Jelly Ham and Cheese does Dallas

Agriturismo, this is a farmhouse type restaurant where the owner grow their own livestock, garden and winery…They serve you the food from their own harvests!!!! Usually the whole family works there and that is how they make their $ for the year..This particular one had a winery…notice my pictures…I took advantage of the winery!!!! I went with a big group here from the Army Post, and we had a great time…I think I was awarded "the best wine taster" bc I tasted ALOT of wine…again notice my pics!

These were the ladies in my car:(The rowdy bunch)  Lisa, Sandy, Regina, Kristy, Heather, and me

Here is me eating my dinner (it was actually all good, except the chicken/pork liver… but even the noodles were handmade with the wheat/flour they grew..everything was so fresh! Even the plates were garnished with home grown produce. The bacon and sausage was my favorite!!! oh and the roasted potatoes and turnip greens were also very good! and we had sorbetto (a sherbert type drink in lemon flavor)!

You all know I have had a man crush on most of your fathers…well I found a "man crush" here as well! His name is Roy..he is actually part of the family that I had Thanksgiving with!

after dinner they had us try Grappa…Vicenza is known for its Grappa…Grappa is a fragrant grape-based pomace brandy of between 30% and 80% alcohol by volume (60 to 160 proof), of Italian origin. Literally "grape stalk", grappa is made by distilling pomace, grape residue (mainly the skins, but also stems and seeds) left over from winemaking after pressing.

Italians add this to their expresso and coffee’s all day long…It was said that it helped with digestion! but it was Yuck! eventhough it looks as though I am drinking the whole bottle, I only took a sip!

Here are just some silly pics of my with my favorite kind of wine..it was a frizzy wine!

and here is my and Heather…

It was a great night had by all!

So I took this ITR trip on a Saturday, just like I had with Florence and Milan…these trips worked out fabuolous for me bc they take care of everything and all I had to do was just be on the bus at the certain time..this time is was very early!!!

It only took us about 3 hours to cross over into the borders of Switzerland, and bc I was on a bus with about 50 other people they didnt make us get off and check our passports, so I was kinda sad that I didnt get mine stamped! boo-hoo!

On the way to Lugano, we did pass Lake Como (it was the lake that George Clooney found and loved during the making of Ocean’s 12, and he now has a villa in the mountains, but Lake Como was also in the movie)

While I was there, we went on a morning tour and saw some more chapels I will not bore you with that..bc actually I was getting bored myself…but I did find some neat pics of the city and of the moutains and the water…When we were leaving to go to a Chocolate factory, we saw a plane drop out paratroopers into the water and then small boats go and pick them up.  We also saw helicopters coming and using these buckets to get water from the lake and try to burn out a fire that was started, it was some sort of Military demonstration..

here are my pics: click on them to make them bigger

and here is my fav…this just goes to show you how much they try to be Americans!

hello fellow reading fans…I have not posted about my trip to Switzerland, but I will get that going as soon as I can…but I do want to tell you about my trip to Salzburg, Austria while it is on my mind….

That following Saturday I took another trip up to Milan…it was about a 3 hour and a half bus ride to Milan. Milan in Italy is known for its fashion industry. Giorgio Armani is from Milan and he started making and selling clothing at an early age, and he has had a shop in Milan since the 70’s. There is a whole section of the downtown that is dedicated to fashion and all the major stores are there: louis vuitton, prada, dolce and gabbana and many others that I couldnt even afford the paper they print the receipts on. I did find this luggage that any one of you can get me for Christmas:

 I’ve been good RIGHT????

we also went to see a nunnery and a church downtown and as we were going to go inside, our guide (who I dont think had washed her hair in weeks..yucky) told us we could go inside but a wedding was taking place…so guess what that makes us wedding crashers…. ha ha..we werent able to take pictures, but guess who is the rebel… haha

We also had the chance to see the Duomo of Milan…It was also beautiful. It is known as the World’s largest Church. here are some pics from the outside and the inside.

 here is part of the marble flooring that has been there since the 14th Century..and that is for my Phi Mu girls….KLTC….!!!! ha ha oh MMM……

if you notice in my picture of me outside the cathedral…I am holding an ice cream cone..well after 2.5 months in Italy, I finally found a McDonalds. So I was so excited, bc Lord knows I love a good double cheeseburger…well guess what they dont have double cheeseburgers…but they did have a McMac…AKA big mac…and instead of a value meal, it was called a "McMeal". Not only do they have regular fries, they also have potato wedges, but I went with what I know…and I asked for "sweet and sour", they looked at me like I was a crazy person…and I had to pay for ketchup…and it cost me about 7 EURO…which means it was $10.50 in USD… but next to us, there was this lady eating a salad…normal I guess except instead of shredded cheese they have huge slices of mozzarella cheese and some fruit…and then this lady added her french fries and then added dressing, which I think was tarter sauce if I wasnt mistaken..I was totally grossed out…so to make me get over that, I had an ice cream cone, and it was good! but $3….

Since I have been in Italy, I have been trying many different Italian foods and things dealing with their culture…Here is a canolli that I bought…but it was too rich to each…

and here is also a first…well a first since I was in 5th grade…this lady to the left actually had her jeans tight rolled and then rubber bands were placed over the tight rolls, I am guessing to make sure they didnt move…I had to take the picture I thought you would appreciate it…

all in all Milan was a very pretty city, but it was very cold..also for your art buffs, The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, is located in an old church here in Milan but they only allow so many people to view each day, and we didnt make reservations early enough, so we didnt get to see it..but maybe next time right?

thanks, Gilly

I have been taking ITR trips here on post…For most of you that means, that the anagram stands for "Information, Tours, Registration". it is a program here on post to help you see Europe and other near by places…The trips are usually set up for one day, and you pretty much pay around $30- 45 per daily trip depending, and you get up early to meet to ride a chartered bus and that usually included an ITR guide and a guided tour in the city…This is how I have been traveling to near-by towns for a pretty cheap fare.

We had to leave post at 7 am to get on the bus to leave for Florence. Our ITR guide spoke broken English and it was funny to hear her say "this trip will be special", "you will have special rememberences of this trip", "it will be special", "I will find this to be special for you"…SPECIAL was her favorite English word and she used it whenever SHE thought she could sneak it in to a sentence..pretty funny I thought…

ok so to to good stuff. We got there after about 3 hours on a bus, not too bad I dont guess. We had some time to eat a quick lunch and then we were meeting up with our tour guide. We met up and she showed us the major touristy (spelling..is that a word?) sites and of course we all took pictures, but then she started to get very boring…but this trip was so "special"…ha ha I had to add that in…

Here are some pics of the Duomo (the Cathederal of Florence)

This is a very large cathederal with beautiful fresco paintings inside the "dome".

Around where we were walking there were these live moving statues..They freaked me out…People would get close to them and then give them $ and then they would start moving…I dont know why I didnt like them, but I didnt think they were "special".. ha ha did it again…it is contagious!

Here is also where I found a coffee shop/ cafe with my name..well kinda..notice above my head

as we were driving into Florence, our ITR tour guide asked us if we wanted a "special deal" I promise you that is what she said…but she was meaning, did we want to see something that wasnt on the original list of to-do sites..so we said, "Si, Si, Si", so she took us there, here is the beautiful few from our "special deal"

in downtown, there was a faux David, that is to look like Michelangelo’s David, but it was in a museum that we were not able to get inside because it was closed on the Monday that we went.

We had a great trip, and I did get to see so much! I may add more pics later…have a great day..Gilly

Ok, so I am behind on telling stories, so I knew I had to share this one with you…

ok, so Lauren has been telling me about this great restaurant that she wanted to take me too. It was in a near by town and they have this great pasta, shells stuffed with pear, and this yummy sauce, with ham. It may sound a bit odd and for some of you reading this who doesnt like to mix fruit and meat (hum hum Brooker) well she had been talking about great it was. Everything she got to talk to Dan, he asked her "have you taken Gilly to that restaurant with the kangaroo yet?" and she has had to say no. So finally we decided to go. It is called AEolia’s…

We went with a few friends and Danny. When we first got there we had to wait a bit because in Italy restaurants dont open till 7pm and the wait staff was eating, so the hostess (who spoke no English) pointed me in the direction to the cellar. In this cellar, was a wine cellar, the old fashioned kind. It was a kind of tunnel that was dug underground that let’s the cold air come in and somehow that is good for the wines. Then there are huge open holes with grates on top to let the hold air come up onto the streets and somehow this is good, I was told by someone who had gotten the story from a guy who used to work there, sadly I didnt get the full story, but Kelly was really trying to answer my questions. So that was a neat thing to see..

ok so as I am reading the menu, I saw "reindeer, ostrich, beef, kangaroo", so I got the 4 course meal, that way I could get the salad, the pasta I was talking about earlier, and I wanted to try something different so I thought I would go with the kangaroo,Lauren said the same, and then it came with a yummy ice cream dessert with a creme brulee top..so yummy!

Ok so I was eating, and then came my kangaroo. It looked like a steak, cut into small pieces. I think this is a kind of meat that is in small strips, so the cuts looked circular. It was cooked to probably medium rare/ medium the way I would normally order a beef steak. It did taste gamey (I have heard people say this before but I have never tasted it) but it had a strong taste, and was very lean, and very tender, but a strong smell as well. Because I knew how much I was paying for this dinner 26 Euro, so that means about $45, I figured I needed to eat most of it to make myself feel better. So I ate it. Lauren didnt eat much of it, you will find out later why she was the smart one!

so after we had our dessert, we went to pay for our meal. Only in stupid Italy would the credit card machine not be working, and the guy didnt know how to fix it, he barely spoke any English. So luckily our friend Leighann had 60 Euro, Kelly had about 10 Euro and Lauren had $30 in USD, I sadly had nothing, I was just going to put it on my card…Our bill came out to something like 94 Euro, which is about $150. I thought we were going to be running for this meal because we didnt have enough money to cover it, but we did….Thanks the good Lord!

So we get home and Lauren was saying she didnt feel very well. We went on to bed, and then around 3:30 AM he world shifted…She came and woke me up, because she said she had went down stairs to get Danny his bottle and she started to feel sick…We only have one bathroom and it is upstairs and she said she couldnt even make it upstairs so she had to get sick into the sink, and for me NOT to go downstairs…So I gave him his bottle and then she cleaned up her mess and then she put him back to bed. She then went back to bed and woke me up around 7:30 AM because she asked if I could feel Danny because just looking at food made her sick. So needless to say Lauren was on the couch all day sick. Danny and I had some major bonding time! I just felt a bit sick, but I never got sick.

Since I love to google, I googled "eating kangaroo meat", so I learned some crazy things about kangaroo’s. I learned that kangaroo’s arent kept in farms like we keep our cattle. No they are just hunted down in Australia and shot to death, the baby’s are removed from the mom’s pouches and they will soon die from starvation, or from being too cold. (so of course this makes feel so bad for that poor kangaroo that we ate). Then the kangaroo are loaded up on a truck and taken to be made into steaks and stuff. I kept reading and learned that kangaroo meat, when cooked all the way is too tough to eat, so it must be served at medium rare to medium, but if it isnt cooked at the exact temperature that it can put harmfull toxins in our bodies to make us sick…hince Lauren..

Our friend Kelly that went with us, she was smart and ordered spaghetti, but after she told him about our kangaroo story, he said "So is that kangaroo still making Lauren and Gilly hop?"  ha ha, get it…hop! ha ha

So note to self, NEVER EAT THE KANGAROO.

I am heading to Florence tomorrow, so hopefully I will have more pictures and more stories to tell..keep reading! Thanks!

I have been meaning to tell you about a chocolate festival I went to a few weekends ago.

 Me and Lauren and of course Danny and some ladies in our neighborhood went downtown Vicenza to a festival of chocolate. We got there and there were booths set up just like at Praiter’s Mill (for my Dalton peeps) and Gold Rush (for my Nuggets). It was booths after booths set up with tents and chocolate. Since most of them only spoke Italian, we just had to point and pay! Actually buying by the pound was pretty expensive. Lauren bought some individual wrapped pieces that contained liquir in them, she was going to sent those to Dan, and we had some with some great different kinds of filling, and they were yummy! But we decided to try the hot chocolate, so many people have told us how great it was, so we bought two cups full. They poured it into syrofoam cups and that stuff is thick, I mean THICK! just imagine making brownies and heating up the batter and pouring it into syrofoam cups, bc that is the consitency that I am talking about. Or the consistency of chocolate pudding that you cook on the stove..that is it. well try to drink that, and it was hot too. It was like you could feel it going all the was down your throat and sticking to your stomach and sitting there all day. I was tasting that hot chocolate for hours afterwards. I decided I was just going to stick to milk chocolate instead, and even after the festival, I started to feel sick. Until we decided to get a crepe made with nutella. If you know me, you know I love nutella! Here are a few pictures of us!

notice the nutella on Danny’s check!

here is a car made of chocolate!

Here is a chocolate booth!

ok so Halloween started out as a beautiful day here in Italy. We had a great day and we waited to buy our candy till that day, so we actually got it 50% off at the commisary (grocery store) so that was a plus. We had heard that the US military could trick or treat starting around 5 pm and then the Italians could come on to post around 7:30 pm and they were only going to be allowing up to 1500 of them to come onto post "for safety reasons" wow that is alot of trick or treaters…

so Danny was the cutest scary spider I have ever seen. He actually wore his hat most of the night, until he began to roast inside his costume, so we had to take it out. We decided to have some wives come over to our house ( I mean Laurens) and we would eat dnner and then all give enough candy to last a good bit. We were bombarded by small soldiers, Jack Sparrows, Pirates, dead cheerleaders, ladybugs, ninjas, ballarina’s, fairy’s, an eggo waffle (my fav.), scarecrows, monkey’s, vampires, spiders, princesses’, caterpillars, butterflies, and that is to just name a few…there were kids coming out of the woodworks. So many children! and they would come in packs, but they did use GREAT manners!

So then it got to be time for the Italians to come on post…well we were about out of candy anyways, but I just wanted to see how it was going to go. So most of the Italians cant speak very good English, hince this "Tricka or Treata", yes that is right. They didnt even say it right, and those that couldnt speak any English, would just open their grocery bag in front of me and wait for me to give them candy, because I am nice I did. They didnt even understand the concept. I think they were just happy to get American candy, and we take snickers and dots for granted.

I handed out candy to children who werent even dressed up. They didnt get the concept of dressing up for halloween, because they do not celebrate halloween here in Italy. I am sure it is the talk of the town to tell as many friends as you can in Italy to have everyone you know to come to this neighborhood, and you say this silly saying "tricka or treata" and they give you American candy for free.

When they were dressed up, they were either ghosts or were wearing scary masks. Some just opened up a grocery bag and stood there in front of me waiting on me to give them American candy. Some kept coming back and forth to our house. We had to finally tell them to go to other houses, but I am sure they had no clue what we were talking about. Sadly, the last pieces of my candy were given to a 45 year old couple dressed in long jackets and they were wearing masks. I dont even think they said anything, but they just looked at me and held open their plastic shopping bag. How sad is that.

Here are some pictures of that scary spider I was talking about:

Today, Lauren and Danny and our new friend Kelly set on an adventure to Venice! I was the only one out of the crowd that had never been! I wanted to make this Gold Rush day a special one and I think Lauren wanted to do the same for me as well. So we left our house around 10 am and we got there around 11:30 am, a little bit of traffic and waiting in lines to get into the parking deck, but "step by step oh baby" and NKOTB got us thru it! ha ha (Thats New Kids on the Block in case you dont remember)! Anyways we were off. We went to a small bar, but it is really a small restaurant to use the restroom instead of paying to use the restroom, and Lauren got us all a pastry filled with Nutella, so it was yummy! Oh and I am going to warn you that I am writing a blog not a paper for my history class so I am kinda taking some quotes and information I have found from online sites, and I WILL NOT BE WORK CITING IT…Turn me in…I dont care! ha ha

We had to buy tickets to ride the water taxis’ there, so that way you didnt have to walk all the bumpy roads and go up and downs stairs, see we have a stroller with the baby so we wanted to make it as easy as possible.

In all of these pictures you can click on each one to make it bigger!

Here is a pic of the water taxis and some pics of what I saw leading us to our stop at the main square:

Once we got off the water taxi we then started walking around the Doges Palace, it is the symbol of the Venetian Republic, and I have heard a very boring tour, so we didnt take that! but here is a picture:

We also went into San Marco Square. The main square of the city, it’s home to the beautiful Byzantine basilica of San Marco, the patron saint of Venice. The Basilica is in the background of most of our bird pictures!  The San Marco district of Venice, is the centre of the ancient city of Venice. It’s also the commercial centre of the city, with several streets lined with elegant shops and boutiques. During the day it can get crowded, and on this Saturday it was pretty crowded, I think that is because so many people knew it was Italian Gold Rush Day! Here is where you can feed the birds for one Euro and they just keep flying towards you for food. I dont know how it all started, but I was really freaked out, but we tried it. I have a friend who is VERY afraid of birds so she would have FREAKED out and I thought I would have wet my pants, but it wasnt that bad, and notice I am sporting my t-shirt that I was talking about earlier…and also take a look at Laurens’ face in some of the pics..Funny story before we were getting ready to buy the food to feed the birds, lauren said "as long as you dont scream you will fine and it will not scare the birds", then literally about a few seconds later one was landing on Lauren or it came towards here and she screamed like a little girl..it was so funny! Here are those pics:

Then we walked towards all the markets and shops that sell mostly glass items from a near by island Murano and they are known for their beautiful glass products, like vases, jewelry, wine stoppers and more and more…There also food vendors selling everyday produce and also selling fresh flowers. A cashmere/silk blend called pashmina is also common here, so they sell gorgious scarves and hats!

Lastly we walked to the Rialto Bridge. The current structure was built in just three years, between 1588 and 1591. It remained the only way to cross the Grand Canal on foot until the Accademia Bridge was built in 1854.

Also in the canal there are so many people with their gondala’s wanting you to ride, but it is so expensive, so we didnt ride it, but I did take a picture for ya.

We had a great day and we ended it with a few scoops of Gilato (an awesome icecrem dessert, that is so creamy and light and fluffy! Have a great day, and thanks for reading and for the comments, ENJOY!