We did it!!! We broke away from pasta tonight and found a little Chinese restaurant around the corner which we walked to for sweet & sour chicken! I had told Randy this morning that I just could not look another pizza or pasta noodle in the face!
Wasn’t it just yesterday that we sat in the apartment in Orlando saying “what? us get tired of pizza and spaghetti? Never! We could eat it everyday for a year, we love it so much!” We lasted 6 weeks before gaging at the site of fettuccini or parmesan cheese pizza! We would give half our retirement right now for chips and salsa from our favorite Tex-Mex restaurant in Dallas!
You might be thinking, well well, the honeymoon is over! And in some aspects you are right! The glamour and excitement wears a little thin as we step into yet another pizza joint (they arent pizzerias at the piazzas to us anymore but pizza joints…you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all!)
And because we actually dont know one more word of Italian than we did when we stepped off the plane, we just order the same old margarita pizza or spaghetti Bolognese because they are the only words on the menu we know!
My whole life i have been told that i talk fast but i dont hold a candle to the folks here! I talk like Gomer Pile compared to them.
Just this morning we were out on the balcony bringing in the clothes we had left out on the dryer racks from yesterday. It had rained, so they were still damp. All of a sudden I hear a lady talking very loudly and look over the railing to see what was going on down on the street when i happen to glance over across the street and see an older Italian lady leaning out her window waving and smiling at me! I tried to use hand motions to try to tell her i didnt speak Italian when she finally just laughs and backs away from the window. This will keep me up all night. Was she trying to tell me that laundry is only suppose to be hung out on certain days? Or was she trying to tell me she liked some of my clothes that i had hanging out there? Maybe i shouldnt waste my time hanging clothes out this week because it is suppose to rain everyday! Guess I will never know as she talked so fast I didnt even have time to try to grab my phone with my “translate Italian to english app”
Some hints from us to anyone that is thinking of coming over here for an extended time. To prepare yourself for some of the distinct differences of living in the USA, practice taking a shower in a phone booth all the while trying to shave your legs!
Go to your neighborhood bar and sit in the middle of a group of men that smoke. Get your lungs use to the smoke before coming to Italy! Guido has already told me that the Doctor is going to be so excited to see my cholesterol down (surely it is down after eating no meat or chocolate cake or Hershey bars for 6 weeks) significantly only to tell me i now have the lungs of someone who has smoked for 25 years.
Leave most of the cutsie clothes at home you were thinking of bringing! Instead pack bags of ice, cartons of Dr Pepper, peanut butter crackers, bags of chips and jars of salsa! Trust me on this!
Dont get me wrong, we are having such a great time seeing so many wonderful buildings, churches and statues! But right now they would look so much better while walking along the piazzas with a taco or burrito in my hand, rather than a gelato!
Tomorrow, when we go to Piazza Novana for dinner, we will be once again, order more pasta! Or maybe we will throw caution to the wind and just point to a menu item, hoping it doesnt have anchovies or tripe in it! After all, we are in Rome and want to do what the Romans do! Just wish they liked enchiladas and Dr Peppers!