One and all,

If on the 7th day, God rested, then we took a bit of his advice and did very little today. Of course, as Polley says, God was done on day seven, but we still had a bit to accomplish to feel fully “settled in.”

Today begin slowly. We are still struggling with our sleep cycle. We sleep solidly for about 3 hours and then around 2 a.m. we are awake and struggle to return to any real sleep. We drift in and out, but never seem to be totally out. Part of the problem is with “siesta.” From about 2 until 5 each afternoon, we are blotto! Totally out!

The other thing that slowed the day this morning was rain. While skies have been cloudy each day, we have not really had any rain of note. As I headed out for my walk this morning, the skies opened up. I usually tough it out, but it rained so hard that after about a third of a mile, I came back home, defeated. However, about 10 a.m. rains had gone (not the clouds) and Polley and I went out determined to complete our domestic shopping. While there were some groceries to get, our real goal was two coffee mugs and some hangars (gruccie). Our apartment came with about 5 hangars and for Polley that is about 20 short of minimum.
As we headed out, we crossed through a lovely park that is just a short distance from our apartment.


As you can see , the skies were grey.

We walked through the commercial part of town and came upon a sort of flea market. While we could have had any number of shoes, belts, bras, pants, pots aplenty, there were no mugs. There were plenty of hangars, but unfortunately they were attached to shirts, blouses, pants and sweatshirts. If I could have found a hangar for every African selling an umbrella, we would have been set. But alas, no. We did find a couple of placemats, a few tea towels and a hot pad (all missing from the apartment). But no hangars and mugs. Of course, part of our problem is that when it comes to coffee, most people want the cute little Italian espresso cups with fancy Italian coffee labels stamped on the side. We wanted something larger than a thimble, something where an American could get himself a CUP of Joe!

However, as we wandered about the rat’s maze of streets, we came upon a somewhat fancy housewares store, called Coin. We ventured in and low and behold, mugs! After picking up a couple, we pursued hangars. I ask a saleslady in my best Italian if there were “gruccie.” She said there certainly were and immediately took me to a bin where they recycle all the hangars they take off clothes they have sold. She dove in and offered me one from the collection. I explained that I wanted to purchase some and she informed me that they did not sell them. I did, however, take the free offering, so we now have only 19 more to find!

Next was some grocery shopping and then stopped for our requisite glass of wine before lunch. Weather was still cool, but we braved it and sat outside. All the Italians we talk to say the weather is unusually cool for this time of year. We heard that same story in France last year, and it lasted for two months! We are looking for change.

This evening, we celebrated birthday #62! It is actually Sunday (5 aprile), but with so many places closed on Sunday (domenica), we decided to celebrate tonight. We went to a very nice wine bar that we are beginning to frequent. Our apartment has 4 wine bars within a stone’s throw. The owners of each are beginning to recognize us. Again we sat outside, as you can see from this picture.


The street, just down from our place, has a very nice neighborhood feel, especially on Friday and Saturday nights, as most everyone is out walking about. There are many young couples and lots of little children.

Following the wine (a cabernet and a local white called Murice), we tried a place called Trumpet. It also is around the corner and was mentioned in our Lonely Planet guidebook. We had stopped in the previous night, perused their menu (all in Italian with many words we did not know), which looked very intriguing and then were made to feel lucky that we could get a reservation. We tried for 8 p.m., but were told that we must wait until at least 8:30 p.m. When 8:30 arrived and we walked in, there was no one in the place.


It was a bit after 9 before the next people walked in and by 9:30, the place was full.

We thought, from the variety of the menu that they must be serving “small plates,” so we ordered three things: something called “Stinco,” which took a lot of courage considering that we had no idea what it was, an insalata and a Panini. Believe me there was nothing small about it. The Stinco was the shin of either a lamb or of veal (from the sixe it could have been water buffalo), cooked to where it was just about to fall off the bone. It was huge and came with wonderful roasted potatoes and a salad of lettuce and arugula. The salad was also a giant bowl that featured fennel, lettuce, prosciutto, grated carrots, grilled zucchini, and pieces of Parmesan. Half of it came home with us. And I can’t tell you much about the Panini because we never touched it. It’s in our refrigerator and will doubtless be part of lunch today. We also ended up with a bottle of the local Cinabro red wine. I have had it a number of times now. It is very good. Anyway, I am sure you will be hearing about Trumpet any number of times in our stay here. We, of course, ordered way too much (troppo) and as we looked around at others, we saw that you could order just a single item to share. We are coming to find Italy wonderful in terms of food, perhaps even better than France. Fabulous cheeses, flavorful dried and cured meats and beautiful fresh greens. We have only just begun!

Ciao,

Ed and Polley