Primo Giro Italiano

Chickens came out for the tour too

Oh boy... these tours are grueling! Katie and I followed Miranda yesterday for our first full-length tour (in Italiano). There were about 25 people in the group, of an older demographic. One lady was very very old, fragile, and hard of hearing, but she was such a trooper! Plus she was wearing a wool jacket in the oppressive heat of the sun! The tour lasted 5 hours and the group didn't even get a chance to see any of the indoor works. A lot of the people talked to each other, and on their cellphones, while Miranda was talking. If that happens when I do my tours I'll find it incredibly distracting... :S

We also got to meet Carolina, a super sweet girl who goes to University in Florence. She's going to be the intern here in September, so she was here learning the ropes with us.

After the tour, we got to go for lunch with Signor Gori and his guests, the superintendent of the Ministry of Culture for the province of Bologna and her friends/colleagues. We went to a nearby restaurant, and again, Italy's chefs wowed me with their ability to make vegetables delicious (copious amounts of olive oil seems to be key).

When lunch was finally over at 4:30, we returned to the Villa and asked Elena to take us out for groceries, since we already went through the cheese, prosciutto, beef, tomato sauce and much of the vino we bought before. I got a 5 litre jug of white wine for 5 Euros. It looks like an economy-sized canola oil...

Otherwise everything here is good, besides ridiculous ongoing water issues. Yesterday after the tour we returned to the apartment to find a veritable fiume (river) in the new apartment (to clarify, our current apartment is in an old building, which is the same place s where the new apartment is going... they share the top floor. I believe it used to be the stables a long long time ago, like pre-1800s). We were kind of bummed because we were afraid that having a piscina (pool) in the construction site would set back construction, but over lunch, Elena and Liliana completely dried the place out and things should progress as planned. Then, at night, we still didn't have any hot water, so we traipsed up to the main house to shower there. We're told that our current electricity and hot water problems have to do with some sort of limit, and that the hydro companies have been contacted to increase the limit, so hopefully that should take effect on Monday. Oh yeah, and this morning, we have no water whatsoever...

ANYWAYS! Water... it's not like it's that important, right?

In a couple hours we're going into Pistoia to see the sites (and not much else since things will be closed on Sunday). Apparently it's a really cute city, but not that big... about the size of St. Catharines. I'll post some pics of the city after we've been, but until then, a few final thoughts...

For this blog, there are some required posts. One of them is "things that I take for granted". I've already got some things on the list, so I'll share that now... In no particular order:

Hot water

Electricity

Microwaves

À più tardi!

Panini I made with prosciutto and pecorino pepperoncino, squished flat on the frying pan

My dessert at the restaurant... meringue, whipped cream, chocolate

Katie's dessert at the restaurant... anise cookies, whipped cream, berries

Mio vino economico