Florence & Home Sweet Reggio

Two Sundays ago we took a day trip to Florence. It is a simple hour and a half train ride from Reggio. Due to another late night, we spent a majority of the train ride sleeping. Thankfully, we had a row to ourselves and, unlike our train ride to Venice, did not have a foul-smelling neighbor. The train ride began with a bit of humor...Because we were cutting it close to departure time, we jumped on the train prior to our assigned train car (car 2). It was easier to leisurely walk through connecting cars than to run up to car 2 before the train departed. To open the automated doors between connecting trains, you push a green button. With Taber leading the way, it became his job to push the green buttons. Which he successfully did for the first 4 connecting cars. At the fifth car, the green buttons became too enticing for me to resist. Taber pushed the green button and the door opened, for some reason I HAD to push the green button right next to the green button Taber had already pushed (even though I saw the door was already opening). I pushed my green button and, to our surprise, a door to the left of the connecting door opened. Curious to where that door lead, we all peered in. Standing in the corner was a little old man...going to the bathroom. That little green button I could not resist was the button to open the bathroom. Not knowing what to do we all stared, probably for a lot longer than was appropriate. I am still not sure if it was as hilarious as we thought it was, or our lack of sleep that caused the giggles. Either way, we had a good laugh and I lost my chances at ever being the green button pusher.
While in Florence, we admired most of the museums and beautiful churches from the outside. Because it was Sunday, a majority of them were closed, had limited hours, or cost too many euros. Instead of paying to go into every museum, we choose our top three.We came up with a fancy trick that enabled us to peer inside the museums that did not make our top three list. ... pretending to be a dumb tourist. Rather than following signs to purchase tickets we walked straight to the museum entrance. Once inside,and while an employee was asking us for our tickets, we glanced around at what the museum had to offer. After a quick glance of the museums interior, we admitted to the employee we were unaware you had to buy a ticket. Little did the employee know that while she was giving us directions to the ticket booth, we were still gazing at the astonishing artistic creations not listening to anything she had to say.
We went into Bargello and Santa Croce Church. Bargello, an unappreciated sculpture museum, is located in a former prison. Judging by the beautifully constructed building, we assume prisoners did not object to being locked up here. Santa Croce Church was, like all churches we have seen, gorgeous. Between the Bargello and Santa Croce we wondered through Ponte Vecchio, Palazzo Vecchio, The straw market, and many more historical sights. Our last stop before heading home was at Accademia, where the statue of David lives. Having no reservations we had prepared ourselves to stand in line for at least 45 minutes. To our pleasant surprise, it only took 15 minutes of waiting in line before the statue of David was looming over us. David is a very very large man. His size and structure captivating . No photos were allowed of David, but of course Taber managed to take two. Taking two pictures was minimal compared to the amount other tourist were taking. The poor museum attendant sounded like a broken record " NO PHOTOS"..."NO VIDEO"..."NO,NO,NO". Besides the David, the Accademia had many beautiful statues, all with a different story.
The walk back to the train station lead us through Mercato Nuovo. A piazza crowed with street vendors. The vendors were very aggressive and eager to sell. We stopped to look at hats and after trying a few on decided we were not interested. Once the vendor became aware we were no longer potential buys he said "If you are not buying you cannot play with them". His customer service skills were a little on the weak side. He would not last long as a Nordstroms employee:)
After a busy day of sightseeing we were excited to return to Reggio. Both Florence and Venice have made us appreciate the city we call home. There are no tourist in Reggio which allows us to completely emerge ourselves in the Italian culture. It is large enough to have the feeling of a city yet small enough to feel part of the community. Because waiters, waitresses, baritas, and clothing store employees do not deal with tourist all day the quality of service is notably higher. People are friendlier and have more patience. Not only are the employees more pleasant, but also the food. The region of Reggio is known to have the best cuisine in all of Italy. It maintains this prestigious honor by taking time preparing the dishes. Not having a line of hungry tourist out the door permits the time needed.In big touristy cities the demand appears too high to guarantee an amazing meal. Not to say there are no good meals in big cities, but from our experience they are harder to come by. In Reggio every cafe, pizza place, bistro, or four star restaurant will serve you a meal worthy of a plate licking. Little did we know that when Taber signed the dotted line on his Reggio baseball contract that we had won the lottery. If Reggio had a beach closer than 45 minutes away, it would be like winning the lottery twice (we are happy with winning it once).
Valene and Gary arrived last week. It has been great having them here... we will post a new entry soon regarding our adventures since their arrival. They involve lots of Gelato, exploring Reggio, Parma, driving down the Italian hooker row, Notte Bianca, and doctor visits...plus many more.
Ciao Ciao

Quinto di Maggio

One of the few things we miss about the US is Mexican food. We have yet to find a Mexican restaurant in Italy. Three of the Americans on the team are from San Diego, so they have also been going through Mexican food withdrawal. To satisfy our cravings we decided to throw a Mexican fiesta potluck in honor of Cinco de Mayo. Taber and I decided we would make tacos...little did we know that trying to find the ingredients for tacos would take us to every grocery store in Reggio. We woke up early, with grocery list in hand, and headed to the grocery store down the street from us. At first, we had no problem finding everything on our list, lettuce, tomatoes, limes, onion... Besides only finding unripened, rock hard avocados, we had no problem in the produce section. Then came the cheese, sour cream, tortillas, and spices...not such a breeze. Italy has amazing, delicious, fresh cheese, and SO many options . What Italy does not have to pre-shredded "Mexican" cheese. There was not a pre-shredded cheese among the hundreds of top quality Italian cheeses. Eventually, we found a "Provolone Picante" (spicy provolone) that I would later shred. Shredding cheese is not a tough chore, unless you are shredding cheese for 10 (including 7 hungry baseball players). Next on the list came sour cream...again no sour cream in sight. The spices gave us the same issue, we settled on chili powder, salt, and pepper. While looking for canned chilies, we found sour cream! It was called "Mexican Soured Cream" and cost 5 euro for a small (no, tiny) jar. The tortillas ended up being quite an easy task. The tortillas here are not authentic tortillas, but the different taste is hardly recognizable. They are a little thicker and break easier than tortillas we are use to, but still tasty. We picked out some chicken, making sure it was actually chicken and not horse, and headed home. Yes, they sell horse meat here. Dusty, our roommate, had to go pick ingredients for his 7 layer dip, so I tagged along in hopes of finding sour cream that did not come in a jar. After three grocery stores, it was clear I was not going to complete my mission. I settled on plain yogurt and spiffed it up with hot sauce. Dusty was unable to find avocados softer than a baseball, so he boiled them in hot water to make it possible to cut them. He also had to buy a taco making kit to get taco seasoning and taco sauce. Abe, a pitcher on the team, also boiled his avocados and put them in a blender to mash them up for the guacamole. His guacamole was from an old family recipe...even with unripened avocados it was delicious.
Despite the lack of Mexican ingredients Italy has, every dish turned out fantastic. We did not start the party until close to midnight (the team did not get out of practice until 10:30) but it was worth the wait. Our Mexican food cravings have been fulfilled.
Thanks to Reggio's limited Mexican food resource, we now know how to get to and our way around every grocery store in town. Judging by the empty bowl, yogurt with hot sauce is a good topping for tacos.
We have been out riding our bikes and enjoying the nice weather, not too many new adventures to write about...which is why we are able to write a long post about our Cinco De Mayo experience. Next weekend Reggio is playing in Parma. It is only 15 minutes away and suppose to be a great city. We are looking forward to it.

A beautiful decaying city and a sighting worthy of People Magazine.

A couple Sundays ago we, along with two other couples (Jake, Chelsea, Dusty, and Bianca) woke up early and jumped a 3 hour train ride to Venice. We tried to stay awake to enjoy the passing scenery but the combination of going to bed at 230am and waking up at 6am made it impossible. Fortunately for me, a foul-smelling woman decided to sit across from us, so I woke up and was able to enjoy the backdrop (while holding me breath to avoid inhaling the stench from our neighbor:)). The landscape was similar to what we imagine Tuscany will look like. Taber was able to stay asleep for a majority of the train ride, after playing 18 innings on Saturday night he was, understandably, wiped out. We can't put into words the feeling and astonishment we felt stepping out of the train station and laying our eyes on Venice for the first time. Although we have seen many photos of Venice, the real thing is more dreamlike than you could ever imagine.
We took a vaporetti(Venice's public transit system)to St Marks square. The vaporetti works just like city buses, the only difference being it floats and there are no traffic jams. Once we arrived at St. Marks square, we hit a traffic jam. Not a traffic jam but a traffic jam of tourist. There were so many people, most of them (us included) distracted by the grand buildings bordering St. Marks square and not paying attention to where they were walking. The most distracting structure, and most beautiful, was St. Marks church. It was built with gold, marble, and mosaic brought in by sea captains. It was the entrance fee to the city. Taber and I are thinking we should adopt this policy...every time you come to our home you must bring gold, marble,granite, or another fancy building material as an entrance fee. We will also accept shoes, jeans and golf clubs as payment. If our house is going to be a mini St. Marks church we must dress the part:). After making our way through the crowd of tourist, and the pigions, we started our search for a hotel. We did not search long. RIght around the corner from St. Marks square we found "Hotel Panada" which we renamed to "Panda Express". They offered us a good deal, we accepted, dropped our bags off in the room, and set out to explore Venice. We walked around for 4 hours taking in the magnificent beauty. We had a slight break halfway through...I had forgotten my wallet at the restaurant we had lunch, so Taber and I had to run (sprint) back to get it. I tried to tell Taber I did it on purpose, that I thought we should run to work off the pasta we had for lunch. He did not buy it. Luck was on my side, my wallet was still at the restaurant with my Euros tucked safely inside. By the time we got back to the Rialto Bridge, where we were meeting back up with our friends, the rain had started to pour down. We bought a couple of over priced umbrellas from a vender and were back on our way. We explored Venice the best way possible...by getting lost. We walked through the narrow streets with no end point in mind. While walking down one of the many narrow ally ways,we heard a man singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". 30 seconds later, while still singing, the man was walking towards us. It did not take long before we realized the crazy man signing was not just another tourist...it was Woody Harrelson! Taber almost brushed shoulders with his personal umbrella holder... yes he really did have a P.U.H..After he vanished around the corner, and we were in the middle of exchanging "oh my gosh that was Woody Harrelson" "Noway we just saw Woody Harrelson"... a blond beauty and a very handsome man passed us. It was Charlize Theron and Stuart Townsend (they were holding their own umbrella). Judging by the amount of money I waste on Gossip magazines, Taber was impressed by how composed I remained in the presence of two celebrities. I am not going to lie, I wanted to chase Charlize. If I had gotten a picture we could have made some big bucks by selling it to US Weekly. We later found out Selma Hyak had gotten married the day before our arrival.
The rain and wind started to slow us down so we stopped for some warm drinks by the grand canal. We were very surprised when we got the bill. Six euro for one tea and 6.50 euro for a cappuccino... there must have been some gold from St. Marks in the tea water for it to be that expensive. Restaurants and cafes by the canal are tourist traps. They charge more then double,charge service fee and sometimes a cover charge. We fell into the trap, but enjoyed sitting by the canal with our expensive drinks.
For dinner, we checked out numerous menus determined not to get stuck paying half a months salary for one meal. After searching for a moderate priced restaurant and one that would sit all 6 of us, yes one woman turned us away. we found a decent place. It was not amazing and our waiter was grumpy, but it felt good to sit down. After dinner we headed back to St. Marks Square. At night it becomes the biggest dance floor in Venice. The square is bordered with several cafes all with dueling orchestras playing in the front. The thousands of tourist we had gotten stuck in the traffic jam with had all disappeared into their hotel rooms for the night (we think the ran had something to do with it.) We did not let the rain stop us! It was just Taber, me, Chelsea, and Jake in the middle of the grand vacant St. Marks square dancing to "Under the Sea".
Shortly after dancing we headed back to "Panda Express" and called it a night. Despite being woken up every hour, we both slept very well. We were woken up by the enormous bronze men (moors) swinging colossal clappers at the top of each hour. The clock tower was right around the corner from our hotel. The Bronze men are cool to watch during the day, not cool to listen to while sleeping.

We started Monday off with breakfast and dirty water (American style coffee, it tasted delicious), then headed to St. Marks Church. Once inside the church our jaws immediately dropped. Every square inch of the church is regal, the walls and paintings are encrusted with real gold, floors made out of varies colored marble and gold mosaic, and 4750 square yards of byzantine mosaics. On the ceiling the story of Adam and Eve is etched on one dome and Noahs arc on another. Apparently the best pilings were used on the perimeter of buildings, which explains the dip and uneven floor.
Before heading back to the train, we bought a bag of chips to feed the pigeons. After opening the bag of chips it took no longer than 10 seconds before we each had 20 pigeons perched on us eating out of our hands. Taber's head even became a landing place. It happened so quickly we had no time to think about how many diseases they carry:). It was a very lively experience. Taber and I may start a pigeon business in Reggio. Here is a short version of our business plan... camp out in the town square with day old bread, sell it to tourist, and take a picture of them feeding the pigeons (with their camera). Anyone want to invest?
We headed back to the train station (after washing our hands), boarded the train, and slept for the entire ride home.
We loved Venice and plan to return when it is sunny, go for a gondola ride, and enjoy the vibrant colors of the buildings in the sun.