Marios

This is Marios, AKA Mario or Miles. Not sure why italians have a problem pronouncing Miles but Marios, which is not even a name in Italian, seems perfectly normal to them. A lot of people call him Mario too, which makes much more sense. In fact, Miles has started introducing himself as Mario. We take him to the main square here, Piazza del Campo, almost every day so that he can see other kids and play with his ball. He introduces himself to everyone and also asks EVERYONE their name, "Ciao! Come ti chiami? Mi chiamo Mario!" He's learned just what to do and say so that he gets total adoration from everyone, and cookies or chocolate if he's lucky. He is so popular that pretty soon there may be a poster of him in the Piazza.

Mario is doing really well with his Italian. He has totally honed his whine and cheekiness so that within seconds he usually gets what he wants. Yikes. Gonna have to totally re-educate him. He knows all the variations of dolci here and seems very sophisticated in his desert ordering skills. Besides total re-education, he's gonna go into some serious sugar withdrawl too. I've been slow to come around to all the italians slipping him some sugar treat when I'm not looking. This is the italian phenomenon of the "merenda" or snack. Loaded with refined sugar and chocolate they are marketed as FULL of vitamins and MILK. Everywhere you turn here you see ads of good parents giving their children healthy merenda snacks. Even Gabri's mom gave me the evil eye when I asked her to stop giving Miles kinder sorpresa (a chocolate egg with a surprise inside) after every meal. The message here in Italy is that you are either a complete failure as a parent, or a total foreign freak if you do not give your child a steady supply of packaged treats during the day.

Carnevale!!

Sunday we went to Colle val D'Elsa for a carnevale festival for kids... heavy metal band in the main square with everyone standing around not sure what to do, and 4 sad little "floats" that looked more like diaramas that were perched on the back of Piaggio Apes (see pic).

Francesca bought Miles a Barbapapa "Barbaforte" costume. Everyone could recognize it because it's a well known and long running cartoon here. Miles is so desperate for kids that every time he sees someone shorter than 4 feet he yells "kids!" and runs dead at them. Anyway, he's good at making friends.

Tuesday was the real carnival and we went to the Piazza del Campo in Siena. Loads of fun. Confetti everywhere, kids everywhere, good (and appropriate) band music, games, puppet shows, horse races (see pics and watch video.) Miles was in his element.

Day 5, ZooSafari

ZooSafari, huh, not even sure what to say. The main part of the park is a zoo, sort of like a normal zoo but without cages, that you drive through. It was an interesting cultural experience for all of us, Gabri included. Predators like lions and tigers are seperated off into their own areas by high fences but the main part is a giant field of old olive trees where elephants, ostriches, giraffes, horses, donkeys, zebras, etc. all roam around together. You drive through the "safari" with your windows rolled down and if you're Italian you will most likely feed them cookies or rice cakes. Or at least that's what I witnessed. It was pretty sureal for me to see carloads of gawking people feed giraffes through their windows. The lion and tiger domains were pretty impressive because they had loads of animals, at least 15 each. Anyway, at the end we sort of sped through so that we could leave that weird world behind, and enter another one.
The monkey camp. We were shoved inside of a little cage with wheels that had 3 rows of benches where 9 or 10 people were crammed together. Our cage was then locked from the outside and driven at break-neck speed through a monkey camp. Hundreds of monkeys ran around the cages screaming and shoving their little hands though tiny holes where some people were giddyingly giving them cookies and potato chips. Gabri and I were terrified (check out that look in GAbri's eyes) but Miles seemed to think it was fun.

After we were freed from our cage we took the MetroSafari which is a little Jetsons like looking train that is perched precariously above the monkey camp and other parts of the zoo and zooms and wobbles around.

We decided after that that we'd better leave the zoo. Besides after all that action we were HUNGRY and very, very thirsty. Down to the coast again for some more fish and rosato. We recovered quite nicely.

Day 1, Brindisi

Brindisi, we made it. I can't believe it. Long trip, long time coming, exhausted. They lost Miles car seat, but I don't even care, I just want to get somewhere and put all of our bags down. I'm so happy to be here, to see palm trees, flowers and the sea. It's really so pretty here and I've always thought that Gabri was so lucky to be from such a beautiful place. Brindisi is an ancient port town and was the portal during Roman times for all things coming from Greece. During the Crusades it was the departure point for the muslim world. Now it's sort of a sleepy town but I always love coming to visit. It's so ancient and historical and interesting... must say it beats South Bend, Indiana by a long shot.
When we get to Gabri's family home, his mom, Pina, has prepared a bunch of our favorite things: sea bass baked in salt, pasta with caccioriccotta, and burrata being amongst our favorite. We chow down, fall into a deep slumber and then go for a walk in the center of town. We pass by the office of Valerio, one of Gabri's oldest friends, and hang out. His office is at the top of the ancient steps where the Roman columns stand (still) that welcomed travelers from Greece and the East. Supposedly Virgil lived where his office now stands and he takes us again through a door in his office to see the arches of Virgil's old house. Pretty cool. Again I am stunned by all this history.
We stop at Bar Betty to have some prosecco with Campari and to eat a rustico... one of my all time favorite things EVER. A rustico is like a croissant but it's round and it has beschamel, mozzarella and tomato on the inside. O. M. G. It melts in your mouth and just goes down so well. The first thing we usually do when we arrive in Brindisi is go to the American Bar (so funny these bars have all these bizarre American names) and have a rustico. We always have to hide this from Gabri's mom because she'll think we're ruining our appetite. What a better way to spend our time here than by stuffing ourselves silly! We're happy. We go back home, go to bed and sleep, interrupted, for 12 hours.

Day 4

We had 2 objectives today. 1. Take Miles to the acclaimed ZooSafari, and 2. Find a place that serves ricci, or sea urchins. We failed in the first because ZooSafari is only open on Sundays in the winter, but decided to talk a little walk in Alberobello, a beautiful little town made of these cool buildings called Trulli. The countryside is full of them in this area of Puglia, but they are concentrated in the town of Alberobello. The story is that years ago the taxes were so high that people couldn't pay them, so they decided to make these houses of stone without mortar where you could easily tear them down if you heard the tax man was around.
http://www.google.com/images?rlz=1T4ADBR_enUS313US314&q=alberobello+foto&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&sa=X&ei=_cx1TaIqkbeEB57u2PoG&ved=0CCQQsAQ&biw=1259&bih=511
Miles was disappointed about the ZooSafari thing, but we tried to convince him that we were going to smurf village. He wasn't convinced but tried to be a good sport.

After walking around Alberobello for a bit, drinking some wine and making friends (Miles and "Ale" the dog) we left for the coast (15 minutes away) and "Da Renzina" which according to Gabri is a famous restaurant for eating fish and especially "i riccci". (He always declares places are famous AFTER we get there and AFTER it's been confirmed that HE made a good choice.) Gabri got his ricci, I got my pasta with fresh seafood, we drank a bottle of rosato, Miles ate some cake, and we sat very contentedly and satiated and looked at the sea.