an amaaaaaazing vicenza visit!

Vicenza is between Trento and Venice - well illustrated in this map of Northern Italy (there are so many places to GO!)

It's been an entire week since I've blogged - gasp! Hendrik and I made the not-so-long trip down to Vicenza to visit Steve's cousin (or second cousin or first cousin once removed or some such thing) for a few days, and we had an awesome time. Everything about our four day trip was fabulous: the company, the food, the weather, the drive, the scenery.... it was alllll good! Let's see if I can do a quick re-cap of our time there... We packed up here on Monday morning and left just in time for a morning car-snooze, and Hendrik (sleeping) missed all of the cute little mountain towns we drove through. Thanks to the GPS we borrowed from the Stokrs, we found our way to Gretchen and John's place in Bolzano Vicentino senza problemi, and with the exception of a trip to the local park, spent the afternoon relaxing at the apartment. On Tuesday we went to post, which, in military lingo, is the American military base where John is stationed. I've never been on post before, and I have to say that I was quite curious. There were gates and passport control for me, and with my day pass (and Gretchen at my side) I was free (right?) to roam around. Activities on post included a trip to the second-hand store (where I bought bowls and toys, $9), shopping (diapers, groceries), a trip to the doc for the pregnant woman, a trip to the gym for me (I helped at the high school vb practice) and hm... was that it? The shopping was great - I stocked up on a few things that you can't find in the Italian grocery stores, because the grocery store there was just as any grocery store would be in the US of A - full of American products, and that includes the cereal, the milk, the juice, the cake mixes, the snacks, the chips, the frozen stuff, the Halloween candy, the salad dressing. Yes, these things are all very mundane and normal, but it was a bit of a novelty for me to see, say, Duncan Hines cake mix and cartons of milk and four-litre jugs of Tropicana on the shelves at the supermarket, since none of these things are the norm in a European grocer. What did I buy? Cereal, oatmeal (expensive in the Italian grocery-mart), chocolate chips, quinoa, vanilla, ketchup, salsa, graham cracker crumbs (nanaimo bars!!!), maple syrup, peanut butter, bacon... hm, was that it? Some of these things are easily found elsewhere, but are much more expensive (cereal, maple syrup, oatmeal), and other things are not so easy to find, like vanilla (they sell it in powdered form which is just weird to me) and graham cracker crumbs. So yeah! That part of the trip was great. The trip to the gym was not quite as successful, and let me tell you why. Gretchen had been in touch with the head coach, and he'd asked me to run practice - sure! Of course. I showed up with a rough practice plan but so did the assistant coach, and with the head coach sick at home, I didn't argue with her typed-out plan; clearly, she'd missed the memo that I was going to run practice which of course wasn't that big of a deal BUT... ouf. When I asked her what the plan was for the day, she pretty much said that they needed to work on everything AS she yelled at them to do um oh uh 20 sprints of the basketball court. After came physical conditioning which was not a total waste of time, but seeing as how the younger girls have never had any on-court volleyball practice time because the senior team has priority, it was not the best use of the gym time, especially for them. Anyways, I could ramble on about this but really, it's hard to see a practice run poorly - more talking (from the coach) than playing, poorly thought-out drills, low intensity... I hope that I can go back and help them out for a few days some time soon. I do miss being in the gym, and hope too, that I can get involved somewhere around here.

with Gretchen at Monte Berico - lovely!

the main piazza, a perfect spot for some gelato... right? YUM!

spritz, yes please!

On Wednesday we went for a drive, and Gretchen took us into Vicenza to show us her favourite spots. The view from Monte Berico was gorgeous, and the gelato we enjoyed in Piazza dei Signori divine. After a successful trip to Zara (for the both of us, yay!) we sat and sipped spritzers, and people-watched a few hours away - amazing, right? On our way back to the car I found a cheese grater (a kitchen essential, likely the 8th cheese grater we've bought in the last 10 years) and a little gift for Hendrik - a rainbow flower wind spinner (at this fabulous store) that I know he'll love... well, he did love it for the 10 minutes that it was dangled up above him in the stroller. So yes, Wednesday was amazing! We went out for dinner and Hendrik packed away a banana and a whole bunch of pasta before stuffing his mouth full of bread as we were about to leave the table - as if I wasn't going to feed him again for weeks and weeks and weeks - !! The little piglet. Hmph, I wonder where he gets that from.

And Thursday was simple - we went for a morning stroll to the playground, and doubled it up with a sidebar trip to the market where I bought a green orange, that well, tastes like a mandarin orange. Hendrik loved his time on the swings with me, and the slide was another favourite. And there you have it, a - what did I say? - quick recap of our time there... right, quick. So now, with the 10:00 bed time goal looming, I still need to clean up the kitchen and shower BUT I'll leave you with this piece of hot news just in: Steve's team just won the Club World Championships! WOOOOT! And he comes home tomorrow - yay! YAY! So exciting!

Hendrik in his makeshift feeding chair - it worked!

one of many delicious meals :)