Jun 2007

A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
But no one can speak to a horse, of course,
That of course, because that horse,
Is the famous second course...

Rich Say came to visit recently, and as always with The Say things were interesting. First off we were really hungry.

In fact Rich was soooo hungry he could eat a horse. (This joke was used all week)

Now if there are any horse lovers out their this may offend, but let me tell you... As fun as they are to ride, to pat, or of course, of course to bet on, their true potential will only be realised once butchered, stewed and served up on a plate. The Veronese figured this out a while ago and now Cavallo Stew is the local speciality.

It was in fact very tasty, though I did feel a little odd about it at first, the taste soon won me over. Rich didn't need any convincing.

Afterwards Rich was almost as full as Clare's 21 week belly.

We also went clubbing at Verona's famous club, Alter Ego. It's a superb club hanging from the hillside above the city, with spectacular views and tunes.

We made some friends.

And we appreciated the cultural differences.

Whilst Rich was in town we were also privileged enough to meet his friend - Papa.

Clare went to bed and Papa and Rich and I stayed up late, drinking at the pizza shop downstairs.

It was fun but I couldn't play the next day. Sore head.

As always Verona is about the food.

But we did also see some sites.

(how amazing does this look?)

(it's just a building)

Clare and Rich did anyway - I was stuck downstairs.

Brilliantly they have put in a lift for the tower that is only up five steps?!

Next stop Lake Lugano with Daniel and Robyn...

We thought it was strange that people kept staring at us, until Em pointed out that a guy sitting at the dinner table with three women wearing wedding rings and speaking in English might attract a few odd looks. From that point on we declared Simon to be the proud husband of 3 wives.

We were staying in Gravedona, a nice small-ish town in the north of Lake Como, which doesn't attract quite as many tourists as the more southern towns. Our weekend was pretty wet... well, let's face it, the weather was shocking. But we still managed to get out and explore Lake Como and have heaps of fun and plenty of laughs.

The photos will do most of the talking...

Our days started with the best croissants we've ever tasted in a pasticceria in Gravedona...

Gravedona

Why is it that when you ask someone to take a photo for you, they always want to get the pavement, and forget the nice background? Here's a classic:

Tara mastered the self-take

The rain held off for long enough for us to get a boat to Bellagio, for some shopping, pizza, and exploring.

Tara snapped the 20 week belly pic below...

The chicks enjoying a little bit of sunshine back in Gravedona

ER's artiste shot

Plenty of good food was enjoyed by all, and wine by 3/4 of us.

The owner of our agriturismo took a liking to us, and sat with us for about half an hour making small talk. When my entire Italian vocab ran out and we tried to escape, he offered to show us the animals. We went around the back of the farmhouse and discovered them picking cherries, which they said were for us! Score!

We then discovered the extremely well endowed male sheep, that appeared to have just fathered a heap of little lambs. We couldn't stop laughing not only at his enormous balls, but also the bassitone baaas he kept letting out, that sounded so deep they could have been coming from a cow. Our host must have thought we were quite mad the way we laughed at this sheep. Classic. Here he is with two of his wives - he's the one on the right!

After a great weekend of tasty food, good friends, and many laughs, we just managed to get Em and Tara to the airport, and ourselves home to Verona before our beloved VW Trend overheated and died*.

Just as well we weren't planning on going anywhere for a while!

• The Trend only died temporarily - it's back from repairs now much to my disappointment, as I had to hand back the keys to the zippy brand new Polo loan car.

We're back in Verona after a week of travel and catching up with some good friends which has been awesome. Now Rich Say has come to stay, and he and Simon are out exploring the city.

I'm housebound, as I'm waiting for a courier delivery (for the 2nd day), which incidentally just arrived as I typed this. Hurray! It is amazing how challenging it has been trying to receive this courier (which contains Simon's plane tickets to Prague where he's heading in a few weeks - they don't seem to understand e-tickets) - the language barrier meant we ended up having to ask our friend in the bar downstairs to call the company for us and try and set up the delivery. Just when I thought my Italian was improving, you have a phone conversation with a customer service agent who clearly does not make any effort to speak slowly or clearly or rephrase things for you, and you have to give up.

But it's actually given me an excuse to catch up on emails, blogs etc.

In the last week we visited a doctor in Bern, our good friends Jen, Patrick and Elia in Basel, and our London visitors Em and Tara in Lake Como. We are thriving with the enjoyment of having friends around us, although it has meant our Italian skills are diminishing rapidly.

Here are some pics from Switzerland...

First stop was Bern, which was really pretty.

... although some of the statues baffled us a little...

They have these two bears in a park at the entrance to the town, I think the bear is the city's mascot or something. Anyway they were so cute and cuddly (from a distance!) we enjoyed watching them for ages.

The 19 week scan went well, and our baby is growing strongly. Swiss medical technology is so advanced we were watching the ultrasound in 3D projected onto a screen on the wall in front of us about 2 metres wide. Hard to believe the baby is only 20cm big when you have seen it in those proportions! Here's a pic of the little fish...

We then had a few days in Basel enjoying Jen, Patrick, and Elia's company.

Basel is a beautiful place. We were amazed by the differences from Italy in organisation, cleanliness, maintenance of buildings, people actually obeying the road rules, street signs that actually took you where you wanted to go, public transport that was efficient and accessible...

One of the downfalls of Switzerland is things are fairly pricey. So we booked into one night in a nice hotel, then 2 nights in a private room of a brand new YMCA to save on cash. Unfortunately, the YMCA didn't have parking included, and typically, we managed to pick up our second parking ticket of the trip. Kind of defeated the purpose of saving money on accommodation. I was also not entirely happy with having to climb a ladder to get into bed - that's right - bunks. Suddenly my 5 month bump is making me less agile than usual and bunk beds are really not an option. Next time I think we'll fork out for the nice hotel.

Anyway after an enjoyable few days we headed back to Italy to pick up Emma and Tara, stopping at Interlaken to take in the amazing views.