Faraway but not Forgotten

Still driving like an italian, which includes creeping through lights, rolling stops, cutting pepole off, and a general lack of patience for slow turners.

But listening to NPR during that drive felt so so good.

Thing I’ll miss:

“parking” can include just leaving your car, possibly with emergency lights, wherever is most convenient.

Thing I won’t:

Italian driving. Fearing for my life on the Autostrada.

Helena has slobbered my Mac power cord to death so I’m currently using the iPad for interneting. Unfortunately this means any photos are currently m.I.a. In similar news, I’ve lost the camera after our wonderful trip to garmisch partenkirchen, germany. It’s around here somewhere.

We leave italy in a month and our trying to do everything we can possible. I have a ton of blog posts written in my head and lots of photos to load, particularly Helena’s seven month photo.

One of my favorite things about Italy is the shopping outlets. Many of the brands found in the stores are made in factories close by and if you go to the factories you can buy their items at clearance. I went to the Armani outlet a month ago and almost purchased a dress for an upcomingg wedding. My friend purchased some really cheap jeans. They were cheap by traditional jean standards, let alone armani. Today I stopped by the purse/leather foods brand Francesca bias and Nicoli. The Francesca store was in an insutrial district and looked like a warehouse. The Nicoli shop was located in the neighorhood and the home of the owners was the actual address. I purchased a nice buttery leahter purse for 80euro.

Where do we shop?  

“On the economy” or italian shops:  The exchange rate tends to be pretty crappy. And when it comes to goods like clothing or any material Italian shoppers go towards the expensive end. We occasionally go down to shops and buy items with our Euros. Emissfero (that is not spelled correctly) is like a Meijer sized grocery store and offers a lot of fun different options.  Thursdays are market days in downtown Vicenza.  Its the tale end of their two sale seasons so we’ve picked up some baby clothing from shops around downtown.  

On post:  Those acquainted with the military life know of the “PX/BX” and Commissary.  But those who are not would might need an explanation. The commissary is your run of the mill grocery store.  When a friend from the states visited (while she’s been working abroad as an au pair) we took her to the commissary to pick up all sorts of American foods she and her “family” missed.  The PX/BX is the “walmart” selling clothing, bikes, gardening supplies, jewelry, electronics and so on.  The PX’s clothing options are slim.  And their variety isn’t the best.  Both shops require a military id and take only American dollars.

Online: Teri wears a size 11 shoe and this size does not exist in the beautiful italian shoe possibilities.  In order to purchase things like shoes, pants in “long” sizes, or basically anything stateside, we become geniuses at online shopping.  Our addresses are an APO address which means we pay for American shipping.  Amazon is a favorite, particularly of Eric’s.  You see many people picking up packages from their favorite shops from home in the post office. 

I wrote this post at least  week ago and tumblr ate it. I am positive it was probably 10times more brilliant the first time. :)

Part of being in Italia is the amazing food available to us. In the past month we have consumed:

-Daily cappucino

-Brioche (croissant), occasionally filled with chocolate, cream, hazelnut (and chocolate), ricotta, etc.

-Gnocchi of various assortments (salmon, pesto, pumpkin w/ prosciutto and truffle, etc)

-Pizzas (veggie w/ anchovies, salmon, ricotta and spinach, eggplant, zucchini, eggplant and sausage, and more)

-Hot chocolate (practically hot fudge in a glass. pure chocolate. heated)

-mini cakes, tarts, and pastries (particularly for a friend’s bday)

-lasagna made by my landlord

-lots of seafood, including seafood risotto, salmon, swordfish

-a pasta (the name escapes me) with duck liver. 

And many many more. Perhaps I should just take photos of the food we eat and post that. It might be more interesting than seeing our faces in fun places!

Our trip to return to Italy was going to be an interesting one. Helena was turning 5months (en route!) and we had to travel to Detroit, NYC and then Venice.  We packed Helena into the newly purchased ergo carrier (both of us love it) and brought an entourage.  If you’re flying on military orders, you’re allowed to bring your family to the gate. So accompanying us as we waited on our flight Sunday afternoon were my parents, Eric’s brothers, sis in law, and nephews.  After a quick purchase of chocolate shakes from “96th Street Burgers” we waited for the flight to Detroit to arrive.  The passengers departed the plane and we were informed that there was a mechanical error on the plan and a plane from Detroit was coming with the replacement parts.  They instructed the passengers to line up to receive reassignments. Eric’s brother Kevin quickly got iphoning and contacted Delta via Eric’s dad’s skymiles number. We were informed there would be no way we’d make it to our Italian flight, that there was no other flights to JFK and that our flight was the only one heading to Venice.  We received tickets for the following day, food vouchers, and delta “dollars.”

We had a wonderful day/night spent with nephews and the “finney four.”  We returned the following day with a much smaller group-my parents accompanied us as we waited on our flight. Helena turned 5months and I purchased my first (and only) colts tshirt(Which were not marked down due to our most recent loss).  This was the day Atlanta had snow which is delta’s hub so many delays were expected. Our flight to Detroit was successful, although delayed, and we made it to our JFK directed flight. We were seated and were notified that there were some mechanical issues so we had to deboard and board a different plane.  After getting onto our new plane we had to wait as the luggage was placed onto the plane.  We finally landed in NYC with zero time to spare. We got off the airplane to discover we didn’t have E’s passport. He went back on, found it, and then assisted a person in a wheelchair up a ramp. We then walked as quickly as we could across JFK to our terminal to hear someone yelling out across the hall our last name.  After asking us what took so long and that the other couple, that had a BABY, made it I told him that we had a baby too. She had been covered up in her ergo.  Luckily, we made it to our Venice flight and sat in the terminal for a few minutes after that.

The flight to NYC was interesting because the flight attendant asked my not to nurse at take off, which was contrary to everything I had heard.  Helena did fine on both flights and slept a lot of the flight to Venice.  At least when she was in my care. She might have kept E awake on his shift.  She was pretty pleasant throughout the flights.

And now we’re back!

In order to get a passport for a minor both parents must be present. If this is impossible the other parent must sign and notarize a form allowing it to occur. Unfortunately this is proving difficult to obtain. 

So…we are stuck in the states until Eric’s post-deployment leave. That means he will be in Italy, without us, for almost a month.

There are so many cons to this situation (in my heart’s opinion) that I’ll give my head an opportunity to come up with some pros:

-I will have a partner to fly with me when we take an infant on the plane.

-We have more time for her body to develop and get used to the bubbles in her tummy.

-Less money spent on tickets

-Free and available babysitting from family and friends