Verona

We traveled to our second favorite Italian city today to show Pop Pop the sites. It was packed with Italians who were hoping to visit the traveling Nativity scene at the Arena. The line was super long, so we skipped the Nativity scene and just went inside the Arena. It's so awesome to see some place that was built over 2000 years ago. All the seats are made of marble and it's also where we saw Duran Duran this summer. Even the sidewalks are made of marble in Verona. We stopped by Juliet's house so that my dad could see the balcony and then headed home. (After buying some dolce americano--doughnuts!)

This is the first place we ever ate in Verona.  It was with the Neumeyers when we came in February of 2011.

Quote from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet: "There is no world without Verona walls, but purgatory, torture, hell itself, hence banished is banish'd from the world, and world's exile is death...". The plaque is located on the wall next to the original gates. I love the bronze bust of Shakespeare next to it. The original gates are pictured below.

The original gates of Verona. The Shakespeare plaque is on the wall to the right. The clock above is illuminated at night and is very pretty.

Street view looking back into Verona from the original gates. The Arena is just to the left and cars cannot drive just beyond where the crosswalk is.

Street actors in front of the Arena.  The gladiator was hilarious.  Delilah didn't know what to make of these people.  

Steve buying the doughnuts.  He is literally saying "I want the pink one" because Delilah wanted the pink doughnut. The hilarious thing is...if you look closely, you can see that Trey is holding a blue balloon that he is trying to blow up.  about 5 seconds after I took this picture, the balloon flew out of his mouth and landed in the middle of the doughnuts.  You should have seen Steve's face!

Pop Pop is here, y'all

Pop Pop arrived today and needed a nap. Delilah decided she wanted to take her nappy with him. Not sure who was snoring louder....

Little Ballerina

This fall, I was thrilled to discover that Delilah would be able to participate in ballet lessons here on post. The cut off date was literally her birthday, so she ended up being the youngest ballerina in the class--by almost 6 months. It was on Wednesday mornings and was a Mommy and Me class, so I was able to participate as well. We both loved it! Mrs. Sylvia, our teacher was Italian and was one of the sweetest, most patient people I've ever met. We are so happy that we gave ballet a try and will certainly sign up for it in the new year. I love how Delilah isn't quite sure where to put her hands!

Snowman Brocks

We've been doing a little decorating for Christmas around here. Last year, we spent Christmas in the hotel, so we are hoping that our first (really our second)"Italian" Christmas will be better than last. It's nice to see some familiarity again and to experience some of our Brock Christmas again. We would love to hear from you! Here's our address: The Brock Family CMR 427 Box 3807 APO, AE 09630 These are some of my favorite Christmas decorations. Our snowman family is something that I always look forward to putting out for the holidays!

La Befana

Here's another interesting fact about Italy....
On the afternoon of the 6th, commonly known as the Epiphany to most Catholics, Steve and I stopped at the crosswalk in our little town to let three witches pass in front of us. "Three witches, you might ask?!?!" Yep, three women dressed complete in witch outfits--black dress and shaw, pointy hat, and straw broom stick to boot. We had learned about the Italian version of the Epiphany and La Befana several days before from a friend who worked at the hotel. La Befana is essentially the Italian version of Santa. On the night of January 5th, La Befana brings children toys and candy in their stockings. She arrives via the fireplace upon her broom sticks. Supposedly, the story goes something like this:
On the night that the three Wisemen arrive to bring gifts to the BJ, they first stopped by the house of an old woman. She was poor and dressed in rags, but they asked her to tag along anyway. She declined but then later regretted her decision and now spends each night of January 5th searching for baby Jesus.
We had just moved into our house that day and heard a bunch of loud popping sounds that evening. Turns out, they celebrate with a huge fireworks display also. Paul, our American friend who works at the hotel, said the Italians frequently celebrate the Epiphany on a much grander scale than they celebrate Christmas. We've heard that you can arrange for the town resident La Befana to visit your house. Apparently, that's who we saw that day!

Italy Musings

Tomorrow, we have been here four weeks. In a way, it seems hard to believe. Six people and three pets, especially a giant Newfoundland, were never meant to spend weeks at a time, homeless, in two hotel rooms in Italy. I have taken to saying, "it's not bad, just different!" over and over, but honestly, things here are not even close to what we expected. Honestly though, how could anyone even begin to describe what life is like here.
Apparently, life in Italy (or at least here in Vicenza) is not like living at any other military base in Europe. I'm sure some are better and some are much worse. We made the mistake of comparing what everything would be like to what it would be like(what it was like for our friends) in Germany and Italy is not Germany, for better and for worse.
Very, very few Italians speak even a few words of English. Even the young people we encounter. This was a shock because we had heard that everyone speaks some English in Europe. Not in Italy. Steve and I feel that since we are living in Italy, we should be expected to learn the language and customs here. The Army has lots of programs to help us but we arrived just before Christmas and most classes start after the new year. Desperate times often call for desperate measures and the international language of hand signals has come in handy and gotten us out of a bind more than once.
The greatest difference we've noticed is that Italy seems to be stuck back in the 1950's, with the exceptional of fashion. There is almost no new construction here, we've heard because you have to essentially "pay as you go" when building here. This is not a bad thing because it means most of the houses and buildings are beautiful. Technology exists here, but coverage is spotty, at best. Most of the cars, roads, and buildings are very small and old but well maintained. Everyone rides a bicycle here. Which brings us to our next post....GAS.
In case you haven't heard, gasoline and natural gas are very, very costly here. Very. Here in Vicenza, gas is About €1.60 per liter. It comes out to over $10 per gallon. We were reading a handout that Army gave us that said that gasoline in Europe was the highest in Italy. No kidding! Natural gas is also outrageously priced here. It is so high that almost none of the Italians use their dryers. There are clothes lines everywhere. We had our landlord install a bigger one for us as well. Most Italians keep their thermostats around 55-60 during the winter. Not sure how that's going to work out for us. We've met several American families who have put their clothes dryers in the Master bedroom so that when they do use it, it can help heat the house! Poor Jeanne and my father---they may freeze here when they come for a visit.
Now it may seem like we are miserable here and are ready to pack it all up and head home. That isn't really the case. Italy isn't bad, it's just different from America and what we are used to. The Average American family size in this region is 2.7, so our family seems huge to the Italians. People stare where ever we go, but they are fascinated with us, especially Delilah, who they cannot get enough of. They talk to us kindly and constantly (even when we smile, give the blank stare that we've become experts at, and butcher their beautiful language with our wicked attempts at conversations). The Italians are kind and giving people--clearly it is in their nature. The are very kind wherever we go, especially at Regina's (where we've gotten the best pasta we've even had in our lives!)
Our house is in a very small town named Montgaldella. It is on a river and is just across the river from the "bigger town" of Montegalda. Montegalda has a whopping total of 1200 families. To say that Montegalda is the BIGGER town should go a long way in describing just how very small our village actually is. This, too, is not a bad thing, just different. To the right of our house is a veiw of the snow-covered Alps. To the left is a veiw of an Italian castle. Seriously, Italy is not ugly. In the month we've been here, I've seen the most beautiful scenery of my lifetime. Somehow, this has made all the craziness worth it. We are finally starting to settle down and learn our way around, but find ourselves walking everywhere. This, too, isn't a bad thing! I'm including some photos of our house and of our town! Notice the castle and then the view of the Alps from our house :)

Street signs

The Italians are absolutely crazy about streets signs. They use them everywhere and to an excess. Why have one when twelve can say it just as nicely? And, they almost never have words--just odd pictures that practically take the Rosetta Stone to figure out. This one is my clear favorite. It's an Italian handicapped parking sign, but this one is located infront of the post office here on post--hence the English translation. Apparently, you can park in the handicapped spot if you are pregnant, old, or broad-shouldered...

House hunting

We were able to find a house on Friday afternoon. It is perfect--the completely perfect idea I had in my mind of what an Italian house would look like. It's a large house, complete with four bedroom, an awesome fireplace in the kitchen, next to French doors that lead out onto a patio that goes around the house. Our interpreter/driver, Fabio was nice and showed us a lot of awesome thing about the house. We are very excited to have people come a visit.

Room With a View

View from our upstairs room.

Explainations

Chi si corica coi bambini si alza pisciato.

If you sleep with kids you get up pissed on.

We wanted to go techno to keep our family and friends updated on our adventures here in Italy. I spent an hour googling the internet for Italian proverbs to use as the title. This one seemed to fit the best.

We've been here a week and are finally seeing the end of our jet lag. The first few days and nights were rough. Delilah spent the second night here running up and down the hallway outside our room at 4AM. We have successfully navigated the entire post now. That took about an hour. Seriously. This is one small place. Not bad small, just small small. Besides, it's Italy. And there's an Ikea ten minutes from here.