Night on the Town

Yesterday was a beautiful day at the beach.  Gregorio, Michela, and I headed to the beach and were able to see the beautiful Adriatic Sea.  I got a little sun burned from sitting out on the beach.  I couldn't tell that I was burning in the sun because the windy breeze kept me cool while I was laying out.  After the beach we headed to Alfredo's mother's home for lunch again.  She always cooks big meals, and her children and grandchildren stop by for meals whenever they can.  Alfredo's family was so warm and welcoming and tried to feed me everything and then some.  The atmosphere of the home and lunch reminds me so much of Wayside.  My grandparents were very much like this family.  They always had an open-door policy, people stopped by whenever and all were welcome.  Food was constantly offered, so you would never leave hungry.

In the afternoon Gregorio and I had our English/Italian lesson.  Afterwards, I got ready for a night out on the town with the girls--Chelsey (went to Rome with her) and Liz (she went to Florence with Chelsey).  We ended up going to the beach for about 2 hours to enjoy the sunset, and then we walked down the beach road to find a restaurant.  A lot of restaurants do not open until 8 or even 8:30.  The Italian culture is they have very late meals which is caused by their work schedules.  I was told that a lot of people go home on their lunch break, which takes a lot of time, so when they return to the office in the afternoon they have to makeup the time.  Making up the time means staying to work until at least 6 or 7 at night meaning that they don't get home to close to 8.  Hence--late meals.  So usually when dinner is served, I am famished!

After walking a ways and passing several restaurants, I felt a good vibe about the next place.  My good vibe was right on!  We ate at Aloha.  We ordered 1 liter of white wine, and we had bruschetta and proscuitto e melon for appetizers.  For the main meal I had a calzone, which was so scrumptious!  The conversation for dinner consisted of us talking about our host families, jobs (we are all teachers, so we had a lot in common), and the trips we had taken throughout our stay in Italy.  We were all a little sad knowing that our trips are coming to an end.  Liz leaves next Monday, and Chelsey leaves next Friday.  That leaves me in Italia for another 10 days to travel with my family.

Although us 3 girls just met, we are already making plans to meeting up in the States.  The first get together will be Liz and I.  She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, and she is planning to come to Baltimore at the end of August for the Yankee v. Oriole game.  Her trip was already in the works, so we are just going to make a little get together out of it.  The second get together would be to see Chelsey in Colorado.  We would go and do some skiing or snowboarding.  We will probably do something like that in the beginning of the new year.  Even though us girls just met in our traveling affair abroad, we are keeping it going in the states :)

The girls and I continued after dinner to get some of the infamous Italian gelato.  The gelato in Italy cannot be compared to anything else in the world.  With our ice cream we strolled along the beach where we came to another restaurant.  We ordered some more wine and kept the conversation going.  We had a good time, and I can't wait for our future travel endeavors together!