Italia! Italia! Italia!

One more day and I'll be on the Autostrada on my way back to Bella Italia for the Labor Day weekend. It promises to be a long drive but I'm really looking forward to it. For one thing the wife and kid have been in Italy for a week now which means fewer stops for bathroom breaks and no whining X Man to contend with. The only thing I have yet to decide is exactly which route to take. I'm pretty sure I'll go around Stuttgart and then down through the Fernpass as I usually do but I'm toying with the idea of going through Switzerland since I'll be driving alone. Both routes are phenomenally gorgeous so I can't go wrong either way. No matter how many times I make the drive through the Alps, they never cease to awe me with their natural beauty and inspiring landscapes.

Anyway, the first thing I will do is stop at the Autogrill once I get to Italy and eat a panini, something I miss dearly. Should I get the Capri or the Positano? Hell, I'll probably get both. And I foresee much pizza in my immediate future, not to mention vino. Pictures will be posted upon my return to Germany on Monday.

O Solo Mio...

Last night the wife and kid flew down to Italy to spend an extra week with Giampi and Agnese before I drive down there next weekend for Labor Day. So now I have a week alone with no wife and kid and the house to myself, which means I'll spend the next week living on vino and doner kebaps, sitting around the house in my underwear watching porn.


Kidding...kidding...

The X Man makes pizza. And has spiked hair.

Last weekend we thought it would be fun to buy some ingredients and make pizza with
the X Man. He certainly enjoyed making the pizza, but he didn't want to eat any of it.





Oh yeah, he also has spiked hair.



Freak.

Pronto = Paradise

If you know me or have followed my blog then you can just imagine how much I miss Italy since moving to Germany a few months ago. I do like it here and there's a lot about Germany to love. But It's not Italy. I miss everything from the weather to the landscape to the places I used to spend my time to driving on the Autostrada to...well, just about everything. And if you know Italy well, you can magine how much I especially miss the food and vino. There ae a ton of Italian restaurants here and almost all of them are run by Italian emmigrants which is great because I can usually practice my Italian a little bit and get a small taste of Italy. I've managed to find a couple decent restaurants that have a couple decent Italian dishes but overall it's just not nearly as good and here's the worst part - I have not found a single restaurant or pizzeria up here that produces a pizza even remotely resembling the pizza in Italy. And considering that we usually ate pizza at least once or twice a week down there, that's a big void.

However.

Recently Antonio, an Italian friend of mine (he's from Napoli) who runs the Italian bistro on the base told me about an Italian grocery store right in town and suggested I check it out. Last weekend we did and...wow. It really is an Italian grocery store, complete with just about everything we could get at the supermercato (supermarket) back in Italy! Meats, cheeses, pasta, sauces, seafood, coffee, truffles, you name it, all directly from Italy and alot of them are the exact same products we used to buy in Italy at roughly the same prices.

And the vino! There's a whole separate section for the wine and they have a decent selection from every region in Italy, also at decent prices. In fact, there are a few lesser known wines that I used to like in Italy that I've regretted not stocking up on when we left and believe it or not, I've found them at this place.

The store is officially called "Pronto" but I just call it Paradise. Now if I could just find a decent pizzeria...

(Tried to post photos but Blogger wouldn't cooperate. I'll try again later.)

Funny picture of the day

I'm sure there's a 7-11 joke in here somewhere...

In fact, if anyone can come up with a good caption, feel free to leave it in the comments!

He is the X Man, Hear Him Roar.

I have no idea what the heck he's doing here but it was too funny not to share...

There are no mosquitoes in Germany.

Seriously, I have not been woken up once by a single mosquito buzzing in my ear since I've been in Germany. And I haven't been bitten once since I've been here. In fact the only mosquito I can remember even seeing here was in the elevator this morning and I killed him.