower on them and they’re everywhere.

At the beginning of April R & I spent 5 days in Paris. I don’t think you can do that city justice in any less time. I think we saw everything there was to see, not, and since it was springtime it was simply gorgeous. The food – in a word - oo la la. Chocolate crepes are my new favorite food, well, second to Mexican food. Thank goodness they don’t have them here. I have 2 tips regarding Paris:

1. the Musee D’Orsay is as good if not better than the Louvre. The building itself is prettier and the paintings you see there are phenomenal. Even people with no culture (R & I) were able to tell why the Monet’s, Manet’s, etc. were brilliant artists.

2. Take one or more ‘Fat Tire Bike Tours’. R found these people on the internet and since he had never been to Paris we figured it might be a good way to see the ‘big picture’ and get our bearings on the first day. We took the 3 hour guided bike tour that takes you by (not in) a lot of the main attractions. Had so much fun we did the day-long Versailles bike tour 2 days later. About 10 people schlepping our bikes on a train to Versailles (a woman hit me in the back as she was getting off the train! On purpose! It was a very crowded train.) We arrived around 10 in the morning, everyone went to the local market and bought bread, meat, cheese, wine, etc. (the wine was mandatory according to our tour guide.) Then we toured the grounds on our bikes and stopped for lunch by the Grand Canal. Afterwards we toured the palace then schlepped our bikes back on the train to return to Paris. No assaults on the return trip. Fat Tire Bike Tours is American-owned so the language was easy to understand and the tour guides were mostly kids just out of college who want to live overseas and I suppose learn the language. You Aggies will be impressed to know there was a big Texas A&M flag hanging in their office. They give these tours in Paris, London, Barcelona and Berlin. I highly recommend it if you’re ever in one of those cities. We had a blast.

Not really related but I guess a good segue from the Paris trip – I am now the proud owner of an Italian vehicle - a bicycle. Italian-designed, I don’t know where it was made. My own version of a Ferrari or Lamborghini – really more like their Fiat/Chrysler. Her name is Black Beauty. It’s the preferred method of transportation here in Rovigo and what with our new home location it’s only a short 3-5 minute commute to work. Eat your hearts out Houstonians! Picture shown – hate my hair in that picture – I got it cut the next day. And the horizontal stripes aren’t flattering so only look at the bicycle.

Let’s see…other places we’ve been. Verona - Birthplace of Romeo and Juliet (the Italians, not the Australians.) Fictitious though they are, Juliet’s balcony draws quite a crowd. Nice little city center, very touristy, souvenir stands. We went there on our way to a golf course near Lake Garda - but first had lunch at McDonalds, yum. We haven’t been many other places for 3 reasons. One is I work. Two is because we would have to board It if we went anywhere overnight and three because we’ve found golf again! We’ve finally found a decent course for a decent price within 30 minutes of the house so every weekend we’re on the course, honing our skills. We’ll be watching Tiger and Phil at the U.S. Open this weekend. Bill, Mitch, how are your games coming along?

This week we have a big trip planned. We’re boarding It and Them and taking off to Istanbul (not Constantinople) – does anyone know that song? - to see Anastasia, Randu, and Grey Bear. We’re very excited about it and I hope to bring back some cool souvenirs.

Ok, that’s all for now. Let me hear from you! And as they say here in It'ly - Ciao Ciao

Casa Dolce Casa!

What a difference a nice place to live makes! We have actually moved after 5 months of living at the agriturismo. It was a nice, peaceful, small place and close to the gym but man is it good to be outta there. We will of course miss the chickens and geese but not the cold stone floors or outrageous rent. So briefly, here’s our tale of house-hunting.

The first house-hunting trip we made was in September before moving here. We found a perfect place, brand new, 3 bedrooms, 3 floors, and huge yard for the boys, very close to work, and advertised as furnished. Signed the papers and one week later the landlord backed out. Apparently he was able to rent it to someone else unfurnished (more about furnishings later). But we had the agriturismo to fall back on so ok. We kept looking during the following months but most things were 2 rooms, very small, and as Mama would say ‘you couldn’t cuss a cat without getting hair in your mouth’. Not a good thing when you have 2 cats. Then we found another almost perfect place, went to the real estate agents office to sign the papers and either the landlord or real estate agent changed their mind so that was a no go. We think it may have had something to do with us not being Italian - no lie.

So after 5 months we found it, love at first sight. A house for the same price as an apartment but not an apartment. Close to town – 3 minutes to the office. I don’t know how I’m going to cope when we get back to Houston. My commute in Spain was a whopping 20 minutes, not to mention the beautiful view of the Mediterranean & Gibraltar. One hour each way in Houston is going to drive me bonkers. Anyway, the house has a small yard/garden but enough for Frisco and not too much to take care of. Michael and Troy seem happy and haven’t spent any time cowering under the bed.

But being Italy, nothing is straightforward. The house was described as 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, fully furnished. Reality – 2 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 3 floors with something like a game room on the top floor which opens to a rooftop patio, and the only furnishings belonged to the previous tenant. Now when you rent something unfurnished in the civilized world you take for granted that the place comes with an oven, refrigerator and sink. You also assume there are closets, kitchen cabinets, countertops, etc. In Italy, you’re lucky to get light fixtures. And when I say lucky I mean we had wires hanging from the ceiling in the kitchen, dining room area, and 2 of the bathrooms. So we were lucky that the tenant left at least the light fixtures in the rest of the house.

The previous tenant was moving because his father died and he’s moving in with his mother. So he didn’t need the furnishings and said we could negotiate a pretty good price. He was willing to sell his things to us for a mere 10,000 euros or in US money $13,000! He was asking $130 for each bathroom mirror! So off to IKEA we went and luckily have been able to furnish the place for much, much, much less than his asking price. The pictures included are the real thing so you can see what you’re in for when you come to visit.

There’s no air conditioning so we’re hoping the summer isn’t too hot or humid. But there are a lot of windows and hopefully we’ll have a good breeze. Another plus, the windows all have screens which, like kitchen appliances, is not a given in Italy.

So now that we're really settled we look forward to having guests. Start searchin' those airfares!

We're still here!!

Wow! It’s been well over 2 months since I blogged last so I have a lot of catching up to do. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year and are looking forward to springtime.

Well, since we last spoke, Artichoke Heart and I have done some traveling. As reported in my last blog, we went to Bratislava, Slovakia before Christmas to rescue Anastasia, Randu, and Grey Bear (picture of Grey Bear just below) from their exile. A 7-hour train ride up and back (Hangar Brat – Europe by Rail has really come in handy!) Bratislava is a nice enough town but nothing to really write home about. Actually it was quite nice but Anastasia had a really bad attitude about it and I'm sure that colored my opinion a little. There was a nice Christmas market in the town square and we ate some very good Spanish tapas. We went to Vienna a couple of times – beautiful city, nice architecture, nice cathedral, good food, etc. Note: I really hope we can do some sightseeing during warm weather; this traveling in the wintertime is getting old. I can’t really get excited about relaying our adventures when most of what I remember is how cold it was. But I recommend Vienna to anyone going to Austria. The coffee was the best I’ve had in Europe, not to mention the Sacher Cake at the Hotel Sacher. Would have loved to do the Sound of Music tour but that was in Salzburg and too far away for our limited time. We wanted to visit Prague and Budapest but Prague was a 5-hour train ride and Hungary was having a transportation strike (they must be related to the Italians who strike probably once a month – nothing major, just a little disruption to let everyone know they’re there I guess). All in all a fun trip but if we ever get to Prague it will be in the summertime!

We spent Christmas here in Rovigo and ate pizza at the Queen Elizabeth restaurant. For a town where most restaurants are closed most of the time, there was a surprising number of places open on Christmas night. And sorry to disappoint you Italian food fans – again – the pizza here leaves much to be desired. You might as well eat it with a fork and knife because when you pick up a piece, it’s so flimsy the sparse toppings slide right off. I have begun carrying crushed red peppers in my purse to add a little flavor.

After Christmas we flew to Charlotte (famous as the birthplace of Ashley) to visit Button, Miss Ellie, W, Betty, Al & Rose, and Lois. Had a fantastic time! Betty was kind enough to take us shopping everyday. We went to Walmart, the grocery store, and a real mall. And I got my hair cut and colored by a person that spoke English. A real treat! I may come back with hair down to the middle of my back because after Artichoke’s latest haircut, I’m really scared to go back to anyone here. We had proper food every single day in Charlotte and it was sheer heaven.

We came back to Rovigo to a snow-covered ‘wonderland’ and it stayed cold for the entire month of January. But things are looking up, we’ve had sun for about 3 weeks now and the ground is drying up from the months of rain. For some reason meteorologists are wildly inaccurate here. Romeo says if the forecast is gloomy, plan a picnic because that’s when the weather turns out to be the best.

Mid-January we traveled south to Ravenna, known as the mosaic city, to see the 5th & 6th century Byzantine churches/basilicas (picture of one on right) and Dante’s tomb. It’s 2 hours away by car or train – a nice town, much bigger than Rovigo and looked to have some nice shopping. The mosaics are really a must see, except for the one that Lonely Planet says is a must see. Part of the problem with sightseeing in Italy is they nickel and dime (more like 5 or 10 euro) you to death. The ‘must see’ cost 3 euros to get in and yes, it had pretty mosaics but after seeing all the others earlier, it just felt like a rip-off. I can’t report on the food because we waited until after 2 in the afternoon to look for a restaurant. When will we learn! So we headed to Ferrara, another town between Rovigo and Bologna. I may have reported in a past blog that we toured the town castle which is very much in tact and has a moat. But this time we walked around the town, visited the cathedral, which I must say is one of the nicest in the area, and tooled around until the Indian restaurant opened at 7:30 p.m. Ferrara proved to be much more than the castle, lots of people milling around, outdoor market/souvenir stands and a fabulous chocolate drink at La Bottega del Cioccolato. It reminds me of when Mama would try to make fudge. It’s a touch thinner version of the fudge right after it comes off the stove. Muy delicioso and served with a spoon!

And last but not least, we went to Venice to experience Carnivale (aka Mardi Gras). Given that it’s in Italy, people (Italians) taut it as the best in the world. Although it’s always nice to be in Venice and if any of you do come to Italy, Venice is a definite ‘must see’, Carnivale in the daytime was pretty tame compared to New Orleans. There were a lot of people walking around in Piazza San Marco (St. Mark’s Square) dressed up in pretty fabulous costumes - colorful, ornate, creative, beautiful. But their whole purpose was to pose for tourists taking pictures (see picture of Grey Bear in his Carnivale mask with a very colorful duck!). I’m sure it would have been fun to stay for the evening festivities but after 5 or 6 hours of walking around, we decided to head back to Rovigo before nightfall. Had we stayed we would have seen the Drag Queen Parade which was really the only thing on the schedule that caught my eye. I’m sure it was something to see.

Since Christmas we’ve had the pleasure of Anastasia, Randu, and Grey Bear here to entertain us and share our Italian experience. They have now left for Ismit, Turkey, just a little south of Istanbul and we wish them the best and really miss them. We also wish them to get a seaside resort apartment for when we visit them! If you want to read more about our Italian experiences in the words of Anastasia and Grey Bear, visit http://thegreybear.blogspot.com or http://thiscatsabroad.blogspot.com
Artichoke Heart and I are Grey Bear’s god bi-pedal attendants whom (or who?) he mentions with fondness on occasion.

Well, I’m going to finish now so you know we haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. Artichoke Heart is cooking hamburgers tonight and I just opened the bag of buns we found at the grocery store. We were pleasantly surprised to even find hamburger buns and unbelievably, with sesame seeds! When I opened the bag to toast the buns, I found that I had to cut them in two. It’s always something – although this was pretty minor. This week we are supposed to move into a new place. We haven’t signed anything yet so it’s not definite but 99% sure. I’ll write about the ‘finding a place to live’ experience in my next blog – remember, we will have been here 5 months and are just now able to find a suitable place to hang our hats…..

Ciao & Hasta Luego!