Winter has come to Vicenza

Took these the other day from the upstairs balcony. In my previous six years here, I think it snowed three or four times and it was usually gone within a day. In my first month here this time it has already snowed three times and this time the snow has been here almost a week. So much for global warming. I absolutely hate winter, snow and cold weather but I have to admit, the view of the Alps is quite breathtaking this time of year...

I'm in a bad way.

I'm going through possibly the worst "bad health" stretch of my life right now. In fact I have not been more than 75% for about 3 months now. I finally dragged my goat-smelling ass to the clinic yesterday and found out that I have some kind of upper respiratory virus/infection. I'm currently on my second day of antibiotics as well as some kind of medicinal inhaler and I am praying that they work their magic and quick because I just cannot take this much longer. I'm starting to forget what it feels like to be healthy and have energy enough to do more than lay on the couch with a blanket over me. As you can imagine, it has not made the big move down here very easy, particularly the unpacking and such.

Buon Natale!

Luca is learning how to stand

Luca is now about 7 months old and learning things at such a rapid rate that I fear he might be walking by next week. I'm kidding of course but consider this; he learned how to crawl in about one day a few weeks ago and since then he has been trying desperately to stand up. He often goes from a crawl position to balancing on his hands and feet with his butt straight up in the air but gets stuck there. And then yesterday, Virginia had to do some housework so she put him in his little bouncer thing. When she came back into the room a few minutes later, he had not only worked his way out of the bouncer but this is what she saw:



Luca might be a superbaby.

We're moved in.

But still living out of boxes somewhat. Blog posts will commence once we get a little more settled...

Moving day...finally!

We finally move into our house today. We got a phone line turned on yesterday so we might be online sometime today if I have time to set it up...

Sign of the times.

This past weekend we were at the PX on base to do some last minute birthday shopping for the X Man. The wife kept him distracted, I grabbed the stuff and took it out to the car. As I walked back in across the parking lot, I could not believe what I witnessed - there was a really large woman, probably in her late 30's, driving a huge SUV and due to both the size of the vehicle and the amount of room it took up...combined with her enormous girth, she could not get into her vehicle. She had to ask some random woman who was walking by if she would back her truck out of the parking space for her so she could get in. The woman gave her a strange, hesitant look but obliged and obviously didn't know how to drive a stick because she stutter-stopped the vehicle out a few inches at a time and at one point actually almost hit another car. Kind of made me wonder...if she had hit another car, how would that have gone down with the insurance company?

Probably not a big deal to some people, I just found it a bit strange, never having witnessed anything like that before. If you're so big that you have to ask strangers to back your car out of parking spaces because you can't fit then maybe it's time to drop a few pounds. I'm just sayin.

The X Man is 5 years old today

Seems like only yesterday we were welcoming you into this world and now you're growing up so fast...happy birthday buddy!

"The Mother of all Pizzas"

You may have heard me rave about the ristorante/pizzeria in our hotel. Every meal has been great, ranging from fantastic to otherworldly. The place is family run but mostly by the two sons, Luca and Dario. On the menu, there is a pizza called "Pizza Luca" that has intrigued us since our first meal there. It has: Cheese, tomato, proscuitto, mushrooms, hot salami, asparagus, peppers, artichokes, wurstel, tuna fish and anchovies. Now my theory on Italian pizza is, simple is better. I prefer no more than one or two toppings; any more just fills you up too much and gives you heartburn, plus too many different flavors ruins the taste. I normally opt for pizza with olives, pizza with spinach and ricotta cheese, or pizza with proscuitto e funghi (ham and mushrooms). But every time we eat there, the X Man tries to goad me into trying the Pizza Luca since he is convinced that it is named after his little brother. I always tell him there is no way I am attempting to tackle that monstrosity. However, last night I was feeling froggy so I decided to go for it, if only to see the beast in real life. In the interest of full disclosure, I asked for no anchovies (yech!). The X Man ate a small slice and I ate the rest and we barely finished half of the thing.

To see all of the pics, CLICK HERE!

A few pics of the house

Virginia put them on her Facebook page...someone let me know if the link does not work...

Pictures of the house

House inspection today

We have our house inspection this afternoon...I'll try to get some decent photos to post on here in the next day or two...

10 random facts you probably didn't know about me.

1. I grew up in New Hampshire but have never downhill skied in my life.

2. My favorite color is blue.

3. I've never eaten at a Wendy's.

4. I once stole a t-shirt at the mall in college but I felt so guilty that I went back a few months later and paid the owner for it.

5. I think sandwiches are the perfect food.

6. I'm secretly addicted to my son's online Spongebob Squarepants game.

7. I've never broken any bones.

8. I once burned an entire forest down when I was a kid.

9. I peaked in 2001.

10. I've never eaten the worm.

Update

So here we are, back in Italy. You cannot possibly imagine how good it feels to be back here. The only way I can describe it is to say that it feels like we have come back home. I've run into several people who still remember us and all have been very welcoming. It's not a very big community here which makes it easier to get to know a lot of people and develop friendships. As I've already posted earlier, we were lucky enough to find a beautiful house in the absolute perfect location back in our old town of Caldogno. Everybody (myself included) was quite surprised that we found a place so quickly. Unfortunately we won't be moving in until around the 19th of December, which means we'll be in this hotel for another 2 weeks. I'm not happy about that as I hate living in hotels but all things considered it could be a lot worse. I think it took us almost two months to find a place in Germany when we went there.

We do have an address and I have a cell phone number so if anyone needs it, send me an email and I'll pass it along.

All in all, we're very happy to be back. The X Man is pretty excited and is trying to speak Italian, God bless his little heart. He can't wait to start school and we can't wait to send him. I'm also excited at the fact that Luca will grow up with Giampi and Agnese, just as the X Man did. But for right now, we're all extremely anxious to move into our new house. The next two weeks are going to drag by very slowly I'm sure...

Update coming soon...

I'll post an update of what's going on here soon but in the meantime, here's a picture of me and the X Man from Thanksgiving dinner at - where else? - Giampi and Agnese's house...