Here's kinda how the first day went:
11:37 pm Italy time = 1:43 pm Nome time (earlier that day!) In other words, if I weren’t about to go to sleep after a great first day in Italy, I’d be in Nome seeing patients at this very moment. It seems kind of surreal!
It’s official: Jen and I LOVE Italy! The flight over was looooooooooooong but pretty comfortable for economy class (aka the sardine can). There were plenty of entertaining movies (I watched 2.5 of them and didn’t sleep…) between NYC and Paris. We struggled to stay awake through a 3 hour layover there before flying on to Pisa. We arrived in Pisa around 5 pm local time, got our bags, snagged a cab, and made it tour our hotel. This 4 star hotel runs for 180 Euro a night…. I know we didn’t come CLOSE to paying that… sweet deal! It’s a nice hotel – very good pick. I’m a little confused by the two “toilets” in the bathroom though.
Once we checked in and dropped off our bags, we decided to go find some food. The first couple of places nearby were still closed for siesta (at 6:30 pm). We happened upon a Bar/Tortteria (bars = coffee shops here for the most part). They didn’t officially reopen until 7 pm (we showed up at 6:50). We didn’t really know this for sure because the cute little older couple that were running the place didn’t speak English…and somehow between the two of us, Jen and I don’t speak really ANY Italian (oops.) We managed to order some food. It was really cute: the sweet little lady brought out three different dried pasta noodles and presented them to us to choose from: Penne, spaghetti, and one that looks like penne without the beveled edges. Of course, she used the Itialian words for them. We pointed to the penne and nodded when she asked about Bolognaise. A little while later, we were presented with this lovely pasta dish.
It was super yummy, especially with some bread and olive oil/vinegar. We were feeling pretty content, when another waiter (possibly the couple’s son?) came over. He was trying to ask us about our 2nd dish… and we weren’t getting it at all. He definitely didn’t speak much English because at one point he was asking us if we were speaking German! We managed to get our beef dish. again, delish.. along with a salad. Somewhere around this time, a group of guys come in (4 or so?) and mind you, we were the only ones in the restaurant at this time. Our waiter comes back and asks us if we want any caffe (coffee), the (tea), or dulche (icecream). Jen pipes up that she wants dulche, which manages to entertain the table of guys next to us.
Our dulche (ice cream) was sooo good. It was shaped like a piece of pie with vanilla ice cream, some sort of nut inside, and cocoa powder sprinkled across the top. During this whole encounter, we were only drinking bottled water. We finish our dessert and are getting ready to head back to the hotel when the table of guys start talking to us. We really don’t have many common words, but between our English, their bad English, their itialian, our even worse Italian, Jen’s Spanish, and my French, we manage to talk some.
Time goes on, we are asked if we want any caffe… we refuse. A guy from the next table pipes up about vino..we laugh.. and suddenly, there is a small carafe of vino at our table. I ask about it… it’s a local Piza vintage.. made from grapes locally. A house wine at it’s finest. Even jen enjoyed it! We managed to have a few glasses of this wine, and then were served some “Punch” – espresso and rum. After that, another glass of wine, and we decide to call it a night around 9:30. We head back to our hotel, and decide to grab a drink and head to the pool. We don’t quite make it to the pool. Instead, we sat in the lounge, Jen sipping a cosmo, me an amazing red wine from the Chianti region south of here, and munching on some green olives, bruschetta, and other fried veggies that the bartender served us. We do make it to the pool to stick our feet in for about 5 minutes, then head to bed, exhausted from lack of sleep.
Tomorrow, we take on Piza! We’re off to find the leaning tower, and check out the sites!
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