The First Four Weeks in Italy

So here goes the new Costello adventure in Italy. Technically, this journey started four weeks ago when we left Atlanta and landed a day later in Venice. Our sponsor immediately took us to the Ederle Inn in Vicenza where we have been camped out for the last month. Hopefully, this blog will be able to capture our adventures in Europe; wherever we may roam! [Especially on a laptop with a space barthatworksintermittently.] On our third night here in Italy, the family decided to venture out to a real Italian restaurant (known locally as "restaurants"! [Drop the Italian] You don't have to laugh, this is Tony's joke...) We visited Regina's Restaurant and got an authentic Italian meal. Dom, who loves noodles, was very disappointed with his noodles with real Italian spaghetti sauce. The face was pretty priceless, which, of course, required a picture! Sarah and I learned our lesson and have ordered the very un-Italian kids menu dish of hamburgers!

We did manage to make it to Castelfranco the next weekend where we found a walled city with a moat around it. The kids were pretty impressed with this...except for Kate's brief encounter with a very energetic goose, we had a safe visit to the town. The menu was in Italian with a few English words we recognized but we managed to find something delicious for everyone Sarah and Tony. Dom and Kate once again were traumatized by the plain noodles as they were covered in olive oil and not butter...

The following weekend we decided to venture to the "big PX" at Aviano Air Base in the Mustang. First off, the Mustang is not a family car. Sure it seats four but you are really cozy especially with the large child safety seats in the back. Second, it's not the quietest - Flowmaster does a good job of making sure of that. Somehow Kate manages to fall asleep every time though. Overall it was a good trip when we returned with a 220V CrockPot. Thank goodness! Sarah has made some fantastic meals with it so far here in the hotel...because the food court and Burger King start to get old after a while.

This past weekend we ventured to Padova to the local Ikea. Like Sarah has already said, no matter where you are, Ikea on the weekend is always bad! We priced out a few things for the house. Unlike our last trip to Germany from 2003-2006 Sarah and I were able to go incognito because we could speak a little German and we could dress European. This time though, we know very little Italian (in spite of my name) and the kids are always chattering in very clear English. So it's painfully obvious that we're American. Luckily, we didn't run into any trouble. Dom even had a chance to play at the Smaland which is universal to Ikea - I think he's picking up acouple Italian words. Somehow TV and play are universal as well.

That's it so far. We have one more week in the hotel. Hopefully, by this time next week we'll be the proud owners of a 2008 Kia Magentis 2.0 diesel (my first one) and, finally, moved in our new house.