Italy!

Very very late post here about the trip that Ant and I took to Italy in July.  Ant's dad was born near Vicenza, which is quite close to Venice, and he's keen to see a fellowship of our church get started there.  Consequently he organized a 2-week outreach to see if he could generate some interest for the idea among his fellow Vicentini.  We went over to help him out, along with a few other Italian-speaking members of our church.

The difference in photo quality here is due to them being partly Ant's photos taken with a good camera but mostly my Instagram shots -_-

View of the Swiss (probably) Alps flying from Amsterdam to Venice.  Amsterdam airport is awesome!  Definitely the nicest European airport I have experienced so far.  Nice food, decent shopping, calming sort of atmosphere.

Actually I got really sick on the long flight from KL to Amsterdam - I took some antihistamines to help me sleep, which totally worked, but I woke up about 5 hours later sweating like crazy even though it was freezing cold in the cabin, so I got up to try to get to the bathroom to splash some water on my face or something, but I blacked out and slumped up against the wall in a corner.  It was dark and nobody even noticed :(  (Apparently I faint in very subtle ways haha.)  When I came to I still couldn't see anything which was quite scary, and I couldn't feel my hands.  I put my head down for a while and eventually everything went back to normal.  But yeah pretty freaky.  No antihistamines for me again any time soon.

Digression over!

Lots of gelato was eaten.  Vicenza is quite well known for its excellent gelato so we made the most of it.  Here's a selection:

#1.  First day, pistachio on the left and mascarpone with walnuts on the right.  This is from Tutto Gelato, which was really good and I highly recommend.

#2.  Cassata (Sicilian dessert) on the left, rockmelon on the right.  Man it is a good thing I feel kind of queasy today, otherwise I would be very tempted to break my diet right now.

#3.  Walnut on top, fior di latte (milk, basically) on the bottom.  I never liked fior di latte before this trip and now it's among my favourites.

#4.  Strawberries and cream on top, pistacchio on bottom.  This was from a pretty posh place, Pretto, in Piazza delle Erbe that looks more like a pharmacy than a gelateria.  It was about twice as expensive as any other place we went to and was definitely worth it.

#5.  Another one from the same place - milk and honey on top, strawberry on the bottom.  Strawberries and cream was better.

#6.  Pistacchio and hazelnut from Suso in Venice.

#7.  Chocolate and mint/white chocolate from Pretto again.  The chocolate was intenso!

#8.  Pistacchio (yes again) and fig.  I forget where this one is from.

OK enough gelato.  (I did manage to eat like 2 per day, but sugar shame caused me not to document all of them.)  Let's cleanse the palate with a shot of one of the piazzas in Vicenza, Piazza dei Signori.

Vicenza is a seriously beautiful town.  Its main town planner was the architect Palladio, and there are loads of his buildings scattered around the place.  It's also a relatively wealthy town - lots of designer bags and shoes to be seen.  One thing I noticed is that pretty flat sandals or wedges are mandatory summer attire for all Vicentini women.  Closed toes?  No!  Heels?  No!  Lack of embellishment?  NO!  I dunno where they all buy them from though; didn't see much variety in the shops in town, weirdly enough.

This is inside the Teatro Olimpico, one of Palladio's most famous buildings.  This is actually the backdrop of the stage.  It's a clever optical illusion that makes it look like the set extends waaaaay back.

Vicentini are known as "mangia gatti" ("magnagati" in local dialect), which means cat-eaters o_O  Apparently there was a rumour during the war that times were tough for people, and... somewhat tougher for cats as a result.  Whether or not it's true is open for debate but the locals have embraced the nickname.  This is a poster for a play being performed in dialect.  I don't understand dialect very well at all, but I have at least learned to identify the fairly distinctive regional accent.

One thing that really surprised me about Italy the first time we visited is how much the place lives up to all the cliches that you expect from it.  Look, a row of Vespas.  Of course.

Posting this picture because my legs look long and skinny *^^*  *coughdamnvaincough*

And now we interrupt this blog entry for a photo of me posing like a 60s film star or something.  New digression time!  This photo was taken 4 days after we arrived and already my clothes were crazy tight because all of us were retaining water like nobody's business.  Seriously it was insane.  I had brought some compression thigh-high sleep socks to wear on the plane, but didn't end up using them because they were sort of loose-ish and not compressing well.  Tried to put them on the day this shot was taken and could barely get them over my ankles -_-;;  Everyone was having the same issues which made me feel a bit better at least.

And here's Ant in his super Italian outfit.  Ant has been a snappy dresser for quite a few years but really took it to the next level on this trip with his coloured pants and fedora.  There he is eating breakfast at our favourite cafe (can't remember the name exactly but something like Cafe Due Collone or something).  Time for breakfast shots!

Nutella-stuffed pastry and cappuccino.  Italian cappuccini have no chocolate powder on top.  Consider yourself schooled, yo.

Two crema-filled bombolone and two cappuccini.  Ant and I usually order the same breakfast as each other haha.

The two columns referenced by our breakfast spot.  This is the main piazza in Vicenza and as far as piazze go, it's pretty huge.

This is the view from the window of Ant's Nonna's house, where we stayed.  She lives in a town called Chiuppano, which is about 20 minutes from Vicenza, nested at the very base of the Dolomites (which themselves are a subsection of the Alps).

We took a day trip to Venice.  I'm always amazed at how charming that city is.  It's so utterly unique, like a living fossil.

Gratuitous Venice posing shot.  Even the gondolier is posing!  Ha.

Also went to Verona for an afternoon.  Verona is seriously lovely and definitely worth a detour if you're in the area.

Verona again.  Streets paved with marble!  Feels very refined.

Photo taken at the top of Monte Baldo, which overlooks Lake Garda.  It's a bit of a hassle to get up there but the view is 100% worth the effort.

Here's some of the crew posing at Limone, a town by Lake Garda.  I miss these guys so much, especially the girls who we drove around places :(  Hello Priscilla, Candice and Rachel! :D

This is our car!!  I was so excited to drive a Fiat 500 around Italy :D  It was really great for city driving.  Petrol was mad expensive though :(  like 1.8 euro per litre.  Ouch.

Another shot of Limone.  Such a perfect holiday town.

Please enjoy the artiness of this photo and ignore the sunburn lines on my arms and my overall chubbiness.

The outreach itself went really quite well; we ended up baptizing 5 people.  Almost all of them were refugees from various parts of Africa though, so I'm not sure if they plan to stay in the area.  Anyway we'll see what happens; if it's meant to be the Lord will bless it.

Finishing off with a couple more food photos:

My favourite food discovery of this trip - bigoli co' l'arna.  It's thick spaghetti with a duck sauce and it is AMAHHHHZING.  It's a local specialty so if you want it, you'll have to go to Vicenza.

And finally, tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella for lunch, nom nom nom.  If you haven't tried this, you must you must.  It's only worth doing with proper buffalo mozzarella and good in-season tomatoes, though.

That concludes this belated trip (food) roundup.  Thank you if you made it all the way! :)