New Groove
So Carly and I are managing to slowly but surely attempt to find our groove again back here in what we call the Great White North. We found ourselves a car, and we're thoroughly enjoying our stay at Hotel Burrus (or as I lovingly like to refer to it: Hotel Inlaws).
Das New Car (2003 Honda CR-V)
Hotel InlawsCarly is busy applying for various positions with school districts, and I'm ramping up projects in my ongoing attempt to never-get-a-real-job. Things are going alright so far. We're enjoying being back home with family and friends. I'm sure there'll be more to follow, but no more world travels - instead - you're gonna be seeing Vancouver and the Lower Mainland.
Trip Expenses
Are you curious to know what a 7 week Europe holiday might cost?
Here is the expenses breakdown for a comfortable two person trip. This trip was a balance of backpacker and B&B accomodations as well as a combination of cheap street or grocery eats and lovely dining experiences. We tried to be health conscious and so we ate well (which usually meant spending a little extra for the fruit and veggies). We saw what we really wanted to but didn't always or often do the "should sees". One museum here and there was more than enough for our tastes, but the extra splurge for a weekend in a tuscan villa was a must!
Total $12 400 CAN
Countries visited: Jordan, Israel, Italy, Austria and Germany
Flights
$3 800
Other Transportation (trains, buses, taxis, camels, etc.)
$1 150
Accomodation
$3 500
Food
$2 500
Tours/Entrance Fees
$800
Laundry
$45
Gifts/Miscellaneous
$600
The Surprise Arrival Home
How to surprise Dad and Mom? Shall we show up on the doorstep to ring the bell or will we call and say we are standing on the front lawn? I could let myself into the house and be having a cup of coffee when they get up in the morning. Cancel that, Dad is a house prowler and I likely wouldn't make it even to the kitchen. Not to mention the sprinkler, designed to get the wildlife rummaging around in the yard, would certainly soak me before I even got to the back door! Hmm, we could be lying in Krista's car trunk and she could ask Dad to help her carry some stuff in and SURPRISE. But, heart attacks don't usually make for a nice family reunion. I know! A pizza surprise.
From the get go of planning our trip home Daniel and I had decided to return August 1st. Actually, we had this flight home booked all along with our other flights and much of our accommodation. We aren't really the "fly by the seat of your pants" travellers. Besides, Europe is expensive and if you don't book the cheap hostel they are often full and you might be left with only a more expensive option.
I had always wanted to return home unannounced and so we had told Mom and Dad that we didn't know when we'd arrive other than it would be sometime mid to late August. They thought we were planning as we went, but of course that was a little uncomfortable for Dad who likes to track us! Dad kept asking me for more and more information so finally I sent the fake itinerary to keep him busy! Naughty daughter that I am. It was tricky keeping track of where they thought we were (emails, blog postings) vs. where we really were. Kim and Krista were let into the secret prior to our departure from Singapore. They were to be excellent accomplices! Not to mention, the holders of the real itinerary and contact information in case of emergency. Responsible daughter that I am.
This part of the plan is what I like to call WHEN THE SURPRISE ALMOST WENT DOWNHILL. LTU airlines charged half the flights to our credit card when we booked the flights that would take us from Germany to Vancouver on Aug 1. We thought perhaps this was a mistake, but didn't worry about it. Apparently though, they charge the rest of the flight cost a few weeks before the flight. Trouble was that the card was nil after being stolen in Tel Aviv. So, what is an airline to do? They call our home phone, which is of course now our parent's address in New Westminster. Thankfully, the message they left on the machine was all in German and Dad and Mom were away camping. Sister Kim intercepted, emailed us to let us know about the call and deleted the message. Funny though, when Dad returned he saw a strange phone number in the call log and thought perhaps we'd been trying to reach him...what an investigator! Dan called LTU and gave them our new credit card information so they could charge the rest of the flight. But...
We're arrived now at the part of the story entitled WHEN THE SURPRISE TOOK A NOSE DIVE. LTU had also sent a letter in the mail to our "home" address regarding our flights. Dad opened up the letter and wondered... it was all in German. Dad scanned the letter and emailed it to us in case it was important. Safe still right? Nope. Dad put the letter through babel to try to translate it. The translation wasn't great but it sure did seem to give away some important tidbits including that date of Aug 1, a monetary amount and words such as Dusseldorf and Vancouver. At this point, Daniel was pushing me to just "give it up" and tell Dad and Mom about the arrival home but ...what the heck, I just told a few more lies in hopes to put Dad off our tail again. I believe I said something about researching flights and costs for various dates in August etc. I also told Dad to please not worry about the mail and stuff. Everything was under control and I would certainly be letting them know when we'd arranged our flight home.
Dan got an email from LTU. Finally, they send some information to a place where it is useful. It looked like they were changing our flights. We'd be flying with Air Berlin now for the first leg of the journey from Munich to Dusseldorf before flying LTU into Vancouver. We'd now need new tickets. We called LTU and were told we could pick up our new tickets once we'd arrived in Munich. They failed to mention..
Here we are at WHEN THE SURPRISE PLAN FLAT LINED AND WAS PAST THE POINT OF RESUSCITATION RIGHT? LTU sent our new tickets to our "home". Yes, that is correct. Our one-way tickets for Germany to Vancouver were sent to Vancouver 6 days before we were to take the flight! How they possibly thought we'd get ourselves from Vancouver to Germany to use these one-way tickets less than a week before the flight is beyond comprehension. This was not a pretty scene when I read this news in an email from Dad. I guess the surprise is over then huh? But, when you are deep into your lies, what do you have to lose? Either they buy another lie or they don't and the surprise is out anyways. I wrote an email to Dad about how crazy this airline was - what a mistake! We hadn't booked any flight. They were off their rocker - we'd be calling them about about this. Dad didn't say anything more which made me sure that he new our plan and just decided to keep quiet and let it happen.
Krista, Kim and Jason (Kim's boyfriend) met us at the Vancouver airport just after 1pm on Wed, 1 Aug. After a much needed Starbucks purchase, they whisked us away to Krista's place. A great place to chill on my own couches and everything because she has been taking care of all our stuff while we've been away. We enjoyed showers, nachos, margaritas and much much chatter. Kim and Jason's cover for the day was that they were at the beach. Complete with Kim taking her swimsuit and towel along. Krista was supposed to be at work but had taken the day off for us. Krista had called Mom the week before and asked if Dad and Mom would like to join her and her boyfriend Yoon for pizza at Me and Ed's (family's favourite) Wed night when she got off work. Kim and Jason were to also join. So as to not rouse suspicion (like where wasn't already!), Kim and Jason went home from Krista's, pretending to arrive back from the beach, and accompanied my parents out to the restaurant. Kim sent a text message to say they had arrived. The targets were in place.
We sent Krista into the pizza place first to join the table. Dad and Mom were right there in front of us! I actually felt a little nervous. As we walked in, Dad was peering around Krista to look for Yoon, but he wasn't feeling well and couldn't make it. But who is this?! Dad squinted a bit more, a bit more. I smiled. I think Mom said "Carly?" "No".... Dad got up. What a great hug. I whispered in his ear, "you knew didn't you?" Yup, he'd suspected and had even thought maybe he'd come out to the airport to get one up on us if we really were coming in on that flight. But, we'd created enough reasonable doubt with the fake itinerary. "How could we possibly be coming back before reaching Germany?" Mom wondered. By the way, Mom hadn't moved yet. She was still sitting there. Someone (maybe myself, I can't recall now) said, aren't you going to hug them? Such shock. For the next 30 minutes or so her jaw was open and the wheels of how this happened were turning. Honestly, she was also thinking of how she'd hadn't made up the bed for us yet or vacuumed today etc.! What a Mom! We of course had been in Germany already - Mom really got a kick out of that fake itinerary and made a humorous point of ripping it up later when we reached home.
So, we ate pizza and drank coke. And that is the beginning of the next chapter of our lives.
Cheers.
Munich, Germany
). There are huge pedestrian-only areas that give the city so much character, along with huge parks, fields, rivers, monuments, art galleries and food, that I'm not too sure what else you might want in a city.
Glockenspiel
Glockenspiel with scaffolding, and music that doesn't work.
New City Hall (I think)
We've had all sorts of excellent highlights including a bike tour through some of the major sites (Note: Mike's Bike Tours. Do It.). We also went on a brewery tour where we hit up the Weisses Brauhaus whch serves up beer from Shneider Weisse (I tried an Eisbock here which packs a mean 12% - interesting stuff), following a stop at a Paulaner microbrewery and restaurant for some more tasting and dinner before we ended up at the world-renowned Hofbrauhaus.
Chinese Tower Beer Garden
Maypole
Yum.Many of the beer gardens (including the Hofbrauhaus), don't even sell beer by the pint. If you want a beer, you're drinking it in Liter form. They don't call 'em Maßbier's (pronounced "mass", but means "measure" in German) for nothing.
People surfing on the river. Yes. Surfing. For Real.
The best apple strudel ever.
Augustinerkeller is the oldest beer garden in Munich, and of the ones we've been to, it's also the nicest. Of the German folks we've talked to, it would seem that the Helles (lager-ish) produced by Augustiner seems to be the favorite of the masses. Described as liquid gold and sweet apricot nectar - these people love the stuff, and I can't say we're any different.
Enjoying a good time at Augustinerkeller (beer garden)
An interesting thing about the beer gardens here is that they are absolutely gorgeous. Trees and forest, nice shady areas. Also, you're allowed to bring in food from outside (just not drinks). So if mom wants to pack a Sunday picnic for the kids and head down to the beer garden to eat up, and drink a couple liters, you can head on down. Sounds like it's not uncommon, either.
I (Daniel) headed on my own one day to the Deutsches museum which was out of this world. Probably the best museum I've ever been to (and easily the largest). No end of huge displays on everything from naval navigation to U-boats to electricity, aeronautics, astronautics, nuclear power, physics, tools, engines and a pile of other things I can't even remember.
Aviation section of the Deutsches Museum with replica of the Red Baron's triplane near the center.
And now I guess, the whirlwind adventure has come to a close. Carly and I are back in Vancouver, having left Munich on 1-August and now settling in back in Canada. The next adventurous pictures might be of Vancouver restaurants, or um, buying a car, or something.
It's been a pretty fantastic two years, with more experiences and adventures that neither of us can probably even begin to remember them all. But now the adventure continues in a different form, and since the photos might not be as exciting, I might have to resort to more good old fashioned sarcasm and attempted wit to keep everyone entertained.
At any rate, we hope that anyone who reads this blog (if anyone actually does read it) enjoyed whatever bits they did read. I think we'll keep writing here, but obviously it'll take different turns.
So um, signing off for now.
Ingolstadt, Germany
There really isn't much to see in Ingolstadt. I brought Carly up here one afternoon while we were staying in Munich. I was here quite a few years back with my Grandma. This is her hometown where both she and my Dad were born. Just a nice little trip for nostalgia sake.
Overlooking the Danube River, with Ingolstadt's castle in the background.
Füssen, Germany
After we left Innsbruck, we jumped on a train ride up to Munich, and then transferred on a train heading south again down to Füssen. The town of Füssen is famous namely for being so near to Hohenshwangau and Neuschwanstein - two very famous German castles. Neuschwanstein, probably the most famous of all castles in Germany, was build in the late 1800's by King Ludwig II (AKA "The Mad King" / "The Fairy Tale King"). We checked into the Altstadthotel Zum Hechten for 2 nights and did an evening wander around the small town, picked up a sausage bun, some treats for dessert, and ended up back at our hotel for dinner, which had a quaint little restaurant with very tasty and good-priced food.
Train station in FüssenThe next morning we woke up to a great breakfast at the hotel, and gained enough energy to jump on the bus to Neuschwanstein. The views from the castle are absolutely astounding. I was here once before, about 7 years ago, and it's so nice to see it all again.
After our tour of the castle, we wandered down the hill and jumped in a bus back to town where we did some more meandering until we found a nice little place to sit outside and have a pint of Weißbier (as wheat beer is known in Bavaria). We didn't manage to get up to much else except a nap and some reading, after which was a grueling dinner where Dan munched down his first Pork Knuckle in Germany, and Carly found herself a yummy Hungarian Schnitzel.
That brought our time in Füssen to a close, as the next day we jumped on a train back to Munich where we spent the next 6 days.
I really enjoyed our time in Füssen. It's a town full of friendly people, and you can walk around the entire altstadt (old town) in about 30 minutes if you find all the little side streets. The town has a lot of charm, and the breathtaking Alps are all about. I can't imagine spending a ton of time here, unless you really just want to find a place to relax, and/or a town to base yourself in for trekking up into the Alps or going on those types of excursions, but it's definitely a place that's worth a visit.
Innsbruck, Austria
On July 21st, we left Venice in the boiling heat around noon-time and boarded an extremely crappy Trenitalia train with busted air-conditioning and thought that today might be the day we die of heat exhaustion. If that weren't enough, when the train arrived at Brenner on the Italian-Austrian border, we had to get off the train and wait for buses that had been dispatched to drive us to Innsbruck since there were forest fires on the train tracks, and the train was unable to carry on.
All the frustration aside, in the end I think it was almost worth all the hassle. The 30Km drive from Brenner to Innsbruck ranks among the most absolutely stunning scenery Carly and I have ever seen. Sharp green mountains, deep valleys with green fields in a milion shades and beautiful Bavarian style houses throughout. Mind-bogglingly gorgeous.
After arriving at our accommodation around 8pm, we headed (of all places) to a Punjabi restaurant for some dinner where we piled back some butter chicken, chicken tikka, dhal, vegetable curry and other Indian goodness. After that it was back home to crash for the night.
On Sunday, pretty much everything is closed. I remember that from 7 years ago or so when I was in Germany with my Grandma, but it's still a pretty impressive thing, to see a town that's usually quite a bustling and busy place, turn into a ghost town overnight. We made our way to the station first thing and picked up train tickets to Füssen (our next destination, in Deutschland), and also found some free wireless access (at long last) to finally put up some long overdue blog entries. We had some awesome food for lunch, Carly had a tasty goulash and some salad, and I had myself a huge pile of Speckrahmspezeln (basically small home made noodle-dumpling thingers with cream sauce, bacon and onions). We had a great dinner as well, where Carly scored an excellent Weiner Schnitzel, and after dinner we stumbled across a movie theater that was screening Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in English. Not a bad way to end your evening.
Innsbruck is not exactly as I remember it being, but then again, I was only here for an hour, about 7 years ago, so I suppose that's not so surprising. There isn't much that I imagine you'd do here unless you were big into skiing or snowboarding, but the scenery and mountains surrounding the area are absolutely fantastic. If nothing else, it's a great place to relax for a couple days if you're heading through Austria. All of the food (and beer) that we had was particularly tasty, so that should be reason enough for a visit.
Venice, Italy
17-July
Ahhhh, Venice. Indeed. Carly and I have had a fantastic time in Venice. The city is without question a bit of a magical place, quite unlike any other city we've been to. Both of the guidebooks that we have basically say that "if you don't get lost in Venice, you're not doing it right." Despite this, we had a great map that led us easily to the B&B we were staying in - a super awesome place run by Sandra and Leonardo. We stayed in their house in an "attic room" that is beautifully decorated, and thankfully air-conditioned given that temperatures seemed to float between 37-40 degrees with very high humidity.
The rest of our first afternoon involved a bottle of Spumante (Italian equivalent of Champagne) on a rooftop terrace overlooking the city, some gelato (of course) and unfortunately, a terrible dinner a the not-so-pleasurable "Pleasure Cafe" (warning: avoid). To get rid of the terrible dinner food from our palates, we decided we'd happily have ourselves another gelato.
View from our rooftop balcony at the B&B where we stayed.
Fruit and Veggie stalls in Venice
GondolaSandra and Leonardo prepare a fabulous breakfast. Coffee, fresh-squeezed orange juice, fresh-baked cakes and pastries, cheese and cold cuts, breads, and all sorts of goodness. After breakfast we began wandering the streets. We picked up our train tickets that would take us to Innsbruck in a few days time, and decided to "get lost". We basically just wandered through the alleys, over bridges, through little tunnels and squares for hours before we found ourselves at the magnificent San Marco square. Stuff on the square is insanely expensive, Espresso running you €5.00, a Cappuccino €8.20. This compared to another amazing little coffee shop close to our B&B which ran €0.70 for an Espresso and €1.20 for a Cappuccino.
Walking the streets provides no end of amazing little shops with hand-made carnivale masks and fantastic glassware made on the little island of Murano just off the coast of Venice.
San Marco Square
On the 19th of July, we set off for a day trip to Burano and Murano - two islands off the coast of Venice. After paying €13.00 each for a 12-hour Vaporetto ticket (the Venice equivalent of a public bus system, 'cept with boats) we headed off.
Burano is famous for lacework, while Murano is famous for glass-blowing. Walking around the small island of Burano with its bright colors and quaint bridges was really a great time, and stopping by the glass-blowing factory of Formia on Murano was also really amazing. Being able to stand there and watch is fabulous.
Canal on the island of Burano, about 40 minutes from Venice
Houses on Burano
Glass blowing on Murano island (about 5-10 minutes from Venice)
Our last day in Venice was mostly a day of wandering and relaxing. Carly and I split up in the morning to do a bit of shopping on our own. While Carly was off looking for pusrses and whatnot, I wanted to try my luck at heading to the Jeweler where we brought Carly's new ring to be sized. The side story here: In Rome, since some @&$%# stole all our stuff in Tel Aviv (including Carly's wedding ring, and another ring I had bought her when we first started dating, WAAAYYYY back in the day) - we stopped at various Jewelry shops trying to find a simple replacement for Carly's wedding band so she could have a ring to wear. She found one that she really liked, and we bought it, but didn't have enough time to have it sized in Rome. Venice was the first place we found where someone would be able to size the ring before we left, but even so, it wasn't supposed to be ready until the 21st. While Carly was out shopping, I stopped by the shop and the ring happened to be ready. This was great news for me, because Carly is darn near impossible to surprise for anything. After picking up the ring, I found a shop that sold little necklaces with glass hearts on them, made in Murano of course, so I picked one of those up and slipped the ring on the necklace along with the heart, and tucked it in the side pocket on my shorts.
We found each other around 1pm and I left Carly to wander for a few more minutes while I ran to check my email, and when I got back she had just finished witnessing a bit of a brawl. A tall-skinny guy was running past her, with a short-stocky guy chasing after him. The short-stocky guy tackled the tall-skinny guy to the ground, and after they both got up, the short-stocky guy head-butted the tall-skinny guy in the face. Carly's impression was that the tall-skinny guy had stolen something from a shop, and we sat and waited there, watching until the cops came, heard the story from the short-stocky guy and then dragged the tall-skinny guy away. All in a day's work.
Good looking girl, funny looking manIn the evening, Carly and I got dressed up for a nice dinner out, and headed to the Jewish Ghetto where our guidebook recommended a great restaurant. The evening could not have been more perfect - the square was very quiet, the evening was cooling off, and we ate outside on the square with only a few other couples. Dinner was slow, long and fantastic. After dinner, in a re-enactment of the way I gave Carly her first ring, I reached for her under the table (but the table was too long for me to reach her) - so I told her to hold my hand. She seemed a bit hesitant, so I said "it's very important". She reached for my hand and I put the end of the necklace into her hand. She had to pull it away from me until she found what was on the other end - the heart and the ring - and gave me a great opportunity to ask her to marry me, again. Lucky for me she said yes, I'm glad she hasn't changed her mind. All in all, a perfect evening, and a perfect way to end our time in Venice.
Carly on a nice little bridge
Good looking girl (again!)
Florence, Italy
We made it back to Florence after our time in Cinque Terre refreshed internally but externally quite rough around the edges (particularly legs and chin )! With Giulia agreeing to keep our large packs, we had packed light for the short journey to the coast.
Replica of Michelangelo's David
One thing you must do in Florence is visit the Uffizi museum, which we dutifully waited in line 3 hours for in order to get inside. Neither of us could believe that one building could contain so many pieces of art. Room after room (45 main ones in all) were loaded with paintings and even a few statues. Every hall in between rooms also was lined with statues and portraits. Your eyes could really only take in so much in a day and after a couple hours we couldn't see straight anymore.
Daniel's favourite painting was Leonardo Da Vinci's 1472-5 The Annunciation. I (Carly) really enjoyed a set of 7 paintings by Piero del Pollaiolo. Each of these paintings where one of either the three theological virtues or the four cardinal virtues. All of them were a single woman with special symbolic items for the virtue she was portraying (Hope: eyes up with praying hands, Faith: chalice and cross, Charity: burning flames and suckling baby, Justice: sword and globe, Prudence: mirror and serpent, Temperance: pouring liquid from one vessel to another, and Fortitude: shining armour). How all of the symbolism is reasoned is beyond me. I did find it most interesting that the painting of Justice made direct reference in its accompanying script that she held the typical sword and globe rather than the scales that we usual see in our courts today.
Gelato, a daily necessity (at least once)
Gelato shopThat evening, Giulia took us to a neat tapas place on the river. It still seems so strange, as a North American, to see people drinking freely on the streets or in the park. Here we were, spumanti in hand, wandering on the street alongside the river. The concept at the restaurant, buy the drink (8 Euro) and eat as much as you'd like from the tapas bar, was super neat.
Ponte Vecchio (the only bridge in Florence not destroyed during WWII)Another one of our days in Florence, we joined Giulia and her friend Pamela, as well as two Italian guys Pamela knew for a day on the lake. It was an artificial lake, not the most scenic, but the company was grand. We swam, sunbathed, and had BBQ. I'd never seen so much meat consumed during one meal in my life. Maybe not surprising seeing as it was the guys who where in charge of purchasing the food. I had my sausage and a piece of the beef steak, but I'm afraid I really had to pass when the bacon was then cooked up along with some pork chops. Just meat, you ask? Well, of course not! We had wine too. I must add that I don't think I've even seen, or would like to see that thing they called bacon again. I may be crazy, but I think I might have heard some faint squealing of what once was as it headed down the boys' hatches.
Left to right - Giulia, Carly, Pamela
Yummy, yummy, yummy beef.On our final day, after a very unexciting laundry outing (8 Euro for a load), we relaxed the very very hot day away wondering the streets and piazza's for Florence's city center. Internet, shopping, lunch and reading. That evening we took a short train ride up to Prato where Giulia met us after work. She had arranged a final dinner at a local pizzeria with her family (Dad, Mom, brother Giovanni and cousin Chiara). Very neat to meet everyone I'd been seeing photographs of for years! It was especially great to see Chiara again after her exchange and stay with us from Italy in Sept. of 1994. I think Giulia was more than happy to have another person (Chiara) ready and willing to do some translation. Hard work! It was a delight to chat with Giulia's mom (also a teacher), Dad and brother. We very much enjoyed our meal together.
Interesting things I learned from Giulia and her family about Italian culture vs. our North American culture:
Work days for Italians are often 9am-8pm. Why so long? They have a LONG lunch break. It is most common that you would go home for lunch. This is the biggest meal of the day with pasta, meat or fish and fruit. It is not uncommon for the lunch break to be a couple hours long. Their dinner time is often 8 or 9pm. A lighter meal of bread, cold-cuts, cheese etc. Giulia was so surprised that we would eat dinner around 6pm. Don't you get hungry before bed? I mentioned in our home, we often would have a tea time with toast or something before bed...but mind you, our dinners are often our largest meal of the day because we haven't seen one another since morning and our lunches are packed (ie sandwich) and quick.
Giulia said that she'd never had an "English Breakfast". When I asked her what that was, she said bacon and eggs. We don't have that very often, I noted. Maybe something special for the weekend. Her breakfast is typically biscuits (sweet cookies) and milk. When I said I never really drank milk (like a glass), she was astonished. Then again, cereal isn't common for them, nor is yogurt. Toast was mentioned but perhaps only for dinner with meat and cheese, not with something sweet like jam. Gelato is a staple! Because of the length of time between lunch and dinner, it is common to have gelato around 5pm.
Pizza or Pasta everyday. Ham and Pineapple (Hawaiian) is unheard of! Chicken in your pasta? Craziness. In Italy, the family of ingredients for Pizzas and Pastas are limited (ie ham and cheese) , however, the variety and diversity of these few ingredients is surprising. Never had I heard of so many kids of ham (cotto, prosciutto, speak etc.) and such interesting cheeses for pizzas (pecorino, mozzarella, mascarpone, parmesano, etc.) One of Daniel's favorites quickly became speak with mascarpone. Cheddar. What is that? No one in Giulia's family had ever heard of that kind of cheese. Yet, if you said to a North American to name the first cheese that came to mind, they surely would say cheddar. We didn't even know how to describe it or its varieties. Hmm.
Italian coffee is like a great kiss. Not watered down, makes your heart skip a beat (or ten if you make the mistake of pouring yourself a cup full) and keeps you floating, or shaking, for hours (as long as your bladder isn't as efficient as mine). After dinner coffee is the final say. You wouldn't dare have anything else once this had been drunk.
Other tidbits: most bread we had in Italy was unsalted, oil and vinegar or butter with bread is largely unheard of, Christmas dinner will also see pasta, it is not uncommon to live at home until marriage at 30 or 35 or ....even still sharing a bedroom with your sibling. Dad and Mom, I'm coming home!
I sure hope that I got all of this accurately. Of course, there are always exceptions to the trends. I'm sure Giulia will quickly correct any of my flaws here.
A resounding grazie to Giulia, as well as her family and friends!