Welcome to Quattro per Venerdì, the Italian edition of Four for Friday. As mentioned in my last post, Jon and I just returned from Italy where we visited Joel and Mallory.
Instead of giving you a post of all the things you might expect to see from a trip to Italy*, I thought I would first share the most unusual things we did during our vacation.
*Pictures of pasta piled high, two glasses clinking the orange elixir of the famous Aperol spritz, old buildings surrounded by people posing for awful selfies…
- Get a haircut
The birth of what is new in style and fashion often originates in Europe. Yet as appealing as owning an up and coming look from an Italian parrucchiera (hairdresser) might be, the odds of ending up with something I would find myself reaching for a paper bag to cover are too great*.
*Plus, I love my hair stylist.
Jon, however, is far more daring than I am. On our second day, he went with Joel to the barbiere (barer shop) to prepare for wooing every Italian donna (woman) who passed his way.
I cannot handle the cuteness
- Hunt for American things
There was a running list of items Jonathan continually asked for despite their absence in Italy: hot fudge for his gelato, kale, hoagies, dolls, and pregnancy magazines.
I know. Kale was a pretty strange thing to want in Italy, right?
Jon has had an odd fascination with pregnant women for sometime now* and, fool that I am, I refused to purchase a pregnancy magazine he saw in the airport on our flight out. I paid for it again and again as we awkwardly approached various magazine stands asking: Hai qualche rivista di gravidanza? (Do you have any pregnancy magazines?)
*Perhaps it is the wonder of the new life growing inside them or simply that gorgeous glow of motherhood.
Jonathan, thrilled to meet a rather homely Subway sandwich man in Pisa.
A doll had been on Jon’s shopping list from the start. Mallory had scoped out the perfect doll store near their apartment, and we headed there on our first day. The fun thing about Italy is… sometimes stores close despite their regular hours. And for Jon, this does not compute*.
*Let’s be real, it doesn’t compute for me either.
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- Go to language school
My last time in Italy, I went to language school for three days. This time, I went for a week. I would have gone for two weeks if we hadn’t planned a few trips outside of Rome.
Most people, especially the Americans living in Rome and currently attending language school, look at me cross-eyed when they hear I chose to go to language school during my time in Italy.
View of Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano from a rooftop party with my language class
But I envy the ability they have to be immersed in this language which I am crawling my way through learning. Carving out a few hours of my morning to have the opportunity to better learn? I’m totally down with that.
- Eat Japanese food
I think this one wins for the most not-Italian thing a person could do in Italy. Our first day in Italy, eyes wrinkled from lack of sleep, moving from place to place in sluggish zombie like body movements, we forced ourselves to go out to Piazza di Spagna specifically so Jon could go to the Disney Store*. On our way back, we needed a winner dinner. A meal which was going to perk us all up and get us through the remaining hours in the night.
*See above mention about searching for a doll. This would be the first of many doll purchases on this trip, but you probably already knew that.
Sushi was the answer.
It became the answer on another occasion, along with a dinner at a Ramen spot just around the corner from Joel and Mallory’s apartment.
And, as always, I regret nothing.
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