House Warming

Friday night we held the typical italian aperitivo at the new apartment. Luca invited some of his co-workers and some his roommates from his previous house also came on over.  We spent the majority of the afternoon cooking and cleaning, getting the apartment all prepared. 

We made a giant bowl of spritz aperol, that light, bubbly orange drink made will Aperol, white wine and a splash of tonic water, a "torta salate" with radicchio, ricotta, and scamorza cheese, two pizzas, and I made a deep dark chocolate cake. To top it off Luca ordered 60 mini pastries from the bakery below our apartment. 

We received many compliments and people didn't want to leave! 

Travel

After 18 hours of flying and layovers I safely arrived in Pisa, Italy and  thankfully all my bags arrived with me too. I walked out of the airport wearing a tank top, a long sleeved shirt, a sweater, a scarf, and my jacket and I was definitely taken aback by the weather. It was around 55 degrees in sunny. Absolutely gorgeous weather. 

 We drove to Castiglioncello where there was weather equally as beautiful but very windy. We stopped at a nice, small restaurant where they offered us two free glasses of champagne and fed us some fresh cold cuts and delicious shrimp and smooth-hound shark pasta. 

Packing... PACKED

I've been working on packing for quite some time now, but it's actually much harder than one would expect. I have had two big bags which can each be 50 pounds, but the bags never seem big enough and everything adds so quickly that before I know it I'm well over the weight limit. Who knew shoes would be so heavy?  Probably the most ridiculous thing is that its only clothes! But packing for all seasons is no easy task.... I still have a few days to figure some sort of system. 

NEVE!

It's been snowing an incredible amount in Italy lately. It's ironic because they hardly ever get snow and there they are getting 2 feet of snow in 4 days and in Minnesota we're having 40º F days and there is no snow. Here are some photos from Bologna- none of which I take credit it for. I wish I could have been there such a beautiful season-- now I'm just hoping that snow doesn't prevent any of my travels and allows for safe travel. 

Selling Cars

So with the prospect of not spending any significant amount of time in the near future in the U.S. I'm trying to sell my white 1998 Honda Civic LX. It hasn't been so easy. It would be a nice relief to have the car off my hands and make some extra money.  It's been posted now for 2 weeks and the majority.... 99% of the interest has come from scams. Gotta just keep on hoping!