Saturday June 6th 2009 (Day 11)
I think today everyone decided to sleep in, not surprising really! However, we did get together with Claire and Gianni at his parents house in the afternoon as Tim had left his laptop there and we needed to retrieve it. Unfortunately, Claire had a migraine, again not surprising considering the stress she was under the day before. And this was a full throwing up kind of migraine. I felt so sorry for her, Gianni was looking after Leo for her but of course she is still nursing and he can’t do everything! I did get a chance to feed Leo rice and pineapples though which was pretty cool! We hung around for a couple of hours and then left them to it.
Claire Y with Leo
Claire may have been in bed with a migraine but Nana and Papa still got some bonding time with Leo.
In case you were wondering how people got their furniture into these apartments with no lifts (most of the time) or REALLY small lifts when they are working, this is how they do it. There is a refrigerator (very small by American standards) on the platform at the back of the loading van, it will be lifted up to the apartment and then offloaded via the balcony into the apartment. I guess necessity is the mother of invention!
That evening we were all pretty pooped so we decided to eat at the hotel, and what do you know, the only 2 things on the menu that I could eat were a lettuce salad (with the ubiquitous oil and vinegar dressing) and I do mean lettuce, nothing else, and french fries. Claire Y and Tim had pizza.
At this point I need to describe real Italian pizza to you. You know that piece of cardboard that comes under a frozen pizza? It’s there to help it keep it’s shape and you throw it away before putting the pizza in the oven, well the crust on an Italian pizza is THINNER than that and there are NO options! There is a thin spreading of tomato type sauce and some cheese, Tim ordered a salmon pizza, it was as above with about 10 small pieces of cooked salmon and some fresh basil leaves. The only other choice was mushroom that we could figure, usually you had a choice of EITHER tomato or cheese.
The menus are pretty hard to understand as a lot of the words are not in the dictionary, they seem to use the diminutive of words, for instance we might say ‘a small pizza’ they would have one word to describe that and it won’t be in the dictionary.
Sunday June 7th 2009 (Day 12)
Today we met up with Claire and Gianni at a small local restaurant that is owned by a cousin of Gianni’s. It is pretty nice and definitely not a ‘tourist’ restaurant, again though Gianni wanted to order 5 courses including pasta and it is only 12 noon. I haven’t eaten breakfast as I can’t seem to get anything I can eat and all I want is some fruit or something small. Tim never eats much during the day and all he wants are the bread rolls. Poor Gianni, I am sure he thinks we are being difficult but we just cannot eat that much especially during the day. It’s a shame as it would have made a wonderful evening meal.
This is the restaurant that Gianni’s cousin owns.
Gianni has confirmed that we are booked into a hotel at a seaside town called Vieste about one and a half hours away. There’s not much to see or do in Foggia and although it would be great to spend more time with Claire and Gianni and Leo it is difficult because he wants to see his parents too and as they have a very small flat we have to meet in a restaurant every time. That can get a bit expensive to say the least. So we have decided and they have recommended that we go and see a bit more of Italy before we go home. Hence the trip to Vieste.
‘ere, who are you then? And ‘ow come my mum looks a bit like you?
I want to eat and I want to eat NOW!!!
Yeah, I think he will make a good papa, I think I’ll keep him!
Sonja loves playing Nana.
Claire Y flies back to the states tomorrow, Monday, so she will take the train back to Rome this afternoon, spend the night there and get her flight in the morning. After lunch, Gianni takes her to the train station amid loads of hugs, kisses and goodbyes, only to bring her back 20 minutes later. Apparently the train to Rome is a high speed train and you HAVE to have a seat, no standing allowed and the train was full! Couldn’t even get a first class ticket! Good job Gianni was there as the ticket seller didn’t know a word of English so Claire Y now has to catch a later train and go first class as there are no other seats available, at least she has a ticket now so they can’t refuse her.
Happy families, Clockwise: Claire, Sonja, Tim, Gianni and Leo.
Claire, Leo and Claire Yates (the two red heads: trouble and double trouble!) and Gianni.
Claire Yates and our Claire, still best friends after 10 years.
We leave them all to catch up with each other, it means Claire and Claire can have a good natter without parents being there and up till now they have had very little time, not that we have had much quality time with them, there is just too much going on.
Back at the hotel we have a nap and then start packing ready for Monday morning. We also charge the GPS so that this time, hopefully, we can get there in one go!